2024 Year End Review.

 

#ArtVsArtist2024

2024...*sigh*

What a crappy year, but at least I'm alive and (mostly) well and I managed to paint some stuff. What is presented here are the projects I completed this year. I have worked on a lot of other models and miniatures that did not get finished but those will not be discussed here. Perhaps next year? I tried to put these in order of completion. 

Leviathan Terminator Librarian

Worldeaters Terminators

Primaris Lieutenant with Stormshield

Primaris Lieutenant Titus. 

2nd edition era Whirlwind (update).

Assault Intercessors squad 2

Primaris Ancient . 

Librarian in Phobos armor and Eliminators. 

Blood Axe Kaptin (ork warboss)

Dark Eldar Venom #2

Primaris Lt in Phobos Armor

Dwarf Warriors. Repainted and ready to storm the Old World. 

Krak Shot The deadly objective marker of mirth and mayhem! 

Redemptor Dreadnought. Dreadtober 2024! 

Thane.  A stunty leader with a fresh repaint. 

Celestial Lions Chaplain. Scream loudly and attack with your beat-stick. 

The Battlemasters tower is finally done and ready to grace a tabletop some day soon. 

And I think that's all, I don't believe I missed any finished models. Note that I didn't include the models I consider to be "combat ready". An example of that would be the 20 Termagants from the Space Marine II board game. 

In 2025 I hope to be able to finish some of the projects started last year as well as do a few new things that appeared on my hobby radar. I would discuss this more, but why jinx myself? Als0, I am quite exhausted from this holiday season and I seriously need to rest, But anyway, have a happy and safe new Years, and thanks for reading this and following my blog. 

Battlemasters Tower (Part 4)

Gotta love a lion! 

Continuing on from last time,  we have arrived to the finale stage: the banner.  Way back in Part 1 of this thread I discussed why I chose to keep the original sticker and the steps I went through to preserve it. Now, many many moons later, it is finally time to remove the Artists Tape mask from that old sticker. ..

Artist tape mask over OG sticker. 

And I was thrilled to see that, even after being on since 2019, the sticker was indeed protected by the Artist Tape mask and nor was it damaged by it during removal. 

Mask removed, old sticker revealed.

Finding a perfect color match for a 32 year old printed glossy sticker was going to be a challenge, but I turned to my trusty old range Citadel paints for the answer. I decided to give Ruby Red a go. And I must say, it's a damn close match! I'm just glad it's not the yellow I was trying to match, that would've been a hard challenge for sure! 

Ruby Red added. 

Next, I used a modern GW paint, Retributor Armour, the tassels and trimming accents of the banner.  When took this pic I was unsure about that top bit, but clearly it needs to be gold also.

Retributor Gold applied. 

Having fixed that oversight, I went ahead with the final highlight on the gold using a Citadel Dry paint called Sigmarite. I feel like this turned out as well a I had hoped. 

Finished. 

With that last step, this is done. And here it is zoomed out a bit. The next few pics will give a kind of 360° view of the whole tower. 

And here it is, occupied by it's new dwarf masters. Clearly some noble lost this property in a grudge restitution settlement. And that pretty red lion flag is about to become a table cloth in the drinking hall. Does anyone out there have the stones to try to take it from them? 

Anyone?

Under new management. 

Celestial Lions Retro Tactical Squad (Part 2)

 Continuing on from Part 1 , I have reached the middle steps of this batch painting project. First off I picked out all the belts, tubes, joints, metal areas, grills, etc. with Abaddon Black. All the recesses and joins were washed over with a 50/50 mix of classic Citadel Chestnut Ink and water. 

Base coats.

Next came the application of Space Marine Blue. This is a classic Citadel color from the ancient Space Marine Paint Set from 1989, and one of the oldest paints in my collection. It's still so perfect for my needs and I hope to find a replacement for it some day.

Middle stages. 

I had to slow down (okay, stop) this project while I worked on my Dreadtober project for this year. If you saw those posts you might have seen these guys standing vigil in the background of some of those pics.  Puny golden sentinels poised for action while big daddy dread slowly came to life. ..

Standing vigil.

With my work schedule  being  very punishing this holiday season this is about as far as I think I'm going to get with these guys before the year is up.  But never say never especially when there are so many week left to grind through...

Maddie's Marauder

 Both of my kids have always been fascinated by my miniatures hobby to some extent. Especially the colors of all of my various paint pots and bottles. 

So on the eve of her 3rd birthday she approached me while I was sitting at my hobby table and asked me if she could "paint a guy purple". I thought about it and almost sacrificed an old 2nd edition marine for this unique learning opportunity. But I remembered I had about 40 loose Chaos Marauder Archers from the old Battlemasters game that I won in the late '90s via an auction that was on the old WH40K Mailing List. 

Corax White basecoat. 

I brushed Corax White onto the marauder to act as a basecoat. I figured the easiest way to teach a kid this young how to paint is to use Contrast Paints. So I let her pick what colors to use on what parts and we proceeded with the lesson. 

The Bow of Red Era. 

I held her brush hand while holding the model with my left hand. And I guided her application of paint over the whole miniature. And I gotta say, this turned out better than some of the 'Paint and Take' competitions that I have participated in. I particularly love that she wanted the bow painted red as it totally screams early '90s 'eavy Metal doesn't it? 

Who doesn't love a green mohawk?

Next she picked out a rok to put on the base. (you can see it in the top pic behind the guy's left leg).  Next I helped her apply the grit to the base.  She had a lot of fun shaking the model into the cup full of grit. 

Gritty. 

Next step was to paint the base which we did in two coats.  I gave her a choice in colors for the bases rim and she chose, much to nostalgic pride, Goblin Green! 

And finally, I let Maddie pick out a grass tufts and we glued it down together. 

And that's a wrap! I think she's game to do more and since I have another 39 of these things sitting in a zip lock,  I won't be running out of them too soon.  

Celestial Lions Chaplain (Part 3)

 

All ready to use his beat-a-heretic stick. 

Considerable  progress has been made since the last post.  In fact, I finished the model! 

Retributer Armor was washed with Reikland Flesh Wash then highlighted with Stormhost Silver. The exception to this was the terminator honors dangling from his belt, I skipped the was step and instead added Shining Gold in order to make it stand out against all the other gold areas. 

Skeleton Horde Contrast Paint was used on the stuff I decided to paint boney-colored. The right paldron was particularly interesting to me. I highlighted this using Wraithbone. 

After the touch-ups were done and I decided I was satisfied with paint job in general, I glued on the backpack and added on the grass tufts to the base. 

And presto, a finished Chaplain, ready to take on the foes of the Emperor (while dodging those annoying sniper rounds!).

Battlemasters Tower (Part 3)

 Continuing from Part Two, I finally made progress on this thing by painting the doors. 

Adorable huh?

These doors were left in their original black primer for a few years now. The idea was that I would simply dry brush them in a gray and call it done. Only that once I got around to doing it I found that the gray of door kind of clashed withe the surrounding gray bricks. 

The gray on black doors. 

Well, I wasn't having that. So a wash of Agrax Earthshade mostly did the trick. I did find that the cracks between the individual door planks needed a kick in the contrast department, and more Agrax Earthshade wasn't going to do it, I needed to bring out something more potent. And that turned out to be Brown Ink from the Citadel Inks set from the '80s. The inks from that time still hold up and they were, and I'm not understanding this, very intense hues. I just used a thin blush and ran the Brown Ink down the joins and along the door edges. 2

Brown Ink in the joins. 

Gray over black. 

The hinges and door latches were all painted with the old Tin Bitz paint, then randomly painted with an old Copper craft paint. 

The studs on the doors were painted in a copper cplor as well then highlighted with Leadbelcher. I used Leadbelcher as a highlight on the hinges and latches also. 

All-in-all, I think these doors turned out pretty good. They really have an archaic vibe to them which is totally what I was going for.  But this mighty little tower isn't done yet. In part tfour I am going to paint the banner that is draped over the front crenalations. Well not the whole banner. -You'll see! 

Anyone know where I can find 25mm-28mm empty milk bottles?