Hello chaps – another week, another mini, another sketchy song-lyric-for-a-title… (nice one Skee-lo!). I’ve been on a bit of a go-slow this last week – there is so much going on at the moment! It’s all mostly study related, but I did manage to finish the Dwarf from WQ-ST (hence the title & song choice… see what I did there?)

Well, what can I say about the Dwarf? This was the hero that I was least looking forward to painting… fiddly, complex, and a faction that doesn’t really draw me in. I found him a sod to paint – the level of detail is insane, while the proportions, exaggerated musculature, and total lack of clothing conspire to make this model quite grotesque in my opinion… I mean, I had to paint his cheek-meat ffs, and if you get the chance, look carefully under the kilt – I am sure there is a hint of a ball-sack :-/

Ahem… anyway, I decided to embrace this ugliness, and had a play with the idea of the runes that are hammered into his skin to give him super strength & armour, (and remove the need for clothes apparently). I figured that such an effect might reasonably be expected to leave its mark, (beyond the obvious), and so I painted lots of livid veins, as if the runes are polluting the character’s blood stream somehow. I think this exaggerates the grotesqueness of the mini nicely, while contrasting pleasantly with the otherwise clean-cut and heroic look of his equipment. To me, it reads like he’s ostensibly a ‘good guy’, but there is also something disturbing going on… maybe even a little sinister…  This, (in my humble opinion), makes him a bit more interesting than he might’ve otherwise been. Anyway, enough chit-chat, what do you guys think?

Next up, I’m going to tackle the Griffhound – I’m away on a hiking break next week, so I just want something quick and easy to crank out. Also, I’ll be working out a 1200 point force for Rogue Trader, ready for BOYL (Bring Out Your Lead) – the annual OldHammer event at the Foundry Miniatures in Nottingham on the 5^th, 6^th & 7^th of August. Time to dust off my Praetorian Imperial Guard and do a spot of spot of list building! I may well take a few pictures as I sort out the list and share them with you – it has been too long since the Dauntless 215^th graced the pages of this blog ;-)

Ok, so that is really reaching for a song-based title for this post, but hey, KLF is gonna rock you :-) Right, down to business. First up, my apologies for not getting this post out sooner – busy busy, blah blah blah… but good news my friends, since we last spoke I painted my first mini from WQ Silver Tower, and this represents the start point of my latest project – to paint the whole set! Now I know there are a few OldHammerers who frequent this blog, and that WQ-ST is the kind of subject that gets beards wagging, and true aficionado lead-heads grumbling into their Bugmans XXXXXX, but hear me out peeps! First up, the game is pretty darn cool to play – not as focussed on advancement as the original Warhammer Quest was of course, but the gameplay is slick co-op and is really good fun. Secondly, the models are (mostly) really cool, with some lovely old-school touches – the familiars and the Tzaangors for example. Ok, so the Dwarf and the Gobbo-spiders to be pretty meh, but the rest is solid if you ask me. Thirdly, at least for me, the set is a good motivator to paint up some stuff that is way out of my usual stomping ground, so it’s good practice from a pure painting perspective.

Anyhow, enough of the justification trip, let’s look at what I did! I decided to tackle the Stormcast Eternal first up, (hence the tenuous song link in the title), and I don’t mind admitting that I chose him because I thought he would be fairly easy… Yeah right… I found him really tough to paint – such a heroic model deserves a clean and crisp paintjob, which is very different to my usual grungy look, and therefore way out of my comfort zone. That said, he was a joy to paint – clean lines, great pose, and some really lovely detail. I was determined to go with my own colour scheme rather than one of the official Chapter Stormhost ones, and I settled on this rather nice Red & Silver, with gold sort of acting as a spot colour:

(Oooh, grown-up photography too!) The red armour plates actually started out gold as well, and were painted/washed/highlighted in the usual way before being painted over with the new red gem paint from GW. This is a continuation of my coloured metallics experiment from my last post, and I’m much happier with the results this time around. The rest of the painting is straight forward enough, the only other thing noteworthy is the work on the base. I had a ridiculous amount of fun gluing old watch parts together to give the effect of complex clockwork machinery – it took ages, but I thought this look might work well in a Silver Tower setting, and so I persevered. I’m really glad I did, and I like it well enough to carry the theme through for the whole set, (though probably not as complex for the less important figures).

Anyway, that’s all for this week folks – it isn’t much, but hey, better than nothing right? I’m happy with how he turned out, but what do you guys think? ‘Stormcast Eternal’, or ‘Cloudy with a chance of drizzle’? Also, which of the Silver Tower heroes will be next??? Tell you what – put your vote in below and I’ll go with the most popular answer :-)