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Getting Started

Its quite a sobering going through your miniatures and coming to the conclusion that you have far more of them than you really should. It can also be difficult to know where to start and get overwhelmed by it all and end up not doing anything. I've spent the past few days putting as much as I can in boxes and therefore out of sight, made sure that my painting desk is (almost) clear and decided how i'm going to go about getting a fully painted 40k army on to the tabletop for what will probably be the first time in 20 years, while at the same time working on Infinity and any other projects I start just for fun.


Warhammer 40k

As a starting point for Warhammer 40k I have precisely 965 points of fully painted Ultramarines (this is using 8th edition points values) and although the bases need to be finished I ran out of grass tufts. This is out of a total of around 14,000 points which is about 300 infantry models and 25 vehicles of all persuasions. My intention is to get up to 2000 points, which is currently the size of a normal game, within a month or two, and double that total by years end.

965 points of Primaris Marines  look like this


Blue is a really nice and easy colour to paint. Its very easy to get a nice even finish, and cover up any painting mistakes as you make them. Citadel miniatures are heroic scale and this means harder areas to paint, such as faces (in this case helmets) and hands are much larger than you would otherwise expect and combined with the chunkiness of the models as well as the large smooth areas with no detail allows you to paint space marines in particular with comparative ease. the details you will normally find are very prominent and easy to pick out. I've decided to go the edge highlighting route rather than try to emulate natural highlights. This is for a variety of reasons: firstly these are intended primarily for the tabletop and i don't want to spend too much time on each miniature. Secondly, while i'm going to be pushing my boundaries and aim to learn new techniques, i'd like to take it one step at a time, and make incremental improvements rather than try a completely new style. Thirdly; this is pretty close to the 'Eavy Metal look, and it fits the 40k space marine aesthetic very well. but i'm determined not to just go into autopilot.


Infinity

My current favourite tabletop game is Infinity the Game which is published by Corvus Belli. Its a futuristic skirmish game where you take control of a special ops team to accomplish your mission. What you can see below is a larger force than you will usually see on the table and these miniatures belong to the Yu Jing faction if you want to have a look at the whole range



Infinity is the same 28mm scale as warhammer 40k, but the similarities in the miniatures pretty much end there. Infinity models are inspired by manga and anime, are true scale so have more or less the correct proportions and they are full of soft and subtle detail, so don't expect chunky models (there are exceptions of course) and don't expect much in the way smooth areas. These factors combined make them a much different prospect to paint than 40k. They are both daunting and exhilarating to paint. I have more than a few Yu Jing Miniatures to paint, and I will cover them in more detail at a later point.


This Weeks Aims

I'm about halfway to finishing this squad of Aggressors so i'm intending to get them finished by the weekend.
Aggressors, as their name will suggest are an extremely powerful offensive unit for space marines, and can lay waste to swarms of small alien gribblies, and even down larger ones through sheer weight of fire

I'll also try to make a start on the Apothecary (medic). He's currently just undercoated in Vallejo Ghost Grey primer, but he will end up as white as I can get him. and of course there is the standard. I've been putting painting that off for 6 months







I'm also planning a guide on how I paint my Ultramarines, and this Lieutenant  from the now discontinued Dark Imperium boxed set was nominated. mostly because he was already base coated.

And of course, i'm going to work on my photography skills because I'm well aware the pictures need work





If you have any suggestions, or there is anything you would like to see, please let me know.
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