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Getting back into the hobby after last playing and painting in 7th I believe.

Having started the hobby in 2nd at 15. I was once a red shirt, back then it was home-brew SMs. Loved the game and the hobby. Painted everything with not two thin coats, and did as well as the next guy.

15 odd years later was heavily back into the hobby, tournaments for games (had no local clubs or stores) and building and painting all my dream armies. Did alot of eldar, maybe 15k worth. Was always fond of their look and really enjoyed playing with the Aspects in particular.

Also had a few cracks at squats (keen to see GWs new line), plenty of guard including a penal legion and a sizeable airborne army, a decent grot converted army and various others.

8th really didn't do it for me, and for various other reasons the hobby soon after dropped off.

Focusing on Aspects for now, pure for painting fun.

Ended up purchasing ghost miniatures, wArtel and another Russian mob or 2 who's names escape me at this time..


The wait has been long but I have chipped away, cutting and filling and gluing. And now my host is ready for paint.


Making this blog mostly for myself to maintain interest and accountability to not be stagnant.

The lords.

Started with the dire avengers. Pre shade with the AB then a wash and edge. Need redoing but got me at least working again.

The minis so far


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And for some actual progress. The Fire Dragons are starting to take shape

Black base with zenithal brown to bone, followed by an orange or 2 again Zen. Then a yellow for the helms.

Since then I started using contrast, with watered down bases to start to shade the armour. Maybe 8 coats in but starting to get a feel for the new (to me) paints and their merits.

I used to use the glazes so still trying to really work them out.

Much more to follow, just a starter post for now.

*the Dragons so far


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*light booth and camera needed also it seems... Early days oh well haha

The dragons are looking really nice so far, and good choice with the proxies, there are some gorgeous ones out there now. Look forward to seeing how these come together.

I keep having the urge to create an elder force (though Ynnari for conversion fodder) again too; so I hope to ease this desire through watching yours come together as I need another project like a hole in the head

Well a few things came up and that fell flat rather quickly.

Nonetheless the Dragons had many more coats of wash and glaze and airbrush and were looking close to failure.

Last attempt was the newish contrast over an orange zenithal and they looked barely shaded.

Last week I decided to throw a white top shade on and reapply the contrast and success!

Colour was still a bit weak so a washed it with a thin vallejo brown, red and yellow in a 1-3-10 ratio and the colour was vibrant and a little more shaded.

And this process carried on mostly so far. Black undercoat, dark base at no more than 90 degrees and then a top white. With some exceptions. A vallejo shade or minitaire ghost tint to increase vibrancy and just working on the Scorpions and Banshees today with just the bikes left.

Avengers... Still not happy I haven't found decent 3rd parties for the troops.

Talassar Blue over a blue base with white top shade. Then vallejo game ink blue. Helms are contrast white over white base

Reapers, black base and white top with black Templar contrast and medium at a 50/50 mix. And blood angels red straight up contrast for hair and capes

Dragons. Orange and yellow, white top with fuegan orange slightly thinned and iyanden yellow straight up then a game ink mix for a dark orange

Hawks... Can't really remember... Aethermatic Blue was way too green so likely sky blue and white with a very thinned mix. May have then dry brushed more blue before a thin ink.

I'm using the game air range with game ink and contrast. The mixing of water and medium has been heavily involved to get these looking right along with the airbrush. I suck at the paint, shade, highlight method.

Spiders. Love that phoenix lord but maybe need to redo the bubble in green.

Dark red and white top with slightly thinned flesh tearers red. And a red glaze.

And the spectres... Again I'm a bit foggy here. Blues and greens, thinned alot and many coats.

Note that I realise there's no phoenix lords for the Spears and spiders... But I bought the spider and made a bike one for ocd sake. 5 warriors for each with an exarch and lord.

Have just done the basic armour on all mostly for now. Will come back for detailing, weapons and touch ups/colour tweaks after seeing the lot. *I'm also 40 and probably need but haven't admitted yet I need glasses... So some smaller details are becoming challenging indeed.

Also, are these pics sideways for all or just me? How do you fix that?

WIP on the shees and Scorpions. Shiny bright scorpion has minitaire ghost tint yellow on top to brighten it up. Unsure what colour will suit for the flailing guardsman... Might save that for last.

Banshees are bone with Skeleton contrast and medium in a 5050 mix. Scorps were white on green with Ork Flesh. As you can see they are a pretty bad result without the brightening.

Banshees are still wet, but looking like they'll need maybe a very slight zenithal bone and some even more opaque Skeleton mix on that with perhaps some blending.

Will be covering all with lahman... Something... Medium through the AB after to give the army a very matt finish.

The avatar and seer to complete the aspects journey. Haven't seen the fluff that a seer is involved in an exarch summoning the body... But it's too cool a mini to pass up plus their matching poses is very satisfying.

Seer I believe is an oop artel mini I found on etsy. The floating seer.

Gave the Scorpions the yellow tint. And re-establishing the bone on the shees. Should just need a couple very thin contrast bone layers to keep that brightness whilst rebuilding the shade.

More banshee light contrast shading, pure BA red and a lehmannnthammmanan medium AB dusting as mentioned.

Just the Spears armour to go.


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Will paint up the Spears next... Unsure how to get the blue in. I'm ok with freehand lines but wouldn't hate some stencils.

Spears and bikes are base coated, had it pure white with 50/50 scar and medium on the riders and more 25/75 on the bikes, not quite working I changed it to a 25/75 on top of an AB black/bone/white blend, which works in the grey contrast nicely.

*Also realised I forgot about the crimson hunters... So more to come on top of all the clean up and finishing to do.

**Then read up on the other 4... Can't get a good read on what the other 3 would be like or play like, but eagle pilots will need to be there. Dislike the night wing, but have had a few phoenixs before so will get a phoenix to represent them. Any ideas on colour?

Lovely distraction of a plaster hulk for my son and Jurassic Park mask for my cos play daughter

Another sidetrack. Wanted to get more comfortable painting smaller details, with some grot footballers and the monthly painting comp decided they'd do nicely.

Happy with the result enough to move on. Surprised myself with the amount of detail I was able to see and highlight. Gave plenty of opportunity to play around with new paints and techniques.