I Can Quit Any Time I Want

It's not been a busy month, this. That's why I've got so much painting done.


Eighty models? Have I really painted eighty things this month?

• 30 Eldar
• 3 AG platforms
• 6 Swooping Hawks
• 20 Corsairs
• 6 Fire Dragons
• Valendor
• Ba'el
• 5 Assorted Reaper
• 2 Realmgates 
• 1 Maggoth
• 3 Maggoth Riders
• 2 Nurgle Champions (yet to be revealed) 

Plus all those battle reports. Man, I need to get out more. I'm back out on tour next month, that'll help.

Well, five more chips off the Reaper block. Still plenty more in there, although most of it is already a bit painted as my daughters are 'helping' daddy with his very important work. Probably ought to get on and do the good ones before they become spherical balls of acrylic paint, really.

Random Futuristic Henchman. Not an inspiring piece, although I may go back and sort his eyes out.

These five are broadly themed as more steampunk guys, plus a random hero.

Odd model, this. He's standing on a drain cover with a torch, which sort of makes him feel like a 1920s Mythos investigator. But what's that stick? Why the silk scarf and T-shirt? Weird.

Thumbs up for science! Wait, the mechanism's jammed again.

Early Victorian Power Armour

After that, I felt I needed to get something off my plate. Time for a Return to the Return to Valendor.

Ba'el is still, for my money, a crap model. Stylus managed to make him look good, though, and I felt inspired to have another crack at him. The brown paint scheme looks much better and was also much easier to do, and slapping BftBG on in the cracks as an afterthought, instead of trying to paint them gory reds before, was way more effective. I'm pleased to get him out of the way and feel I've done him some justice.

He's still badly posed and oddly proportioned. Those wings! the ragged flesh is too thick, he doesn't have the chest muscles or stature to carry them off if you imagine how big they're supposed to be, and he's got two big toes on each foot, although I guess Demons are allowed that kind of extravagence. 

And he just doesn't scream 'Big Bad Villain' to me. Henchman Muscle at best, end of session encounter rather than end of season. Ah well. For his antagonist in the campaign, Mr Titular himself, Valendor, I decided to take a thrown-away remark by Stylus at face value.

Valendor had his head, spear and hands chopped off, then his base replaced by a Reaper 40mm round. Then I cracked out the Chaos Warrior spare parts. He got a Marauder Horseman axe, a standard Warrior's shield and a Chaos Knight head, then a green stuff fur mantle (in strict defiance of PETA guidelines) made of the leftovers from sticking the new bits on.

I'm pleased with the cloak design, which I cheated a bit to do. Brown basecoat, then before it dried, I stuck a plastic Khorne Icon on the back, then sprayed again with black. Easy to remove, and gave me a nice stencil to fill in for the logo.

One shiny red paintjob later, he looks quite presentable. He's not quite finished, he'll eventually be ankle deep in gore to cover his tiny elfin feet, but I think he's a massive improvement on the original.

This is him with a finished paintjob but an incomplete base. After pouring in the water effect resin, I was delighted to find that his base leaked. Once I'd prized him free of the paint rag I'd now stuck him to, I plugged the gaps with blutack and tried again.

Here it is once it had dried - I swirled dollops of BftBG through the resin before it set, and in places it looks nicely layered. Bit heavy in other places, sadly. 

So here's the finished article! He's quite... red?

Impressed as I was by the Exalted Deathbringer in our recent AoS battle, I think that's Valendor's true calling now. See? Nothing a Mark of Chaos can't fix.