Blog Ved's 2022 paint, hobby (and many ramblings in between) log

Hello hobby comrades.

Intro

With good Will and the best intent, this will hopefully be an on-going paint log for 2022. At this point in time I'll say that my focus will be painting Craftworld Eldar models (Disclaimer: I can be pretty fickle) I own already from the Rise of the Phoenix box. Possibly some random odds n' sods too. But for now the focus will be on;

• x1 Vyper
• x1 Grav tank (A falcon?)
• x5 howling Banshees
• x1 Jain Zar

I've had this box for a year or two at least but I decided it was time to face the horror of painting these damn things. All aspect shrines have specific look with this one having a very crisp/clinical aesthetic. I have actually been chipping away at these these since the start of the year, already having some pictures to share - the time consuming bit is individually painting every flat and segment of the armour. A couple of basic base colours are put on after to break up the cream I've been staring at for hours to let me eyes adjust off the presence of something different.

The Banshees (varying stages)

Armour - Coming along nicely but as I get them all to a similar stage I'm going to start asking myself if I should highlight it. There's a lot to be said for the 'simple and effective' approach as they do look nice, but do I want to invest more time in this area when I've already panel-painted every area of it? Keep the banshees more straight forward then put more time in to Jain Zar you think? Tough call when I've already come this far. I plan on highlighting the cloth and other smaller details. Perhaps at that stage it may not look right.....then again 'bone' doesn't naturally look shiny or refract that much light to give variance.

Swords - I've seen a lot of art and assets showing Banshee blades having this nice foreboding green/teal glow. Although I've painted them silver for now....I'm definitely toying the idea and weather I can pull off something that looks nice or even passable.

 

Jain Zar

When comparing this model to Drazhar I have to admit the spikey edge-lord drew my eye first. Honestly it took a long time for the appeal to grow with Jain Zar. Now Draz doesn't get a look in. Jain has such a strong conveyance of motion and grace....I find that without realising, I stare over at my hobby desk staring at it. I've also come to find the model does not translate as well in picture as it does in person. Sooo after 3 consistent rounds of banshee armour I felt that this model is going to get some attention or never all.

Issues (Assembly)

The biggest -and well known- issue of this model is how prone parts are to breakages. I felt the best way to address this would be to break it down in a way which makes it easily portable;

1. Taking advantage of the head-to-hair connection working really well as push-fit. Will be more resilient after a few more layers of paint.
2. Magnetizing the base to the gravel that serves as the foot of the model. At the time I felt that reducing the width of the models storage profile would be clever but later realised if I wanted to add basing materials/finishings, the movement/reattaching of these parts will utterly wreck that. May glue permanently in place. Not sure.
3. Magnetising the spear - This is something I consider a 1 million procedure to not screw up. The small magnet at the end of the elbow isn't an issue but even with a small drill bit, you are drilling a hole end of the spear arm deep enough to get a magnet in and some green stuff to grip and allow a little give in order to align against the other magnet. The issue is, the closer you get the the wrist the more that area narrows-in. You end up with a very narrow margin of error (and plastic) all around not to drill through. I'm glad I don't need more than one of this model because I would not want to attempt this again.

(I've a small video of it going together but I'm afraid I've not an external source to link it from)


Painting

Armour - The main focus will be getting that armour painted Crisp and clean so, same process as the banshees applies as I get them all to the same basic standard

1. Spray wraithbone
2. 50/50 mix of Skeleton Hoard and Contrast medium (Current step)
3. Vallejo Ivory over all plates, panels, edges and raised ridges. Recesses must be left skeleton hoard as perfect as possible.

 

reserved - Vyper

 

reserved - Gravity tank

 

Your work looks pretty fine right there. Nice and clean paint job. Nice one!

 

Thank you for the kind words Lizard . Its a fine line deciding when yo stop and when to carry on. Ive still more to do and I hope to further update over the next week or so

 

Nice looking Banshees so far.

What method are you using to paint the white armor? Just a white basecoat with a rattlecan and a wash or some other method?

 

Hey Warden!

At this time, my process is

1. Spray wraithbone
2. 50/50 mix of Skeleton Hoard and Contrast medium (Current step)
3. Vallejo Ivory over all plates, panels, edges and raised ridges. Recesses must be left skeleton hoard as perfect as possible.

I'm debating weather to give them a simple white highlight or not. Also in hindsight, I find myself wondering if using seraphim sepia instead of skeleton hoard would have been the better option as to not have the recesses so dark, instead having a slightly warmer brown. Committed now though. Over the flatter surfaces the skeleton hoard was as I had imagined, but later while painting the Ivory parts, it dawned on me that all the would be left are the darker recesses of that contrast paint, so going lighter may well have been better. Or perhaps thinning skeleton hoard far more.

 

Jain Zar - Slow but definitely steady progress. Other than a little tidying, the bone armour phase for this model has now been completed and I'm finally starting to get some other colours on there. (cheers of joy)

Other than my own approach to the armour, I'm pretty much going by the advised paint scheme up to this point, however I've found myself a little dumbfounded at how strong and vibrant Mephiston Red is. Having painted other models in darker schemes, I've just not been used to a much lighter colour palette. This has such a nice tone without being too bright or obnoxious. Under any kind of light it just highlights it self and I'm a little conflicted doing anything else to it. However I can't push myself if I just stop at the point of nice simplicity.

 

The red hair (feathers?) looks great!

 

Just a few coats of mephiston, that. But yeah for a base paint and nothing else it's very striking! Ive since put a wash over it and building up some drybrush layers. It has more definition/depth but definitely darker at the moment

 

Hello friends.

With life, work and current world events....I've been struggling. I have to be honest. I've sat down and done a little modelling, bit I find it difficult to just do your 'normal thing' when others are going through hell in the exact same moment somewhere in another part of the world. It makes me feel guilty for having the comfort, safety and 'normality' I/we still have the luxury of presently. You can speak to family, friends, your very patient and loving wife, but there's something about the potential for nukes at any time that just makes it difficult to focus.

I've always considered myself not quite a 'people person', that I'd always safe the animals in a burning building before anyone first, but this past couple of weeks have shown I am far more in touch with my humanity than I realised. Its frustrating to see and heart-breaking knowing none of this needed to happen. So back to the modelling but, I've not felt sure of what I want to build or paint recently.....the 'fickle' part of me kicking in quite predictably.

I was lucky to spend some time with my 10 y/o niece last weekend, also in to the hobby, bless her little squiggy-git heart. It's incredibly the amount of AoS she has but she is definitely getting through painting it all. Also scored a free (because it was an unwanted gift) SC Beastclaw Raiders box which is a faction I've never considered - but I love winter nomad aesthetic. Looking in to them more I came to understand there being some sort of animal/beast representation on all levels of this sub faction (yheti, stonetusk, thundertusk, whatever the cats are called and mournfangs etc). I may not love the Ogors part of this per se, but I do love my animals and a faction that has such variety including big winter cats? Yes....a lot of yes! Love my cats I do!

....so I think that, as odd as it may seem, has made me smile more than it should have.

I started off this blog with good intentions and I knew this was going to happen but now I'm just going to do what I feel gives me joy in the moment.

Sooo I'm currently building....animals!. 2 Mournfangs mostly down, and many other parts of this kit to go.

What are mournfangs, do you think? I've had this conversation with my wife and in my opinion they seem to be similar to woolly rhino's? If we ignore the chonky guys that ride them they are sort of cute in a way?

 

+1

Sabretooth Tigers on steriods. If you look in the Ogre Kingdoms rulebook (at least the 8th Edition ones) you'll see the colorized photos of them make them definitely look like Sabretooth tigers.

 

Thank you @Lizards of Renown. That's cool to hear. I look out for that. I really like them

 

It is a very sad time indeed. I can relate to those thoughts.

That is a nice addition to the hobby especially because it was free
This box has always caught my eye also mostly because of the beasts in it.

This is a healthy go to for hobby continuation

Keep up the good work.

Have you settled on a colorscheme yet?

Grrr, Imrahil

 

Hi there @Imrahil. Usually I'd try to do something other the box art, but for BCR it really works for me - which is really handy. There are some really useful painting guides on youtube to get a nice end result. I'll update on my progress, but its quite surprising how long it takes to trim down and put a single mournfang together.

 

Some more steady progress made of the Beastclaw Raider Start Collecting.

All the beasts are now together, leaving just the riders. So far I've really been enjoying this. Coming back to this every odd evening for a couple of hours it still takes a while to put all this together as it is currently. Even for grey plastic they look great beside each other though. Nice box set. Give it a few more days ...ill be complaining about looking at portly guys for hours on end

 

Good looking herd

Grrr, Imrahil

 

As an Ogre Kingdoms 8th Edition player, I approve heartily of your Mournfangs and Thundertusk!!!

(Shame about the round base )

 

@Imrahil The herd may get bigger in time as well

@Lizards of Renown Thank you! Nice to find there are others that like parts of the Ogors range. Thankfully i'm quite indifferent to the bases thing