Painting 2021

Before the year ticks over, this is everything painted as I un-lapsed for a while. In reverse chronological order then, most recent first...

Taban Miniatures (limited edition) - an experiment with 'en grisaille', an approach learned from Marco Frissoni's channel that I like very much. Black prime, not zenithal but grey scale tones built up with brush then tinted with glazes. Continues the anti-colour trend started with the Chaos Warrior below. 

Gideon Lorr - already primed white, nuln wash. Then lots of fiddly fun making him look weathered. 

Grace is Gone - Brown Bunny Miniatures (limited ed.) - already primed white, then applied a nuln oil wash. I have never painted black skin before, so experimented with a pink base tone with choc brown/burnt sienna homemade contrast wash, which went a bit funny. Happy accident, it dried in a blotchy way that suits the post-apocalyptic vibe of a struggling post-human with no access to creature comforts.

Chaos Warrior - terrific old-school Jes Goodwin sculpt, had loads of fun doing this one. It was already primed white so first added a nuln wash and got going. I wanted something filmic from this, the antithesis of the day-glo colour most mini painting presents. The base requires some modification, since it is tonally indestinguishable from the figure, but then I wanted it standing in dark, chaos landscape. 

Caelia Dicqor from Rackham's plastic line before they went bust first time round. Nice character mini, if only the eyes weren't so HUGE. I painted this without much of a plan, white primer with a wash of nuln to edge the detail, then applied colour. I half like it. Like everything else in this post, left unvarnised so I can always make adjustments. 

Clawed Fiend - half painted when I last lapsed, forgot what colours I used and had to improvise when finishing off. Frustrated with the hair, but a fairly decent result in the end, adequate tabletop standard. 

Stormcast Sequitors - My impatience to use my only contrast paint at the time massively prejudiced the paint scheme from the get-go, but I'm moderately pleased with the outcome after such a long lapse. First time trying zenithal highlight over black primer. 

Other cr@p... Twilight Knight by Kingdom Death. This is the very first iteration of the character that was never released for sale and was bundled in with the first Gift of Death set (about 2010). I slapped on some colour years ago, and never felt any enthusiasm when I resumed because the sculpt is so inadequate. The sword was a banana when I first got it, replaced it with a metal spare from a Confrontation mini, but now replaced again with a spare from a plastic TK. 

I hope my followers and causal visitors enjoy this break from my temporarily dormant anti-plastic waste crusading. Next year there be will something very different from my long-gestating lockdown project.

~J~

Khymerae

Simultaneously completed last night, a pair of Stygian horrors courtesy of Jes Goodwin. I wonder if Jes has Wayne Barlowe art books in his library. Does he even have a library?

I did a cursory search for other painted examples (just to see what others have done), but it seems not many are that bothered with these models... they should be though.

Technique: there was absolutely no 'flat' painting on these, all was done with washes of two primary colours (over Vallejo white primer): Vallejo Prussian Blue; Windsor & Newton Finity Alizarin Crimson; Portrait Pinks from Liquitex, used for a little highlighting in between primary washes; some Vallejo Black for the eyes and deep shading; Daler-Rowney Silver ink for claws, etc. Base was sculpted with standard Milliput with bits of slate and painted in Vallejo browns, later darkened by mixing in some GW Charadon Granite. 

I'm ambivalent about the basing: I was aiming for a streaking effect, to suggest speed, and the texture is OK-ish in that regard, but I found the lines were too linear during painting. Something more like a chevron enhanced by light brush flicking would have been better, I reckon. Anyways, they look decent enough as is, a touch alien, otherworldly (not a terrain you would easily find on Earth)...

~J~

Post Scriptum.

Why silver ink. I had thoughts of alien physiology while painting these. I'm aware of things like comparative biology and such, but I didn't want to do the obvious 'bone' thing. Why couldn't an alien monster have evolved metal laced bone weaponry? 

(yes, like Wolverine)