It’s a week into November but there’s still time for us to look back at an October in which our contributors were hard at work on their hobby – let’s see what they got done!
SRM
This was, as I alluded to last month, a weird one for me. I went real dang eclectic, as has kind of been my whole thing since wrapping up some Templars a few months ago. However, I still had the itch to paint a unified unit of something, so I painted up the Elucidian Starstriders!
I figured out a pretty pleasing technique to get differentiation on the white armor and white cloth featured in this Kill Team, using some different shades of Contrast. It’s a great tool, and one I’m having more and more fun utilizing. Elucia Vhane may have been my favorite model out of the bunch, if only because of her feathers. While I’m not crazy about certain aspects of the assassin (That terrible haircut! Those pillbug-looking butt pads!) I’m happy with the results I got on her, and I also accidentally discovered a good Super Mutant skin recipe while painting the grody Nurgle head in her hands. I also love her pose and that dumb katana. I forget the Lectro-Maester is in this set half the time, and it’s a shame since he’s got some great details on him. His pose is kind of stiff in a very 2nd edition way. He gave me a lot of opportunity to use teal as a spot color though, which contrasted nicely with the magenta, gold, and white of the crew. I legit kind of hate the Rejuvent Adept; her pose is weird and her hat and knife glove are kinda doofy, but I at least clipped off the grubby little dude she’s stepping on.
The Voidsmen are actually what excited me most about this kit. I love the Captain Keyes looking dude and I’m happy I was able to tie the colors on his medals into his uniform. I love this heavy weapons guy, and you can see how I utilized contrast for the pearly white armor on these guys rather well. I thinned Apothecary White 1:1 with Contrast Medium, ran that over my Grey Seer basecoat, then highlighted with Ulthuan White. For fabric it was thinned Briar Queen Chill instead of Apothecary White, but otherwise the same process. I probably should have done heat staining on the heavy’s gun but this group was starting to take a while. I painted the doggo very similar to the box art scheme, which is like a Doberman Pinscher. It’s pretty clearly what he’s sculpted to resemble, and I figured I was putting enough of my own spin on this model with the armor. The cool voidsman next to him is pretty much the same as the other two, but with a cigar; something you should definitely smoke in the oxygen-rich environment of a sealed space ship. I’m impressed with the little variations in bodies on these guys and gals, as the one holding his lasgun with both hands is actually a little pudgy. Their helmets had a very 70s sci fi feel to me, and I wanted a quick and effective means of getting their lenses down, so I just used some Aethermatic Blue and turned them upside down so it would pool towards the top of their visors. It sorta worked, but the squad’s done and I’m happy with the results! Their bases are Necromunda bases, as I’ve got some ideas for scenarios with them in that wonderful game that I’ll hopefully revisit at a future date.
October also saw me return to Battletech for the first time since like 1999, and I painted up the two mechs from the cheapo beginner starter set. I went with the Lyran Commonwealth scheme for the Griffin, as I thought it looked suitably dashing and had some strong contrast. I knocked him and his opponent out pretty quickly, and found the models pretty enjoyable to work with. Nobody will ever mistake them for GW levels of sharp detail, but they’re far, far better than the old lead models I grew up chewing on.
I went instead with the Legion of Vega for the Vindicator in the box set, as I wanted a “red team” and “blue team” to dictate how I’ll be painting my future mechs. I’m not wild about the Vindicator’s design but again, I’m happy I was able to knock him out in like 3 hours. We’ll have some painting guides for Battletech eventually, so stay frosty if you want to figure out exactly how I painted these little lads.
Lastly, I knocked out the Manufactorum Ruin from Imperium issue 31. A quick zenithal prime, some drybrushing, and a whole load of weathering got this thing ready for the battlefield fast, and I’m pleased with the results. Again, Contrast was the secret here, as it let me get all the red details down quickly without needing multiple coats or washes. Terrain is always a bit of a drag for me, but I feel like this hit the middleground between quality and speed I was looking for.
I spent the rest of the month hiking through the deserts of Utah so that’s it for my own hobby progress for October – look forward to November being much, much spikier!
Skails
This month I painted up the last five zombies for this unit. These models are lovely and a joy to paint, even doing a repetitive color scheme.
And here is the 20 zombie squad all together.
Keewa
This month my hobby time has mostly been spent working on super secret projects, but I did manage to paint up these two “Maneaters” converted from the Forge World Ogre Blood Bowl Booster set (speaking of maneating, that name is definitely a mouthful). These models are so full of character, we need more like them GW! More female Ogres, please!!
TheArmorOfContempt
I began these Van Saar back in the lead up to Adepticon, but switched over to Genestealer Cults. When I add up the amount of time I spent on these NINE models it comes out to almost four months, which makes me incredibly depressed. There is A LOT I want to do when it comes to this hobby, but the grind of adult life really limits what one can accomplish.
Chimp
October was an unusual month of hobby for me, I was feeling a lot of burnout so went for a low intensity project of repainting all of the bases in my Idoneth Deepkin army from a boring flat brown to something a bit more interesting. It was a good way to feel like I was making some kind of hobby progress and made me a lot happier about an army project I was down on.
Swiftblade
Earlier this year, I made the horrible choice to paint up 2500 points of Chaos Knights in about a month and a half in order to play them at the GHO Narrative. After losing an alarming amount of sleep doing this, I thought “I don’t think I ever want crunch like this again.” Being the dumb idiot I am, I decided that I would in fact do this again and crunch painted a bunch of Chaos Space Marines so I could run Creations of Bile at a local GT.
Events are great motivators to paint. Perhaps too big.
September saw the bulk of the painting, but in the first half of October I finished up 5 more Chaos Terminators for my block of 10, and I love how they came out. After that, I used the power of Contrast, dry brushing, and a dream to paint two Chaos Spawn and my Daemon Prince. In the week before the event, I ignored most the highlighting I usually do to get 5 more Legionaries, 5 Possessed, and 2 Venomcrawlers painted in time. Later down the line, I’ll need to touch these up as my Chaos Marines have become a bit of a passion project of mine.
Of special note here is I also finished painting my Abaddon. I first tried painting him in 2018 when the model released, and ended up messing up his face badly. In frustration, I clipped his head and swapped in a Terminator head. It looks fine, some people even tell me they prefer it, but it killed my motivation for the project since the helmeted Abaddon became a painting mark of shame. To prep for the event, I repainted much of the highlights for him and finished the job on the unpainted parts, and I honestly love how her turned out. Abaddon the Despoiler went from my greatest hobby defeat to one of the models I’m most proud of.
I get married in November, so it’s gonna be a quieter hobby month for me. But I’ll still be painting my Chaos Marines to prepare for more events and hopefully a crusade that my local group wants to run in the new year!
Chucat
As promised, I painted some Clanrats and an Endless Spell. The Endless Spell was actually surprisingly chill and fun to paint, just being a whole bunch of metal paint, washes and drybrushing. Then I realised I actually had no idea where to put down the Oxidisation effect so I just did a whole lot of guessing, I simultaneously feel like I both put too much and not enough on the models.
The Clanrats were interesting, mostly since I needed to make them look like my other Skaven, but crappier. Naturally I did this by giving them gold armour (since the description of the Skaven Gold Mine in Total Warhammer is an intrusive thought now) and just using purple washes for their cloth instead of actual purple paints. Basing them was the most tedious 4 hours of my life but I think it was worth it.
Surprisingly for their first battle, the Clanrats somehow actually got to just sit on an objective, live for the entire game and also disgorge a Warpfire Thrower that torched 2/3rds of an Elf Squad. Meanwhile the Shackles spent the entire game not being summoned. Oh well.
Next up I need to finish and paint my final kitbashed Stormfiend, another Warp Lightning Cannon, and kitbash and paint up a Lauchon, which should be actually really fun.
Cronch
I feel like I spent a lot of October feeling too burnt out to hobby and seeking comfort in video games instead, but looking back I actually got through a decent amount of stuff. The very start of the month was spent at a narrative AoS event, to which I took a newly-finished 1000 points of Hallowed Knights, including making a little Garden of Nurgle display for them.
After this, I dipped back into my Tome Keepers to finish off a Gravis Captain who had been sat to the side of my desk since the model was released. Now that I have a 2000 point army finished, I tend to just dip into these once in a while to add a model or unit. I enjoyed focusing on achieving a good face and a nice smooth cloak, and I’m pretty happy with the results.
I’ve also made a start on my Leagues of Votann army set. I decided to re-use the scheme from my Necromunda Squat Prospectors, and I’m glad I did as I’m super happy with how they came out! I wanted the Einhyr Champion to stand out, so mixed the colour scheme up to give them black armour instead – looks good, but was an edge highlighting nightmare. I’m working on the Hernkyn Pioneers at the moment, which are proving to be very fiddly.
In and amongst this, I finally put paint onto some Battletech models. SRM’s talk of playing with his friend plus similar rumblings of interest from a local pal finally tipped me over the edge into putting brush to model. With the two mechs from the starter set, plus six from the Comstar Battle Level II box (chosen thanks to Thundercloud’s excellent rundown), I should have enough for a few casual games. I chose the scheme of the Ferris Wolverines, aka the 5th Lyran Regulars. Although I’m ultimately pretty happy with them, I didn’t really enjoy painting these at all, so they ended up being a drybrush and wash job. I’m happy with those canopies though.
Finally I painted up some leftover terrain from Imperium, built a simple board, and took my Tome Keepers army down to Armies on Parade at my local Warhammer store. Given that I’d rushed and was attending for the experience of meeting hobbyists and sharing achievements moreso than anything else, I was thrilled to come away with the gold award for the Warhammer: 40,000 category, as well as the Best In Show award. A great result from a fun day out!
Rocco Gest
The tonk progress trudges ever onward. I’ll probably have it finished by the time this article posts. I had a great time painting the big beast and I don’t have a light box big enough to actually house the thing for good pictures! I managed to get Nihilakh Oxide all over myself with the tank on my lap just before taking this picture. By some miracle the tank avoided the stray paint. Then I spilled my Nuln oil. AND AGAIN THE TANK WAS SPARED. I would have died if anything bad actually happened.
Rockfish
Just a handful of things from me this month, I’ve had a ton of stuff going on in my personal life so I didn’t do quite as much painting as I might have wanted to. Getting into what I did do, here is a lil battle mech I did up in a Clan Nova Cat scheme.
After that I did some of the new Underworlds models.
Beyond those I did a bunch of Votann models you might have seen in our review recently!
Primaris Kevin
After a summer of finishing up a PhD, welcoming a new baby, and also somehow painting two tables worth of terrain (seriously what the hell was I thinking?), I had a bit of a post-GHO burnout. Things turned around a bit and I decided to start a #hobbystreak on Twitter, since it’s been a fun way to get a bit of progress every day and my last streak was ended by the birth of my daughter. So let’s try again!
The first thing I did was mess around with more Sector Mechanicus terrain. I really enjoyed what I had done for GHO, but some pieces were unfinished and it was also evident that we needed some smaller bits. So first off I put together a pair of chem tanks with custom modeled 3D printed tops. This was made using the same method as my previous work and I feel pretty happy with the end result.
Next up I decided to tackle some pieces I weren’t entirely happy with earlier. I had printed several pieces that had warped and looked bad. This is because PLA has a tendency to warp in the sun if you aren’t careful. The glass transition temperature (the point at which a polymer gets soft) of PLA is low enough that it can be reached in direct sunlight, which means that if you spray paint a model black and then leave it out to dry the plastic can soften and then warp as the spray paint shrinks. So keep your stuff out of the sun or use PETG which has to get a lot hotter.
I removed some of the warped pieces and replaced them with injection molded bits, and also managed to salvage some pieces to make another bridge. I also decided to get started on the barricades, so I removed the multiple kits worth that I had on sprues and did some minor conversion work so each piece was unique. I haven’t done anything else on the barricades but prime them, because my hobby ADHD is very strong.
Finally I finished up the detailing on the big pieces. This meant applying nearly four feet worth of hazard stripes all across multiple pieces. Fortunately printing hazard stripes on laser decal paper meant that I could do everything in about an hour. There’s something incredibly satisfying about how quickly terrain comes together. I love doing these pieces.
After the terrain was done I got in a mood to work on some Space Marines. I’ve had a pair of Repulsor Executioners lying around in a partially painted state for years, and decided that no matter how much they suck I wanted to have 2000 points of painted Space Marines and the RepEx was the easiest way to get there. After multiple attempts to get the purple right I’m pretty happy with where this tank is in terms of progress. There’s a lot more to do but genius me decided to sign up for a RTT in two weeks so I guess I don’t have a choice but to do it.
I also spent a bit of time goofing around with a kitbash of a Primaris Techmarine. I took the torso of the gunner from Repulsor Executioner kit, added some Aggressor legs, and attached some terminator arms with the head of a Tech Priest axe. The mechadendrites on the back are heavy plasma incinerator power cables topped with the top of a shock stave from the Van Saar gang sprue.
Mugginns (Michael O)
I participated in the Michigan GT in early October and had to finish a bunch of stuff for it – mostly for Necromunda and 40k. After that I took a little break and then did a bunch of stuff for Don’t Look Back, Black Site Studios’ horror themed slasher game.
I didn’t get any studio shots of my stuff because I’ve been so busy lately, just in-game shots. I painted two Ridgehauler trucks for Necromunda and one goliath truck (now I have three) for my Genestealer Cult.
I also painted a bunch of horror themed minis from Blacksite Studio for Don’t Look Back. These are sweet resin minis, probably 32mm, that evoke the slasher 80s / 90s movies that we all love.
Jackie Daytona
I’ve missed a couple of updates due to life happening, but that means I’ve got more stuff to share. The latest minis I finished are actually some of the oldest in my collection as I came into possession of a 3rd edition Blood Bowl box.
I really started enjoying painting thanks to my new pal contrast paints, and they work fine on these old sculpts.
That being said, 30 years old plastic tends to get brittle, I had a base crack in two when I was working on a metal star player, a first for me. Next up on the Blood Bowl queue will be some star players and a metal Skaven team, and a demo I guess.
This lovely Vixtric Olifaunt needed some love to stomp around in Saga Age of hannibal, but I messed up the transfers (which need to be applied to a white background). I don’t really mind, it’ll crush skulls anyway.
Next up two Kill Teams which I finished a couple of months ago, and have seen many an instance of glorious defeat. The Primaris team unfortunately got a varnish from a duff can, which was a pain to clean up. I finally got a chance to take some half-decent pics, so here ya go. I’m in the process of finishing up 3 more Word Bearers as well so I get the full roster to choose from.
I really like Underworlds warbands as you get a taste of a faction and how they paint up without committing to an army. Also you can play Underworlds, which is nice! The starter set and some floaty dwarfs are still sat in primer.
I think I’ll wrap up here. I’m working on some nice Necromunda minis at the moment, and a friend gifted me some Sohei monks for Ronin or Test of Honour, so I hope to show those off at some point in the future. I also finished some minis and a board for the excellent Don’t Look Back game, which Muggins posted some pics of already. Check it here if you’d look to find out what we thought of it (it’s good)
Thundercloud
Well since I had an event to go to I had to get my painting ADHD under control and get some things finished to give me an almost 3k Titanicus list.
Fortunately for me I painted a Warlord, Reaver and two Warhounds when the Titanicus came out in 2018, and was able to polish off a Reaver that I’d started and everything above.
I particularly like the Atrapos knights, and they proved very nasty at the GHO Titanicus event. I’m now gearing up for the winter, and have undercoated a few things before it gets too cold.
Soggy
This month was a write off for hobby progress, with several events including Golden Demon and making preparations for the UK Goonhammer Open. I did manage to squeak in a little bit at the end of the month, however haven’t managed to finish anything – I was just too excited to be hobbying again.
Thankfully, November is looking clear in comparison – so I’ll be looking to finish these up properly and look to work up to a 2500 point list.
Pendulin
Only a couple models from me, but they’re interesting ones – kitbashed Servitors!
I’ve never kitbashed a model before, and I’m really happy with how these turned out. They include bits from a ton of boxes: Genestealer Cult Neophyte, Electropriests, Sicarians, Skitarii, Kataphrons, the Horus Heresy Multimelta, and probably more that I’ve forgotten about.
When starting on these, I wasn’t sure if I would like the result. But looking at the final product, these are among my favorite models to have painted. I’m considering making another eight so that I can run three full units in a game for a laugh. Is it a good, tactically sound move? No. But it’s funny, and that’s enough for me.
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