018 America came... and went

While I have been away with work the blog has experienced a surge in views of unparalleled levels.

Seemingly the whole of america decided to have a look at my little blog during the week... sadly it seems that none of them lingered very long!!

I guess I have mentioned something here that has been a google search highlight and I have just been lucky to join in with the wave but whatever :-)

If you do find yourself here by whatever means please do leave a comment, it will immensely polish my ego and also prove to me that the blogosphere is alive and well!

017 Old School Empire

These guys seem to have been replaced by "state troops" since I last looked at the Empire. No too convinced about the newer models but it might be something to get into with swapping out the old for the new.

You can see some of my first attempts with basic washes, read dirty water almost, to get the seams and creases of the white on the uniforms.

The banner itself is a blank as my free hand skills were (and still are I guess) none existent but this is just another challenge area for me to look into.

016 Bringing Order to Chaos - Thoughts on Chaos Styling

You will have probably noticed that my leanings are towards the Imperial when it comes to GW models, with Guard, Sisters, Inquisitors and the like (and with elements of Empire in the fantasy area) but thats not all there is.

I have a great love of all things chaotic but am turned away by much of the inelegance of the Chaos styling that we currently have. I am turned off by the random blobby horror, for me the mutations, the horrors, the daemons need to still have sex appeal!

I think a good way to explain it is to use a moving franchise as an example "alien" now in alien THE alien is a sexy beast with lots of weird additions to it, "mutations" one might say. It has the weird probe mouth, acid blood, mucus dripping everywhere but it is still beautiful in its way. Now compared that to the weird hybrid alien in Alien Resurrection (the one with winnow ryder thrown in) its ugly, crude and pathetic. Now its still "horrible" but its not cool.

I need my Daemons, mutants and possessed to have a "Wow" factor, clearly I have Slannesh whispering in my ear because I think its that they have to be pleasing to the eye. Now that not to say they are not horrifying or nauseating (I am a big fan of Nurglesk styling) but they need to not be just a random blob of mutant this on the side of a model.

So where am I going with this? Well there are an increasingly good number of Chaos models, and there has been for some time and I am having thoughts of getting a little more Chaotic with some of my painting. To that end I have a box of Daemonettes, who are sexy and horrifying, ready to go but the problem is I am struggling as to what to go with them

I am a Dan Abnett fan and you can't be that without at least a basic liking of some of the Chaos working he styles in his books. The Blood Pact for me are again the type of Chaos I am after. For me these are elite troopers who just happen to have a penchant for barbarity, they are crude in a brutal way rather than crude in an unsophisticated way and this is what I am after. For me they are as they appear in "Blood Pact" elite, motivated, driven soldiers who use everything at their disposal to win, be it lasguns and grenades or witchcraft and daemonic possession.

With my already extensive bits box of Guard items I am thinking with a few small additions it should be easy to get some Blood Pact going and fill in around them with the Chaos elements of my liking.

My goodness have I been turned to Chaos during my sojourn? Ha! Time will tell I guess.

015 Watch out lads the commissariat is coming!

Yarrick and his two colleagues show again my penchant for black and red :-)

These are typical of my colour blocking style where I would fill in the colours in blocks across the detail on each miniature with very little layering or shading and so it a good example of the style I want to start moving away from.

You can also see how I have used yellow, orange in a feeble attempt to represent the gold frogging and shoulder boards, again something I hope to improve on,

014 Sisters

The Sisters Of Battle are another niche set of models which never made it to plastic or the more recent Finecast.

I am a real fan of the models and the fluff associated with them especially the inquisitorial hereticus links.

These are all from my "black and red" phase but I still like them a lot even with their very basic colour scheme.

013 Le Garde Returns!

Here we go I have succumbed to the need to record my past once again.

Here is a selection of Imperial Guard units I created way back when.

These guys where some simple conversions using a combination of cadian, catachan, empire militia and flaggelants, with a healthy smattering of parts from back when GW still supported their Bitz catalogue.

012 Debating

I am currently debating how much of my old models to bring out and march in front of the blog. Some of them are fit only for paint stripping tests but others are a little more worthy of inclusion.

I am torn. I want this to be a record of what I do not necessarily what I have already done but I guess it will give you all a gauge for where I am starting from and hopefully (!!) show how my painting is improving over time.

Right now I am still in the collecting of bits phase together with clearing out junk to allow me to have a permanent set up for my painting in the back bedroom rather than my adhoc and very temporal arrangements at the moment.

With that in mind I think its inevitable that I show you some of what I have done to fill the time while I get everything sorted.

I also need some time to digest the hours of modelling times from The Painting Pyramid so that may take some time in its self!

011 A Blast from the Past

You may have noticed my posting pattern is framed around the weekends. The reason for this is a awful internet connection mid week meaning I can't post until I return home. I do however get plenty of time in the week to put pen to paper (or should that be finger to key?) on what has been happening or what I am planning.

What this means is my weeks out pourings all end up squished into the two days of the weekend but no matter I am sure you can all cope :-)

So the first of this weekends entries? A blast from the past.

These are where I left off last time round, this is a favourite model of mine, an inquisitor whos name I can only vaguely recall and most certainly cant spell!

This guy was metal at the time I painted him but I think he is now available in finecast so I may use that as an exercise in comparison to see how my skills fair today. Could all these years of lack of painting but gaining in maturity have aided my painting? I doubt it but we shall see!

You can probably see that my style was one of coverage and blocking in of colour rather than fine tonal blending but I am hopefully that I can develop further into something good.

010 The Pyramid Arrives!

That great man at Wappelious has delivered the goods once again and in the post has arrived a memory stick chock full of modelling and painting tutorials by the man himself James Wappel.

I have only had a chance to do the most simple of view through whats on there but am pleased with it all so far! He was even good enough to throw in a paint brush :-)

Now you may have guessed but the first area I'll be looking at and therefore the first area I will be mentioning here is that of the basing guides so stay tuned for sculpey and cork goodness.

009 Photography

I am using my iphone currently to do the basic recording of progress (you may have notice the quality) its quick and easy which is what I am after right now. I do have a nice Nikon SLR that I will be dragging out once I have something worthy of the effort but for the time being the simplicity of the iphone is winning out.

I am going to be looking at getting a selection of background sets to frame my miniatures rather than table top or desk rubbish backgrounds to try and give the best light and help define the colours s later on I'll hopefully be posting some reviews of what I find and how it all works out.

008 Wellington Boots

I had a delivery arrive yesterday which made me smile more than all my new tools and brushes and bits combined. A small brown box bursting with miniature goodness!

Those fine people at Perry Miniatures had dispatched in record time a box of Napoleonic British Line Infantry and I am hoping that these will be the models I use to start back into painting.

My thinking is two fold, firstly I am a big fan of the era so it will hopefully keen me motivated and secondly the models are fairly detailed with good options for different colours and styles while being largely similar through out the unit giving me a large number (while staying cheap) of models to practise and relearn my skills,

007 Resurrection!

Its amazing what you find when you are rummaging behind the sofa....

Three generations of citadel paints and two generations of their brushes! Now some of you wont ever have seen these pots or brushes but I guess a few of you will remember the shape of the pots in the early days. There is actually a early round type which i think is still in use today by Coat d'arms paint.

You can also see my ancient palette in the form of a miniature blister pack, something from the old epic range I think!

Now here we see the more recent, although these are still many years old. These where quite possibly the last purchases I made from GW before canning my painting and modelling all those years back.
Once I blew the dust off they were still like new :-)

You can see here the last thoughts I had before the break and strangely enough its similar to where I am today, bases, bases, bases. I don't know if GW still makes this stuff but this is their version of static grass and PVA together with their early wash set which i have never even opened! I dread to think if any of them are still liquid but we will find out soon.

006 Tools of the Trade Update

Much of my new painting supplies (with the exception of the paints themselves) have started to arrive so i thought I would take the time to show you what I have now got in place. So both those things that have survived the time gap and those new things that I have found so far.


First off some of the new items.

New equipment that has arrived so far is primarily to allow me to start looking into aspects of the hobby I had previously missed or avoided so here you can see sculpting tools for base modelling and neodymium magnets for allowing mounting options and weapon swaps.

I also invested in a tester of brush cleaning gear in the for of Masters's Brush Cleaner


I am still debating options on what paints to use going forward and its looking likely I will use a combination of different ranges but with a bent towards vallejo but only time will tell.

005 What can we expect?

While my initial intention is to make use of this blog as a record of my experience and a motivator for me to continue with it, I hope that at some point others may find my notes and ideas useful.


with that in mind kind reader I will outline for you what the future of this blog has in store (or at least my plan as of today!).


Initially I will be detailing my experiences as I return to the hobby so that will include the people and things I have found that inspire me, my experience with new paints and tools/brushes and where I have found them and my feel for them as I use them and develop with them.


Obviously this will include elements of my hobby work, being that the conversions/models i make or the paint schemes and techniques I use.


From that point it will be an ongoing catalogue of my modelling and painting interspersed with experiences of new ideas, such as airbrushing or new techniques such as weathering.


I doubt you will see much in the way of gaming with those models that I paint as that was ever a minor part of my love of the hobby and is unlikely to be a big part of my return

004 The Painting Pyramid

I gave you some highlights on my equipment last post and completely forgot to mention one of my most important
purchases! James Wappell's Painting Pyramid. James' video guides cover a vast range of modelling and painting ideas and just the basic preview videos on his YouTube channel have helped me immensely.

Stay tuned for more once the pigeon post across the Atlantic gets them to me.

003 Tools of the Trade

A dozen or more years of time and numerous house moves coupled with my generally negligent storage
techniques has meant that the vast majority of my modelling supplies, brushes, paints, tools and the
like have not survived to join me on my quest to find modelling joy in my later years.

As such i am on the hunt for new equipment and have been scouring the internet for ideas and inspiration.

Now before i get into what i have found and what i have still yet to track down i would note one thing,
oh my god but we pay a premium for things in the UK (well Europe as a whole really)!!

A lot of bloggers and forums are based in the states and when looking at some of their recommendations for
sale over there and then looking at those available back in good ole blighty..... those Americans have got
it good. Us poor buggers on the other side of the pond are often paying double the money!

Now I am not sure how much of this has to do with tax and shipping costs but for me given what a lot of
these things are it smacks of blatant over pricing for the European market. But i digress.

Now one of my areas for improvement has been the style and quality of my basing and with this in mind
(and some great inspiration from Wappellious) i have started getting ready for cork and sculpey base
construction.

I have got hold of some relatively cheap wood carving tools and a set of clay sculpting tools to help with
pre and post baked sculpey but as to the sculpey itself i am still trying to track down a cheaper supply.
I am looking for the original sculpey rather than the more advanced types and it seems to be harder to find.

Pinning of models is also something i wanted to try and hope it will fix some of the issues i used to have so
some good wire lengths and a pin vice have arrived. Now the pin vice was from Army Painter, I dont normally
go in for brand names but this one actually was showing cheaper so i thought why not? So far thats proved a
mistake! The collets (think chucks) within the drill don't suit the drill bits it comes with.... I have got in
touch with the supplier and they are sending me a replacement but its not a great start.

More is on the way with some useful little things i haven't tried winging their way to my door as i write;
a Sprue cutter, neodymium magnets, super glue accelerant, disposable paper palette and Master's Brush cleaner
to name but a few.

A slow start I know but stay with it!

002 The Years in the Dark

In my first post I put most of the blame for my return on random chance encounter with some dusty models in my loft but truth be told there have been a few other influences that have seen my come back to the fold.

I mentioned the influence of Steve and Ian and their Fighting Fantasy but they were only the spark to my reading interest and in the intervening years my love of fantasy and sci-fi has been very successfully fed by David Gemmel (whose death was a tragic loss to writing), David Eddings, Terry Pratchett, Steven Erikson and in more recent years Dan Abnett.

I kept contact with the world of Games Workshop for much of my early break via the Black Library and a strange reluctance to cancel my White Dwarf subscription! Although that has sadly died with the change to the magazine model, but more on that another time.

Also a rather decent fellow by the name of James Wappell  (wappellious) whose enthusiasm for painting and modelling has helped show me what is possible within the wonders of today and where the hobby has travelled. His Painting Pyramid has also helped me reinvent my painting style (such as it was!).

Ah the early post ramblings! I assure you there will be interesting content soon!

001 The Beginning

Well really its far from the beginning, more of a new beginning.

The intent behind this blog is the return of my interest to the world of model making, converting and painting after a quite considerable hiatus.

Way back in the mists of time when Games workshop was still a fledgling outfit my interest in the hobby was born. And it was the founders of GW that sparked it with a series of books; the Fighting Fantasy.

Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone turned a shy child with limited reading interest or capacity into a voracious consumer of the written word and more more importantly an avid fan of fantasy and adventure.

My like of the modelling side of things developed with games like Hero Quest and Space Crusade where you actually got to move pieces round the board rather than just in your mind or through the pages of the book.

These led to Space Hulk, Blood Bowl and things just grew and grew.

However the cursed thing called life got in the way of what had been a happy symbiosis of child and hobby, studies, university and then work all ate away at my time and interest in painting and modelling and any gaming time I had once had faded to nothing.

Time passed as it does and all of a sudden I find myself a dozen or more years on clearing out old storage spaces and finding these strange and wonderful models, and so it began, again...