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Hello!

This is my second ever post, so appreciate that it may be a bit rubbish...

I qualify for the youngbloods painting competition, so decided to enter this on my first Games Day (uk 2010). I had many ideas spinning around in my head at the time of what I could enter, based loosely what I would enjoy painting, what I thought looks nice from other people's work, and what would best show off any skills I have. Firstly I wanted to paint up a Necron Flayed one, but this crumbled when I realised that there is not too much scope for converting one of these with the time and patience I had hehe. So I looked around for inspiration on the internets, and found this beautiful piece, the Battle for Macragge Duel entry which won bronze (or silver?):

http://www.juliencasses.com/2010/07/tutorial-war-for-macragge-745-m-41-part3/

I fell in love with the blending and smooth colours... sigh. I wanted to replicate this style, however using different shades so it wouldn't be a straight off copy . I chose Ultramarines as my chapter for the marine, however this was perhaps a foolish choice as I paint Sons of Orar (red and white!). My noobiness payed off though as I was extremely careful as I strayed into new territory, resulting in precise brush strokes and near-technical shading (at least compared to my other work).

I love converting - I endlessly butcher old models of mine for that perfect hand, perfect holster, perfect icon etc. Then I turn it into a wholly new model, hopefully better than the original (often not so!). So on this project I was very ambitious: experience had leant me confidence, so I knew by now what looks good in my eye, what will look good when it's painted, and what clutters a model or removes dynamics. So I set to work creating my marine... If anyone is interested I can tell you what the parts are or how I made them

Then I painted the model. The base actually reads "Tribute to Macragge" in Roman letters, and there are two icicles hanging from the overhang. Unfortunately I didn't finish the model (OH NOES) because I started far too late in the summer, and as a result I was painting up until 3:00 AM and still didn't finish some features such as the necklace, the severed tyranid, the holster and lots of metallic parts. The script on the scrolls is awesome at the top but splodgy at the bottom... and the backpack makes me cry when I look closely at it.

So how did I do in the competition? Not good. I spent ages attaching it to the base at the show, which resulted in breakages and emergency glueing, so it was a mess when I gave it in. A guy said it looked nice, which was a boost, but in the end it remained in the cabinets with the first wave of entries. The kind man who gave it back at the end of the day said it looked great compared to some and that he was very surprised that it didn't get in to the runners up, saying that 'he must have missed that one' Oh well, a learning process for me: spend more time and MAKE SURE THEY SEE IT!!!

I have included pictures as attached files, because I'm not sure how to put them in the text area. Enjoy and comment/criticise!

And for my next trick, I will be painting... Sevrin Loth! Hooray! I'll post that at some date for your delectation. Thanks for reading,
Sons_Of_Orar

EDIT: Spelling change

The model is brilliant...
The wrist of his left hand is a touch dodgy but everything else is great...
The paint job is also pretty damn good.