Will's 2020 modelling

[Will Vale]

Happy New Year all, we feel for what you're going through in England and elsewhere. Let's hope for a better 2021.

 

Herewith my builds/paints for the year. Lots of unfinished projects but quite a few finished ones as well. It's fair to say that I had a very slow start (two unfinished projects, a railway layout and a sort of necropolis thing) and then our lockdown happened. Eventually I got the brushes out and painted this guy:

 

(click any photos for bigger/more)

My wife brought him back for me from the Netherlands several years ago and he was long overdue paint. He's an Exalted Deathbringer of Khorne and I cut his topknot off as I thought it looked a bit silly. The "Ophelia" on the base is part of a Citadel zombie.

I painted a couple of Beastmen, trying to take as little time as possible (the Deathbringer was a relatively long and complex paint job), these were a couple of evenings apiece.

 

Slightly in parallel to that, I started working on these floor tiles for Necromunda, which were challenging and fun to paint. A big canvas for weathering is nice but hard to fill.

 

I think because I was enjoying the scenery side of things I built a little diorama/terrain piece in the Adeptus Titanicus scale (circa 1/200) using a 40K statue and some bits of the AT industrial scenery kit. That was really fun once I'd plucked up courage to paint the verdigris'd bronze.

 

 

I kit-bashed a couple of leftover pterodactyl parts (heads and tails) into Ripperjacks for Necromunda, they were also a lot of fun. The bodies are Miliput around the cut and shut donor parts.

 

Back to the Titanicus scale, I made a load of scenic bases for Aeronautica Imperialis - the silver planes (Thunderbolts) are from last year I think?



and then painted a set of T'au planes to go on them. I figured out some new ways to use Contrast paints as a replacement for enamel washes, so the shading on the bigger planes is a lot cleaner (no enamels used on those).





I found some cheap Epic-scale metal models (similar scale to Titanicus but a bit smaller) on Trademe (our local auction site) and really enjoyed getting back to the '90s building and painting those. I wouldn't say white metal is totally fun to work with but the weight of the vehicles is satisfying in a way that plastic isn't.

 

The bombards are out-of-the-box (blister) but the Manticore rocket artillery have had their slightly lumpen metal rockets replaced with nice modern plastic ones from the Aeronautica ground assets sprue.

I'd put off painting figures from Blackstone Fortress for a long time because I didn't know how to base them to fit with the board game pieces, but finally came up with a plan and I'm really pleased with the results. These are Ur-Ghuls which were a doddle to paint as they really only needed washes and glazes with minimal highlights. Even the eyes are just pits so no pupils to dot





They were so much fun that I immediately moved on to the Spindle Drones which I think are really neat little models. Which I still haven't photographed properly!




I spent lots of November working on the MG Hyaku-Shiki mobile suit (from Gundam) and trying to make use of the gold plating. I've stalled on this and need to get back to it.



and in December GW started doing "paint club" with free models, so I had to give that a go. The first one was a Daughters of Khaine Witch Elf who was quite far outside my comfort zone. I enjoyed trying the '80s makeup though.





And that's the lot. Not a bad haul although not much "proper" modelling going on. I need to revisit the Hakone Tozan railway, finish the dumper truck I started last year, and definitely finish the Hyaku-Shiki especially given how close it is to being done. Plus there's one beastman who only needs highlights and three more who need painting yet. And probably loads of stuff I've forgotten.

At the end of the year I reviewed this kit which is very nice and currently pending washing and primer (as soon as I finish painting the current figure...)

I'd like to apologise for not posting that many work-in-progress builds this year (and I think not posting every finished build). I felt like last year in particular starting a WIP thread would curse that project to peter out and I don't know why I was hoping that posting finished models would help keep my morale up a bit more, but I think it was a bad idea and the discussion around the build is the important thing. I'll try and do better this year, but in the meantime you can find all my model photos on Flickr and I've started making more use of Instagram as well if you're into that. 

Cheers,

Will

 

[JeroenS]

Awesome paintwork Will, those tiles look amazing. And your scenery bases, so much to look at. Great work. 

[Andy Moore]

13 hours ago, Will Vale said:

Not a bad haul although not much "proper" modelling going on

 

It all looks like proper modelling to me Will - a fantastic collection of builds, although the tiles remain my favourite. Looking forward to seeing the Titanic and seals with some paint on.

 

Andy

[whitestar12chris]

Some cracking stuff there Will, keep em coming.

 

All the best Chris

[PlaStix]

Stunning painting and weathering as always! Very nicely done.

Kind regards,

Stix