Blog Road to Golden Demon 2019

Oh boy, exciting times. I've got tickets to Warhammer Fest, my hotel's booked, so that could only mean one thing - I'm returning to Golden Demon. Yikes! I've got about a 23 day deadline, and a budget of £0. I've given up video games and sleeping and fatigue is now starting to set in. So I'm starting this blog to hopefully keep my morale up as I work every possible hour I can to get done on time.
I'm aiming at doing three entries this time. The last time I entered was 2011 and 2012 and I submitted two entries each time.

Let's start with some lizardy goodness. The catergory is Age of Sigmar unit, and this entry is a scaled-down version of a passion project I've had on the backburner for a couple of years. It's a skirmish warband on a display base ideally open enough to use in a variety of games, Frostgrave and mordheim for example. There'll be an Oldblood, a Priest, and four Skinks. The colours are based on their portrayal in Total War Warhammer 2.


This guy was already done, and I've shown him before. I'm really satisfyed with how it turned out, on a technical level it's the best thing I've ever painted, so he's definately going in.


The first Skink came together really fast, it only took me two days to do. In the game the blowpipes are much larger and held with both hands and I really liked the way that looked so I did it.


Alough I have the colour formula and method nailed down now, I just can't resist experimenting. So we have black extremities on this one. I think it needs a second pass, to look a little more mottled and less obviously painted.


The others are yet to be done. The brown parts on the one on the right are what the white scales look like before they look white. He'll end up just like the first one with the blowpipe. As for the other one, I'm still undecided so I'm leaving it to last. I was thinking a paler light blue, but that might make him look too seperated from the rest. Needs some more thought.

Would love to show more, but I'm going to get back to it.

 

I'm in awe and bow before the lord of awesomely painted models.

Good luck and may your fatigue pass.

 

Absolutely astonishing! That’s an incredible level of skill, you definitely deserve to win for that! Phenomenal!

 

Good luck in the Golden Daemon competition. You've got some stunning models!

 

They're looking phenomenal, hang in there and maybe get a little more sleep

 

Plenty of time for sleep later, for now I have coffee!

3rd Skink is done, got some time off work so I'm focussing on the Priest now. There's a dilemma to solve with that but I'll address it later.
Here's the display base so far, mostly done but I might add in some more vegetation like a bigger plant or more vines. Mostly milliput and cereal box card.
See all the green stuff plants and leaves? You know when you're working with green stuff and you always have a little left over? I sculpt little plants and dead leaves onto an expired bank card, then pop them off and use them on bases.

 

Looking forward to see this done!

 

Getting there.


I've been making my own leaf-litter basing material. I like the way it looks, so here's a bonus tutorial!


I took a page of blank paper from a pocket notebook (I'm sure any paper would do), crumpled and unfolded it a few times then soaked it in water. I then mixed up some browns, greens and yellows using inks (maybe normal hobby paint would work just as fine here) and painted the sheet in a random manner and left it to dry. I crumpled and unfolded it again for good measure and set about cutting out leaf shapes in various sizes. Soaking the paper through ensures that no white edge remains when you make the cut. This is way more time consuming than it sounds, but you can't argue with the result.
To help speed things along I picked up a hole punch from a hobby shop clearence bin. It's for making christmas cards or something, holly shaped. Cost me 30p. I know you can probably get little leaf shaped ones, but I can't seem to find any small enough. I'm thinking about using actual ground up dead leaves as well, that's an easy thing to experiment with.

 

Boulder Creek Railroads, a fairly famous You-tuber who produces some stunning scale scenery, regularly uses dried up leaves ground in a blade coffee grinder (that can be had for less than $10 usd) to great effect. If you're not familiar with his work I STRONGLY suggest taking a look at a few of his projects. He has lots of tips and it totally transparent about where he gets stuff.

Scale will be very important, I should think, and variation to make leaf litter not look like you emptied out your three-hole-punch onto the scene.

Good luck,

 

Awesome showcase piece, Good luck! Val mina thats kinda odd, Im starting to get that channel in my recommended on youtube even though I have never watched one of his videos , they do some awesome stuff.

 

I never would have thought to do leaves like that. Very cool

 

I've been watching Luke Towan's videos for a couple years now, it's where I got the idea. I re-watch them all the time, it's a nice chill thing to watch with my morning coffee.
Going to get some more pics later. Just Skink #4 left to do after the display base, and it's already basecoated. Going to try and finish it in the three days I have off work.

 

While I'm waiting for glue to dry, here's one of my other entries.



This one is for the 'Eavy Metal masters catergory. The idea is every contestant has to do the same model and it can't be altered in any way. There seems to be a grey area concerning the blank parts of the base, the rules state that you can add grass or even the odd skull but no sculpting. This may be a problem for me because the water texture on my base is green stuff, however, looking at last years winners I see some flagstones and cobbles that look sculpted on. My plan is to chat with the judges before I submit it to see if it's disqualified, the event takes place over a weekend and I can do a hasty rebase at the hotel if I need to.
I'm not a fan of the Idoneth Deepkin army, but I respect it. I do quite like this model though, mainly because of the face. There seems to be only two facial expressions in GW models (warcry and grim serious face), and this one deviates from it. I tried to exaggerate it further by painting a teardrop.
This isn't the first time I've painted the reflection of water, which I've come to learn is called a 'caustic reflection'. I decided it would be a good way to make the inside of the cape more interesting, but ended up making most of the model underlit with it. I haven't seen anyone else use this effect before, but I'm sure someone has done it.
The back of the cape was intended to be more of a rounded fish scale texture but I had to scale it down (no pun intended, really) to fit the creases without looking wrong. I'm not really happy with how the iridescent effect turned out either, it looks way different to how I pictured it to be. If I painted this model again in the same way it would look much better.
I used a lot of purple, mostly in the shadows, to give it a magical feel.

 

That is insanely good! How long did that take to paint?

 

Three weeks or so I think. I remember the cape scales definately took three days, too long for me to want to start over.

 

Start over?!?

That cape is one of the most brilliant paint jobs I have ever seen.

 

What an awesome paintjob
Really like the water reflection in the cape, stunning!!!

Gr, Imrahil

PS: i hope you do good at the golden demon