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I have enjoyed the Dakka Forum for several years now, beginning with the Tactics threads, and then gradually expanding to "Background" and then, more recently, discovering the treasure trove of excellent painting, conversions, and inspiration that lies on the P&M Blog pages. So, I figure it's time to put some of my own work on here, in hopes that others might find similar satisfaction or enjoyment seeing my own painting.

In terms of my own journey with painting Games Workshop models (or indeed models of any kind; I never put together models as a child, though some friends did), I began when I bought an old Talisman board game on eBay back in the early 2000s, which came with some (old) Fantasy models. My family helped me out, and we painted them up simply and not very well. Basic colors, mostly, and since this was in the days before washes and texture paints and so on, not much else. My brother-in-law had some extra paints from his interest in the LOTR game, and those helped but the finished products are all pretty terrible. I would actually like to pull them out and strip them down and try again, something I saw someone else do on this site. It might be a fun and funny contrast, with a "before" and "after" photo. I progressed only years later, when I got the starter boxes for both Warhammer Fantasy Battles and 40k for Christmas in 2007. I used the paints that came in the boxes, mostly, and only gradually began adding other paints from the Citadel line. Once again, my painting was rudimentary, with little understanding of the importance of using layers, edge highlighting, drybrushing, or any of the other techniques associated with painting models. I actually also have red-green colorblindness (which does not mean that I cannot see colors, but only that I am confused by what some colors are, and struggle to differentiate them at times) which added some additional challenges to my painting, particularly given the unlabelled paints in the box sets.

I have progressed a lot since then, moving on through initially buying and repainting (very blobby and thick and quite horribly) some models I again bought on e-Bay; to stripping the paint and repainting them, to actually going full hog and beginning to buy and assemble my own models and beginning to expand and create my own armies. I started a Gaming Club at the school where I taught, and so I wanted a wide variety of armies for the kids to play small games with, until (as many of them did) they decided to buy their own armies. Therefore, I got a lot and wide range of experiences painting all sorts of models and armies. In Fantasy Battles, I began with the box set's Dwarfs and Orcs & Goblins, but soon moved on to Wood Elves, Ogres, High Elves, and Bretonnians. As a couple of adult friends began to play in our own group, I stepped forward as the "painter" for most of them, as they were all uninterested in painting their plastic and metal models, and I couldn't stand to see them looking so naked on the tabletop week after week. Through this effort, I also painted a large army of Vampire Counts, another of Chaos Warriors (who I also bought, and have enjoyed painting and playing with) some Dark Elves, a Giant, and even some Skaven (though I never got far with them, to my shame--they're mostly still on Sprues, actually). I sold the Ogre Kingdoms and Bretonnian forces to friends (again...they didn't want to paint their own) and earned quite a few nice "thank you" presents in return for my painting, which helped me expand my own forces. Still, I have five WFB armies at the moment, and have only been painting one (Dwarfs) recently, along with some modelling work for the Wood Elves once their new book came out (but before End Times...).

With 40k, I began once again with the contents of the Maccragge set: Space Marines, painted as my own invented Chapter called "Panthera Legion"--hence my alias here on Dakka--which was supposed to be themed on all sorts of "Big Cats": Leopards, Cheetahs, Lions, etc. In my ignorance at that time I did not know about the Celestial Lions, wanted to stay away from "Cincinnati Bengals" tiger themes, and it really didn't work well in my opinion. I've still got some of the bright yellow and black (with leopard rosettes) models; maybe I'll take a picture and throw one up here at some point. The Tyranids I painted in a green color pattern; I initially hoped to theme them as a fragment of a Hive Fleet that landed on Catachan and evolved camouflage to fight the hostile Imperial recruits there. I liked them, but looking at them now, I am again struck by how primitive (and sometimes quite silly) they look. I also bought some Tau to add depth to the school club, though I sold this army (to a student! Have I no shame?). For myself, I moved on to Blood Angels as my first "proper" codex, as they got a new book at about the time I wanted to do something new. By BA are my biggest force, and I still love them dearly. I bought "Dark Vengeance" a couple of summers ago, and have a growing Dark Angels force, which I envision using in concert with the BA as an "Angels of Death" allied force. The colors go together well, and I like the idea of harnessing these two scarred Astartes chapters on the same battlefield. The Chaos Space Marines, I have been painting with my son (as Iron Warriors) and I have also painted with/for (he's only a 2nd grader) him a squad of Cadian troopers, and some Tau remnants from the army I sold. I am currently also working on assembling an Imperial Knight (to go with these Angels of Death) but am trying to be disciplined and paint it in components (a new endeavour for me) rather than gluing it all together and just trying to fit my brush into the cracks as I used to) and so this is slow-going at the moment.

So, as should be apparent, I'm a bit of a mess in terms of artistic direction and follow-through. I definitely tend to get pulled in numerous directions, usually at the same time, and usually end up as a resutl with a work space that is cluttered and...unworkable... With that in mind, I have created a new work space in the spare room and, while it is not the equal of many I have seen here on this site, I am pleased with its functionality and with the improved productivity it has afforded me. I am beginning to work on photographing my models, though again I feel this is an area where I need to improve, and I must apologize for the poor quality of many of my early shots. I don't have much photographed as I write this, but I am keen to begin doing more photography, which is part of my motivation in starting this blog. I am hopeful in general that having this blog will provide me with some accountability in terms of my projects, (which I still anticipate to be numerous and varied) and also hopeful that I will receive some good feedback from you talented artists and converters out there.

Thank you for reading, and hopefully you will enjoy what you see.

Here is the Venerable Dreadnought that I painted as a Deathwing Dread. I converted him a little bit with some components of the Ravenwing box and leftovers from the Nephilim fighter, to make him look more Gothic. I tried for a stained glass look on the blue windows, and put some 'ardcoat on it to make it reflective; I don't really think it worked all that well. The red sword on the leg (admittedly hard to see in these photos, taken with my iPad...I'm trying different ways of getting shots, still with limited success) doesn't really work for me, but hopefully it's not too prominent. I like how the book came out--I tried for a generic "Angel of Death" hooded figure and tried to vary the "text" size and location a little bit.