Against Painting Contests

 A short and irritable post, this. 

I'm a member of several Facebook groups (remember when we had actual forums for things, without Mark Zuckerberg owning them all?) about various games and settings. I also follow a few different painting hashtags on Instagram. 

Every so often, someone decides that we're going to "celebrate the hobby", or mark some anniversary or some particular style of model or painting. And we always do it in the same way: a painting contest. 

I never enter these. I'm not an especially gifted painter - I'm ok, after a lot of practice, and there are a lot of techniques that I don't use. I know that any such contest will be won by people who are very talented and quite possibly professionals. I don't have anything against them, but it would be pointless for me to enter a 100m race against Usain Bolt, too.

Today I see that the Mordheim Facebook group, of which I'm a member, is holding a painting contest, and I don't feel any real enthusiasm. I prefer the vaguer, non-judged "orktober" type events, where everyone has a go as something similar, although it's not quite a perfect substitute.

Anyhow, not my cup of tea.

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.

There Is Only War, and Music

 As a break from the usual stuff, I thought I'd stop to consider one of the most important questions of wargaming: what music do people listen to in 40k? Some answers are pretty obvious - the Catachans, for instance, would appreciate Credence Clearwater Revival, preferably played over the sound of helicopter rotor blades - but others are harder to work out.

"I see a Bad Moon Rising, I hear the orks are on their way."

Space Marines - Well, they're templar knights in space, so I think they'd go for a bit of Gregorian chanting. That said, given their place in the rules, anything Middle Of the Road would probably do. So if it turns out that Roboute Guilliman is really into Bryan Adams, now you know why.

The things you can find online...

Imperial Guard (or Armius Spaceius or whatever they're called now) - Hard to say, as the Guard consists of such a range of legions. I reckon they'd be ordered to listen to hymns, and perhaps Russian Choral Music, circa WW2. That said, each regiment probably has its own favourites. The Vostroyans probably enjoy the balalaika, while the Praetorians might like something from the Victorian Music Hall, probably with a title like "Whoops Where's Me Lasgun, Mrs Juggins?"

Adeptus Mechanicus - More Gregorian chanting, played through really tinny speakers. Or else Kraftwerk. Or maybe just white noise.

Chaos - The forces of Chaos obviously like Metal, mainly because they are Metal; most of them look like something off a cheesy album cover. Different factions probably favour different sub-genres: I could see the Berserkers of Khorne flailing about to Thrash and Speed Metal, while the Thousand Sons probably like acts with a slightly proggy feel. And obviously the followers of Nurgle would like Doom and Sludge. But there's really only one option,  really, and it's been officially sanctioned by GW: Bolt Thrower. All together now - "Wuuurrrrrrld... Eeeeeetaaaahh..."

Orks - Apologies to Games Workshop, but I don't actually think that orks would listen to Goth (Goff?) Rock: it's much too slow and gloomy. I could see them enjoying something faster and more energetic, to fire them up for violence and speed. How about Speed Metal, Punk or even Rockabilly? Some of Rob Zombie's more rednecky numbers might work. Although the more traditional orks might get by with banjo music. The Snakebite clan would probably do their whooping and stomping to Bluegrass.

Eldar - Tricky one. Either some kind of complex, new-age techno (the Orb, maybe, or Orbital) or very long prog. Long prog sounds painful. So probably Yes.

Dark Eldar - Now, these are the people who enjoy Goth. In as much as they enjoy anything. I reckon they'd probably quite like the grindier, squelchier end of Industrial, too. A bit of NIN would bring much PLEASURE (snarled, a la Pinhead) to the Dark Eldar.

Genestealer Cults - The genestealer cults, being cults, probably indulge in some kind of hymn-singing or chanting. But for fun, well, consider this: they've come from the streets, they're not big on the law, and they like fancy limousines. It's got to be Gangsta Rap. Some of the more righteous cults might go for more political stuff, maybe Rage Against the Machine(-God), but I think they'd be pretty gangsta. 

As painted by me!

Necrons - Doom Metal, inevitably, although the sound of a rusty door being opened is probably quite enjoyable to them. If not downright erotic.

Tau - The tau have a clean, shiny look, and so some kind of sleek Pop would seem like a natural choice. Of course, with all those mech suits, there's something of a Japanese influence, so the poor creatures might be stuck with J-Pop. If anything is going to send me on a bloody rampage in a robot suit, it's the shriller end of J-Pop.

Dis'co T'au was the closest I dared search for.

Tyranids - To enjoy music, do you have to be self-aware? The Tyranids don't seem to actually know that they are Tyranids, so choosing music is probably a bit beyond them. That said, I reckon they'd enjoy the slow, ominous heartbeat of the hive ships, and the wet sounds of some unwholesome bio-weapon reading itself to discharge. Ick.

So there you go. The important issues of the day are answered. Normal service will be resumed next post.

Vampire Sniper (and some random thoughts about blister packs)

This week's random person from the bitz box is some kind of vampire marksman (well, markswoman). I just sat down with a load of old bits and stuck them together until something interesting happened.

The model's upper body uses a dark elf corsair chest and cloak, with an enormous jezzail-type gun from the Adeptus Mechanicus skitarri, and a head from one of the Age of Sigmar Stormcast Eternals. The lower body was made from scratch.

Here's the start of the lower body: a piece of sprue pinned to the base at a suitable angle.

Here, I've added some Das clay around the sprue to make the rough shape of the skirt. I wanted it to follow the direction of the cloak and the jezzail. Once the clay is dry, I painted it with thinned-down PVA glue for a bit of extra solidity.

And here it is with green stuff wrapped around it and pulled into folds, next to the upper body. I sculpted a foot but later redid it to be a boot. 

Then I stuck the two halves together and added paint! A dark, vampirish scheme seemed right.

After a close call with the local vampire-hunters, the Lady Louisa needed for an easier way to feed off human life-force. The traditional method of neck-biting was too risky, but her considerable alchemical skills enabled her to develop an enchanted rifle that would steal the vitality of each victim it killed. Now she works as a sniper for hire. Living in the shadows has never been more profitable.

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Over the last year or so, it's been possible to buy individual models for the skirmish game Carnevale from TT Combat's website. Human-sized models tend to be between £5 and £8, which is a decent price. This week, TT Combat proposed stopping this, and making the models available in groups, costing £15 or so. This got me thinking about models and the way I buy them.

A lot of this hobby is nostalgia. There's the pleasure of building and painting a model well, the sense of escapism that you get from the hobby, and the nostalgia for making little armies when I was at school. We used to build up small armies, paint them terribly, and then play battles with a very limited grasp on the rules. Once a month, we'd read the new White Dwarf and see what brightly-painted miniatures had come out for the three armies that GW seemed to care about.

I also have considerable nostalgia for the experience of buying miniatures as a kid. You'd pick through great rows of dangling blister packs and fork out £5 or so, often for some random thing that happened to look good (back in the days, there weren't any army lists). I bought two zoats and a genestealer patriarch that way. They were impulse purchases, and they rocked.

It's very hard to do that now. Most GW character models are at least £15 each (usually more) and rank and file models of almost all systems come in boxes for £20 or so. If you want to buy some random cheap thing that just looks cool, you've usually got to look on ebay, which is much less fun than going to the local model shop.

Is there a point to this rambling? Not really, just that I miss that sense of wandering to the shops with a bit of pocket money, to purchase some interesting monster or space explorer. Last month, I found a plastic bag marked "£6" at the local shop. It contained two metal robots. I've no idea who the manufacturer is. I bought them anyway, and felt very pleased with myself. One day I might even paint them!

The Top Five Horses Of Wargaming

Everybody likes horses, and it's a poor wargame that doesn't include some sort of cavalry. One thing that wargaming companies cannot agree on, however, is how big a horse actually is. Sizes range from the diddy ponies that the Empire knights and Warlord Romans ride, to the yak-sized things that Brettonian knights use when they run out of coconuts to bang together. Here, then, are my top five (horses, not coconuts):


5. Archeon

Archaeon is the Abad'un of Warhammer Fantasy Battle: a chaos lord who leads chaos lords. Back in the good old days, he used to ride The Steed Of The Apocalypse, which looked like a horse that's taken steroids, grown spikes and acquired really weird hooves. Arguably the most metal of the horses featured (although see below).

Sadly, when Age Of Sigmar reared its ugly head, Archaeon's mighty horse was replaced by this goofy-looking thing, which sums up a lot of my complaints with AoS.

4. The Green Knight

The Green Knight is a mystic character for the Bretonnians, who materialises from the forest and is exceedingly difficult to kill. He has the Arthurian look of the Bretonnians and is basically a cool idea. While his sculpt is very old, the way his horse is rearing up, and the intricate barding, make it a rather good horse.

4. Marius Leitdorf (featuring Daisy)

Marius Leitdorf was a nobleman of the Warhammer Empire, and made a change from the usual stern-faced tedium by being a lunatic in a hat that would shame a 1970s gangster.

His horse gains points on account of being in an interesting pose - she seems to be shying away from danger (or perhaps turning) rather than charging into it - and having a name: Daisy. Daisy had the same profile as all other warhorses, but stands out for personality. And headgear.

2. Robohorse

Another pick from the Empire: this time it's the horse-shaped mechanical steed that the Empire engineer can take. My rulebook tells me that it's formally called "Meikle's Equine Effigy of Dynamic Locomotion" and was invented by Frau Meikle, the first woman to be allowed to join the Imperial School of Engineers. Despite having a mane and tail made out of leaves, it looks properly mean. The only reason the engineer is riding it is probably because it told him to come with it if he wanted to live.

Unfortunately, it doesn't quite make the top spot because it's not alive and it reminds me too much of this:

1. Prince Rupert

Prince Rupert of the Rhine was a noted cavalier in the English Civil War, and led the king's cavalry in several battles. He is a Warlord Games model, and while Warlord's humans are sometimes a bit basic, they do know how to make a good horse. As luck would have it, I bought this model recently and will be painting it soon. This particular model was painted by Scott Merrifield.

So, that's my guided tour (or canter?) through Wargaming Horses To Look Out For. It's nearly Christmas Day, and I'm going off to wrap presents and eat ham. Have a good Christmas, and in the meantime, here's a picture of one of my favourite horses that I made a while ago: the Tau Space Pony.

An Orc, A Troll, And Some Random Musings On This Blog

After the rather disgusting Chaos Spawn, I thought I'd paint something "nice": namely a war machine, an orc and a troll.

The orc is a very old metal orc who was in a battered state when I got him, missing his left arm and his weapon. I suspect that he originally was a bowman, but I made him a spear out of a paper clip covered in green stuff, and gave him a Frostgrave left arm with an ancient plastic shield. I really like these shields: the moon and the evil sun designs feel like classic Warhammer to me. 

Like the nude orc that I made for the chaos warband, there's not a lot of detail on this model for the brush to "catch", especially on the face. Still, he was pleasant to make and the shield was really nice to paint.

This is an old stone troll, from the "red period" of the early 1990s. I really like the design of Warhammer's trolls: they look menacing but also dopey and slightly comical. I went with a pretty standard colour scheme. I like using purple washes on models like this: it gives the impression of flesh rather than just rock. Likewise, I mixed a bit of pink into the highlights to suggest living skin, but I doubt it's very visible in this picture.

The war machine is a plastic Mantic trebuchet, originally made for their undead army. It had that cartoony look that's common to a lot of Mantic's stuff, which I don't really like. The only converting I did was to cut away all the skulls and spikes, and to put three shields on the cross-piece to cover up the hacking. The yellow-and-black quartered design has become quite common on my more heroic Frostgrave models: maybe it's the heraldry of the local lord.

*

Anyway, that's enough of that for now. I started this blog to chart my efforts to get better at painting, and to improve. I think, overall, I've done so: I'm very pleased with some of the models that I've made, and I think that the cyberpunk eldar, the ork commandos and some of the Frostgrave people are some of the best miniatures I've ever converted and painted.

However, it might be time to take stock a bit. I don't think I'm improving much as a painter now: I suspect that I've got as good as I can do, and that things like complex freehand will always be beyond me. Likewise, I'm not inclined to splash out for tools like airbrushes that I doubt I'll use all that often, or all that well. So I might have plateaued somewhat.

That feeling might just be because I've been feeling a bit down, recently, and I'm certainly not inclined to throw in the towel. This blog gets very few hits at all, but it's been fun to do. I have ended up with a lot of nice miniatures, some of which have even seen the light of day on the battlefield.

However, a lot of them haven't. So, I've ordered two sets of solo rules: Perilous Dark for Frostgrave, and Hardwired, a set of rather odd-looking skirmish cyberpunk rules. Frostgrave is reliably good, and I've got no idea how Hardwired will work out, but it looks interesting. So we'll see how it pans out. Watch this space.

Ballista Pack

When I was a lad, and you could buy a penny farthing for three shillings, eight tuppences, two rods and an egg (and still have change to go to the talkies), miniatures were very much a pocket money thing. You bought individual blister packs and slowly assembled squads, until you had the 25 lead models needed for an eight-hour game of 40k. At least, that's how I remember it. These days you've either got to buy 10 models or a character for £15. Terrible.

I was at the local games shop to get some paint, and for the first time in ages I saw blister packs for £5. They were from a company called Nolzur's Marvellous Miniatures, which seems to be Wizkids making models for Dungeons and Dragons. I bought a pack containing two bolt-throwers.

They came pre-undercoated (I'm always vaguely suspicious of models like that) and painted up pretty well. The plastic is more solid than that of Reaper Bones models and holds detail better. There was less warping, too, although I had to clamp the legs to the bases to stick them down. They're hardly the greatest miniatures in history, but far from the worst.

Overall, not bad at all, especially for £2.50 each. They will be added to the slowly-growing legions of Centurion Flavius Flava and his undead Roman horde. As a kid, I always thought that the rows of firing war machines in White Dwarf were incredibly cool. At last, I can contribute to the genre.

I also did some more work for my team of vaguely-cyberpunk eldar mercenaries, made from converted Privateer Press models. I thought they could do with some heavy firepower, so I added an old metal wraithlord model. It's unconverted, although I made a new base from plasticard, to look futuristic and a bit grimy, in keeping with his friends.

I originally painted his head a grey colour and felt that it looked a bit flat. So I painted on what might be the eldar equivalent of a smiley face. It looks like a creepy mask drawn on a blackboard with a bit of chalk. I'm not sure if that means that I got it wrong or right.

Of Lead and Plastic - an article I wrote on wargaming

I almost forgot to post this.

My main hobby isn't miniatures: it's writing. One of the things I do is write articles for the website Fantasy Faction. They predominantly cover science fiction and fantasy novels, but they review a lot of other geeky things.

I did a short overview of tabletop wargaming for them. No doubt there are loads of things I've got wrong and left out (although I hold to my view that the Age of Sigmar setting is nowhere near as good as the old one), so feel free to let me know. Anyhow, here it is.

Of Lead And Plastic: Tabletop Wargaming in 2018

Dicing With Death - Part 1

It was a normal day in the fine town of Tombstone. Folks were going about their business: working, praying and urinating into the horse trough outside the saloon.

But on the far side of town, where nobody ever goes, three cowboys had found something mighty strange. It looked like a dice, but why in tarnation was it so dang big?

They took it to the smartest folks in Tombstone to find out why. The blacksmith and the undertaker couldn't figure it. Even the schoolma'am, with all her fancy book-learnin', didn't know what to do.

"I'll take a hold of it," the sheriff said, gesturing with his pistol. "Make sure no varmints don't run away with it."

That night, the sheriff woke from a terrible dream. He dreamed that his legs were stuck to the ground, and that huge dice were rolling all around him, like boulders. And then he heard someone moving outside. Someone was creeping up on him.

He waited for the no-good son of a gun to show himself.

The sheriff leaped out quicker than a rattler on a prairie dog. The stranger was done up like some kind of sailor, all in special cloth, with a hat like he was keepin' bees.

"Don't shoot!" he cried, throwing up his arms.

"Huh," said the sheriff. "Seems you're as yeller as your britches, son. Now, tell me what the Sam Heck you're doin' out here, and where this big ol' dice came from."

"The dice come from far away," the man stammered. "But it's a long way from Tombstone."

"Well," said the sheriff, "turns out I can ride pretty well. I'll just fetch my hoss."

Our Little Town

Welcome, weary traveler, to our home town. Out here in the Wasteland, it may not seem much, but the water is fairly transparent, the air is free to breathe and the meat genuinely came off an animal (probably not a biped). People here are just plain folks and speak plainly, especially if you're some kind of city boy.

A local's house is his castle, and that's doubly true once he's erected the barricades.

Our main industry is sludge farming. While the sludge that bubbles up is somewhat caustic, high standards of safety are in place and nobody has died for, oh, weeks. Here Walter and Jesse, our expert sludge technicians, persuade a passer-by to test the crop with a specially prepared bit of stick.

Folks around here are pious and god-fearing. After dark, the worshipers gather at the Church of the Serpent (which, our lawyers would like to remind you, is not a cult) to discuss matters of faith. As far as religion is concerned, forewarned is four-armed.

So welcome to our little town! Whether you're a mutant, unbeliever, zombie or just vaguely different, rest assured of a warm welcome from our citizens and their militia.

Pictures from the Barbican

Recently, I went to a corporate event at the Barbican, in London. In case this makes me sound impressive, I should point out that, as far as the world of big business goes, I am more Winston Smith than Gordon Gecko. Anyhow, after learning about AI (in short, it's a rubbish film), I got the chance to take some pictures of the venue with my phone camera.

(Warning: arty talk to follow)

The Barbican has a large internal garden, protected by a massive conservatory-type roof. Here are a couple of shots.

What I find interesting about this is how overgrown it looks, and how the human elements seem to be getting swallowed up by the plants. You could make a terrific gaming table like this - although you'd still have to fit the miniatures in there somehow.

This picture looks like something from The Last of Us, where deserted cities have become overrun by vegetation.

The next two pictures struck me as interesting because of the industrial details. I could imagine them making good Necromunda terrain. Although the hive is supposed to be polluted and foul, it's probably more mutated than dead. I expect there is some pretty weird plant life down there. I particularly like the inevitable warning sign.

Nice pipes!

These last two pictures are of the inside of the Barbican. I thought they would make rather good (and oppressive) corridors. I could imagine one of the more impressive ministries in 1984 looking like this - except less clean.

Like having the city in a birdcage!

Anyhow, more miniatures shortly.

Introspective Retrospective

Well, it's the right colour scheme for Father Christmas...

It's nearly Christmas and the year is almost done. The planet is just about still here and, given the current circumstances, I'd call that a success.

From my own point of view, it's been alright. My main achievement was to get the sixth Space Captain Smith book, The Pincers of Death, into print. People seem to like it so far, so that's good. I'm still not a multi-millionaire from my writing, which is less good.

 For no valid reason, I thought it would be interesting (for me) to look back at some of the better stuff I've made this year.

In January, I made the first entirely scratch-built model that I've ever done. It resembled a sort of mobile teacup, which was nearly what I intended.

Terrain piece of the year was the bar I made out of a GW ruin and some plasticard. Just the sort of place where everyone knows your name, assuming your name is "Oi, you".

In Summer, at long last, I got around to building the titan that I'd had knocking around for ages. It's probably not my best painting work, but I'm going to put it here solely because I'm impressed that I got around to finishing the bloody thing!

Sir Vaylance The Vigilant

In terms of individual miniatures, my favourites were the Carnivale nobles:

And this big green monster from Privateer Press:

But I think my favourite of all is the guy below. He's not all that exciting, but he was one of those rare moments where the conversion and the painting both go the way I wanted them to. I don't think I could improve him much and there's not much I'd change. So, beer-drinking cyborg guy, you are miniature of the year - at least by the standards of this blog.

Merry Christmas, and if I don't return to bother you before then, Happy New Year!