John's April Hobby Progress

I’ve decided that this year is not going to be about cranking out another army. I have an Iron Hands army for 30k that I really enjoy playing with and following the Drukhari codex dropping this month, I also have a very viable option for 40k battles. There isn’t a pressing need to get anything done for purposes of gaming, which is a really nice place to be.

Instead I want this year to be about skilling up: getting across more painting techniques and becoming faster and better at performing them. To that end, I attended my third Cult of Paint course of this year. The Basic Brush skills course was a revelation: it made me reassess how I was holding the brush, thinning paints, loading the brush, and applying paint. It also taught me about basic blending. The day was really relaxed, there was plenty of one to one teaching and everyone seemed to get things out of it no matter what their skill level. Out of all of the courses I’ve done it’s probably my favourite.

I painted the legs of this Primaris marine, managing to get a really nice (for me) transition between the shades. It takes a long time but I can see myself getting faster and more confident doing this with practice.

I’m not planning on doing any more courses this year. Instead the plan is to practice the skills I gained on the courses I have done.

First up, I will be painting a small number of models entirely with the hairy stick in order to practice brush skills. I will start with a couple of 30k marines. Current thinking is to do the first one as Sons of Horus by blending up GW kabalite green and sybarite green. I’ve been looking at Andy Wardle’s Garviel Loken for inspiration and I really like his vibrant take on Sons of Horus versus the more prevalent desaturated schemes. Not that I will get close to that level, but its a good reference point

I’m also going to do some infantry using the airbrush as I feel this is where I am weakest. I’m not happy with the World Eater marine I did in March. I love the base, but feel he hasn't enough shading and is too clean. The plan is not to give up, but to instead do a full squad and practice till I have something that is both quick to produce and has the depth of shading I aspire to. Working on small models is also a great way to develop the precision with the airbrush that I need to progress.

Finally, I want to continue to practice my vehicle skills. After two tank courses this is where I feel the most confident. Here it is more about getting faster and refining my approach. Next up will be a Sicaran Arcus for my Iron Hands, as ripple fire plus Castremen Orth equals good times.

There is also the mechanicum terrain board to finish, which I have to have done in time for it to be used for the Spartinax sedition event in June. That is at a pretty advanced stage now and requires minimal work to complete. Busy with these work in progress generators here:

All in all it’s a nice place to be hobby wise. I’ve no pressure to get anything done, I’ve loads of challenges to have a go at, and there is tons of support in terms of a community of painters who are always ready to tell me how to overcome obstacles. Good times.