Return of the Chaplain

Waaaay back in the beginning you may recall I painted a Blood Angels Chaplain for a friend. A lot has happened since then and said friend left the continent for greener pastures, downsizing his collection to make the trip easier.

 

I remember painting that chaplain with fondness and never imagined I'd see him again. The wargaming community around these parts is small, though. Unbeknownst to me, my first chaplain model traded hands to a friend of a friend not far from where I originally left him, and made his way back to me as a gift when I joined that gaming group!

 

He was a little banged up and dusty, but a clean up and a touch up where the paint had chipped had him better than new again, and here he is!

 

 

This blast from the past now stands proudly in the display with more recent minis and I couldn't be happier. I have quite a few newer pieces yet to be posted, but until then enjoy sharing this memory with me.

 

Happy painting! 

Happy Spooktober! Part 4: Space Vampire

Happy Samhain all!

The Spooktober season has a few hours left in it, just enough time to share another spooky miniature. For a change, this one's a Blood Angel, but if a monstrously-sized superhuman clad in armour better suited to a tank waving a glowing hammer and driven by the twin fuels of grief for a long-dead father and a need to drink the blood of his enemies isn't scary to you, then you and I are going to have difficulty relating to one another.

I've been working on a painting style that makes use of a lot of black to create shadowy, grimdark atmosphere. I've also been taking photos to accentuate that, but thought you might like to see how this model appears on the tabletop under more normal light conditions.

As you can see, light makes a huge difference. In the darker light he's pushing display standard. In brighter light he's still good, but he's clearly a tabletop standard character, which was the intent. He's an improvement on my previous Blood Angel captain and I'm about ready to apply this red to a full army. Keep an eye out for that!

Until next time, happy Samhain and happy painting!

Blood Angel Scouts

Are you ready for some photos? You sure? Well here they are!

I decided to experiment with my Blood Angels colour recipe on a unit, and after looking through my unbuilt collection was delighted to discover some scouts that I'd forgotten about. I love space marine scouts and these guys were a lot of fun to paint. I spent extra time on the end adding freehand to all of them, and the heavy weapon model got extra love on his chapter symbol. If  When I paint more Blood Angels I'll push the highlights on the red more with the airbrush - something I didn't catch until I was painting the other elements on the model - but apart from that I'm very pleased with them.

As I don't really need them in any army and there's no point them gathering dust on my shelves, I've decided to try to sell them on eBay (here if you're interested). I see a lot of "pro-painted" models that go for ridiculous amounts relative to the actual quality of the painting and I know these are better than most of them, so I figured I'll have a go at getting a ridiculous price, too. I've set them at what I'd expect a commission painter to charge and if I get something close I'd be happy. If not, well, I can always rethink my pricing structure or just keep them. I've also put my competition winning captain up there (here).

Finally, I've decided to start accepting commissions again. I used to many years ago but stopped due to time constraints. Now I'd like to have a little spare cash to fund my hobby as well as paint a wider variety of models, so will be looking to take on projects on a casual basis. If you're interested, there'll be a contact me button appearing here soon.

Thanks for looking, and happy painting!

Blood Angel Praetor - Winner of the Irish Golden Demon!

Last Saturday the 500th Warhammer store opened in Hong Kong and I can't wait to see what shiny things are promised later this month to celebrate that - I'm a sucker for limited edition minis, provided they aren't Primaris Space Marines*. Last Saturday was also the 22nd birthday of the Games Workshop Dublin store, where I bought my first models over a decade ago**. As is tradition, there was a big party to celebrate and - having missed the last few - I was eager to attend. I was especially interested in entering the painting competition, which was ambitiously titled the Irish Golden Demon.

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).

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.

Tabletop

So, news. Here's the first model I painted for tinyworksofart. It was done for a friend to a tabletop standard, and I'm glad to say he was very pleased with the result.