I don't really like my local Warhammer Store. Since moving to other brands for a lot of my hobby stuff (paints, tools, etc.) and, of course, discovering third-party retailers and what they think the UK/EU exchange rate is*, I don't have much cause to spend a lot of money there. I mostly visit to admire the painted models and occasionally to pick up something I've ordered that can only be bought from the Warhammer website. The staff in my local Warhammer store know this and, while not explicitly saying they would rather I be anywhere else if I'm not going to buy something, there is a definite air of tension as they weigh the costs of dealing with the PR fallout against the benefits of telling me to fuck off. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it.
Then again, they really don't like parting with a mini of the month for me. I'm not the demographic they want to be giving free models. This is normally not a problem - I'm not usually that fussed about adding one more model to my collection. It certainly isn't worth a trip into town and the stress of working out how much time I would have to spend in store before the cost of physically throwing me out was less than the benefit of me not being there. Sometimes, however, the model in question is so nice that the trials must be endured for a chance to paint it. The Chaos Warrior from a month or two ago was one such instance.
This is one of my favourite sculpts to come out of Age of Sigmar. It has so much of what made Fantasy great - the right amount of detail, classic pose - combined with modern methods that make joins and mold lines basically invisible. I wanted to try something a little different, so painted almost everything with washes, contrast, and inks over a black and white base coat. The only ordinary painting after that was the highlights for sharp edges, or reestablishing the value of the base coat where I was a little messy with my washes. For sheer speed, the experiment was a success, but I'm also really happy with the finished result. Well worth the effort to get him!
Until next time, happy painting!
*I'm also lucky enough to be travelling to the UK fairly often, so any big purchases can be made to coincide with that.
