Over the years I have spoken about unfinishable figures. The miniature Moriarty! Those models that no matter how hard you try, you just cannot get them finished. You persevere of course, even struggle to block in those base-colours and apply layers of highlights but it is all to no avail. Frustrated by your efforts, the model is abandoned and cast aside.
Well this post is not about one of those figures but its exact opposite. The perfect paintjob without a suitable buzzword to describe it. One of those figures that just paints itself. The paint flows freely and completing the model is just a joy. Every brushstroke lands perfectly and your colour mixes slide like silk across the surface of age old white metal.
This wonderful 1987 Daemonette of Slaanesh is just such a figure. Completed in just under two hours of glorious work and based this afternoon. My first figure back after my Summer of Citadel. A summer derailed by dental woes, asbestos discoveries and the inevitable return to school. I've forked out over a thousand pounds getting my wisdom teeth sorted (it turned out a great deal of bone was detached during the extraction and I've been left with a void in my maxilla) and determining the amount of asbestos my artex ceilings contain.
Just imagine if that money had been invested in classic Citadel miniatures from the mid to late '80s??
I could have bought at least five models on eBay!!
Long term readers will know I was long a fan of Slaves to Darkness and the miniature ranges released alongside it. Despite this love I've never actually painted many of the daemon figures with much of my collecting and output invested into the mortal forces of Chaos. I had at one stage two sizable armies (one for Slaanesh and the other for Khorne) and a well painted Nurgle Warband to boot. As a youth, I loved the plaguebearer and nurgling figures and endlessly painted those in the tail end of the 1980s. I found this single lady amongst my big bag of warriors recently returned to me and decided a few days back to throw caution to the wind and just paint her.
Obviously, pink was the base colour. I think it is Bronzed Flesh with a wash over the top of 50:50 Bronze Flesh and Red Ink. Her skin was highlighted by adding increasing amounts of flesh to that initial base. I gave her Bilious Green eyes, highlighted with Sunburst Yellow, over a Woodland Green base and Green Ink shade. Her thong (how often are those words typed on a Grognard's blog I wonder?) was Terracotta shaded with Brown Ink and the Gold was highlighted with Mythril Silver after a Chestnut Wash.
No wanting the traditional 'pink and black' look (these models can tend to look like a liquorice allsort if you aren't careful) I gave her orange claws, inspired by the super imaginative and varied schemes I'd spied at Foundry last month. Now she's finished and looks suitably decadent I'm very pleased. Yes I know I used my crap camera again, MFM is away with her mother visiting family today and I wanted to get blogging again after so long away suffering. I'm not sure what hurt the most... the teeth or the wallet!
As I stated a few posts back, I was rather pedestrian with my miniature choices over the summer. But it was a journey that I feel I had to go on. I was finding it hard to paint to the standard I reached during the high tide of this blog, say ten years ago. Sight has been a clear factor (and I've now been to SpecSavers and am wearing my new glasses as I type - more money!!) but so was technique.
I had simply forgotten how to do it.
With this figure, I feel that I have finally reached my old style after all those years away. But do you, dear readers agree with me?
Here's hoping that the paint is flowing freely for you all wherever you are in the world.
Orlygg
