Saturday 15 July 2017

There and back again... with a blue horror!


Well met once more brave grognards of the lead! It is a good feeling to be speaking to you once more here on the blogosphere and sharing this charming (if such an adjective can be applied to daemonic entities) Kev Adams blue horror from 1989. 

My health declined from March onwards as I needed a nasty operation. To cut a long story short, after the surgery I developed complications and was prescribed a series of medicines: sadly, these caused me to suffer a massive siezure which sent me to hospital. Though well enough afterwards to return home, I continued to suffer further seizures, hallucinations and other general unpleasantness until I was diagnosed with a severe allergic reaction to amitriptyline.

I am now recovering, thankfully, and should be back to my normal self in a few weeks time. Having spent the past three or four weeks largely in bed, I was keen to get back on the battlefield and take on a miniature or two. Obviously, I was concerned that my illness would have had an impact on my painting ability, but apart from loosing my alarity with paint I was able to knock out this grining horror in three or four leisurely hours. 

I so enjoyed working on him that I have fished out the other blue horrors in my collection and will be setting forth painting them up over the next week or so. If you are interested in my recipe for this model it was really quite simple. I used Foundry's Sky Blue A as a base coat (over a white undercoat) and washed over with the old 1980s blue Citadel ink, undiluted. Once this was dry, I repainted the skin of the horror with Sky Blue A and added pure white gradually to blend up the highlights until I was satisfied that the model 'popped' to quote Warlord Paul.  

I used colour harmony on the teeth and horns, adding a tiny amount of Sky Blue A to the Boneyard triad and simply highlighted up, using far more white on the final coat for the needle like teeth. Using the classic '80s purple ink (I know they are not the best quality-wise, but the colours they produce so envisage the classic era that they are well worth tracking down) I prepared a watery glaze and washed over the teeth to give them a slight contrast to the flesh. 

The eye was achieved in a slightly different way. I first picked it out in pure white before painting the orb of the eye in orange. Two yellow highlights were then added (again by adding pure white) and the eye was finished off with the same purple glaze used on the teeth. 

Very simple, easy and effective for my first model in many months. Here is a rear shot, worthy or the Ole Dirty Boye himself, Chico (it is even slightly out of focus!) I actually painted this long after the front half of the model, so it doesn't quite match the paleness of the front view, but no matter. I have also been working on a number of historical miniatures from the Perry's. They are very similar in style to Citadel that they feel quite familiar under the brush. I only tinker with them, a guilty pleasure really, but I hope you don't mind me posting these here in the future, as I have no where else to show 'em off! 

Orlygg


45 comments:

  1. Glad too see your still alive and not had your willie fall off from the complications from your enlargement surgery :)

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    1. Actually, it was the reduction you have been asking for for years. I still have the warts you gave me though, don't worry. :)

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    2. Good, those Warts took forever to collect.. some are long OOP.

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    3. Sadly, I suspect a great deal of them are recasts - you should see the flash!

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  2. Good to hear you're on the mend - wouldn't mind seeing some historicals.

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    1. Thanks Steven. I am glad you enjoy historicals. Though my collection is of the more unique stuff - no ranks of legionaries or Napoleonics I am afraid, but I hope readers find my choices interesting and informative.

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  3. Whoa, that sounds unpleasant to say the least! Good to hear you're on the mend. Clearly your ability with the brush has not been impaired, lovely stuff indeed...

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    1. Just speed really. I would have been able to knock a model like this out in an hour or so before but I feel pretty lucky. It could have been much worse. The Non-Leadhead (wife) even uttered the impossible when I working on this model: pontificating that she had never been so happy to see me painting!!!! I doubt that view will last for long, so I am making the most of it.

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  4. Nice one! A lovely sculpt from the best years. I am not so crazy with the later versions issued in the past 20 years. Take care and enjoy the moment of guilt-free painting ;)

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    1. Agreed - it is the Kev Adams faces that really make them special.

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  5. Sorry to hear of your travails..... I hope you are fully recovered soon. Great painting BTW.

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  6. Sorry to hear about your health problems. Glad to hear you're coming through them.

    Good luck getting this bugger to rank up with the other ones you're planning!

    Lovely job on the blues.

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    1. Ha! Ranking up, eh! Yes, I have had to fiddle around quite a bit when basing the other models to achieve this. It's not too difficult as long as you use the diagonal groved slottas. The pink horrors are a different story, though!! (:

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  7. Great to see you're back again, I know the pain of not being able to paint. Always good to see something different and it's your blog so post away. I would recommend checking out otherworld miniatures npc range for some great minis.

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    1. Yes I do like Otherworld's stuff, though the D&D hertiage puts me off from time to time. Thank you for your kind regards, Ian.

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  8. Awesome work! Will def be trying out your paint scheme on some minis!

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  10. Glad to hear that you're on the way of recovery! This sounds very unpleasant and your absence from the blogosphere for quite some time had me worrying.

    Lovely painting as usual! The contrast you achieved with the purple wash is subtle but at the same time adds a lot

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    1. You are correct about the glaze. I have only dabbled with the technique in the past as I don't think I quite 'got it'. But I a pleased with the results I achieved here and hope to develop the technique in the future.

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  11. Made my day to see this new post! Even better to discover you are well and on the mend. All is, once more, well with the Warhammer World 😁

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  13. Good to have you back on the interwebs, and with a fantastic paint job of a cool miniature to boot!

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  14. Great to see you're back again. Lovely paint work.

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  15. Fantastic to have you back and I hope your recovery progresses smoothly. Lovely little mini and very well painted, as always.

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    1. Thank you Gary. I have just begun work on a pink horror and am intrigued to see how the same technique can be applied to red/pink.

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  16. Yeah, you're BACK -had me worried there for a while as I checked back every so often! Good to hear you're recovering, though as final words go, you could have done far far worse than your Rogue Trader article which I would say ranks among your best. Here's to many more years of Oldhammering! Oh -and lovely paint job as usual...

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    1. Glad you enjoyed the Rogue Trader piece. It certainly got a lot of traffic so it must have struck a chord with one or two people. Thanks. (:

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  17. Welcome back Sir.

    Nice work on the Horror, popping candytastic!

    Reducing your body mass to make your tadger look bigger was maybe not the best idea but at least you're on the mend now. Glad to see you back.

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    1. Yes, my attempt failed sadly. I guess I am going to have to compensate with a flash red sports car or a Nuln Spearman! Hopefully see you soon with you skaven hordes!

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    2. It's Dwarfs this year at BOYL for me but the Rats will still put in an appearance at some point.

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  18. Sorry to hear that. Hopefully you'll still be heading to BOYL

    Stu (hitchin)

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    1. I hope so. We will see what the Drs say.

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  19. Sorry to hear about your illness glad your on the mend now,great to see you posting again

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  21. Good to see you back! Your absence was like the cessation of the (real) White Dwarf for me.

    Nice paintjob. Reminds me on one of the Citadel Miniatures Books I've recently read.

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    1. "Like the cessation of the (real) White Dwarf" there can be no better compliment. Thank you, Florian. (:

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  22. Wahooo! Glad to see a post from you Olygg, I was getting a bit worried there! Well done as always on the paint. I didn't realize that Goblinmaster had done these but should have suspected with the intricate sculpting of the one hand! Welcome back.

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    1. Yes he did. I was chatting with Kev today and he revealed that all these old blue and pink horrors originally had sucker finger ends but these were filled in prior to casting. I am going to try and drill them out on later models to see if I can achieve the original look.

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