Lead Figures:
Older figures:
These figures are some older ones I think are worth showing - the painting standard isn't as good as my recent painting (particularly further down!) but often they have interesting concepts or painting styles. Here's a selection of some favourites: Mid skool is roughly mid-late 90s when I focused more on painting well, old skool is early 90s when I was....unfocused =).Scroll down for more images and click on thumbnails to pop-up a larger image.
Mid skool:
LOTR diorama. Aka "Aragorn about to get pounded into shit by a Cave Troll" although the local GW store didn't approve of that title =). Painted for another cancelled store competition, it's an exercise in composition as much as painting - hence the second photo showing the implied motion. I don't like the new LOTR figure range except for the Cave Troll and doing this diorama made me appreciate how excellent it's pose is. Aragorn on the other hand is converted, and I'm very happy with the scene.
Legion. This is the Albion Fellbeast converted to represent the Legion monster from the excellent Wheel Of Time game (well recommended, BTW, the best fantasy FPS around). The Legion is the manifestation of an evil entity known as Mashadar "...created by binding the almost-dead bodies of it's victims together, then animating it by manipulating the still-living muscles and tendons. The result is a hulking, lumbering monstrosity...". The Fellbeast provided an inspiring conversion base - the converting was various bending and hacking and filling in with random bits to make a lower, more bestial pose. The painting was a complete pain in the arse, each damn limb took as long as a normal single figure!! Still it got the right effect in the end.
40k Chaos Warband. Painted for a cancelled local store competition, the theme of which was "design your own Space Marine chapter and paint a character or squad for it". I painted a squad and a character and a vehicle =). This was part of a long abandoned warband idea that it was nice to finally get painted. My chapter is the "Crusaders (Knights of Khorne)" with a metallic red & gold colour scheme, and includes converted figures of various eras. I'm particularly happy with the coherence of the warband from the colour scheme through to the converted Rhino echoing the squad designs (piping into a gold head, gold spikes on exhaust equipment).
Skaven Captain. More colour experiments. The cloak came out a bit pastelly but I might reuse the colour on something more suitable. The black with red didn't quite work but again, useful ideas can be gained...
Mordheim Elf. Complete with "hand cobbled base" =). Technically some of the best painting I've done though not the most exciting colour scheme.
High Elf. Possibly the best colour scheme I've come up with! Painting could be crisper though.
Tzeentch Mage. It has a display base it must be good :P Yes, another Tzeentch Mage, I liked the confidently powerful look of this, hence a display base. I'm pleased with the painting too, starting to get the right definition here. The cloak was a slight experiment highlighting with a different colour, I wasn't very confident doing it. The staff was supposed to be sculpted out of the blood of a thousand slaves, bled dry in Tzeentch's name.
Knight. Okay, this was a turning point in my painting, this was when I actually started to actively improve and see how well I could paint. I tried hard with this figure to get an interesting theme, neat painting, and smooth blending, most of which worked well for the time. What it lacked was crispness and clear definition between the colours, which I worked on next. The important thing was a bit of a change in attitude...
Old skool:
The Beast. This was a serious conversion and despite it being OTT in all senses and having a colour scheme that can probably only be appreciated if you're on acid, I still like it, particularly the utterly belligerent pose. I actually entered it into the Golden Demon painting competition during the time when you entered models to your local store and they entered the best ones to GD. Unfortunately although they liked it a lot, they didn't enter it because it was too converted and they couldn't trace all the parts (this was a long time before the current clear guidelines). I think it would have stood a good chance of winning a prize or even more - the painting in that distant era was nowhere NEAR as good as it is now. The parts, out of interest: Slaanesh Daemon legs, Warhound Titan leg, Giant Ogre torso, Giant Scorpion tail, Slaanesh Daemon claws, Chaos Dwarf warmachine weapon, standard wings, Chimera head, Nurgle Daemon horns, Space Marine head...
Chaos Warrior. Yet another conceptual experimental thing. This time, metallic red (which apparently Citadel couldn't do as the metal flakes made the red too grey), done with a reddish base coat and several ink washes. Worked quite well for the time, I think, and I got the rest of the figure reasonably balanced too.
Chaos Warrior. Another free, and crap, figure. This is notable only that I painted it with enamel paints, just to see what they were like. Don't think I'll be doing that again... However, layering, drybrushing, and metallics worked really well. Detail work and blending were hopeless. *Shrug*.
Marine, and matching Epic scene. Mmmmm crappy old plastic marines =). It was free on a White Dwarf cover, that's my excuse! An extravagent colour scheme but one which I think works fairly well, the colours go together at least. Imagine doing an army with that pattern! Another figure where I'm proud of the base. The Epic scene was mostly playing around with bitz I accumulated. I quite like tying in themes between figures.
Elf on Silver Dragon. This on the other hand is a proper dragon. I really like the base on this, it inspired me for future detailed bases (which I never got around to). I also quite like that I went a proper silver dragon, although the claws were obviously inspired by "the infamous red period", grrrr. The Elf's colours reappeared later in a recent Harlequin.
Knight on dragon. I was fond of trying all sorts of wacky ideas and silly figures back in the day. This one I still quite like, the smallest knight in the world - an armoured imp familiar on a dragon familiar, going for a typical knight with a tiny twist.
Tzeentch Standard Bearer. This figure is notable in that I painted it using only 6 colours: Red, Yellow, Blue, Black, White, and Silver. I tried to push the mixes as far as I could, reaching metallic crimson, olive green, rich gold, lavender, and all sorts in between. The result is a gaudy mess, but hey I still like the idea, I should revisit it...
Mage. Another figure showing early, crude, blending. I did well with the base on this one I think. Apparently this is a rather rare figure that can sell for quite a bit in good condition.
Tzeentch Mage. The first figure where I learnt to blend for shading and highlighting. I'm still proud of the painting on the beak! I was always particularly keen on Tzeentch for the colours and interesting designs.
