Blog Happy Accidents

[Asterus]

Hello There!

I am Asterus and this is going to be my painting blog, a place where I can record my progress and hopefully get a some outside input on improving myself as a painter and hobbyist.

WHO AM I?

I started with miniatures painting and wargaming many years ago with 40k. Being the most popular system in my area I played that for quite some time, and accumulated a large army of Space marines and Imperial Guard. I may post some pics of them at a later date, but most of them are packed away, and I'm not particularly proud of many of them due to my novice painting skills and the fact that I wasn't really stretching myself creatively, just painting to have something on the table.

After a few years I picked up a few LoTR models, which I overall just don't like and got into Warhammer Fantasy which I really did. My first fantasy army was an empire Knightly order, so I'm pretty set on OOP models. Again they are mostly packed away and I'm not too proud of them, because... well, fuck painting white. They are definitely getting redone once I decide on a better scheme.

Finally, I started collecting Lizardmen right around the time the 8th ed rule book came out. Like (I assume) most people on here I have had a life long love of dinosaurs, I wasn't altogether interested in creating an army as much as I had simply fallen in love with the stegadon and really wanted one. But wanting to be able to play with it too, I picked up a quick 500pt army: one stegadon and a box of skinks.

note: buy better lights

Its one of my favorite pieces, both because I love how it came out but also because it was one of the first models I really got creative with (the howdah is actually recent work, which I'll go into more detail of later). Unfortunately, right as I hit my stride I fell out of the hobby, I went to college and simply didn't have the time or the money to continue anymore.

Fast forward to about a year ago, and suddenly I did have time and money! I remembered all the unpainted skinks and poorly done guardsmen I had lying around and decided to get to work finishing and redoing them. Its been a bit slow going, and I've basically had to rebuild my kit from scratch, but that's fine by me I'm enjoying it much more than I ever did before.

To be continued!

 

[Warden]

Your stegadon looks great in blue!



I look forward to seeing a collection of velociraptors with hats made of bananas.

 

[Aginor]

Not bad!
Looking forward to more!

 

[Crowsfoot]

Welcome and nice start to your blog.

 

[Asterus]

you see I told myself I'd actually update this regularly. oh well.

I've been pretty busy with just random life occurrences, but I have been painting so I have a few things more things to show off!

One of my favorite things about the Lizardmen is how much fun to paint they are, and how well they lend themselves to vibrant, creative color schemes. So when I wanted to paint my small unit of saurus with spears, I knew that the traditional blue wasn't going to cut it. I spent a lot of time scrolling through goolge images before I found and excellent picture of a jackson's chameleon with bright green scales and orange stripes that I knew would be great. with a little experimenting I managed to create a unit i'm quite happy with!

Overall, while they might not be the nicest up close, I think as a unit they look fantastic, and will look even better once I decide on the proper way to base them.

Speaking of basing, it wasn't something I really did in the past so I've been excited to try it out! where better to start than on my skink priest?

If i'm being honest, I feel like he could be better. I had decided that an orange and yellow skink priest of chotec would be really fun to paint, it it took me some time to get those colors to work in a way I liked (I eventually saw a picture of a charmander and went "that's what i've been trying to do!"). my details aren't very good, but I still think he looks fine from a distance. My biggest gripe is that I can't take lore of fire on him!

As for the basing, I went with a simple sand base with some flock, which I think looks very nice. I tried to hide the slot as well as I could but I'm definitely going to need a different method for filling that slot moving forward. any thoughts?

the final model I want to show off today is what i've been working on most recently: my borealopelta styled bastiladon! I knew form the moment I saw this mini I had to get one, it's such an excellent sculpt and I really wanted to do it justice.

(not quite finshed yet)
I decided on this scheme both by looking at some paleoart of the newly named borealopelta (google it if you don't know what I'm talking about, it's definitely worth seeing) and, well, by wearing a red shirt with some tan pants. I really like the way these colors look together, and while I was looking for the proper combination of colors to use I found a warhammer world video on an easy hive fleet kraken scheme using seraphim sepia and other washes to quickly get a nice light tan color. having not really used washes much I was very excited to try them out and I have not been disappointed at all. I'm super happy with how it turned out and it might be one of my nicest models to date.

Finally, thank you all very much for your words of encouragement! I think it's awesome that the community here is so welcoming and chill. I'm going to try to update and be more active here in the future, as there's still lots I'd like to do!

Thanks for reading and let me know what you think!

 

[Aginor]

you see I told myself I'd actually update this regularly. oh well.

I've been pretty busy with just random life occurrences, but I have been painting so I have a few things more things to show off!

One of my favorite things about the Lizardmen is how much fun to paint they are, and how well they lend themselves to vibrant, creative color schemes. So when I wanted to paint my small unit of saurus with spears, I knew that the traditional blue wasn't going to cut it. I spent a lot of time scrolling through goolge images before I found and excellent picture of a jackson's chameleon with bright green scales and orange stripes that I knew would be great. with a little experimenting I managed to create a unit i'm quite happy with!

Overall, while they might not be the nicest up close, I think as a unit they look fantastic, and will look even better once I decide on the proper way to base them.

Speaking of basing, it wasn't something I really did in the past so I've been excited to try it out! where better to start than on my skink priest?

If i'm being honest, I feel like he could be better. I had decided that an orange and yellow skink priest of chotec would be really fun to paint, it it took me some time to get those colors to work in a way I liked (I eventually saw a picture of a charmander and went "that's what i've been trying to do!"). my details aren't very good, but I still think he looks fine from a distance. My biggest gripe is that I can't take lore of fire on him!

As for the basing, I went with a simple sand base with some flock, which I think looks very nice. I tried to hide the slot as well as I could but I'm definitely going to need a different method for filling that slot moving forward. any thoughts?

the final model I want to show off today is what i've been working on most recently: my borealopelta styled bastiladon! I knew form the moment I saw this mini I had to get one, it's such an excellent sculpt and I really wanted to do it justice.

(not quite finshed yet)
I decided on this scheme both by looking at some paleoart of the newly named borealopelta (google it if you don't know what I'm talking about, it's definitely worth seeing) and, well, by wearing a red shirt with some tan pants. I really like the way these colors look together, and while I was looking for the proper combination of colors to use I found a warhammer world video on an easy hive fleet kraken scheme using seraphim sepia and other washes to quickly get a nice light tan color. having not really used washes much I was very excited to try them out and I have not been disappointed at all. I'm super happy with how it turned out and it might be one of my nicest models to date.

Finally, thank you all very much for your words of encouragement! I think it's awesome that the community here is so welcoming and chill. I'm going to try to update and be more active here in the future, as there's still lots I'd like to do!

Thanks for reading and let me know what you think!

Good stuff!

 

[Warden]

Hey those saurus look great! Nice to see more saurus in green, and you have picked some really unique orange and purple color patterns to add to them! Very nice work, it is always great to see more green saurus out there.

 

[Asterus]

Thank you very much! I tried to make sure each saurus got a unique pattern on his crest, although I don't know if I'll be able to keep that up if I expand the unit. green saurus ftw.

I put the final touches on my bastiladon this weekend and got it based. I went with tuffs to try for a ore arid looking base, but it feels a bit empty.

I had a blast painting this big dino, I think I need a few more. Buuut I still have about 20 skinks on the back burner, might be best to get a few of them started. Maybe paint that random ushabti that somehow wound up in my collection first...

 

[Aginor]

Bastis are cool, regardless of color.
As for the base: Maybe put some bones or rusty weapons on it, or maybe a tuft or two more, and it will look fine IMO.

 

[pendrake]

...went with tufts to try for a more arid looking base, but it feels a bit empty.

That stone under his foot is lonely, maybe a few more in the same color but smaller sizes would help. Perhaps a couple of shorter, smaller tufts?