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gobert wrote:That’s a glorious shambling horde! The mixed colours work really well with the mutations and pox unifying them nicely. Excited at the prospect of your Orks making a reappearance

Thank you very much as always gobert! My Orktober Ork is on it's way but not quite finished yet. Should be able to finish it in a week!

aku-chan wrote:That's a snazzy looking gang of spotty zombies!

Cheers! Much appreciated aku-chan!

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One more Cawdor model to tag along with my Black Templars. This one was the first Cawdor I ever built, and one of my favorite conversions as well!



Since I've already written about the construction, I won't repeat too much of it here. The short version is: the legs and the upper body are from two different Cawdors, the stubber is from a Chimera and the backpack from Genestealer Cults.



The painting, likewise, was done using the same color recipes as for the previous ones (well, as far as I remember). The one extra thing was the little screen on the backpack. I didn't want a large bright screen, as he's supposed to be a bit raggedy, so I did some scribbles with white and threw some green fluorescent paint over it. Looks pretty nice with minimal effort! Another deviation from the previous models (or my "scheme") was that I painted the loin cloth white instead of a dark color. I thought some red checkers would make for a nice detail, and even with the fade effect they were so quick to paint that I painted them on both sides.



Sigh... Painting this guy really made me want to paint a bunch more of these Black Templar fanatics! The problem is, I don't have any more built. I'll try to rectify the situation before spring, when I can prime more minis again. And maybe I'll build some more Templars as well, while I'm at it...

Another great looking fanatic! So much character and wonderful textures

 gobert wrote:
Another great looking fanatic! So much character and wonderful textures

Thanks gobert, as always! Texture is fun to paint, just have to try and remember not to over-do it...

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This will have to do for my Orktober entry - I've finished the base for my Emperor's Champion (/Bayard's Revenge), which features a big Ork Nob getting stuck with a big sword.



I had to think about the color scheme for a bit. I very nearly went with the box art Goffs, but decided to use my orange scheme in the end. It's pretty fun to paint and I think it fits the orange-y ground and will hopefully contrast nicely with the blue highlights on the Champion's armor. I did borrow the freehand designs from the studio version, however. I couldn't find a picture of the belly plates design, so I picked a suitably sized Jolly Roger decal. In hindsight I probably should've used the white version to balance the colors a bit more, but oh well...

I enjoyed the painting, though I started with a bit of a mistake. This was priming the base (and the Ork) black. As you can see, both the ground and the Ork are very light, so basecoating was a chore... But once I got those done, it was very fun to be painting an Ork again. I mostly used the same recipes as I've used for the rest of my Orks, the one little deviation was painting the camo pattern on his pants. I picked my favorite design - the six-color desert - and did an approximation of it. I think it came out rather well!



For the chipping on the armor I tried something new. Previously I've done it with a brush, because I've been afraid of messing up other parts of a model with a big sponge. I've been satisfied with the results, but the randomness obviously is not on par with sponging. Here I tried a DIY tool: I took one of those pipes that protect brush tips and stuffed a length of packing foam inside it. I then pulled a bit of the foam out and frayed it a little. After sponging, I just cut the used end off and pulled out more foam. This tool was pretty accurate and comfortable to use, I'll be using it for future projects as well.

That’s a good looking dead Ork! They always look great in your orange scheme. Exceptional painting given that he’s just a base ornament

I second that. That's a fantastic paint job for a dead guy.

That's a great looking Nob, dead on a marine's base or otherwise

Awesome Ork, great work on the camo.

Thank you very much everyone! I consider the Ork on this model/vignette as important as the Champion, so it gets a paintjob to match. It's pretty much a full model to paint, anyway, and was fun to do as everything was easy to reach. Damn, now I kinda want to paint more Orks... I've got none built and primed at the moment, but maybe I'll build Helbrecht in the winter...

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I've been working on the Emperor's Champion for a week now, and made some good progress. The armor, tabard and most of the metals are pretty much done, and most of the details are at least basecoated. I'm hoping to finish the whole model by next weekend, but we'll see how it goes...

Great looking Ork, and the blue highlights on the black armour are clean and bright. Can't wait to see it together!

The champion is really coming together nicely. That armour is so nice!

Awesome updates mcmattila. Sorry it’s been so long! The Emperors Children Noise Marine to commemorate your daughter’s birth is really lovely ☺️ and I’m a big fan of your Cawdor ganger/Black Templar combo. Look forward to seeing more of them. Bayard’s Revenge is looking great so far! I think your blacks are some of the best I’ve seen!

In terms of getting featured in White Dwarf/Warhammer Community, I wonder if Instagram is the go? I’m not on it myself but that seems to be a big one with painters and hobby content. Aside from YouTube that is. But far easier to post a picture than make a whole video

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:Great looking Ork, and the blue highlights on the black armour are clean and bright. Can't wait to see it together!

Thank you very much! I'm glad to say the wait is over, I've finished the model!

gobert wrote:The champion is really coming together nicely. That armour is so nice!

Cheers! Glad you like it!

zahnib wrote:Awesome updates mcmattila. Sorry it’s been so long! The Emperors Children Noise Marine to commemorate your daughter’s birth is really lovely ☺️ and I’m a big fan of your Cawdor ganger/Black Templar combo. Look forward to seeing more of them. Bayard’s Revenge is looking great so far! I think your blacks are some of the best I’ve seen!
In terms of getting featured in White Dwarf/Warhammer Community, I wonder if Instagram is the go? I’m not on it myself but that seems to be a big one with painters and hobby content. Aside from YouTube that is. But far easier to post a picture than make a whole video

Hey, good to hear from you again zahnib! And thanks for the compliments! The Templar/Cawdor project is among my favorites as well, though I guess I say that about every project I'm working on at the moment
You might be right about Instagram, but like you, I'm not on it. I've thought about joining every now and then, if only to advertise my blog, but so far I haven't tried it out. And yeah, I'll stick to watching videos from Youtube, I'm in no rush (or position) to create videos myself.

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I’ve finally finished my first actual Black Templars model, Bayard’s Revenge.



This was the commemorative model for Warhammer Day '22. I think it's an awesome model, definitely an upgrade over the standard Emperor's Champion (why oh why couldn't they just copy the pose from the Juan Diaz model..?). I like the helmet with the cross, the plain chest and the mk7 inspired backpack. The rocks on the base are a bit funny (very conveniently placed...), but I guess that was necessary. I also couldn't quite get the parts of the right foot to align when I glued the model to the base, though that might be a user error. These minor gripes aside, I'm really excited to finally have this model in my cabinet.



I've talked about the Ork and the base in my last post, so I'll be focusing on the Champion here. The recipes I used for the armor and the whites are originally from Maxime Corbeil. For the brass and the red parchment I used the 'Eavy Metal recipes referenced from 'Eavy Archive. I followed the box art scheme pretty closely, especially with those long crusade seals. The red could've maybe been a bit brighter, but I'm very happy with the freehand scribblings. I think in the box art they used transfers for the crosses and such, but I didn't want to mess about with varnishes and MicroSol so I did it all by hand. Not as crisp as transfers, but I think it gives the right impression.



The Black Sword was another part where I took a lot of cues from the box art, trying to match the reflections. The sword is painted with metallics, I just started by painting Black Templar Contrast paint over the metallic basecoat. This got me a solid starting point for a black sword, and some quick highlighting made it look metallic.



I tried a bit of OSL once again, as I felt the lantern needed it. I kept it very subtle, as I think that's more realistic for a day-time scene. While I'm not fully happy with it, I think the effect works pretty well from some angles (on the black armor plate). Just have to keep on practicing!

Absolutely stunning work Mcmatilla! You’ve really got that black armour dialled in now

Great job, that is really nicely done.

Fantastic as usual!!

Lots and lots of great stuff once more mcmattila!
I especially loved the group shots of all the Poxwalkers. What a lovely bunch!

Mayard's Revenge looks very nice too!
The crisp black armour versus the heavily weathered plates on the ork offer great insight into the characters.

I'm also trying to venture into OSL and it has been a process of trial and error.
What little I have gathered, the source should always be brighter than the reflection. So, for the next one, I'd suggest adding brighter tones to the top of the lantern as well, as opposed to the similarly valued reflection on the loin cloth.
Also maybe a slight bounce light to the sword, as it's quite close to the lantern and is very reflective.

The reflection on the leg armour's side looks good and I think the tone is fittingly desaturated. Like you said, OSL often works best when looked from a certain angle. I think it's nearly impossible to do so from every possible angle!

Keep up the good work!
Looking forward what you have cookin'

gobert wrote:Absolutely stunning work Mcmatilla! You’ve really got that black armour dialled in now

aku-chan wrote:Great job, that is really nicely done.

muette wrote:Fantastic as usual!!

Thanks a lot everyone, much appreciated!

Ezki wrote:Lots and lots of great stuff once more mcmattila!
I especially loved the group shots of all the Poxwalkers. What a lovely bunch!

Mayard's Revenge looks very nice too!
The crisp black armour versus the heavily weathered plates on the ork offer great insight into the characters.

I'm also trying to venture into OSL and it has been a process of trial and error.
What little I have gathered, the source should always be brighter than the reflection. So, for the next one, I'd suggest adding brighter tones to the top of the lantern as well, as opposed to the similarly valued reflection on the loin cloth.
Also maybe a slight bounce light to the sword, as it's quite close to the lantern and is very reflective.

The reflection on the leg armour's side looks good and I think the tone is fittingly desaturated. Like you said, OSL often works best when looked from a certain angle. I think it's nearly impossible to do so from every possible angle!

Keep up the good work!
Looking forward what you have cookin'

Cheers Ezki! Thank you for the notes on OSL. I know of the "source must be brightest" rule, but I had trouble doing the loin cloth reflection as it was already light. Should've been more subtle on the cloth, and the lantern could've been brighter as you said. And you're right about the sword, it would've looked great with a glint from the lantern! I have to keep this in mind with future tries.

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Okay, time for a look-back post, and this time I'm timely! Here's every model I finished last year.



It's 22 models, or 21 if you count the bases, but either way I narrowly beat my last year's 20 models. Not too impressive a number, but I had a lot of fun painting each of them and am very happy with the finished models. Couldn't ask for much more, right? Below you can see the whole tally in order of appearance, and click on the links if you want to take a closer look at any of them.

It appears that for the most of the year I was painting black. There are the ten Black Templars (if you count the Cawdor fanatics), but the Fiends and the Noise Marine also feature black as a main color. And I think I got very nice results worth it too, and even some variety. But of course, amid all that black I also painted a white model. That's one hobby fear conquered!

The bingo card was a bit of a let-down, as I only managed to claim eight squares with my projects, and no completed rows (once again). Now that I think of it, I probably should've claimed the conversion square as well, as I did some changes while building the last of my Corvus Cabal. But that wouldn't have gotten me a completed row anyway, so no biggie... In any case, it was fun to try and I'll have another go this year.



This year I have three main hobby goals that I'd like to get done. First, finish the first-founding Primaris project. There are only three chapters to paint, so it should be doable. Second, grow my Black Templars collection. I do have a couple of models built and primed from the Indomitus box, but I should build some more, preferably in the next few months before spring. Finally, paint at least one bigger model (ogre-sized+). I have at least three such models among my unpainted Underworlds warbands, just have to pick my favorite and get painting... But yeah, this is the "plan" at the moment, we'll see where the year takes me.

I'll leave you with a WIP photo of my current project, the Eyes of the Nine. Other than the bases, these guys were finished before New Year's Eve, but I didn't get to the two human cultists so I didn't count these for the round-up. The cultists are now in progress, but there's not too much to see yet. I'll write more when I get the whole group finished, hopefully in a week or so...

Long time thread-lurker chiming in to give you props for...

A.) Your consistency. Speaking as someone who has gone through several loooooong painting droughts over the years, seeing how consistent you are in your production is awesome.

B.) Your growth as a painter. Your page one efforts were fine, but seeing how you have found a style and been able to execute it to a steadily improving standard has been cool.

Keep kicking ***, amigo.

It's funny, I was going to comment about how much black you painted this year, and how different and nice those blacks are

Great set of minis, the noise marine probably takes it for me? Tho I do really love the dying nob

The Eyes are looking grand - I painted the newer Pandemonium just in time for Xmas gaming myself!

Quite the collection of impressive minis finished in 2024!
Hope you have a good year in -25!

That hobby bingo card is pretty tough to plot a route through, I don’t think I’d have had a complete row or column either. One thing I do know though, is that the standard of minis you’ve produced is phenomenal! Even the simple Poxwalkers are fantastically detailed looks to be a cracking start to 2025 too with some nice blue tzangor types.

First Look through in a while and the standard of your paint finish is draw dropping,, really like the composition and finish of the emperors champion slaying the ork nob.

Sorry everyone for the long radio silence. After my Christmas holidays ended a couple days after the last post, I've been super busy with work and family stuff, or distracted by other hobbies (I got VR goggles for Christmas, that's eaten up a fair few nights), or just been too damn tired to do the hobby (or write a post about it). I've chipped away, however, and the first minis of the year are now done.

Gomez wrote:Long time thread-lurker chiming in to give you props for...
A.) Your consistency. Speaking as someone who has gone through several loooooong painting droughts over the years, seeing how consistent you are in your production is awesome.
B.) Your growth as a painter. Your page one efforts were fine, but seeing how you have found a style and been able to execute it to a steadily improving standard has been cool.
Keep kicking ***, amigo.

Thanks a lot for the comment man! Heh, I never took myself as a consistent painter, but now that you've said it, I guess I do finish a project each month or two! Consistent production, just not fast

Boss Salvage wrote:It's funny, I was going to comment about how much black you painted this year, and how different and nice those blacks are
Great set of minis, the noise marine probably takes it for me? Tho I do really love the dying nob
The Eyes are looking grand - I painted the newer Pandemonium just in time for Xmas gaming myself!

Cheers Boss! Ah, I really like the look of the Pandemonium team, but haven't gotten it as it hasn't been available on its own. Wasn't too hot on the Stormcast team from the starter set.

Ezki wrote:Quite the collection of impressive minis finished in 2024!
Hope you have a good year in -25!

Much appreciated! You too!

gobert wrote:That hobby bingo card is pretty tough to plot a route through, I don’t think I’d have had a complete row or column either. One thing I do know though, is that the standard of minis you’ve produced is phenomenal! Even the simple Poxwalkers are fantastically detailed looks to be a cracking start to 2025 too with some nice blue tzangor types.

Yeah, the card can be a challenge, especially as I don't game so the game board and terrain squares are tough. But I've done some thinking and have projects in mind that if I stick to them, getting at least one complete row should be possible this year!

Alaricuk wrote:First Look through in a while and the standard of your paint finish is draw dropping,, really like the composition and finish of the emperors champion slaying the ork nob.

Many thanks Alaricuk, and thanks for dropping by! While I can't take much credit for the Champion's composition (stock model and basically the box art scheme), I'm glad you like it! It's a really cool model and I had fun painting it.

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Much like a year ago, I started the year by finishing a mostly painted Underworlds warband. These guys are Eyes of the Nine, way back from the second season.



This project started by me looking for small models that I could quickly paint up, and settled on the two Tzeench Horrors. I decided that I'd not be too concerned about getting smooth transitions everywhere. Sure enough, the Horrors were done in a couple of sessions, the Blue one being very enjoyable to paint, the Brimstone ones not so much. I took some cues from a RobPaintsModels video, but not having an airbrush this was mostly the scheme rather than specific steps or colors.



After the Horrors were done, I started with the sorcerer Vortemis and the Tzaangor. This was an opportunity to paint a non-standard skin tone, blue, and try to still make it look natural. As always, Vince Venturella had a video on the subject which I used for pointers. I'm pretty happy with how the skin came out, but it's maybe a tad too close to the blue armor plates. In any case, it was enjoyable to paint, as were the other gradients around the models, like the horns and the feathers.

Finally, I painted the two acolytes. They were nice models for practicing human skin tones! I went with a light tone, and less contrast than I perhaps have done on previous models. This was chosen partly because I wanted to see if I could paint smoother, softer skin on the female. I think it was a success, though for the next one I'll try to up the contrast a bit, hopefully retaining the softness. Surprisingly, even the white cloth was nice to paint. It could do with a bit more dark lining, but otherwise I really like how it came out.



This was an interesting project for sure. Sculpts-wise, this warband leaves me pretty cold. I really like the Tzaangor, but otherwise they're "meh", the leader being my least favorite. So I started painting with the mindset of "just get it done". But as it so often happens, while painting I started to appreciate (most of) the models. As I already mentioned, these were good practice for painting skin and doing various gradients. Painting the gold trim was a right chore though... When first looking at the models, I thought "it's not so bad, there's not that much trim." Yes. There. Was.

As last year, I'll start this year's hobby bingo card with the "team for a skirmish game". I have some ideas for getting at least one "bingo" this year, but as always, we'll see how it goes...


As for the next painting project, I think I'll paint up a Raven Guard marine, but before that I'll switch to build mode for a bit. It's been a while since I've built anything, and even though I've not bought many new minis, I've picked out a couple of cool characters that I want to get to at some point. And a new box of Intercessors too!

They look so great mcmatilla, the skin tones all round are spot on. Vince V does seem to have a lot of helpful and accessible tutorials it’s true

A delightful bunch! They look very tzeenchey.
Vr goggles are definitely a fun piece of tech! One can lose the track of time easily when playing around with them.

Bayard's Revenge is such a great mini diorama, and you've certainly done it justice. I really like the idea of using Black Templar contrast over metals to get a black sword (Something I'll try and pull into my painting this. year. Your crispy highlighting is spectacular. Thanks for the inspiration!

gobert wrote:They look so great mcmatilla, the skin tones all round are spot on. Vince V does seem to have a lot of helpful and accessible tutorials it’s true

Cheers gobert! Yeah, Vince seems to have a tutorial on everything

Ezki wrote:A delightful bunch! They look very tzeenchey.
Vr goggles are definitely a fun piece of tech! One can lose the track of time easily when playing around with them.

Thank you very much! Yup, the goggles are fun and surprisingly immersive. HL: Alyx is awesome, though my very limited playing space at home hampers the experience a bit. I've taken the goggles to a school gym to try out a bigger space, but I've only got Arizona Sunshine 2 on the goggles and that experience is far behing Alyx.

blockade23 wrote:Bayard's Revenge is such a great mini diorama, and you've certainly done it justice. I really like the idea of using Black Templar contrast over metals to get a black sword (Something I'll try and pull into my painting this. year. Your crispy highlighting is spectacular. Thanks for the inspiration!

I'm glad to hear that, and thank you for checking out the plog!

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Sorry for the radio silence, I've been swamped with work and family stuff. But, I've had a little hobby time as well, mostly during weekends, so I've got a couple of things to show to you!

After finishing the Eyes of the Nine I spent a couple of weeks building some new models for my Black Templar collection.



I ended up with five models, each of them converted in some way. I've leveraged multiple kits here: there are bits from the regular and Assault Intercessors kits, mk3 (the previous one), Mk4 and mk7 Tactical Squads, Devastators, some monopose kits, the Black Templar upgrade set and a couple of others as well.

Two of the models have "open" poses. One of them (on the left in the pic) is my take on the Blanche sword brother. Rather than trying to replicate the pose, I tried to adapt the recognizable elements from the artwork. A plasma pistol and a close combat weapon, a helmet with a bionic eye. I scratch-built the shield-shaped belt buckle/codpiece, and added two skulls on top of the backpack instead of the one on the original, as I liked the look.

The other guy has both arms from monopose kits: the right from an Indomitus Assault Intercessor, the left from an OOP ETB Intercessor sergeant. The left hand is a proper vintage piece, from an old Assault Squad circa 2000. That kit came with multiple left hands gripping pistols, which are rare these days. I still have a couple left for special occasions!



The next two models have running poses, one body from the Assault Intercessors kit, the other from the regular one. The other has mk3 helmet for that knightly look, while the other has the BT upgrade helmet for, I guess, a more streamlined knight look.

One of the main ideas for my Black Templar models is to use the firstborn weaponry, as I like the scale better. Hence most of the weapons are from the mk7 Tactical Squad. I got to say, I don't miss assembling two-handed weapons the old way at all! Now I had to do it in an even more difficult way, as I needed to use a mk7 left hand with a Primaris arm, and of course the modular hand doesn't look nearly as good as the pre-posed ones.



Finally, I built a melta gunner. I did a small conversion on the gun: I'm not a fan of the big front sight on the melta, so I clipped it off. The result seemed a bit too plain, so I shaved some accessory rail off of a bolt rifle and attached it to the melta. Fiddly work, but worth it! I used the grenade launcher arms from the Intercessor kit as I thought they gave the model that"firing-from-the-hip" look.

The models don't have their bases done in these photos, but I've finished building them since. Now just waiting for the weather to warm up a bit so I can prime them. Hopefully I'll get these guys painted before the year is over!

I'll claim the "convert a model" bingo square with these guys.


I've painted up two models after building these guys, I'll try to post the first of them tomorrow, and the other next weekend.

New year, new bingo. We believe in you this year, the Templar project looks good already.

 Sherrypie wrote:
New year, new bingo. We believe in you this year, the Templar project looks good already.

Thank you very much Sherrypie, I'll do my best! And thanks for checking out the plog!

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Alright, time for finished work. One more loyalist chapter done! I now have a Raven Guard, and unlike the rest of my marines in the project, he's wearing Phobos armor for that tacticool aesthetic.



This model is a monopose Infiltrator from the Shadowspear battlebox. I wanted to do the Raven Guard in Phobos armor, as it seems to fit their lore, and this sculpt is the coolest, most tactical looking in my opinion. Fortunately enough, I found a good deal on him and four squad mates on eBay. I wanted to give him some RG upgrade bits, so he got a beakie helmet (obviously) and some raven trinkets. He didn't get a sculpted shoulder pad, as there's none for the Phobos armor in the upgrade sprue, but I think the decal fits the nature of the armor better anyway.



On the painting side, this was a pretty simple affair. I wanted the black armor to be less shiny than on my Templars, for example, so I did less highlight stages. I also left the specular highlights out, and instead just painted the upper surfaces with a very dark gray (mix of Abaddon Black and Eshin Grey). Likewise, the joints of the armor were painted with metallics, but toned down with a wash of Black Templar Contrast paint. Most of the silver was only highlighted with the basecoat color (VMC Dark Aluminum), only a few upper corners got a dab of bright silver.



While I tried to keep the monochromatic  color scheme going for the most part, I couldn't resist adding a couple of spot colors: the various lenses were obvious, but I also gave a couple grenades a flash of color (some kind of identification markings). I know the studio examples use the red shoulder pad trim of the third company, which I think works well if one's painting an army (or squad), but for me, the full black of fifth company is where it's at.



I'll use this trooper to claim a square in the hobby bingo: "paint a model from a faction that you don't own any painted models for". The faction referring to Raven Guard, obviously I've already got a few marines...

Mate, awesome work on the Raven Guard, he looks spectacular! Love the inclusion of the beaky helmet, classic choice. He looks properly tacticool, which is perfect for the Emo legion . The whole gang looks amazing, I hope they take pride of place near your desk for inspiration. The earlier Black Templar conversions all turned out seamlessly too