Nephilim

 Finarton from the Zombicide Green Horde Kickstarter. Lately I have become a little obsessed with the legends and mythology around Nephilim, the ginger giants of old. I decided that I am going to include on in my dnd campaign, but in order to do that I had to first paint one. 

Plaguebearers 2nd Batch

Second lot complete! I really like the sculpts on these new plaguebearers, gross as always but they have more charm.

Plaguebearer Commission

I have been commissioned to paint 65 Nurgle daemons and pox walkers. the first five have gone down very well. I am looking forward to painting the rest.

Sea Monster

The miniature is from the game The Others: The Seven Sins. I have no interest in the actual game and bought it merely for the amazing sculpts within. This guy has risen to the top of my favourites within the core set.

Orcs: Massive Darkness and Bones

The Orc on the right was one of the first miniatures that I painted a couple of years ago, he is a bones reaper ogre, but my DnD campaign needed a massive orc boss. The Massive Darkness Ogre I painted some time back. But both I re-based today.

Squid men of the Deep

More The Others: Seven Sins miniatures. Great for a pirate themed skirmish game or a DnD game in the underdark, these dudes make for the perfect sea bound villains.

Three Barbarians, Two New and One Old

 Oak Eater is an old Age of Sigmar Model that I recently painted up to look like a druidic barbarian.

The Skinner is the first barbarian model I painted. I wanted him to look really nasty so I added some gore to his base.

A Massive Darkness ogre. Painted up to be part of the anti-magic investigation squad. I don't imagine he does the investigating, just the punishing.

Nolzur’s Marvelous Miniatures: Mind Flayers

Nolzur’s Marvelous Miniatures / Pathfinder Deep Cuts

Pathfinder Deep Cuts and Nolzur’s Marvelous Miniatures are a relatively new range of unpainted, pre-primed miniatures available to buy for the small price of £3.99.

Perfect for anyone starting out in the hobby and ideal to anyone that fancies trying their hand at painting.

My girlfriend picked up two packets for me and I started painting them right away.  The paint goes on smoothly and they are lovingly detailed.  They are a vast improvement in material when compared to the Pathfinder Bones range, which have a tendency to be warped and need a thorough wash before priming.

When painting the hell hounds I used a purple wash as I needed something spectral on the table top for the next upcoming campaign session.  

By far my favourite was painting these little blighters.  No goblin in my eyes has ever stood up to the cuteness of the Pathfinder goblins and now I have three that live up to the illustrations.

Creating Chaos Spawn

Illustration from the Chaos Space Marine codex

"A Chaos Spawn is a mindless mutant creature who once belonged to one of the intelligent races of the galaxy and who has become so mutated through his or her servitude to Chaos that he or she has devolved into a twisted and insane abomination. Those seeking immortality and power through the ultimate attainment of daemonhood in service to the Ruinous Powers face the constant possibility of being reduced to Chaos Spawn, either by accumulating too many mutations or being cast aside by their Chaos patrons as unworthy of further advancement because of their consistent failure to serve the will of the Chaos Gods. More simply, they may lack the inherent qualities required for successful leadership of other Chaotic servants and thus be of no further use to their patrons. Chaos warband members who are transformed into Chaos Spawn will either be abandoned by their former comrades or kept as pets or as cannon fodder, to be herded into battle along with the rest of the Lost and the Damned." - Warhammer Wiki

Stepping into the world of Chaos with my Space Marine army I was expecting Chaos Spawn to look like a mix of the Thing and Tetsuo in Akira. Instead we are faced with this:

Rather than investing in these PG certificate daemons, I decided to make my own out of spare bits and greenstuff. this is the result.

In making this chaos spawn I wanted to get across the hopelessness of the champion that has been corrupted.  Cursed for being unworthy of the power that they could not comprehend.  I intend to make another five in time, but for now this little chap should do.

Obliterators

In my pursuit of making a Chaos army on the cheap I have decided to make obliterators and maulers from bits of old marines that I had lying around. These are my first big conversions that I have attempted.

So far I have finished three obliterators and started on one mauler.  I remembered to take some progress shots this time. They have not only performed incredibly well on the table but also received a lot of compliments during games.

Developing the Tau

A week ago my girlfriend Marisa decided that she did not want her tyranid army anymore.  Despite their sparkly exterior, she felt she would play Warhammer 40k more if she had an army she enjoyed playing.  After some consideration she dispensed with her army on ebay and we swiftly purchased a new one with the money (Also double the size!)

In order to fully support her decision I wanted to come up with a paint scheme that was quick to complete but effective.  Once she had decided on a scheme I got to work on a stealth suit and a kroot.

The stealth suit came out far better than I had expected. Edging miniatures is not my strength as I have really shaky hands, but considering my handicap I was pretty happy with the final result.  It took me around 20 mins to do from start to finish.

This kroot took me around ten minutes.  I wanted to come up with a scheme that was really quick and easy as she has 34 of them. A base of purple, with two lighter purples as a highlight. A dark green for the clothing and weapons, a wash of black and then an edging of light mint green to finish.

Neither are properly based as we will do them all at once.  I am hoping I get the chance to paint one or two more because it was great fun.

A Knight Approaches

A friend acquired two imperial knights for a mere £80.  He didn't need both so I bought one.  Even though the pink had some appeal, I wanted to match it to my army.  Before painting this the Deredeo was the largest miniature I had painted.  

Sticking to my policy of trying to paint miniatures the day I get them, I painted this the same day I received it and finished the highlights the next morning. Despite my apprehension I am very happy with him.

Gottfried the Imperial Knight

Arcadia Quest Inferno

It finally arrived and as soon as the box was open I started painting.

The first was this burly gentleman and today I completed an entire team and a pet for our Arcadia Quest Pets Campaign Session. They came out on top too :D

A Mentor in a Friend

One of my paintings from 2014

While I am a self-taught artist and have had moderate success in earning out of my hobby/addiction, painting miniatures was completely new to me. The skills were transferable to a degree but there was a learning curve. Painting something 3D is very different to painting a 2D picture. 

My dear friend Ben, a passionate miniature painter, taught me everything he knew and even lent me the DVDs that he had used to skill up over the years.

Now, in life I have not received this kind of passing down of knowledge often. People tend to be guarded or keep their skills close to their chest.  Much to my frustration when I had questions early on in the hobby, no one would give me straight answers.  I didn't know that I had to wash some plastics and resins or how to properly maintain tiny brushes.  Ben gave me all the knowledge I needed and taught me all the basics and beyond.

In April 2016 I started this journey in order to improve and through this knowledge I have ended up getting some commission work and it has made my tabletop experiences look a lot better.

The painting DVDs Ben lent me were the Dark Sword painting series.  I would highly recommend them to any novice or seasoned painter wanting to up their skill set.

After watching the first DVD I attempted to put my skills into practice and painted a Reaper Bones series miniature. My DnD character was a goliath rogue, so I wanted to make her look good for the session.  I used a 2p coin for the base and mixed my colours to create highlights.

With a hint of Blood for the Blood God texture paint I was thrilled with how she came out.  After this I embarked on painting my Zombicide base set, which took a few months to finish.

Since then I haven't looked back and have painted well over four hundred miniatures in under a year, mainly sticking to fantasy or 40k miniatures but I have branched out a little bit since.

In regards to Ben and his mentoring.  I am thankful to have such a generous and enthusiastic teacher to start me off in the hobby.  If it wasn't for him my transfer into miniature painting would have taken a lot longer.

A New Hobby

Last year I started out on a new hobby.  A combination of starting to play DnD with miniatures and being re-introduced to Warhammer 40,000 led to me picking up a paintbrush and applying my skills to miniature painting.

What started out as just putting a fresh coat of paint onto minis turned into a full scale hobby and addiction, and even some commissions as my technique improved.

I actually painted my first two figures back on the 30th of December 2015.

The two at the front are my work and the one skulking at the back is Marisa's

In early January I focused on painting a handful of cheap miniatures I picked up for free at our local Games shop, Marquee Models.  On the 9th January 2016 I moved onto my Space Marines.

They were all re-based a month ago but the paint jobs remain unchanged.

After this I took it upon myself to paint a base sets worth of Zombicide Black Plague.  This was in an effort to improve my skills so that I was ready for Blood Rage.  From the 23rd of June to the 31st of August 2015, I managed to paint the entire set of zombies and a bunch of heroes (None of the starting 6).

I started with a freshly dead look. Pasty fleshy and angry.  After some time this got pretty old so I moved on to...

The carnival crew!  Day of the Deadish zombies/NPCs for DnD. I enjoyed the colour scheme but felt painting anymore would make them less special.

Deciding to go for a more zombie theme I went for the rotting green. Slightly less realistic but effective. 

On Instagram I saw some great two colour zombies. I decided to try two individuals to see how they turned out.  I was pretty happy and when I get back to painting the extra kickstarter zombies, I shall paint a few more like this.

Once I only had a few zombies left I realised that none of the zombies were particularly horrible. I decided to make a handful look like they had been feasted upon.

These two fellas were customised with spare parts from a Bolt Action unit. the miner's pick and the backpack make them stand out from the norm a little.

Finally I needed some ghosts for DnD so I came up with this ghost colour scheme using a green wash on white.  Possibly the quickest painting process but it looks pretty effective. 

Once the characters and zombies were complete I took an indefinite break from Zombicide and moved onto the huge host of other projects that I had piling up.  They taught me a lot of different techniques and I feel that my skills progressed leaps and bounds.