Well, where to start? 2019 was the year I properly got back into the hobby. My interest was piqued way back in 2011 and I dipped my toe in and out here over the next 8 (?!) years without ever fully committing. That all changed in 2019. One of the biggest reasons I finally managed to become a fully-fledged miniature painter again was clearing out the spare room in our house. We have a box room that was previously just used as a dumping ground. It was the room where we put everything we didn't know where else to put. I changed jobs back in February and had a week off so I cleared the room out, put a shelf up and set it up as my hobby room. Having a dedicated space really made a difference. One of the reason's I never used to have the motivation to do any painting was because I couldn't be to get all of my stuff out of a cupboard and put it all away again once I was finished. The other big thing this year was setting up this blog and my Instagram account. Being able to t...

The White Scar Intercessor is finished! Once again I'm really happy with him. I was very much starting to lose faith in him while I was edge highlighting the white. I don't know if it's just the fact that the pot of White Scar air paint I have is quite old or if this particular paint is a bit of a weird consistency but I was really struggling with it. The paint seemed to immediately dry on my brush. I persevered though, and once I'd finished I left the model alone for a bit and when I came back to it I decided it hadn't come out that badly after all. I really like the way the red has come out too. I was also able to stick some transfers on him! I used Micro Set and Micro Sol to try and get the transfers to look as painted on as possible and I think it's worked. They didn't wrap around the shoulder pads as well as I'd have liked and I had to scrape a few protruding edges off and paint over them. Next time I'll cut some slits into the edges so t...

I've been on holiday for the last few weeks so haven't been able to make much progress on the White Scar Intercessor. I'm back now though and well and truly back on the hobby horse. I've finished and washed the remaining basecoats and tidied up the shading. I've also slapped some Stirland Mud on the base. Hopefully I'll be able to get him finished this week. I've also given the Imperial Fist a coat of gloss varnish and a wash with Agrax Earthshade gloss. I'm not going to touch that model again until the White Scar is finished though.

Another quick one this week. Since finishing the sergeant I've made a start on both of the other Intercessors. I've already shown the basecoated Imperial Fist. I've also stripped the Red Scorpion and decided to do him as a White Scar instead. This model makes sense as a White Scar because his pose makes it look like he's running which is in fitting with the White Scar being speedsters. All I've done so far is base him in Ulthuan Grey, paint the trim in Mephiston Red, add a couple of layers of Vallejo gloss varnish and give him a Nuln Oil wash. I had a go at freehanding the kneepad as well. I've gone for the 3rd Company, solely because their captain is Kor'sarro Khan and if I do decided to paint up some more units he'll fit right in. I got the design from the  White Scars Lexicanum page . I've made a start on the base coats for the Imperial Fist too but I want to wash him with Agrax Earthshade and I haven't got the gloss version of it yet...

Drum roll please...I'VE FINISHED A MINIATURE! I can't believe it's taken me so long since getting back into the hobby to actually finish a miniature but I've finally done it. I'm absolutely delighted with how it's come out as well. I really struggle painting flesh which is why I decided to paint the sergeant as a Salamander. The green I went with (Warboss Green) isn't the shade you'd typically associate with Salamanders but I just love the way it's turned out. I'm definitely going to paint some more Salamanders in the not too distant future. I also got to try out a few new techniques on this guy too. Mainly using Vallejo varnishes through an airbrush. After messing up on the Red Scorpion I think I've finally cracked it. I also love the finish the matte varnish has produced. I feel this model looks more "professionally" done than anything else I've ever painted. I really wasn't sure about the white hair at first bu...

The Red Scorpion I was working on really wasn't inspiring me at all. It's a scheme I've been wanting to try for a long time but I got bored of it very quickly. So in an effort to get myself going again I decided to move on to something else. After my oil wash disaster with the Imperial Fist I decided to get that stripped and give it another go. I was always planning on painting the sergeant as a Salamander so I thought I might as well basecoat him while I had the airbrush out. However, the green went on much better than the yellow so I changed by mind (again) and decided to make a start on him instead. I really feel like I turned a corner with the airbrush whilst priming and basecoating these miniatures. I previously wouldn't be patient enough waiting for a layer to dry before going back over it again. However, this time I really took my time and I started using a hair dryer to speed things up a bit and it really made a huge difference. I've also learned that...

Something I've really struggled with is getting decent photos of my miniatures. I'm not a photographer by any stretch of the imagination but getting good lighting in my house to be able to get even a respectable photo from my iPhone has been a real problem (god bless Instagram filters!). In order to try and rectify this. I've bought a collapsible light box from eBay. Now, this thing only cost £6.99, so I'm not expecting to all of a sudden start taking incredible photos straight away, but after a couple of tests I'm pretty pleased. As you can see from the above picture, it hasn't been unfolded for very long, so the sides are still bending inwards. I'm also not sure I've put the white backing sheet thing in properly (the instructions aren't the best). I need to get in quite close to the miniatures to stop the holes in the corners from being visible. Here are a few pictures I've taken using it though. They're all models I've posted ...

Just a quick post this week. After calling it quits on the Imperial Fist I've made a start on the next Intercessor. This time round I'm going for a scheme I've been wanting to try out for ages: Red Scorpions. Basecoats are done and I've applied the gloss varnish, really happy with it so far. I was a bit worried I'd gone in too heavy with the varnish in a couple of places but it seems to have dried OK. Up next is an all over wash with Nuln Oil. I'm going to try out the gloss version of this wash, I've never used a Citadel gloss wash before. Wish me luck!

It was going so well... Having applied a couple of coasts of Vallejo gloss varnish to the Imperial Fist Intercessor, I decided to give oil washing another go. It had worked so well on Shazam and I was so confident I'd get the same result here. How wrong I was. I initially just tried pin washing the recesses but the wash just wasn't flowing correctly. I don't know if I'd thinned it down incorrectly or hadn't applied enough varnish or done something else wrong. As this didn't work I decided to completely wash the whole thing, let it dry slightly and then go back in with cotton buds and white spirit and clean up the flat surfaces. Unfortunately I think I let it dry for too long. The wash just wouldn't budge. I went in with more white spirit and scrubbed it as hard as I could but it was no good. Eventually layers of base coat started peeling off and the blue plastic underneath began to reveal itself. It's a shame because I was really startin...

I've decided I need to practice on some slightly larger miniatures, and I think working with flatter surfaces would also be helpful at this stage, so I've bought a box of Easy-To-Build Space Marine Intercessors. I mentioned in a previous post that I was going to give Primaris Marines a miss but the models have slowly grown on me, and I wanted something cheap and quick to assemble. I'm going to paint each one in a different chapter scheme and try out a couple of things on the way First up, an Imperial Fist. I've painted Imperial Fists before and always liked the colour scheme (my original idea for a complete Space Marine chapter was going to be Imperial Fists). Yellow can be a scary colour to paint so hopefully this will give me some good practice. Also, I've got a load of Imperial Fist transfers lying around that need using! I started by priming the model using Vallejo Grey Surface Primer. I then based coated it in Averland Sunset and gave it a zenithal h...

When I decided to get back into the hobby I "um'd" and "ah'd" (is that how you spell that?) about what I wanted to paint for quite a while. All I really knew was that I wanted it to be a 40k army. The only armies I knew I didn't want to paint were Chaos Space Marines and Necrons. I don't know what it is about either of these factions but they've just never really done it for me (with the exception of Kharn the Betrayer which is one of my favourite miniatures of all time). As I've mentioned previously, my initial plan was to go with Orks but it didn't take me long before I got sucked in by Space Marines. Once I'd re-familiarised myself with the lore and the rules of chapter organisation, the idea of putting together an entire company really started to appeal to me. I spent a fair bit of time looking at all of the different chapters and narrowed it down to Imperial Fists, White Scars or Blood Angels. I've already shown the Imper...

In my last (and also first) post I talked about how I decided to get in to the hobby, spent a fortune on all kinds of miniatures and then hardly painted any. As true as this may be, I have actually finished painting some  of them... So I thought I'd share a few and give a bit of a brief history lesson on how I got to where I am today. My original plan was to start a small Ork army for Warhammer 40k. I had no intention of ever getting into actually playing 40k (and I still don't), but I thought Orks would be a good place to start as they seemed pretty quick and easy to paint. I bought a box of Boyz but before I'd managed to get together enough paints to actually paint any of them, I'd started to snoop around on eBay and managed to find a complete Assault on Black Reach box set at a pretty reasonable price. I snapped it up, but by the time it had arrived I'd convinced myself I wanted to paint the Space Marines in it first. I decided I didn't want to go for the...