It has been three weeks since I last posted. We've been busy with the house, dental woes (need a new mouthguard), Covid and the dreary English winter. Despite the relaxation and peace that can be found in my little workshop, the drizzling, soggy rain-soaked weather acted as a barrier to hobby time.
We've had another round of electrical work done here too, so my workshop has a useful sensor light when I approach the door and MFM's parking space illuminates nicely when she swings in her beloved motor around the front of our property. We lost a week when he car's warning light came on and she dropped it off at the dealer... it took them some time to diagnose a corroded wire so much of my time last week was spent being her driver.
Still from adversity comes opportunity.
That opportunity was the ability to retrieve some old bits and bobs from my old life once again. No '80s glory but I did get back a large figure case of my miniatures from the early to mid 2000s. The Silver Age as it has become known. I got back into GW just after I graduated university in 2000. I walked into the Poole branch of GW which was then off Falkland Square. I fell in love with the Witchhunters models, largely off the back of my appreciation of Jes Goodwin's style. I'd spend the next couple of years collecting and painting up much of that range.
It was those models that have made their way back to me. Among them was this lovely '80s Chaplain sculpted by Mark Copplestone and released in 1988. These classic Rogue Trader figures were advertised and discussed in my very first issue of White Dwarf... 108... and this model is very likely the sole surviving figure from the blister pack I bought during my early visits to Wonderworld in Bournemouth.
I painted this figure up just after graduating and you may well notice a more modern style backpack being used for him. You have to remember, I put this figure together years before my Oldhammer adventures. I had no idea of the incredible things my little hobby would lead me yet.
After twenty-five years he holds up well I think. If I painted this model today I'd no doubt spend a few more hours on the edge highlighting, using a lighter shade of grey. But I won't be touching this figure. He is a product of his time and his place in my life. I am glad he is back. From the '80s, to the early parts of this new millennium to 2026. In two years time, this little figure will have been with me (one way or another) for forty years!
He will stay with me for however many more years I have left.
The case he was stored in was one of those older GW plastic figure cases with the foam inserts. When I got the case back my heart sank as the hinge is badly damaged. Thankfully, the insides were untouched and were as I must have left them around 2011 before I sold off all my unpainted GW stuff and when full retro. Many of the models have been crushed, snapped and broken though. But only at the weaker edges where the glue has given way. I'll be spending the rest of this month restoring and photographing all the models, something I should have done with all my '80s material. I live in hope that if these old figures can make it back to me, my beloved '80s lead my also return one day.
Orlygg
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