A Return to the East (and the blog!)

Well it's been a while but I'm back and with some new stuff!

So I'll dispense with the usual apologies for prolonged radio silence - There's been plenty of them over the years! I've been long hankering for a return to blogging and it's been really heartening to see the odd comment on here enquiring as to whether I'm still active - I will apologise for those comments languishing in moderation limbo for long periods of time! There's been a lot of water under the bridge and a lot of real life since last posting here. I won't bore you with the details but a lot of it has been to do with work related depression and anxiety, mainly stemming from all kinds of retrograde changes from a chronic lack of funding compounded by utterly incompetent management. I'm in a much better place now and looking forward to starting a new job this month, happily doing the same countryside management stuff I used to do as a National Park Field Ranger. I've been active in the hobby throughout (well some of the time!) and it's been a lifeline of sanity and enjoyment - especially the games and events down at Foundry with a lovely bunch of folk who I don't see often off thanks to our disparate geographical locations. So enough with the depressing real world stuff as I have new things to share here as well as a bunch of older material from the last Old World Army Challenge I participated in but never got round to posting here. 

One thing that kept me painting (because I had to!) was a painting commission I agreed to do for a good friend who can be found on Instagram under the name Magnetic Scrolls - as can I now thanks to his badgering! https://www.instagram.com/stephen.beales/ 

I was always going to help a mate out who was contemplating quitting the hobby because of ill health, but the nature of commission really piqued my interest as it was an opportunity to paint, among other interesting stuff, a whole bunch of Citadel's Oriental miniatures that I'd likely never get my hands on otherwise! Of course while I write this, I notice the accompanying image is actually an Oni, currently still available from Dixon Miniatures! I will add at this point that these pictures lack the usual scenic background I prefer - I wasn't terribly organised at the time to photograph them in this way and these pictures are the ones I sent for approval as I finished each batch. I did get round to doing some proper photos of the last lot I painted but I'll save those for later.

The brief was for an Oriental themed Chaos army - cue a really interesting mix of Samurai, Beastmen, Chaos Warriors, Kabuki theatre actors and ninjas. How could I resist!

It all started off with this lovely little group but it was the wizard I was most excited about painting - not a miniature I'd even seen before! The above picture is taken from Stuart's instagram account as I realise I never took a picture of them fully finished before handing them back! The following is a photo dump of the painted miniatures I sent for approval before basing.

This was a fun little guy to paint, especially with the request for blue skin and some great reference art of various Oni for inspiration!

I really loved painting this chap - loads of character to work with in the face. Again the preferred colour scheme was a lot of help and suited this model down to the ground.

I was on more familiar territory with these Hobgoblins, having painted quite a few in my time, Wrinkly Hobgobin boobs was a first though!

As said previously, Stuart's colour choices and reference pictures he sent were a real help and there was always some interesting ideas he came up with. This Chaos Dwarf was a case in point as Stuart wanted the armour to look like the stone armour found in the tomb of the first Chinese Emperor to match with his big brother a bit further on.

Who doesn't love a Ninja and like with Dinosaurs - everything is better with them! These were a bit of struggle as I became concerned that there wasn't enough contrast between the greys and dark blues of their clothing - thank God for Drakenhof Nightshade as I think they came out alright in the end.

Not sure if it really shows in the photos but I've found this painting tutorial from Sorastro a great way of making large areas of fur or similar materials look more realistic in terms of shading and highlights. Seems to work for a Ninja's Mino (straw cape) as well as Wookies!

I must admit approaching the Samurai with some trepidation - lots of colours and fiddly detail. As it was they weren't as onerous as I feared but I was glad to get them done! Also pictured are a couple more Hobgoblins and an undead Ninja which were included in this batch to preserve my sanity!

I think the restrained colour scheme really helped me out with these models, as did painting over a zenithal highlight undercoat and using citadel shades to bring back the contrast.

Interesting model this one - I guess you don't see that many Undead Ninjas about! The detail of the mask he's wearing was a good opportunity to add a little splash of colour and tie him in with the rest of the Ninja.

An old favourite of mine and a model I've painted several times before! I think he's one of the best Hobgoblin models of all time.

So I think that'll do for now but there's plenty more to come from this project in the coming weeks! At the risk of promising things I might not deliver on, I'm going to try and get a post out each week or two. Take that with a pinch of salt as my day job is a physically tiring one, especially in these winter months when you're out on the fell every day and in every weather, and week day evenings are often a write off - weekends too if there's family or social stuff going on. I'll also give you a little teaser of the current project I'm working on which will feature on the blog later in the year and it's certainly a rather lighter hearted one to those of the past few years! - after three days of prepping and undercoating Snotlings, I'm just off to do a test piece to decide on a suitable skin tone for them...