This is going to be a painting blog, based mainly around my quest to paint up a 40k Night Lords Chaos Space Marines army (hence the name). I also have a H.R. Giger (and Alienids) inspired Tyranid army that I'm doing, along with the Dark Angels from the Dark Vengeance 6th edition boxed set, and a load of other stuff - including a magnetised Goliath gang for playing WYSIWYG Necromunda.
I started painting miniatures from a very young age, and my first visit to GW was with my parents when I was still in primary school, to buy 'plastic paints' so that I could paint my toy soldiers (the green plastic kind). After a while I stopped doing that, but got into collecting GW stuff in a big way in high school - although I hardly ever played. I kinda stopped this when I discovered cars, drinking and girls, at around age 17. Fast forward a few years, and I'm now 28 years old and fully nerdy again, yay! Until recently I had a weekly Necromunda campaign going with a couple of mates, and this has got me back into the hobby in a big way. Anyway, I've been getting plenty of practice in with my painting, and I reckon that I'm now better than I was when I was a teenager. I'm by no means the best painter, but I thought I'd start a blog to share my experiences and learn from those of others.
To give you a taster, here's the very first miniature I painted after my long hiatus - a Goliath ganger named 'Big Louie'. He eventually ended up leading my gang, and I made a conversion of the same model holding a plasma gun. I'm proud of the conversion, but it still hasn't got painted unfortunately!
Let me know what you think! I think I've improved a lot since I painted this earlier this year. The biggest tip I've discovered is to paint 'eyeliner' on my human minis by painting a 50/50 mix of black/brown into the eye socket before I paint the 'eyeball'. This gives a nice outline effect (unlike that seen on Big Louie here). It also makes it a bit easier to paint the eyeball part as it increases contrast and you can see what you are doing a bit better.
Anyway, this week I've mainly been raving about this stuff - Vallejo Acrylic Thinner Medium.
You'll notice I've written 'awesome' there - and that's because it is! This stuff is just amazing, and I can see it really changing my painting habits. Every blog I read from pro-painters or skilled amateurs recommends thinning your paints - and this has had me a bit confused, because every time I thin my paints to the 'consistency of milk' (as they all seem to recommend), they begin to run like washes, and even kind of bubble away from the surface I'm trying to cover as if it is greasy or something. This stuff almost completely stops that from happening. It mixes in really easily (although it looks like it wouldn't), and even comes in that ultra-handy Vallejo dropper bottle, so you don't have to dirty your brush to get it in your palette. I can't wait to see how this works in conjunction with Vallejo Acrylic Retarder, which I also have a bottle of sat on my work desk, but unfortunately my skill-set doesn't include wet-blending yet! Anyway, for a couple of quid I highly recommend this stuff - which I bought through eBay. It's been helping me to paint the Ravenwing biker Sergeant that I've almost got finished (pics soon).
Anyway, thanks for reading and please follow me if you enjoyed my post - I'll be back soon :)
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