Valten - Exalted of Sigmar

Finally I am happy to post the first miniature painted in 2022!

I have not been painting much lately, and when I did, progress was extremely slow. I really do not know why, but the mojo was not flowing as it used to.

Only lately I have been inclined to paint again, so I am hoping I will get a nice streak the next few months.

This miniature was released in 2003 so it can already be considered oldhammer I think, although for me it will always be "quite new". This one is the old metal version and not the slightly new Finecast model, it is out of print for a while and I believe it is still quite sought after.

It has been sitting on my pile of shame for years, but not since 2003, I believe I got him somewhere around 2016 or so.

For this miniature I wanted to push my limits and spend as much time as I felt I needed for each component. That is why I chose NMM and not TMM for the metals, since I know using NMM is way out of my comfort zone and the only way to get better at it is practice.

I have spent countless hours watching videos on how to paint, streaming sessions and reading tutorials and one thing became clear about my own technique, aside from the fact that I am not a very good painter: I do not have enough contrast on my miniatures. As a result, they usually end up looking quite bland and are rarely an eye-catcher. Therefore, I decided to go for more contrast, use zenital lighting, and in general paint with lighter, brighter colours.

In the end I am quite happy with the result, it really stands out next to my other Fantasy Characters which are way darker. Still, the transitions are not as smooth as they should be, the NMM is poorly executed and I chose wrong colours for the red/brown leather. I am quite happy on the other hand with the work on the horse's skin and eyes, which is something I usually do not enjoy much.

Here are the final pictures, which vary wildly in quality, as I am a very poor photographer. A few with black and a few with white backdrop, as it really changes the colours of the miniature.

Painted in 2022

Gotrek & Felix

It has been a long while since my last post!

I have been unfortunately away from the hobby for a few months due to holidays, work and other topics.

I was quite optimistic about my year-end goals but now that we are entering the last stretch of the year I am no longer.

I think I will be happy if I manage to finish my DBA Romans and leave the rest for next year, let's see about it.

Today I am sharing Gotrek and Felix, painted somehow in between July and September, but only recently found the time to take pictures and prepare the post.

These figures were a gift from a friend that found a whole Dwarf Army while going over old boxes. He was kind enough to give them to me and they were in a very good shape, just needed to strip Felix of its original paintjob, which was not bad for its time to be honest.

I chose a very classic scheme for them, even though I tried to make Felix look a little bit more rugged than usual as I think it suits him. I struggled quite a bit between NMM and TMM and in the end chose TMM but had no real good reason for it.

These are very classical characters with a lot of charisma that I gladly add to my Fantasy collection of selected Characters.

You can see all posts here:

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

Hope you like them as much as I enjoyed painted them.

Painted in 2021.

Armies on Parade: Skaven

It seems this is the year in which I am crossing off my list many projects!

I made big efforts at the beginning of the year to improve my painting speed and I can really see it is paying back as I am able now to paint fast and with acceptable quality. Of course that means that I did some horrible things along the way, but hey, at least they are painted.

In any case I am already over 100 miniatures painted this year and still two months left to go!

This post is wrapping up the extended Skaven project.

Originally, I closed this project back in 2017. But, after I decided to extend the army to match a 4,500 point army for The Ninth Age, I needed to paint and base a few additional figures.

Well, here is the full painted Army in all its stinking glory!

I am quite happy at the speed and quality I managed to maintain while painting the last stretch. It was roughly a little bit over a month to paint almost 40 miniatures including several big ones.

Here is the mega list of the whole Army:

• 1 Tyrant on Monstrous Rat
• 1 Battle Standard Bearer
• 1 Skrolk Lord of Plague
• 1 Ikit Claw Chief Engineer
• 1 Snikch Assasin Deathmaster
• 1 Gnawdoom Greyseer
• 1 Thanquol Greyseer
• 1 Queek Head-taker Chieftain
• 1 Vermindaemon
• 1 Hero Engineer
• 1 Assasin
• 60 Clanrats with Command Group
• 1 Extra Clanrat Standard Bearer
• 22 Slaves with Standard Bearer
• 29 Stormvermin with Command Group
• 1 Stormvermin General
• 18 Plague Monks with Command Group
• 1 Extra Plague Monk Standard Bearer
• 4 Giant rat handlers
• 36 Giant rats
• 15 Gutter Runners
• 8 Poison Wind Gobladiers
• 10 Plague Censer Bearers
• 5 Rat Ogres
• 1 Screaming Bell
• 3 Warpfire Thrower Teams
• 4 Warplock Jezzails
• 2 Doomwheel
• 1 Warp-Lightning Cannon

And here are a bunch of slightly blurred photos of them in battle formation.

Tyrant on Monstrous Rat

This post makes me quite happy as it marks the very last one I plan to have for a painted skaven. I want to make another one with a group photo, but it won't be because I have just painted another figure.

This is also a significant milestone in 2019 as not only I have finished my goals for the year, but also one of the stretch goals! And I have painted almost 150 figures now... let's see how far can I go.

I have labelled this as oldhammer even though it is clearly not, but I just want to keep the whole army under one label. It is the figure from Forgeworld but I have decided to paint it using the same techniques as for the rest of the army, making sure it fits well with them.

The rat is pretty massive and it is way bigger than its base size, I was forced to buy a new case to transport it together with the cannon as they are both simply way too big for a regular case.

I painted this one with a white basecoat which I don't usually have because most of it is skin and I did many layers of washes and some dwarf flesh to get that (hopefully achieved) putrid look.

It's quite difficult to make good pictures due to the size, when one part is in focus the other side is out of it, so I have made tons of pictures to try and capture it. I hope you like it.

I am already working on the next stretch goal, let's see how that goes...

Painted in 2019

Warp-Lightning Cannon

Today I am sharing the last Warmachine that I plan to paint -ever- for my Skaven Army, a Warp-Lightning Cannon.

And the only one that is not really an oldhammer model. While it is true that I have a few more recent models in the Army, here and there, I did not have until now a big one such as this Cannon. Unfortunately, both for T9A and for more recent versions of Fantasy, a Cannon is a must-have for the rats and there is no alternative model unless I build it myself, and I did not want to do that...

Therefore, I have done the next best thing, get one of the recent models and attach a classic figure to it as master.

As I am basing all of the warmachines, I put it on a round 75mm base to follow the T9A guidelines, although I must say it is way too small for this figure.

I have used the same techniques I used for the other warmachines, that is, to pain it mostly with different shades of brown and go heavy on the weathering, rust and similar effects. While that is quite easy and fast to do, in the end it took me much more than what I thought simply because of the sheer size of it. It really stands out when placed next to my Army as it is easily twice the size of the Vermindaemon! You will see that on the family picture I will make after I paint the last miniature I have on the list, which is the Tyrant on Monstrous rat that I am already painting...

Painted in 2019

Doomwheel (II)

This is the second Doomwheel for the army, having painted the first one back in November 2015.

I followed more or less the same technique, with the main difference that this time I placed it on a base, as I am basing all of my warmachines to make them fit properly with T9A rules.

A I now have way too many warmachines and too big, I needed to build up a new case for the bigger miniatures, therefore, I did not magnetize all the components as before, just the pilot, to make it easier to transport and assemble it before the battle.

I bought this one second hand and unfortunately it was missing the pole for the standard, after thinking hard whether I should build one myself, I decided not to so that I can easily differentiate it from the other one.

On top of that, I painted it mostly with greens rather than with reds, that way, it stands out on its own.

Just two figures left to go for the last of the skaven reinforcements!

Painted in 2019.

Stormvermin (III)

Here are another eight Stormvermin to add to the existing unit.
With these little guys I have finished all the rats I needed to paint, I am starting now with the warmachines and will top it up with the Hero. Still a few weeks left for October so I might make it within my self-imposed schedule.

Painted in 2019