Irish Golden Demon is a grandiose description for a single mini painting competition featuring circa 20 entrants from among the store's regulars; nevertheless it was a lot of fun and a good opportunity for me to get back into the habit of painting well. The standard was remarkably high and chatting with the other painters I learned a few new tricks and got a fresh perspective on my painting. There's no substitute for studying well-painted models in the flesh to teach you more about what you're trying to achieve and how you can develop your own style. I just wish I'd brought a camera and had some photos of the other entrants to show you (d'oh!).
Next time I'll bring a camera. But I do have pictures of one entry - mine!
I started this guy a few weeks ago when I found Ferrari Red, a Vallejo Model Air paint that is just the best shade of red for Blood Angels. I was trying to develop a Blood Angel colour scheme and at the same time get my eye back into painting more than just rank and file, tabletop-ready units. He was pretty much finished two weeks before GW's birthday, but was a little more basic than I'd hoped and was sitting on my shelf staring at me as I tried to decide whether I'd call him finished or go back and add something. In the end, as I could only enter one model into the store's painting competition I decided I'd put the effort in and go for a complex freehand on the back.
I'm so damn pleased at how this came out. It's about the best freehand I've done so far and I'm really excited to do loads more. It didn't even take as long as I thought it would. I expected to spend the two days before the competition madly trying to finish it, but it was completed in one afternoon giving me Friday to work on some other projects. I must be getting faster.
I also touched up the black cloak and added some mud to the boots because they felt a little flat and dull, but that's not as cool as a big Blood Angel symbol.
On the day of the competition the judges seemed to agree that adding the freehand was a good move, because my Blood Angel Praetor won first in the adult category! It was a very close call with a beautiful Gabriel Seth coming second (the IX legion was well-represented!) and a very well blended Slambo coming in third. We even got trophies - Primaris Dreadnoughts sprayed silver, gold, and platinum (apparently there was some difficulty achieving a bronze effect so silver became third and the silvery-looking bronze was called platinum and became first, but I'm not going to complain).
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| He would have to pop out of his base for the photo... |
This is actually the second time I've won the store's birthday painting competition, the last time being several years ago with my Tzeentch sorcerer. Both models are now living happily on my display shelf, although I will have to look into upgrading to a proper cabinet.
As this post has already been very long I'm not going to go into any detail as to how I painted anything, but next time I paint some Blood Angels (I have a few characters waiting for attention) I'll post WIP and step-by-step shots.
Until then, happy painting!
*I actually really like the Primaris Marines, I just don't want to buy any because they'll make all my regular marine characters look small.
**Some metal Ushabti and Liche Priests, way back when metal blisters were a thing.
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