The End of the Road

I've decided to close down this blog.

Pause for gasps.

I know, I know. I'm sorry.

Pause to let it sink in.

Settle down people, settle down. It's not as bad as it sounds. I'll still be painting, I just won't be taking on any further commission work for the foreseeable future. And as I'm heading back to college after a year out, I don't think I'll have the time to make the irregular updates for which this blog has become known.

What does this mean for the casual reader? Well I'm going to leave everything up so you can still view it, I'll just no longer be adding anything new.

Pause for cries of: "That's not good enough!" "There's no justice in this!" "What will we do without you!" Dodge thrown bottle.

There is a spark of light at the end of the tunnel, though.

Around Xmas, with a little luck, I'll be starting up a new blog with a difference. It'll have a gallery. Actually it'll have very little "blog" and really be just a small website with all my pictures (both from here and the ones I never got round to posting, plus whatever I produce in the meantime) organised in a useful way.

Until then, thank you to the 3 people who followed this blog and the rest of you, too, for the (almost) 1500 page views it got. I hope you enjoyed looking at the pictures, that it gave you some inspiration and I wish you luck in your own painting.

Cheers,
Sam

The Very Last of the Wood Elves... Probably

So remember a while back when I posted what were almost the last of the wood elves I painted for a friend? Well long story short he wanted more. Which is good, I guess. Still, glad they're all done. Hope you like 'em!

(Conversions are not mine, they arrived that way. One guy is missing an arm because he came with a custom banner, which I painted, but the banner was held in the wrong arm...)

One last thing - apologies for the photos. I'm not much with a camera, but it's going to be a goal of mine come Xmas to improve my photography skills, so please just be patient.

Thank You, Good Sir

Arise! Arise and cast off the shackles of death - it has no more power over you! Wake, blog, and wreak havoc on the world... Mwahuahuahua! Yes I've taken up blogomancy. Like necromancy, but with blogs, get it? :P

Anyway the blog is back and it's time for an entry.

Way back at the beginning of the year I got the chance to paint GW's Dreadfleet. It was a lot of fun and good practise before I put my own set together. To thank the person responsible I decided to paint up an Azrael model for him (as he as contemplating starting Dark Angels). He received the model some time ago and was very pleased with it, but until now the photos have been lying dormant on my laptop. Here they are in all their splendour. What do you think?

(His banner is converted as I got the model second-hand and it sadly didn't come with one.)

The Silence of the Blog

Hi you three people following this blog. Just wanted to let you know that while things have been quiet as of late, it has not been due to a lack of anything to post. I've a load* of photos to add when I get round to it. It's just going to be a while more. Expect to see activity in the next month or so. Cheers!

*There was a gratuitously profane (and admittedly quite poor) joke here previously. I decided to edit it out because it was bugging me. Feels better now. And yes, I have the time to edit a post but not to put up pictures. Be patient.

The Last of the Wood Elves...kind of....

As the title suggests in an indecisive manner, these are the last of the wood elves I was painting for a friend. 24 eternal guard, converted from plastic sets (not by me). The cork bases, however, I made to help the models rank up a little better.

They are not actually the last models in his army, but they are the last actual elves I painted. I finished them and two eagles (the actual last models I painted for him) some time ago but have only gotten round to posting them now. You'll have to wait a little longer for pictures of the eagles. In the meantime, enjoy!

Tabletop +1 Nurgle Lord

So the wood elves are still on their way. I've mislaid the photos I'm afraid. In the meantime here is a Nurgle Lord painted to tabletop +1. Enjoy!

With Many Thanks to Alice (Part 3)

At last, it's here. Part 3 of the Dreadfleet log. What follows are the finished photos of the Dreadfleet set I painted, taken some weeks after they were delivered to their new home. A couple of things to bear in mind: the lighting was not perfect when I took these photos. Unfortunately I wasn't able to take the set back home so I had to make do with the natural light where they were. As a result they're not the best pictures, but I'm happy enough that they're reasonably accurate or, rather, I'm not taking any more. The only exception is the Black Kraken, which I just couldn't get in focus and I will make an effort to photograph again at a later date. The other thing I would like to point out is that a couple of the ships were damaged in storage, notably the Swordfysh and the Bloody Reaver, the tips of the masts of which have been bent or snapped off. I strongly suggest that anyone who has this set get the battlefoam trays to carry it and keep these beautiful models safe.

Before I move onto the photos, I'd like to thank my girlfriend Alice, who was instrumental in ensuring the set was completed. Not only did she put up with me spending so much time playing with toy pirate ships (and occasionally painting them :P) but when I just had too much to do she lent her artistic hand to the task, taking over the painting of several pieces of terrain and ships (well, the wash layers anyway). Thank you very much Alice! I couldn't have done it without you.

Onto the photos.

First, the terrain pieces.

Some Gaming Pieces

Some Monsters

Auxiliary Cogs

The Dreadfleet

The Grand Alliance

A final note - without a doubt my favourite ship was the Skabrus. Painting the undead fish skin was really fun. In contrast with this was the flaming scimitar, which was a pain to get the cream coloured sails. I spent so much time on the sails that I decided to paint the innermost sail with all flame details, instead of one fire, one water, one wind, to save time. Looking back, I'm not sure I'm so happy with it and I may rectify it in the future. Also, I've actually omitted another photo, that of the ruler. It was too big to take a decent picture on the day and I will have to see if I can do something about that later on.

OK, that's enough of Dreadfleet. I'm tired of pirates. In the next few days expect to see the last of the wood elves as well as a nurgle lord appearing here!