Hello everyone!
Time flies eh? It's been over two months since updating any blog but that doesn't mean I stopped painting! I went into a bit of a rut over the past few weeks where I couldn't pick up a brush and mentally I was feeling pretty drained as I've been working from home since starting my PhD in September with no sign of getting into my office to do work or meet anyone. Thanks folks for the comments since my last post, I feel bad for not replying in a timely fashion.
The hobbying I've done since April has been pretty varied. From the last update I tackled the start of my Nighthaunt army, which in the end I decided not to go for a Dana Howl-esque scheme and went for my own, going for a metallic basecoat followed by a range of inks and contrast paints to tint the surface and give an otherworldly or oil on water type effect with the ethereal wispy bits. I did add some texture paste to the "cloth" parts of the minis on some of the larger models to add some textural interest although it can be quite the pain applying it to so many chainrasps. The Nighthaunt Procession is based around Chamon, the realm of metal as I haven't seen many tackle a concept army from that realm in my trawling of google.
I ultimately decided to drop the blanchitsu idea I had for them too. I want my army done quickly and the scheme does allow for that, plus, due to the metallic nature of the scheme, I don't have to highlight the chainrasp sized units unless I want to and that gives me some space to make my characters more interesting compared to the rank and file. I currently have a boat load of chainrasps to finish although with 3rd edition of
AoS coming out/out, I won't be running those blocks of 40 I was planning on! I've picked up 20 Bladegeist Revenants as I think their lore is horrific and grimdark, something I was very surprised to see given that the overarching setting doesn't feel all too grim or dark. Finally, I have a selection of heroes from the Soul Wars box to round out my force for the time being, although I am tempted by a Black Coach as a centrepiece to my army whenever it gets done. Anyway, Here are some photos!
Crawlocke the Jailor and his Chainghast buddies:
Chainrasps (10 standard, 5 from the Underworlds warband)
Mymourn Banshees:
I have basecoated a load of rasps with my metallics as I intend to batch spray them to see how easy and fast the scheme is to complete but I have hit pause on the nighthaunt because there's only so much airbrushing I could manage before gassing myself or cramping up!
Plus, I did want to do some brush painting again and as a palette cleanser I wrapped up my Warlock Conclave followed by my Autarch. My colour scheme has progressed to brighter and brighter greens but I don't think that's a bad thing. I quite like the vibrancy compared to my older efforts and if I want my minis to stand out on the table, high contrast helps. The warlocks were honestly a joy to paint and after ten years, I don't know why I held off on painting them for so long and I would like to add some more to my collection before the minis get updated (if they ever do right?). I didn't do anything fancy with them, but I enjoyed the process of painting them and I feel like I got a good result for not much effort. The Autarch wasn't the same level of joy as I have no use for the character in game but it was a mini I didn't have for the army and now I can field it in the odd casual game.
Not quite in chronological order but seeing as we're on the topic of Eldar, I've been chipping away at a whole range of units for my army, as I am surprisingly nearing the end of my Eldar pile of shame (definitely don't have a tonne of Guardians I'll never do, I swear!). I managed to finish my Warp Spiders at long last. I figured that seeing as they get game time in nearly every game I play, they deserve to be finished and called done so they can move onto my shelf and not on my desk. They were dull to paint and I think it could be down to the old sculpts and the lack of variety across the unit. It felt like doing the same model seven times over. I did do a little bit of freehand, which isn't the best but not the worst and will do for a tabletop quality unit.
Warp Spiders of the Whispering Ghosts Aspect Shrine, Fir Farillecassion
Onto the works in progress, I cracked out the airbrush as I've entered some Wraithblades into this month's painting challenge "boots on the ground". These guys got fully magnetised using 2x1mm magnets so I can have swords or axes and shields. Again, more green and bone as the scheme and while I was at those, I started some work on one of two Vypers I picked up from eBay a while back as well working on a Crimson Hunter Exarch I've been putting off for ages. I also masked off some sections of my windriders so I could spray a nice stripe across them for some added visual interest which breaks up the block of green. Unfortunately I did get some overspray, but that should be easy enough to clean up and if I really want I could add more stripes should a touch up fail. My war walkers (now fully magnetised) got a quick update to match the rest of the scheme so they'll need a few highlights to round them out. While I had bone/ivory in my airbrush, I also worked on the Wraithknight base I've been neglecting for the past two months. Pic heavy, but it's fun to see the force looking uniform as so far, I've only really had my grav tanks sporting the Craftworld scheme. With the clean bone stripes, I'm very tempted to go back and apply those to my grav tanks as I'm honestly very happy with how they look on the models so far. Let me know what you think, there's plenty to digest!
Finally (!!), I did a bit of scale modelling last month, going for a fabric wing Hurricane from Airfix, part of a slew of starter kits I picked up from Lidl when they were going for a fiver each. Fun build and the painting went smoothly for the most part. I got to do some oil washing and weathering with a historical setting in mind which gave me a nice break away from the Nighthaunt and vibrant Eldar. I did encounter some issues with my gloss varnish tearing up a bit when removing my oil washes, but it luckily didn't impact anything too much as that would have been a disaster! I have another scale model in the pipeline in the form of a Vietnam era Phantom II, so keep your eyes peeled for when I get around to that. I've mostly been keeping myself to 1:72 models due to their size and speed to paint but I am considering stepping up a scale in the future to add some variety to my aircraft builds.
Thanks for reading, I'll hopefully try to post more so as to reduce these massive image dumps in the future!
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TH