Thursday 31 December 2009

Project 1 - Space Marines

Without further ado, time to go onto my first project.

Theres a planned open day at the shop, so I have been asked to put on a bit of a painting demonstration if theres anyone interested in taking a look.

Its as good an excuse as any to get back into the swing of things. Its just like riding a bike I guess... hopefully.

Anyway... the open day is on the 2nd of January (just enough time to get over the new years hangover) so I've been given a small selection of plastic space marines, and I intend to paint each of them in different chapter colours, just to get back up to speed with what I need to do.

I have 5 marines, so want to paint one as Dark Angels (green primarily), one as Blood Angels (red primarily), one as Imperial Fists (yellow primarily), one as Crimson Fists (blue primarily - I've never really liked Ultramarines so I'm ignoring those) and finally one as a Black Templars marine (black primarily)

I've spent about an hour preparing the models, gluing them together to get to a decent starting point.



You'll notice of course that I havent put any of the right hands in place - I prefer to do that so it doesn't block any of the chest area - I like to have access to all areas of the model so I dont leave anything too important out - people will argue that if its not visible, it doesn't matter, but i'm a bit of a perfectionist (and thats why I take so long to paint). Also - apologies for not putting all 5 minis in the picture, the one I took with all 5 was really blurry, so I left it out. I'll upload it to Picassa though when I document all the steps.


Now then... future plans. I want to try using Gesso to undercoat the miniatures as I've heard good things about it. I know that takes 24 hours to properly cure/set/dry so in order to have these ready for the open day, so the next task is to undercoat all the parts. Three are going to be done in black gesso, and 2 in white. Heres keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't totally ruin the detail on the model before I even get to lay a brush down to start work.

But for now, its just broken into New Years Eve where I am, and I've got a long day to come with the various celebrations and parties, so time to pack these away for now and return to them on new years day... probably with a sore head.

Wednesday 30 December 2009

The all-important first post

Hi all, and welcome to the new blog. I previously ran a blog for Eve Online (thats a computer game for those not in the know) called 'One Man and His Spaceship' - oddly enough that was due to the fact that the game was all about 'internet spaceships' (ask any Eve fan, if you can ever find them.)

For anyone who is even vaguely interested in my Eve Online adventures, you can find the blog linked here - but be warned, its not really been updated for a long time as I've been busy with other things in the meantime.

This blog is all about painting miniatures. More often than not, those produced by Games Workshop/Citadel Miniatures, and since my personal favourite genre is sci-fi (take a guess as to why I play Eve) I tend to stick with the Warhammer 40,000 game miniatures.

Now... a bit of history. Many years ago (well about 5 ish) I stopped my painting endeavours when my local gaming club folded due to a drop in interest. I was never really one for playing the table top game, but I always enjoyed painting the figures, and would often just come along to the club to get a few minis moved further along the production line, and have a chat to friends.

In recent weeks, one of my friends has fulfilled an age-old dream of his, and he is opening his own shop - strangely enough stocking Games Workshop products, and also custom built PC gaming rigs. He approached me and asked if I minded doing a bit of painting for him, as he was wanting to offer a painting service for any purchased miniatures. I really wanted to see the shop work (note, I've promised him a free plug so you'll hear more about that soon) so I agreed... then realised that I'd not painted in so long, I was bound to be rusty. So I need to get into practice.

This blog is the inevitable result. I'm going to document my attempts at getting back into the swing of things, and maybe give a few good pointers on the way. My main failing was that I was always really slow and methodical at painting, and ultimately, if the view is to offer a painting service that is cost effective, I need to get the practice back in and learn old and new shortcuts to keep the quality high, and the time it takes low.

Of course, times change too, and with the 5 years that have progressed, I've started up new hobbies, and take part in other things that draw my time away from painting... so juggling this, work, and a social life should also be a fun thing to watch - as an outsider anyway - I'm dreading it.

So anyway... thats my not so short summary of why I've created this blog... and lets hope that anyone who follows it also will gain something useful.