Category: My Painting

  • My big project for 2021: Warhammer Age of Orion!

    My big project for 2021: Warhammer Age of Orion!

    As mentioned in a blog post a few months back when I painted up my classic Warhammer Quest Wardancer, Wood Elves were the army that first got me into Warhammer back in the mid 90s (1996, if you want to be super specific about things, just before the release of 5th Edition WHFB).

    My first White Dwarf was issue 201, which just happened to coincide with the release of Orion, King in the Woods. Shortly thereafter I bought my first box of plastic Wood Elf archers, and my first ever army project began!

    Orion himself was my first ever “big” metal model. I didn’t know about pinning back then, so needless to say he fell apart quite often…

    Sadly in about 1999, my Wood Elf army had to say goodbye for various reasons, and I shed a quiet tear for Orion and his elfin kin as they made their way to places unknown. And so it was that for about a decade beyond that point that I didn’t really look at Warhammer.

    Around 2010, my hobby itch was getting too annoying to not scratch, so I popped into the local Games Workshop, in Leicester. The manager there was very helpful and she helped me pick out a Wood Elf Spellweaver (the finecast one) and a box of Glade Guard (which confused me, because they were archers and I remembered Glade Guard being the name for the spearmen!).

    The Spellweaver. This was the first Warhammer model I painted after that decade or so of hobby hiatus.

    Over the next few years I collected a small force of the “modern” Wood Elves, including the new Glade Riders and Wardancers as well as Treekin and the Finecast version of the 2000s Treeman. When the range updated I added Sisters of the Thorn, Wild Riders and Wildwood Rangers to my collection along with Araloth. And then came Age of Sigmar. A bunch of these models got transferred onto round bases to create a Wanderers force for the new game. But although I did go on to make a Sylvaneth army too, the look of the army never really worked for me. I missed the way my old 90s army looked.

    Arrayed for battle in the early days of Age of Sigmar, before they got rebased onto Rounds.

    Well, over the next five years I’d had again that itching feeling. The need to go back and grab those models from my youth that I remembered so fondly. So I went onto eBay and picked up the classic Wood Elves army book I remembered from my youth and it was still there, that magic. I stared longingly at the beautiful metal miniatures in the ‘Eavy Metal pages. And then, towards the end of this very year 2020, I made the decision. I was going to rebuild my old army, bigger and better than ever before!

    Some of my now-sold Sylvaneth. I did have fun with these but it wasn’t quite hitting the spot.

    So we come to today. As at the time of writing I have painted up a few miniatures, and decided roughly how I want to proceed. My goals with this project are thus:

    • To paint the models in a colour scheme close to those of the official paint jobs back in the 90s.
    • To base the models on green, square bases as they would have been at the time.
    • To obtain at least one unit of each type in the army list. Where possible to also have each of the named characters.
    • To have a lovely painted army by the end of 2021.

    I know this won’t be the easiest project – classic Warhammer can be hard to come by if you don’t have deep pockets. But thankfully I’ve had a fantastic start thanks to the wonderful help and contributions by my friends on social media. In particular I would love to shout out my appreciate to James who very kindly sent me a heavy parcel containing Orion, Ariel, no less than 3 Treemen (including Durthu) and a whole bunch of archers and glade guard. I am absolutely thrilled to have these models to start my collection off with. And I’m sure I’ll be shouting out more of the community soon!

    So, that’s where we’re at. And since you read this far, it’s only fair I show you the models I’ve painted so far for this army!

    And that’swhere we’re at! I’m currently putting the final touches on a unit of Wardancers, so I’ll be hopefully posting an update soon with those chaps. Until then please stay tuned and keep up with my posts on Twitter and Instagram!

    And if you happen to have any 90s Wood Elves that are just sort of “in the way” and they could do with a loving home, please give me a shout!

  • For the Lion!

    For the Lion!

    Oh my, it has been a little while since I posted a blog post here on the website. I apologise for my somewhat… lax approach to this website here.

    Anyway, I figured now was a good time to show you some of what I’ve been working on, so here’s some fun stuff I’ve recently painted up for my Warhammer 40,000 Dark Angels army.

    Primaris Lt, 10 Assault Intercessors and 3 Outriders, from Indomitus

    I was fortunate enough to win a box of Indomitus thanks to the lovely giveaway by OrcPainterNerd on Facebook. I’ve not gotten *that* much of it painted yet due to focussing on commission work. But here you can see my first 3 Outriders, a Primaris Lieutenant and 2 squads of 5 Assault Intercessors. I’ve been using mostly the modern Citadel colours, but the armour is based with an ancient pot of Dark Angels Green!

    Primaris Captain

    I also painted this Primaris Captain for my Deathwing, also from the Indomitus set. I did a simple headswap with one of the female bio-roiders heads from Statuesque Miniatures, and switched the tilting plate for one from the Dark Angels upgrade sprue.

    Then, after a bit of a break I went and painted this, the Dark Angels Legion Praetor from Forge World. I painted it up into 40k colours so he could be used as a Master or something. His left arm is magnetised so he can use either the boltgun or the storm shield. I really enjoyed painting this chap – I don’t get to paint much Forge World.

    Finally (so far) is Master Lazarus, who I got in the recent Imperium Supply Drop “Loot Crate” from GW Direct. I had a great time painting this chappy up too, I wasn’t likely to buy him individually at his asking price because it seemed a bit high for a simple model. But as part of a bigger batch of products it was a nice thing to see!

    So, what’s next? Well, got a bunch more Indomitus to get painted up. I’m looking forward to tackling the Chaplain and the Judiciar. And I’ve got plans to make a Primaris version of Asmodai, as soon as my Puppets War and Kromlech bits arrive!

    Thanks for reading! What have you been working on? Let me know in the comments!

  • My Favourite Wood Elf Miniature Ever!

    My Favourite Wood Elf Miniature Ever!

    So back in Ye Olde Nineties, when I was a mere lass with crippling gender dysphoria and less confidence than a small zebra who has to give a speech in front of ten hungry lions, I fell in love with this Wardancer for Warhammer Quest. I was already totally in love with the Wood Elves of the era. Orion, the Waywatchers, Scouts etc. All lovely miniatures. But it was the Wardancers I liked most, and this character model in particular jumped out to me. It sparked joy.

    So it was that over 20 years later I decided to jump onto eBay and pick it up again (sadly unboxed and without any of the other goodies, but such is life). And I knew I wanted to paint it again, in that ’90s style complete with bright green base and wild primary colours.

    And here he is, after a bunch of nostalgic painting! I like to think I got fairly close to the original vision for the model. I tried to get the yin-yang symbols looking good and I wanted to keep the colours vibrant.

    It was such a blast painting this model again after something like 24 years since I first owned it. I think the level of detail and the pose is just perfect and it’s aged really well. The hair is one of those features you just can’t forget, it’s so iconic and I’d love to see these kind of wacky hairstyles return to the worlds of Warhammer.

    Do you guys have any favourite Warhammer Quest miniatures? Anything you’d love to see me paint? And don’t forget I do commission painting so please get in touch if you have anything you’d like a splash of life on!

  • A few recent things!

    A few recent things!

    It’s been a little while since I shared some of my recent work to the blog here, so here’s a little bit of an update on what’s been keeping me busy through the latter half of November and this first half of December!

    First up is this Kroot hero from the awesome Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress game. This is an ongoing job where I’m painting the models from the set alongside my other commissions. I had a lot of fun painting this guy – I’ve always loved the Kroot anyway and this model is super characterful!

    This is a miniature I’ve had my eye on for a while for my beloved Dark Angels. It’s the finecast version of the banner bearer that dates back to the mid to late 90s I think, possibly. However old it is, the sculpt really holds up nicely with an absolutely gorgeous banner that was a joy to paint. I placed him upon a piece of tall slate to help him stand out, especially considering he’s competing for attention against his Primaris bretheren now!! I had fun painting the chainsword – they definitely work better if you give them hazard stripes! 😀

    Next up, I painted this little lot here for the Gloomspite Gitz, two Mangler Squigs (one as a Loonboss), a Dankhold Troggoth and no less than six Rockgut Troggoths! I’ve painted the Troggoths before but this is my first time with the new plastic Mangler Squig kit (my previous one being the Finecast one from about 7/8 years ago!) and it was great fun. The squigs these days seem a lot more tadpole shaped rather than space hopper though, I think I prefer the “Space Hopper with Teeth” designs.

  • Chaos Spawn painted for commission!

    Chaos Spawn painted for commission!

    This month I was commissioned to paint up a couple of Chaos Spawn for a Tzeentch army. I’d never painted any of these before so I thought it would be a fun project!

    Check out the pics:

    I did something rare, I used a white undercoat where I usually use grey or black. I wanted the blue to be really bright and vivid. I used Thousand Sons Blue and Ahriman Blue, with Drucchi Violet as a shade and final highlights with Temple Guard Blue.

    For some of the extremities I mixed purple into the blue to blend it out and get some colour variety, then for the claws and bone areas I painted those black with highlights of Kabalite Green, Moot Green and a final highlight of Averland Sunset.

    For the eyes I applied a cover of ‘ardcoat to give them a really eery gross appearance!

    These guys were really fun to paint, although I’d love to see a new Chaos Spawn kit since this one is definitely starting to show its age!

  • Currently [OPEN] for commissions!

    Currently [OPEN] for commissions!

    Hey folks! Just a quick note to say I am currently available for commission jobs.

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