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...

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...

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...

Just a quick update this week. I've been mad busy recently and have found it really hard to make time for any painting. I have managed to give Shazam a wash though! I started by giving him a couple of coats of Vallejo gloss varnish through my airbrush. I was pretty worried going in as it's something I'd never done before but overall it was really easy. Gloss varnish is tricky, it's hard to know when it's actually dry because it always looks wet. It seemed to dry pretty easily though. I haven't tried to use my airbrush again since so time will tell if I've knackered it! Next I applied some Citadel washes: Seraphim Sepia for the yellows and golds, Reikland Fleshshade for the skin and Nuln Oil for the grey cape. I really didn't like the way the Nuln Oil looked so I spent a bit of time touching it up with Celestra Grey. I'm still not 100% happy with it but I've got time to fix it. Finally, I used an oil wash for the first time. I had a tu...

I've finally got my paints out and made a start on Shazam. Feels good to finally get going with painting a miniature! I even got my airbrush out. I've played around a bit with airbrushing but I've never really got to grips with it. I still don't really feel like I know what I'm doing. I'm happy with how this turned out though. For an undercoat I used Vallejo surface primer. I started out with black and then did a zenithal highlight with white. I then used Citadel Air paints to get the reds down. I started with an all over coat of Khorne Red, I then applied Mephiston Red to the front and top of the model, followed with Evil Sunz Scarlet from above. Finally, I blocked in the rest of the base coats. These were Averland Sunset for the yellows, Celestra Grey for the cloak, Retributor Armour for the golds, Cadian Fleshtone for the skin and Abaddon Black for the hair. The only other thing I've done so far it to paint the base. I think it looks p...