Hello everyone!
Well, it's been a good while since I last updated this blog. Please bear with me with what will almost certainly be a chunky update! There will be lots of pretty pictures though, so bear with me!
January 2022 saw me start a Lizardmen army for a "New Year, New Army" project with some friends, but I lost steam and have ultimately shelved it for now. My insistence on trying to paint every model as close to box art as possible really burned me out due to the number of scales on the Saurus in particular. Don't get me wrong, I think they look great, but it's put me off painting any more Lizardmen for now. I have a half-finished Stegadon I hope to get back to at some point and I'll consider what to do with the project from there. What I was pleased with is the basing, especially on the Skinks. I tried to go for a jungle swamp look and used some water effect products for the first time and I think it came out pretty well. Here's some pics.
Being unable to continue that project affected the rest of the year for me. I did a couple of commissions, including an Avatar of Khaine and an Abaddon the Despoiler, which actually resulted in me being approached by Siege Studios for some freelance work. More on that in a bit...
I rounded out the year doing a restoration project on two Swordmasters for a commission:
I love the contrast of the before and after and I enjoyed giving these models a shiny new paint job. (I've since been sent the rest of the unit and some lovely metal archers which I'm working on right now, the client is very patient and wants me to take my time with them).
I also started on a Night Goblin Mordheim warband for myself whilst I was waiting for the first project from Siege to arrive at the start of 2023.
So, 2023 comes around and the package from Siege arrives. I had no control over was sent to me and I had a strict scope to follow. I was sent two units of Blood Angels for the Horus Heresy; I only finished one as I injured my knee at the gym, meaning I couldn't sit for extended periods. They were pretty miserable to paint, and not fun at all, so off to a pretty rough start.
I then get sent 10 metal Eldar Rangers in bloody awful condition with an extremely odd and difficult paint scheme to recreate.
I barely finished these by the deadline and by the time I sent them back my mental health was in tatters, as I'd been spending every evening painting whilst also working a fairly stressful 9-5 job, so I resigned from the freelance contract in early Summer. I found myself unable to pick up a paintbrush for several months and it wasn't until I had a much-needed holiday to the picturesque fjords of Norway...
...that I felt sufficiently recharged and motivated. A friend reached out and asked if I could do a commission for his business and like a fool I agreed. I spent most of the rest of 2023 painting The Lion.
Since then, I have been plugging away at the Swordmasters and Archers that I mentioned earlier and painting some models for myself, including what I think might be my best model to date, this wonderful Night Goblin character for my Mordheim project. I have also been trying to take much better photos.
I have also painted this wonderful High Elf character which is a 3D printed file from Juan Hidalgo Miniatures, a scan of his original green stuff sculpt. You can find his youtube channel
HERE and his Etsy shop
HERE. It's quite obviously inspired by the artwork for Belannaer in the earlier army books and was a lot of fun to paint.
I then promptly drop him, he flies off the base... and I notice this 25mm square on the floor next to him so I think "hmmm, let's see what that looks like".
...damn. That actually looks very nice. Okay, maybe it's just him, let me try another since I've been meaning to tidy up his base anyway.
...okay but what about a unit?
Okay, I'm convinced by the Phoenix Guard ranking up smoother than butter that it's time to rebase my High Elves! I've got a ton of bases on their way and they'll be my first army for The Old World, but I am going to take those Night Goblins I had so much fun painting up for a Mordheim warband and paint up a whole army of them. So watch out for a new blog for those!
Thank you if you've read this far. A lot has happened to me in terms of my relationship with the hobby since I last posted. I tried out commission painting as a full side hustle and learned it was definitely not for me as it almost drove me to give up completely. Once these Swordmasters and Archers are done (look out for photos of those soon!) I'm not going to paint any more models for other people and will focus on painting what I love. I'm really looking forward to getting back into this hobby as the new ruleset looks like a lot of fun and is drawing in lots of new people. Exciting times indeed.
Oh, and I may have ordered the Bretonnian box.... Woops!
If the weather keeps up I have some Sisters of Avelorn primed, but I want to get another 10 so I'm reluctant to paint half a unit and then come back later and repeat. I'd rather do them together. Curse you Autumn!
It happens... Somehow miniatures always keep accumulating. Maybe miniatures have some kind of vacuum energy, in that if you are at the risk of running out of miniatures to assemble, more of them appear to fill the void. Looking forward to how the completed Bretonnians looks with your painting skills!
