How Do I Get Better At This?

Here is the first picture I ever posted on this blog, back in April 2016 - eight years ago! He was a conversion of a Privateer Press model called Saxon Orrik, who I renamed Algebra Flaps and used as the leader of my Necromunda gang, the Terror Bird Cavalry (it's a long story).

Actually, he's not bad. There's a lot of detail, and I painted him in rather drab colours. And back then my camera was even worse than my current one. 

Since then, I've improved a lot, and I've done models that I'm proud of, like these guys:

I think my painting's got better, both in terms of detail and accuracy, and also in having an idea of what works in a model. However, I'm not sure how to get much better from here.

For one thing, I still don't know how to take reliably decent photos. I've never been able to make much of online advice on this, and trial and error hasn't yielded a reliable system that works each time. My current method is to take half a dozen pictures with my phone and keep the least awful one. I live in the (probably optimistic) view that my models would look much better if I could just work out how to photograph them.

I also find it tricky to progress with painting. A lot of online miniature painting is of near Golden Demon quality, probably by people who earn a living at it or people who are professional artists in some other medium. It can actually be pretty offputting to see how good other people's work is: I think you learn more from people who are a couple of notches better than people who are basically painting the Sistine Chapel in 28mm scale.

It doesn't help that I'm not very interested in learning how to do non-metallic metal, and I don't want to buy an airbrush. I'd like to be able to paint like the old 'Eavy Metal articles that I used to look at when I was younger, which means 28mm SFF models.

So, does anyone have any suggestions? I've leaned a hell of a lot following the people in the list on the right, and I'm very grateful to the people who have commented on my work (Suber and Hobbs in particular!). But if anyone's got any ideas of how to improve, please do let me know.

Two Robots and a Stargrave Bloke

 Here are a few more random models that I painted for some kind of Stargrave/futuristic side.

I've had this robot in my bits box for ages. It came with a load of other stuff, and has always been missing its arms. Given the vaguely manga styling, I wondered if it was an Infinity model. Anyhow, I gave it some new arms from two leftover GW Taurox guns.

I tried to paint it as if light was shining down from above, catching on certain bits of the casing. I don't think that worked perfectly, but I quite like the effect. Unfortunately, I can't work out how to improve it. I also tried to do a bit of a glowing effect on the round bits on its guns, but that hasn't come out quite right. 

Here is a less slick robot that ended up looking a bit like WALL-E. It's mainly a tracked unit made by Ramshackle Games. The eyes and "ears" are from GW tank accessories. I like the shading on the sides.

And here's a bloke. I've no idea who made this model. He looks wholly under-equipped for the future, at least the future with robots and aliens. I painted a rip in his jeans for added battered-ness. He was a fun model to paint, although I can't see him surviving very long!

More Ugly Models

It's time for some more terrible models! I've been painting some more of the legendarily ropey plastic genestealer hybrids from the Space Hulk add-on Deathwing. After putting one together last week, it occurred to me that they looked quite like ork/genestealer hybrids, not stealers mixed with human DNA. The bulky bodies and hunched pose makes me think of orks rather than people.

Which led to me putting some ork arms on a stealer hybrid body, and finding that they fitted quite well.

I'm not going to pretend that this looks perfect, but it's a lot better than the alternative. I only used a little green stuff to get the arms to fit, and they at least look like they ought to be there. I used a drab green as the basis for the skin, highlighting up with pink after a purple ink wash (the same purple I used for the purestrains).

Emboldened by this, I had a go at another.

I've got to admit, I quite like this guy! Here are all three of the Ugly Brothers, about to let the side down.

Could be worse!

Random Model Time - Radio Lady and Plastic Genestealer Hybrid

This week, I fancied painting something a bit cyberpunk. For some reason, that meant sticking some Stargrave arms and head onto a Bolt Action British commando body. The Bolt Action models are quite slight compared to the Stargrave ones, so it made sense to make this person a woman. I gave her a bulky communications/hacking device made from some Games Workshop bits. 

She got some bright colours on her backpack, jacket and gun to stop her looking too much like a soldier. If anything, she's a freelancer with customised gear. I like the end result. Stargrave models are great.

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 I was tempted to give this next section some kind of stupid clickbait title like "The WORST mini EVER?" but I respect both of you who read this blog far too much for that. And it's not as if I'm suddenly going to get a horde of new visitors who are going to come here, buy my novels and make me incredibly rich... or is it?

Anyhow, some of the most despised models in GW's long and dubious history are the plastic genestealer hybrids from the old Space Hulk additions. Personally, I think there are worse (the Space Hulk terminators, for instance), but there's no doubt that these aren't really very good. Inspired by the old-school painting of a guy called vintage_warhammer on Instagram, I found one of these sorry things and had a go at painting it.

This was surprisingly enjoyable, and I'm happier with the end result than I'd expected. The sculpting isn't bad, in that the proportions make sense, but there are two main issues: first, the model doesn't look much like other genestealer hybrids (my first thought would be "shark-man?") and, second, it's a very basic model without much detail. In fact, it's hard to work out where the hybrid's skin ends and its clothes begin. Perhaps he's wearing blue clothes in honour of his purestrain mates. Or he's nude apart from a belt. Who knows?

I might do a couple more of these. If nothing else, they're very nostalgic.

More Space Marines!

 I was looking in the bits box recently and discovered that I've got a load of unpainted space marines, most of them metal. I really ought to paint more of the stuff I've got before I forget that I've got it.

Here are four marines - more accurately, three marines and one marine-shaped ork tinboy. The tinboys were primitive robots that the orks made as caricatures of their enemies, back in 2nd edition 40k (or possibly even earlier than that). I didn't have an ork army back then, and I suspect that I bought them just for sheer silliness value. 

This is Sir Vile the Minion and Sir Spicious the Questionable. Sir Vile was made from a range of plastic parts: he's got a Space Wolf gun, a Mordheim belt buckle and a head from a Bretonnian man at arms. I think it fits the concept quite well.

Sir Spicious is an unconverted ork tinboy model. His left shoulder pad bears his "personal heraldry".

These two are a bit more sensible: Sir Tanty the Absolute and Sir Plus de Requirements.

Sir Tanty was based on one of the "masters of the chapter" that I bought incomplete off ebay a while ago. I added his head and gun. He took quite a long time to paint, but I'm pleased with the way he's come out, especially his face (although he does look quite surprised to be having his picture taken).

Sir Plus was converted by someone else when I bought it. I tidied the conversion up and finished it off before painting it. It's a good conversion, and it took me ages to work out that the base model was an old metal Ultramarines Chaplain Cassius. I never much liked the Cassius model, with its weird skull head, and this is definitely an improvement. He does look slightly as if he's dancing, but maybe he's just acting up for the camera.

Lucky the Carnifex

 A couple of days ago, I counted up my harlequin collection and realised that, instead of 34, I only had 32. I hadn't collected the set after all! Crisis! I went onto ebay and, half an hour and £20 later, had ordered the missing couple. But my goal of painting all the old harlequins is no closer. Perhaps I am the Ancient Mariner of oldhammer, doomed to never quite reach my goal. Or not.

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Anyhow, I found a box of old ork stuff at my parents', and in it was an old conversion of a carnifex. The plastic carnifex was a big deal when it came out: for £25 you got a huge monster with a ton of customisation options. It's still not bad although, like a lot of big Tyranids, it's a bit lacking in detail.

This conversion represents a carnifex that was "pacified" and "enhanced" by the orks: its lower body was made from the engine of an ork trukk and two old sentinel legs. A new power claw was added to the left arm. 

I stripped down the original conversion, which was cool but a bit basic, and added a load of details. The big wires came from a skaven kit. It then got a repaint in the colours of my old-school hive fleet (I think it's a splinter fleet from Hive Fleet Behemoth). The metal was redone to look slightly rusty and just a bit old. (For what it's worth, there's a decent argument that ork machinery wouldn't be rusty so much as very greasy, but still.)

Lucky the Carnifex was first encountered by the orks at the battle of Bugstomp, where it destroyed the dreadnought Gitkilla before being sliced in half. The master-mech Lugnuts, impressed by its capacity for mayhem, fitted the injured carnifex with a new lower body and a super hydraulic claw. 

It now fights alongside Lugnuts and his minions. The mek has named his new pet "Lucky": not because it had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the orks, but because wherever Lugnuts goes, hordes of Tyranids mysteriously show up. The Hive Mind, on the other hand, is fine with this arrangement. Soon it will tire of picking at Lugnuts' horde and, following Lucky's psychic presence, will send a force against the orks big enough to wipe them out. Everyone wins.