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I have finally fallen victim to plastic crack. Since before I joined Dakka I had flirted with picking up my brushes again, and last week I took the plunge. I ordered some dark Vengeance figures off ebay (and ordered double the quantity by mistake) and bought some paints to get me started.

The package, opened before I decided to grab the camera


The supplies


All cleaned up and ready to start



Honestly, after 10 years of not painting and seeing gorgeous huge pictures my first thoughts looking at some of the details was "I don't remember them being that small"

Good luck, I'm soon to be returning to 'plastic crack' after a 15 year break (have had the odd thing to paint more recently though). I'm just lurking on these forums for inspiration until after Christmas when I will spend some money on myself.

Will look forward to seeing your 1st paint in 10yrs.
Have Fun

So, after work, family stuff, and the holidays all taking up my painting time I finally got about 2-3 hours yesterday











As I'm sure many others have attested, there is nothing like seeing your miniatures magnified to make you see what needs improved

One of the joys of getting older is that free time can be a somewhat elusive beast.

I did get the Librarian and Company Master completed though, and just need to complete the bases.











My folks ever also over for a fortnight and dropped off some of my old stuff;










I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for 11 year old mes crimes against plastic





An isopropyl alcohol bath awaits the Space Marines. Still deciding on a colour scheme for them, and leaning very heavily towards their original Blood Angel colours

Dude, you've done a brilliant job on those first two minis. You forget a lot in ten years (I was in the same boat about two years ago when I can back into the hobby, having also had a ten year hiatus), so it's not easy to get back on the horse.

I'm not a great painter by any means so I haven't got any good tips on how to improve other than: keep on painting minis! Oh, and watch YouTube tutorials. Lots of tutorials. Not all of them are great but you'll pick up hints and tips and start getting an idea of what you can do to improve your painting.

I was just pleased that the robes came out so well, especially on the Librarian. Sort of ironic given that the last model I was painting before my hiatus (but not completed) was the Inquisitor figure Preacher Josef.

There is still a lot of areas for improvement. The force sword could have been better, and the DA icon on the Librarian's chest could have been better defined, or a spot colour used. I also have to get out of my old habits of too subtle shading like the Company Master's red cloak.

Basing wise Michael's (US hobby store) has a nice little diorama basing kit for ~$10 that I might pick up with different sizes of rock and static grass.

First round of paint stripping done with the Marine from the 2nd Edition 40K box game ( for those of you unfamiliar it's the Mk7 Marine with the bolter across his chest and the red squad designation for an assault squad) and it was a success. 30 minutes and the paint just came right off, with no damage to the miniature. The next two are in and then I'll start on stripping the thrice painted RTB01 guys.

Ha ha! Love the Preacher Josef shout out. I have that model somewhere in pieces. I've been thinking of converting him in to an enormous, deranged Ork Weirdboy.

Spot colours are indeed excellent at unifying a force, and drawing attention to a model's biggest area of interest (usually around the head).

I'm looking at the Rogue Trader paint schemes for inspiration, but a lot of the highlights used for Blood Angels are more orange.

I was almost considering painting the Marine as Dark Angels to match the Dark Vengeance miniatures, but I'm not planning on starting an army (I've checked the cost and I don't know that I could afford it ) but instead I'll be painting up what appeals to me. I'm just loathe to spend a lot of money while I relearn how a brush works. I'll be picking up some Reaper stuff to paint based on characters my wife used to play in MUDs.


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After several small batch baths;




All stripped to a good level, and resplendent in their original plastic. Some paint remains in the crevices, and given that these were assembled with polystyrene cement I didn't want to risk prying them apart. No damage to the figures, some of the parts did come off but that is more to do with how they were assembled. Some of the worst are the multi-part Mk. 7 Marines, someone was a little enthusiastic with the glue way back when and some detail is obscured (like where the hand meets the bolter).

If anyone is interested the figures were submerged in isopropyl alcohol for 30 minutes, scrubbed with a medium stiffness toothbrush, and a pin was used to hoke the gunk out of the hard to reach places. After the initial test miniature the figures went in two at a time and were each given a good scrub down to get rid of the worst and then resubmerged while I worked on the second. Then it was the detail and difficult to reach areas.

Wow, it's been almost a year since I updated this. As many of you know by now life often gets in the way, and not having a dedicated hobby space doesn't help.

The RTB01 Marines have not been forgotten. In fact they are almost completed, with just some minor details to finish them and also their bases. I did settle on Blood Angels as they were my first army, and the original colour scheme for these miniatures.

What actually got piqued my interest though was surprisingly some Reaper minis, especially given that before now I had never painted one of their figures before. Again no bases are complete, but that is on the agenda;

Ayla. First Reaper miniature.




Ogriff Bloodbeard, son of Snorri Bloodbeard. He is the spiritual successor to a Warhammer Quest Dwarf


Goretooth Brayherd. This was an experiment miniature for me; my first Bones miniature, and the first time I ever attempted an albino skin tone. Base coated light blue, washed with purple ink, and highlighted up to white




Some LOTR miniatures.

Looking good there boss!

Thank you. I still have a lot to relearn, but having the proper supplies helps. Lessons learned;
- good paint brushes are hard to beat (Windsor & Newton 7s)
- when thinning paints use water, for metallics and whites use a medium (I got Lahmian Medium)
- read the paint pots. For the RTB01 minis (pictures pending) I bought Mephiston Red and Evil Suns Scarlet but the Air varieties, so lots of layers were needed.
- red is difficult to highlight without looking pink or orange. I mixed in flesh colour, but we'll see how that photographs.

What a return to the hobby, you've really kicked off in style with some impressive brushwork. Your prior sins are forgiven!

EDC

Thank you. Looking at the almost complete RTB01s I don't think my Blood Angels have ever looked so good, even at an incomplete stage. I'm aiming for higher end table top standard rather than competition winning.


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Here is today's effort, the second DV Captain. I already had one in traditional Dark Angel colours, so I decided to do the second in a Deathwing scheme. I initially basecoated him the wrong colour, with a brown that was too red and had to quickly remedy that. I'm pleased with the results in spite of my error







My camera work (and set up) needs some fine tuning because I'm struggling to capture a lot of the details