Proyectos para 2023

Revisión anual

Este año es el año que menos he pintado desde que empecé el blog, exceptuando 2013. Si el año pasado pinté pocas miniaturas, este año aun menos. Y menos posts en el blog, claro.

Esto se ha debido a una mezcla de agotamiento mental, falta de interés por los proyectos y otras causas de la vida real™ que me han mantenido alejado de los pinceles. Y seguramente el 2023 sea igual, por lo que tengo que tenerlo en cuenta de cara a plantear proyectos.

Tuve un fin de semana friki total en el que me lo pasé genial montando y preparando proyectos para la segunda mitad del año, que, por un motivo u otro al final no conseguí realizar.

Estos eran los objetivos del año pasado, que ya eran modestos:

1. Pintar las nueve miniaturas que tengo pendientes
2. Encontrar tiempo para jugar

Puedo decir que sólo conseguí un objetivo de dos así que en total NO conseguido.

Empecé el año con 9 miniaturas pendientes, he pintado 43, y termino el año con 6 pendientes. Claro está, he añadido un ejército de OPR de Tiránidos y algunas miniaturas de Hijos de Horus, pero no he pintado las nueve miniaturas que me planteé originalmente. Al menos lo importante es que he seguido manteniendo la lista pendiente de pintado por debajo de 10 miniaturas.

El objetivo de jugar lo he cumplido. He jugado la liga de Blood Bowl que quería jugar, donde quedé quinto (de ocho) tras ser mi primera vez con Undead y con las reglas nuevas, me puedo dar por satisfecho. He jugado bastante a OPR e incluso he probado juegos nuevos como KoW. No he jugado a DBA por desgracia, pese a que oponentes no me han faltado.

Objetivos 2023

Preveo que el año que viene va a ser complicado a nivel personal por diferentes razones, por lo que el tiempo para el hobby será limitado. Así que voy a mantener los objetivos modestos.

1. Pintar lo que falta de los Hijos de Horus (Spartan, Falchion y Maloghurst)
2. Coleccionar y pintar dos ejércitos KoW 10mm (No-muertos y Bretonianos)

Si cumplo los proyectos aun me quedarán 3 miniaturas pendientes, pero es que dudo que vaya a tener tiempo para pintarlas. Las dejaré como posibles.

Los ejércitos de 10mm me apetecen mucho porque además hay buen ambiente en el club y muchas opciones para jugarlos.

Montaña de pintado

He seguido con la tónica de apenas comprar nada, exceptuando la nueva caja de Horus Heresy, pero conseguí pintar lo que quería y vender lo que no, por lo que la montaña de acumulado apenas ha aumentado, que es el objetivo principal. Y mantengo la lista de pendientes por debajo de diez. Por este lado me doy por satisfecho.

Lista pendiente de pintado

Colección Héroes y Villanos Señor de los Anillos (2)

• Balrog
• Nazgul en bestia alada

30K Hijos de Horus (3)

• Maloghurst
• Land Raider Spartan ** lo cuento como una miniatura
• Legion Falchion Super Heavy Tank ** lo cuento como una miniatura

Miniaturas Sueltas (1)

• Sumothay en 54mm

Posibles futuros proyectos

Además de los objetivos mencionados, mantengo una lista de posibles proyectos, por si saco tiempo:

• comprar y pintar un Dreadnought Leviathan para los Hijos de Horus
• añadir personalidad a las minis de The Walking Dead, compré hojas, botellas y otros pequeños elementos de resina para poner en las peanas pero nunca tuve tiempo de hacerlo.
• comprar y pintar algún Primarca mas (que era el objetivo original de este blog)
• pintar cada uno de los (nuevos) Grandes Demonios del Caos
• revisar mi ejército de Khorne y rebasear una unidad de Desangradores que mi hermano compró para usar con ese ejército pero que nunca fue adaptada. Seguramente cambiar el maletín que uso para almacenar porque la solución actual era temporal (y lleva siendo usada mas de 10 años).
• revisar mi ejército de Caballeros Grises y adaptarlo a las reglas actuales, seguramente para OPR (requiere rebasear todos los marines, además están en peanas con césped y tierra y les quedaría mejor alguna pintura técnica texturizada)
• pintar un busto a gran escala

My best figure of 2022

Since 2020 I am publishing a post in which I select my favourite mini of the year. See past selections here:

• 2020
• 2021

This year I painted a few individual miniatures, like Goku, Valten, Eddie, a Nurgle Lord and Perturabo. I also completed my Nighthaunt and Tyranid army. And I added a few models to my Sons of Horus.

Overall, despite 2022 being a weak year in terms of hobby, I am happy with the quality of minis I painted, especially the individual ones, it is a tough choice for me between Valten, the Nurgle Lord and Perturabo, but if I have to choose one it will be ...

Valten!

Legion Praetor

Today I bring the Praetor with Power Axe. Lovely model to assemble and to paint.

I have tried to paint it following the style of the old models, without going overboard with the weathering but still keeping it consistent with the Army (which means more weathering than what I would have preferred).

Painted in 2022

Dreadnought (III)

This is the fourth Contemptor Dreadnought I have painted. First two were painted in 2016 and the third in 2017. When painting the third one I mentioned I was not planning on getting it and for sure I was not planning on getting a fourth one! But I could not pass on the weapon options that the new box brings, so I decided to paint it.

The model itself is quite a level-up from the old one. You can basely pose it in almost any position you want. I also magnetized all weapon options as usual.

This time I used a different technique. I painted base colours and used quite freely enamel washes, pigments and white spirit to achieve the end result I wanted. Overall it was ten times faster than my previous method and managed to get similar results. I limited the amount of time spent on highlights, glazing or other refinements to make sure it still fits well with my older models. Also the weathering was limited compared to my previous Dreadnoughts, overall I am quite happy with the result.

I doubt I will ever play with four Contemptors but I might try one day when I have the Leviathan to play only with Dreadnoughts, I am sure my opponent will love it!

Painted in 2022

Legion Tactical Squad (IV)

To be honest, after having painted my last Tactical Squad in 2017, I was not expecting to come back to them...

My last Sons of Horus post was in 2018, when I showed the complete Army. In all honestly, the Army is finished, but I could not help myself when the new version was released. I have added a few things to the Army just because I love the miniatures. A Squad shown here, a Dreadnought, a Praetor and then two tanks, a Falchion and a Land Raider Spartan. I expect to show all miniatures until the end of the year but the tanks will need to wait for 2023.

Before I started to paint them I took out a few of my old miniatures and checked them thoroughly, I was appalled by the low quality! I wanted to make sure the new ones could easily mix with the old ones, but that meant painting them to a very low standard. I already checked the scale creep and that is ok, so I just needed to keep the same style. Luckily for me I had still exactly the same paints I used last time so it was easier.

This time around I tried to tune down the weathering since it was quite extreme in the old miniatures. I also noticed that I chose not to use any transfers back then, so this time around I also did all symbols freehand. One thing I changed on purpose was to keep the unit consistent in terms of pauldron colours and symbols, while in the old ones I was happily mixing everything, I think I just got bored of painting so many marines. I also magnetized the vexilla and speakers.

Back in 2017, I was applying a green coat to the armour, then a green wash and then highlighting again all pieces of the armour. This was a very slow time consuming process. This time around I just painted the whole miniature with flat colours and applied washes, pigments and enamels, then cleaned it up with white spirit. After that, a few details were painted and the miniature was ready. I think the end result is quite similar in terms of quality but 10x faster. You can see a couple of pictures of before/after applying the washes, but just before the clean-up with white spirit.

Painted in 2022

Weekend hobby madness

After finishing the Hive Tyrant I had only four remaining figures to paint in my whole pile of shame, according to my 2022 project plan. But of course the new Horus Heresy came along which added a bunch of things to my pile.

As I want to keep my pile as close to zero as possible, I decided that I would have a weekend of hobby madness and would prepare, mount and prime all figures I own. I thought hey they are not so many so probably I can do it... I was wrong :)

The goal was to have everything ready to be primed by Sunday lunch time and dedicate the afternoon for priming and mask taping the tanks.

There were a few projects that I had been procrastinating for years so it was the right time to tackle them... this is how my living room table looked like for 3 days.

From my 2022 plan I had:

• Legion Falchion Super Heavy Tank
• Sumothay (54mm)
• Balrog
• Winged Nazgul

Recently acquired Horus Heresy I had:

• Land Raider Spartan
• Contemptor Dreadnought
• 10 MkVI
• Legion Praetor
• Maloghurst

Nurgle Lord on Daemonic Mount

For today I bring a Nurgle Lord on Daemonic Mount.

I always wanted to paint the Lord on Daemonic Mount, and last Xmas my brother gifted it to me. I decided to transform it a little bit and nurgle-fy it. Unfortunately, I did not take any pics of the conversion process, but I added greenstuff to the horse to simulate pustules and rotten flesh; sculpted tentacles going out the helmet, and the back as well as holding the shoulder horn and obviously gap-filling as this is a GW resin figure, we all know what that means.

As it was a Nurgle Lord I was going to paint him green, but decided to go for a highly-saturated one with plenty of yellow rather than a matt green, more dark as I use to. The style is a little bit oldhammer, although I chose NMM for it. It makes for a very nice counterpart next to Valten.

As usual, I am unable to take proper photos. I have tried different settings and lighting to no avail, still most of the details and textures are gone, for example the hammer is NMM and then several layers of moss and such to make it more Nurgle-y but the image simply captures green layers on top of it.

My Fantasy Character Collection grows! :)

Painted in 2022

Character Collection

1. Archaon
2. Aekold Helbrass
3. Doombull
4. Harry the Hammer
5. Morglum Necksnapper
6. Skaven special characters
7. The Green Knight
8. Trollslayer
9. Tyrion
10. Gotrek & Felix
11. Valten, Exalted of Sigmar

Armies on Parade: Tyranids

I have a very small Tyranid Army that is basically a spin-off of my Tyranid Kill Team. I plan on add a few more units in the future as well as a couple of big ones like the Mawlock, but for now I can field them when I mix my Cult.

Below you can see the whole Army painted:

• 1 Hive Tyrant
• 1 Ravener
• 3 Tyranid Warriors
• 10 Hormagaunts
• 10 Termagaunts
• 2 Brood Lords
• 1 Zoanthrope
• 40 Genestealers
• 3 Rippers

Hive Tyrant

I present the last miniature -for now- of the Tyranid project, the Hive Tyrant!

I actually finished painting him sometime mid-June but not until today I got him out of storage with all the others to take some pictures.

When doing so I realized that the matt varnish layer I applied right at the end has ruined completely the paint job. This is very frustrating, it's the second time that it happens and it somehow looks like a fine dust layer on top of the whole miniature, especially visible on the dark blue areas. I tried removing it with all sort of products but it also takes away the paint, so the only real solution is to repaint the more damaged areas, which is something I am not willing to do for now.

Aside from that, you can see that I took a bit more of time on him compared to the other bugs. I still followed the same techniques and tried to paint him fast, but did a few extra steps for some additional highlights.

Arms are magnetized so I can choose between rifle or claws.

For the wings, after looking at many different pictures of very nicely painted Hive Tyrants, I decided to go for a pattern that I could simulate with the stippling technique which I am trying to get better at, while at the same time giving it some kind of flesh-y look. On top of it I added a few veins which I think adds a nice touch.

Painted in 2022

New Horus Heresy edition

A long time ago, in June 2018, I published an Armies on Parade post about my Sons of Horus.

With almost 150 miniatures I thought this project was over, but I was wrong! A project is probably never over-over, it is on hold until a new possible update comes through.

Last year I got a Falchion Super Heavy Tank as a present, but it has been sitting on my storage since then, together with Maloghurst the Twisted. With the revamped edition of Horus Heresy and the lovely new miniatures, I got onboard the hype train for the Heresy once again, and that gave me the boost to start the project again!

I have decided to purchase the basic box and will be painting the following:

• Praetor with Power Axe
• Contemptor Dreadnought
• 10 MKVI Legion Tactical Marines
• Spartan Assault Tank

I know, my Army does not need any of those, but:

• I wanted to paint at least one new Praetor
• I already have three Contemptors, but the new one has new weapon combinations...
• I do not have many beakies so I wanted at least one tactical squad
• lastly, I already own a Spartan but I would like to have another one to be able to field two in a full Terminator Army.

Therefore, please expect some Sons of Horus appearing in the blog in the next few months.

After these, I am looking forward to the new Leviathan Dreadnought as well as the Kratos, but first I want to finish this batch...

As for my goal of painting all miniatures I own that I started in 2008, I am happy to report that before this purchase, only 4 miniatures were pending (2 from Lord of the Rings, 1 Chaos Champion on horse and 1 Sumothay 54mm). Therefore, the timing is quite good, I am not really done with all, but close enough.

Ravener

And here is the first Elite unit I have for the Tyranids Army, a Ravener. Painted with same technique in roughly 45 minutes.

I always like the Tyranids that can go underground and that I somehow feel they fit nicely with other units that can lurk, like the Lictor or Genestealers.

In fact, I plan to use this figure as a a Lictor until I get one. I also plan eventually to get a Trigon or some other bigger crawler, but that's for the future.

The Hive Tyrant is mostly done as well so as soon as I am ready, I will share an Army picture with the whole Horde!

Painted in 2022

Tyranid Warriors

Here is the only Tyranid Warriors unit I plan to ever use in the army, as they are very expensive and not that effective.

Painted with same scheme and in roughly 2 hours. 

Painted in 2022

Termagaunts

Second unit of my Tyranid Army: 10 Termagaunts

These are painted int the same manner as before and they are just here to occupy some lonely objective and stay there mostly hidden for the whole battle.

I painted them in roughly 3-4 hours including bases, which is quite fast.

Painted in 2022

Hormagaunts

Last year, I bought a super cheap set of Tyranids at a second-hand shop for 20€. Some of them were in pretty bad shape, but it did not matter too much as I just needed a few to kitbash and the Genestealers for my Genestealer Cult Army.

Later on, I decided to use them for Kill Team so I started to play with them more and enjoyed them quite a bit.

Lately, I have started to play more One Page Rules and I realized that if I would use all the figure I bought back in the day plus a Hive Tyrant I could have easily over 2,000 points so it was settled.

At the same time I needed to paint ultra fast some figures to rest from the effort of painting the ones I have done earlier this year.

As a result, here is the first unit of the army: 10 Hormagaunts. They are basically cannon fodder but if played at the right time they can deliver some damage.

I painted them in about 3 or 4 hours, which is super fast for me. The painting scheme I chose for them is the same I chose for my Genestealer Cult. I used the same necromunda bases.That way, I can mix them easily and have a bigger army by adding a few units of Genestealers or by using some of the Tyranids as allies for my Cult.

Painting schema

For the base I use these colours.

1. Paint the whole base Gunmetal.
2. Paint some pipes and other details with Tinny Tin.
3. Optional add some additional details with other colours like grey or bone.
4. Cover everything with Strong Tone Wash.
5. Highlight with silver and bronze the different areas adding some texture and scratches.
6. Add spots of oxyde with Orange and Turquoise for the bronze areas.
7. Optional add some more washes or pigments to make it even more rusty.

For the body, I use the following.

1. Mix 60/40 of black and magic blue for the body and paint everything including caparace.
2. Dry-brush a mix of 50/50 of black and magic blue for caparace.
3. Very light dry-brush pure magic blue on caparace, optionally adding some splashes of pure magic blue on the borders.
4. Hexed Lichen for the lila parts, which is mostly the "skin".
5. Wash the lila parts with dark tone.
6. Repaint the lila parts with Hexed leaving darker areas for deep shadows.
7. Paint teeth with bone.
8. Paint tongue with squid pink and optional add some highlights mixing pink and lila to the skin.
9. Paint eyes with orange.
10. Paint all claws in black.
11. Edge highlight claws with wolf grey.

Painted in 2022

Dreadwarden

Back in 2020 I painted the Chainrasps, I forgot to include a Dreadwarden and I could not field them for Warcry.

With this speed paint job in roughly 1h 30min it is now solved.

Painted exactly using the same techniques described here.

Painted in 2022