May contain small objects

Well, its been a while, but I felt like a had a pressing reason to return! Reading a comment earlier about poor feedback on a paint job, relative to Facebook pages, or twitter, or wherever got me thinking. Like most hobbyists, I've had a journey in my painting style and quality over the years, but more importantly what I wanted to get out of every completed miniature.  A huge part of that improvement and self reflection has been constructive criticism from other great hobbyists. Providing constructive crit (CC as I will call it from here out,) is a skill in itself, and I wanted to pen some thoughts on it as it also happens to be part of my professional toolkit and responsibilities in my "real job." Constructive Criticism  Dictionary.com defines the term as "helping to improve; promoting further development or advancement" We can probably all agree, on the face of that definition, the happy helping hand of a friendly community keen to see others...

I finished (finally) my first squad of Primaris marines! I thought I'd share them, and some of my views on them. Squad Daviel in all its plasma glory I've got shedloads of tactical marines. I mean, half a company. They're not all well painted but there's some real characters in there I've come to love. That's why when the new primaris marines came out, I couldn't see much value in adding the Intercessor, bolt rifle armed varient to my 7th company. I love plasma weapons and in days gone by, (recently re-invested in by GW) Dark Angels were particularly fond of them too, so I went for helblasters. This unit is horrible on the field. I bought them for looks and background but my first playtest had them decimate a Dreadnaught in a turn of shooting. They are equally happy slugging it out with short range heavily armoured elite troops, ormedium to long range with support troops like themselves. Those incinerators are multi damage, high ap weapons that...

Last night the small group of friends I've been playing games with got together for the second time to practice some painting techniques. I get a real kick out of helping people learn - I don't, by any measure, think I'm anywhere near s good as some painters out there (the likes of platoon are stocked full of amazing painters) but I acknowledge I have skills to pass on. Last time we focused on my favourite, weathering and vehicles, and this time more of a free for all that included flesh tones, armour chipping, plasma and heat effects and finishing. Some people might think I'm stoking my ego by getting people together to blow sunshine up my arse - couldn't be further from the truth. I do bring along a selection of models which includes my golden demon finalists, but like it was for me I hope people find them inspiring. I still remember meeting mike McVey at the platoon get together and picking up the green knight - THE green knight, that I had gazed at in w...

Tonight I walked away and called "done" on Sammael, master of the Ravenwing. I first painted this mini on release as a solid metal, in 2007. At the time I was quite proud of it, but successive additions to my dark angels force (particularly completely updating my ravenwing bikes and spending far more time on painting them well) has left him looking shabby. Luckily, my friend and occasional minion Ian kindly bought me the new finecast release for Christmas in 2017. Whilst it has more flash than a Nikon it was much easier to work with than that old metal.  I painted in sub assemblies, which I didn't do last time. I blended, highlighted, and feathered, noone of which I really bothered with last time. Most of all...I planned! Shock. See what you think...old metal against new resin. Hope you agreed I've come a long way in ten years!  2007 2017

Weehee! can there be anything more fun than getting an unexpected package in the post? A package with Japanese mail posting all over it...big box, what can it be? Turns out its the newly released Aoshima 1/350 scale Thunderbird 2, which I pre-ordered in November and promptly forgot all about. I'm not going to get started on this one just yet with all the other work already going on, (see my last post,) but I thought I'd review the kit and contents for you. Shrink wrapped magic The kit itself comes with a hell of a lot of content. The craft itself, the iconic, original 60's TV series transport, is represented in 1/350 scale - but what really attracted me to it was the addition of all of the rescue craft too (not just Thunderbird 4 as usual!) Kit features 11 separate scaled pod machines, including the rolling road transports seen in the first ever episode, Firefly the bulldozer, radio transmitter, lifter, remote line launcher and missile launcher - as well as ...

Seems fitting that I join the hordes of other people setting goals for 2018! I have lots of personal goals which have until now meant my hobby has taken a back seat. A career that used to be the reason I picked up a paintbrush to cope, has become a success and taken off for me, lots of challenges to come. My martial arts training and fitness has suffered, and I'm really keen to get to my first dan stripe on my black belt this year. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to seeing if I can balance these things against painting models! Hobby goals Josh, hobby. Commission works I'm currently working on Mortarion, and I'm hoping to get him finished for the end of January. Friend I'm painting him for is the same crazy man with all the titans I've previously painted, and he keeps threatening me with a Warlord. It would be crazy - but I'd love to be able to say I've painted one. One of Mortarion's roadies - very fun to paint He's also got...