Hello fellow ratlings,

Todays post is the first in a mini series of endless spells I am working on for the Pestilens Clan. I picked up the Skaven specific spells which are amazing sculpts but felt like I wanted to make things harder for myself by converting the malign sorcery set into something that even the great horned rat would approve of.

In some cases this will mean just giving the paint scheme a tweak to match my toxic cobblestone theme. In others I will be attempting to kitbash with other elements to make it feel really vermin-like.

For now I have completed the warp lightning vortex as well as a Green Sun of the Under-Empire. Id been pretty set on warpstone paint scheme for the Sun model but the glowing eyes came from a friende suggestion. It gave me a chance to practice a two brush blending technique which ended with a lot of paint in my mouth, but I achieved the effect I was working on.

I will be uploading more in the coming weeks including a converted Gnashing Jaws spell

Thanks for reading

Arcane

Little bit of Déjà vu today as it touches on my last article about motivation gained from visiting the wonderful Warhammer World in Nottingham.

This time it was largely impromptu and last minute as the very talented Garfy had to be in the area and suggested we spend the day letting SpaceShrimp beat us at Nightvault. How could i say no?

I always love our drives up in the morning as its a great breeding ground for ideas and plans. The time is easily melted away by discussing upcoming releases and possible projects. As someone who is still very fresh in the community I find these encounters beyond valuable. I'm lucky to have two close friends, who are in my eyes extremely talented, offering advice and guidance as well as steering me clear of pitfalls (especially when I am pulled by the sirens call that is new releases).

One thing I've learnt in my first year of hobby is that you can have all the equipment you need and some really exciting models but without regular motivation all of that is moot. As with all my lessons learnt it was done the hard way, but one piece of advice I can now give to new and veteran painters is to try and join a community of some sort whether its a few friends in a WhatsApp group or joining your local wargaming society. Seeing and hearing about other people's projects and actually playing the games gives me so much drive to get paint to plastic on my own projects and I think a lot of people benefit from this too.

And as you've probably seen from the pictures throughout Garfy and Spaceshrimp may motivate my painting and hobbying but they are ruthless when it comes to annihilating my Gloomspite friends.

Arcane

Hello strangers!

Long time since my last post, last year in fact! Apologies for such a long hiatus between, sadly life threw a few spanners in the works and halted mini construction. But I'm now back and have a little project to show you all that's kept me busy for a couple of weeks.

After a wonderful trip up to Nottingham to visit Warhammer World with Garfy and Spaceshrimp I was massively inspired to start building a new army. Walking around the exhibits (despite not finding the assassin) was such an incredible way to explore different factions, especially to a newbie like me. The dioramas there, for those of you that haven't been, are alone well worth the visit. The Tau forces however really caught my attention and thus started the inevitable rabbit hole slide into purchasing more grey sheets of joy.

As you can see in the pictures I've started with just a standard unit of fire Soldiers from the start collecting set, this was partly to test my Bork'an scheme and partly because I was too scared to even look at my XV88 while holding a brush. I will admit I found the armor pieces on these guys and gals very testing. Trying to fill the recesses with a dark ink on top of a very light base paint meant I had to go back over a lot of work id already done, obviously if you do it right the first time and don't smear the ink you won't face that problem (unlike me)

I think overall it proved to be a successful series of lessons for me if nothing else. There are a lot of finer details and straight lines than I'm used to so I had a lot of practice trying to be as steady as possible. Not every line was perfect, nowhere near in fact, but as I'm constantly told by the Garf "We were all shit once". Practicing and experimenting with new and scary techniques is how I intend to be less shit and hopefully in the coming months I'll be able to share the evidence with you all.

Arcane

Another serious delay on posting! Personal life has stopped me painting for a while which in turn has stopped me posting. I promise to not make a habit of it though, especially seeings I know have a regular influx of models thanks to Warhammer: Conquest!

For those that are living under a rock this is the new weekly subscription service from Games Workshop that helps you build a sizeable Death Guard and Primaris army. A few friends have also signed up which has made it more of a shared experience, seeing how each person has differing themes and techniques. I am currently focusing on the Death Guard side of things and have batch painted a bunch of pox walkers, some included in the magazine and some I've had from a Dark Imperium set.

My theme for this army is a Bioshock-esque underwater grunge style. I've attempted a pale drowned corpse theme for the pox walkers including rusted verdigris copper weaponry. Some challenges I faced this time around as always started with the priming, I still haven't got the hang of this it seems as a few of the models had speckled paint that ruined some of the detail. I did however this time have successful results using Nihilakh Oxide to create the verdigris on the copper weapons which was a lot of fun to experiment with and produced the desired effect.

Going forward I will be working on some of marines that have arrived and try to add a little mermaid theme to each of them, talking lobster not included. In the coming weeks I will of course be doing a run down on this months Asset Drop Box as well as a review on a range of metallic paints from Darkstar.

Thanks for reading

Arcane

This month's Asset Drop Co discovery box has screamed value for money. With a total of nine products that you can combo with each other to create some stunning effects. Fortunately for me one of these happened to sync well with my stormcast theme and helped we achieve greater detail and realism. But before that I'll cover the other products that were included that I'm yet to play with.

Foundry Paint System isn't a company I've been aware of before and I'm always excited to try new paints and products so I can't wait to get into these. They came with three colours, Nipple Pink, Light Nipple Pink and Dark Nipple Pink. Stop laughing! My initial thought was that I'd be very limited to what I could use these for and they'd end up in the ever growing pile of paints I'm yet to open. After reading the guidebook that comes with each Asset Drop I found that they're especially good for naturally highlighting reds and will definitely come in handy when I get around to the stack of bloodbound I have at the bottom of Sprue Mountain.

 

Another newcomer to me is Colours of War. Not only do they come in a bad ass dropper bottle but the paint itself has an amazing consistency when used. The set of three included Dark Leather, Sicily Yellow and Motherland Earth, I used mainly Motherland Earth with a splash of Dark Leather. My main use for these was to dry brush a few shields to give them a war-torn dirty look, not so much so that it completely masked the copper’s sheen but enough to make them look like they had been mud wrestling. However the guide didn’t stop there on this weathered look…

 

Ammo of Mig Jimenez Gun Metal pigment and Alclad II Warpigs Mud pigment are an almost symbiotic duo that provide the finishing touches to an already convincing weathering technique. I felt that applying the pigment with my fingers was a messy but effective method and helped the pigment to really stick down in the different recesses. My first step was to add spots of gun metal and then apply streaks of mud over the top, I found that if I applied too much it was easy to just grab a small dry brush and gently flick off the excess. 

Any observant bystander can see the above doesn't look like the shield of a mud wrestler. After the success of the weathering technique I decided to tamper some more and see if I could pull off a verdigris rust effect in spot areas on the armor and weaponry. This isn't because I was unhappy with the mud and gun metal, I have use for a verdigris rust effect in my next army build and applying it onto dirt and rust felt like the right time to experiment. There are still patches left open where you can see a dirty copper and I think the mix of both gives off the desired weathered theme. 

As always I'm happy to receive constructive criticism and am keen to hear opinions 

Arcane

Despite the release of Nightvault this week I have actually managed to make some progress on my Soul Wars Stormcast and not spend all my free time having my warband smashed into oblivion. I've certainly learnt a lot with this set, mainly from my own mistakes. The decision to prime the models in Chaos Black was made with a very different colour scheme in mind. Upon changing my mind and going for a very light scheme I found that I needed to paint several thin layers of Palid Wych Flesh just to stop the black desaturating it too much.

This was also the case with the Fenrisan Grey used on the bulk of the robes and tabard. Fortunately because the model has lots of recesses the black assists with shadows and makes it easier to bring definition to the cloth materials. Despite that I would definitely choose a white prime next time or at the very least a lighter grey. I also somehow ended up now painting in a backwards order, applying the copper layers before the larger robed areas. This has lead to needing to touch up copper areas again, something I can avoid going forward. 

As you can see in the pictures I did go on to finish one of them to use as reference and begin the production line. I'm happy with the overall scheme and plan on basing with some snowy/winter aesthetics to compliment the pale blue scheme. I'll be sure to keep the progress updated here and continue to highlight my lessons learnt. I also have plans this week to unbox the newest Asset Drop box and give my thoughts on each of the items including this month as well as my plans to implement them into projects

Thanks for reading

Arcane 

Hello once more!

I need to think of a better way to intro into a post as it's easily the hardest line in each one. I may just start using various factions warcries instead. Anyway,as those of you who read the Darkstar review will know, I mentioned the company Asset Drop Co who provide subscription box services for hobbyists (hobbiers? hobbits?) and that's actually how I was introduced to Darkstar.

So today I want to attempt an unbox/review of their service. The company currently offers three types of box, the monster box which includes one large monster model, a resin base, basing materials and miniature paints. The heroine box which includes a female hero model, a resin base, basing materials and paints. And the discovery box which includes a variety of hobby equipment such as paints, basing materials and other more specialist items. Currently I am subscribed to the discovery box so that is the only one I'm able to review.

July's Discovery Box - Including: Darkstar Molten Metals, Hataka Camo Paints, Secret Weapon Washes and Verdigris pigments as well as a neat paint sponge

I have had two boxes delivered so far and that's because they also offer the ability to purchase a past box, so if you've missed a box that includes something you really want (verdigris pigment and paint sponge in my situation) then you can pick up that box on a one-off basis. This is an amazing feature for people who just want a taster before signing up and I truly believe it'll be a great experience whatever your level.

A few close ups of the Secret Weapon aspects of July's Box. Handy RRP tags as well in case a
particular item takes your fancy

That leads me nicely onto the next part of the review (almost like it was planned), each box comes with a booklet which covers all of the contents as well as tutorials on how to apply them to projects. This is an amazing resource that the team has clearly put so much time and effort into and really opens up the accessibility to painters (like myself) who may not have been exposed to certain techniques or paint types.

August's Discovery Box - A few more Darkstar Molten Metals this time focusing on copper effects, Serious Plays well water effect, Instar washes, Hatakas Blue grey paints and some basing materials (most of the contents are combined in the tutorial book for an amazing base piece)

I think the aspect that appeals most to me is that it does what it says on the tin, Discovery really does help you discover new brands, new techniques and new ideas. It takes away the effort of going out and foraging for new materials and delivers them straight to your doorstep. Now I love going into a hobby shop and swooning over walls of paints as much as the next nerd but there's something about coming home to a handpicked selection that really excites me and gets me pumped for painting.

Serious Plays 'Well Water' effect, this is combined to create a liquid that will replicate a water effect that can fill recesses for an incredible puddle/well base (all instructions included within the box)

After unboxing and researching all the different elements and the companies that own them, its very clear how much value there is here too. The retail price for last months boxes contents was £9 higher than the subscription cost which is a tidy saving. Now obviously these are essentially blind boxes so you'll never know what you're going to get but unless you own every brand of every paint in the universe I'm certain there will be something for everyone.

In conclusion I really don't have a bad thing to say about Asset Drop Co, the experience I have had has been eons above a lot of other companies. Not only is this a solid product but the ladies and gentleman behind the scenes have demonstrated some of the best customer care I've ever witnessed, even with someone like me asking a lot of annoying questions.

Oh and to top it off both boxes have included a mini pack of sweets! (disclaimer: may not be in every box don't blame me)

Arcane