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First post! I've only recently got back into painting, 20 years after the first disastrous attempt. I think this Grombrindal is decent enough to ask for feedback!

Honestly, I think you've done a fantastic job.

I see a few things as I look at it, that I would say to myself "I still wanna do that to it" -- for instance, I feel like a recess shade on the pants would really liven things up in the leg area.

I think it is totally awesome how it is though, cause you did it and it's your mini! -- I think my favorite aspect of the model is the way the Dragon statue (or whatever it actually is) turned out, that really stood out for me.

-- "Couple bits of cheese to go with your beer, me Lord"

 beradical wrote:
I see a few things as I look at it, that I would say to myself "I still wanna do that to it" -- for instance, I feel like a recess shade on the pants would really liven things up in the leg area.

Thanks dude, I had a feeling something was a bit missing... I'm at stage when I'm still scared to ruin things if I tinker too much, so I might have called it done a bit too early. Oh well, next time

And thanks for the kind words! It feels like I've broken a bit of a barrier. I tried the hobby as a teenager, bought a bunch of Blood Angels, started painting the Assault squad ("with them rounded jetpacks, they should be easy, right?")... and ruined it horribly, so I just packed it in. There was no YouTube at the time, and learning from a few pics in White Dwarf was just not enough for me to understand the process and techniques, the paints where not as cool as they are now (with washes and all), and probably my teenager hand was kinda shaky. I just buried them all deep in the wardrobe in shame. Then last month I bought the "Hammerhal" game to play with the kids, and things just clicked. Now I can't stop, I have dozens of work-in-progress and this is the first I thought "it's done". I've even dug out the old boxes - I have 20+ year old Mephiston, Commander Dante, a Librarian, a Terminator squad and a Land Speeder who might finally get their colours!

toyg wrote:

 beradical wrote:
I see a few things as I look at it, that I would say to myself "I still wanna do that to it" -- for instance, I feel like a recess shade on the pants would really liven things up in the leg area.

Thanks dude, I had a feeling something was a bit missing... I'm at stage when I'm still scared to ruin things if I tinker too much, so I might have called it done a bit too early. Oh well, next time

And thanks for the kind words! It feels like I've broken a bit of a barrier. I tried the hobby as a teenager, bought a bunch of Blood Angels, started painting the Assault squad ("with them rounded jetpacks, they should be easy, right?")... and ruined it horribly, so I just packed it in. There was no YouTube at the time, and learning from a few pics in White Dwarf was just not enough for me to understand the process and techniques, the paints where not as cool as they are now (with washes and all), and probably my teenager hand was kinda shaky. I just buried them all deep in the wardrobe in shame. Then last month I bought the "Hammerhal" game to play with the kids, and things just clicked. Now I can't stop, I have dozens of work-in-progress and this is the first I thought "it's done". I've even dug out the old boxes - I have 20+ year old Mephiston, Commander Dante, a Librarian, a Terminator squad and a Land Speeder who might finally get their colours!

Yea that's a very cool story. I'm pretty new to Blood Angels but that is currently where my hobby focus has been also; ironic!

Can't wait to see your Blood Angels also.

It's a great start! Looks like you're getting the hang of shading and drybrushing. Honestly, I would be intimidated to try to paint that sculpt - cloth, hair and muscles are not easy! I avoided them for ages, sticking to just painting armour for a long time. Painting white is also difficult, so white hair is just asking for trouble!


If you want suggestions, I would have to say that the biggest potential improvements to this model that I can think of would be:

1. Paint the hair grey, wash with a black wash, then individually paint on white highlights. It sounds difficult and time-consuming, but in my experience it's actually not quite as bad as you might think.

2. Use some silver paint to paint the "blade" surfaces of the axe to make them stand out a bit.

3. Generally what you want to do for the base is cover the entire flat top surface (not including scenery elements like the dragon statue of course) with sand, paint it (if necessary), THEN glue some patches of static grass on top. Also, when glueing down static grass, I like to turn the model upside down and tap it; this not only removes excess grass, it helps the grass that sticks to the base to stand up better. If you can suspend the mini upside down while the glue dries then that might help, but of course that's difficult without some sort of special setup.

You didna terrofoc job, even more since it's your first mini. Great work!

I would suggest shading the pants a bit and re-highlightning them, and add some lights to the axes with some Ironbreaker for example. Not a fan of the color of the statue, but that is a matter of personal taste.

For the rest, a really nice looking mini!