On the Painting Table: Nurgle Chaos Lord

Our local GW Hobby Center has started a monthly painting competition called "The Brotherhood of the Brush." It's basically a way to create some friendly low-stakes rivalry and a sense of community among the painters in the area. The way it works is that everyone paints the same mini, and at the end of the month a winner is selected by popular vote. The winner gets to pick the next month's mini.

So to kick things off, the store manager picked the newly released Nurgle Chaos Lord. Here's mine, as WIP:

Slaying Wet Blending with Tim Lison

My local GW shop manager was on vacation this week, and minding the shop in his stead was Tim Lison, multiple Slayer Sword winner. Needless to say, I spent a chunk of time hobbying there this week. Tim was even good enough to bring in some of his Slayer Sword/Demon-winning entries for me to ogle up close, and he shared a lot of his perspective on painting. A highlight (ba-dum-cha!) for me was learning how to wet blend from him, one-on-one; we did so while also doing reverse highlighting. We practiced on a couple Black Reach Terminators, and I felt like I got the basic hang of it. Woot!

On the Painting Table: Zenithal Ultramarines

A few pics of work in progress. Trying a method that Thomas David uses in the Miniature Mentor Speed Painting video, where he paints a subdued palette onto the mini in the appropriate highs and lows, and then glazes the color in over that. The starting point is to airbrush the mini using a zenithal approach. In this case, the light source is pitched forward slightly, so that the shoulder pads, head, and top of the jump pack get the brightest light. These minis have had the airbrushing done and the initial glazing. Next steps are to apply some additional manual shades and highlights to force the light where I want it (the face and tippy-tops of the pads).

The idea is that lighting these guys like this helps create not only a point of focus, but also a sense of forward motion, which the Black Reach space marines really need. These shots aren't the most balanced, but you get the idea.

Already prepping class models...

For Masterclass II, in a fervent hope that we can make it happen. Details TBD.

Masterclass I with Mathieu Fontaine: Ogrepalooza

So we had Mathieu Fontaine come down from Quebec this past weekend to teach his Masterclass I, which is all about figure painting. We learned to paint skin, cloth, faces, eyes, and metal; we learned to see the figures as a collection of spheres (much as a comic artist sees a form in circles); we laughed, we cried...it was better than CATS.

Here's the ogre I worked on. No figures were "finished" during the class; rather, the mini was a canvas for learning techniques. I learned A TON, particularly about highlighting and shading muscles.

On the Painting Table: Black Reach Dreadnought, Part II

Finally gave in and tried using Ultramarines Blue on the thing. I think it helped! Cleaned up the deets on the facing as well. Now for the legs, a purity seal or two and the bullet holes.

BTW, as I get asked this frequently, the base is made by Micro Art Studio out of Poland. Here's a link to their store page for this particular base: Click!

On the Painting Table: Black Reach Dreadnought

Highlights are going to be the death of me. I need to push the contrast a lot more.

48 Hours at the Chicago Bunker: Dark Eldar Archon

One Finecast challenge later, here's a mini I painted last weekend. Pretty happy with it!