Drune Karnagh Rouge WIP I - a return to painting Rackham

I'm still working on the Imperial Valkyrie, but it's monotonous work. Basecoating and shading is finished on the entire model, so I promised myself a small reward when I got that far. So I looked into my closet containing unpainted miniatures (good luck there aren't too many of them) and noticed this old Rackham figure lying around: a Red Karnagh from the Drune army.

I realized it's been more than 2,5 years since I last painted a Rackham mini. A shame really, since it's the manufacturer which dragged me deep into the mini painting hobby... I'm still a great fan of the figures. Anyway I want to show you what I'm working on.

I'm going for an alternative skin tone here: some red-brown was mixed in the base coat, together with a touch of violet. Shading was done by mixing in more brown and violet, for the highlights I used light flesh with some pink mixed in. I finished the skin with a glaze of the basecoat with some extra violet.



I'm not 100% happy with the final result, some highlights are a bit too rough (like on the chest) but some areas look pretty decent (left arm and hand).

Gallery update: 2004

I added a link to my gallery to the menu on the right, but it's still work in progress actually. After uploading some WIP and finished pictures and event coverages it's somewhat taking shape, but it's still quite empty to serve as a representative portfolio of my work.

The plan is to upload some of my older pictures. Not all of them because there's a lot of poor quality paintjobs and photos among them, but just some highlights. You will notice some watermarks on the pictures which point to my older sites (the original Corvus' Miniatures and Pendragon Studios). I could go to the process of photographing all miniatures again, but this would be too time consuming. And my photo setup hasn't improved over the years so apart from the old watermarks there isn't really much value added.

Anyway let's start off with some highlights of my first attempts to paint something decent, done in 2004. I did some 40k that year but I was mainly working on my Confrontation Drune army back then. I also did some other stuff like painting the Hybrid board game set as a commission.

Here's my selection for 2004:

Tau Devilfish

Celestine, the Living Saint

Corwyn le Bossu

l'Aberration

Drune Archers

Karnagh Drunes

Drune Persecutor (special edition)

If you ask me what's my favorite it would be tough choice: I'm very proud of Celestine, it's my first paintjob which won prizes at multiple painting competitions. The Tau Devilfish is also a nice piece, but I would probably go for the Karnagh Drunes. They really reflect the atmosphere of the entire army very well, and they are representative for the quality level of my gaming figures back then. I was also quite skilled NMM (non-metallic metals) at that time.

Jenova is back

Inge Mygind Jensen , better known by her nickname 'Jenova' is back. Her site has been inactive for last 4 years, but for some reason I kept coming back, waiting for an update. Yesterday evening I visited her site to check out an old tutorial I wanted to read and I noticed there were some updates.

She's running a blog now too, actually it's where most of the action happens. Quite appropriately it's called Jenova's Revival. I'm really amazed by the amount of miniatures she has painted, and the quality level she manages to achieve. It's great to see someone making a comeback like this.

Anyway I'm very glad to see someone from the old gang picking up the brushes again. Inge, good luck with your comeback!

Imperial Valkyrie WIP II

Due to the boiling hot weather of the last couple of weeks I didn't really get much painting done. But here's a small update on the progress.


I'm currently almost done shading the entire model. I did this with slightly dilluted Vallejo black wash. The sides and the tail part still has to be done.

As a proof of concept I already painted the canopy a bit more. After the shading I cleaned up the mistakes and proceeded with 3 layers of drybrushing, each one having more Vallejo Model Color Silver White mixed in with the base coat, the last one being pure Silver White.


I'm quite happy with the result. It's quick and easy and looks more realistic than my usual, traditional highlighting technique, which would take forever on this model. My plan is to add some weathering and rust to the canopy and then this first bit is finished.

Imperial Valkyrie WIP I

Well painting has started, there's nothing more to say really :)
The majority of the aircraft has been basecoated. This was done with two layers of Vallejo Model Color's Mirage Blue Grey. This color covered very well, so I could make it quite thin and only use two layers.

A good green stuff tutorial

Finally a tutorial about green stuff that makes me think "hey, maybe I can do this too". Head over to the DakkaDakka forums and read this post. Some of the topics covered are robes, ropes and purity seals.

It's the winner of their recent tutorial competition. You can see the other winners here.

The new Warmachine faction: Retribution

Coming in September: the new Warmachine faction called Retribution. A while ago the first concept arts appeared and I was very curious about how Privateer Press would fit the more sci-fi and angelic theme into the existing universe. Today the first pictures of painted figures are released: Tabletop Gaming news has a good overview of all of them.

The design is a mix of the existing warjacks (the proportions) together with some Eldar and PanOceania (army from Infinity) influences (the armour). I think the overall look is right, but some pieces of armour are just too bulky and look very plain. Also, the white color scheme is very boring if you ask me. The characters look ok, but don't really fit into the theme of the warjacks.

To be honest I expected a bit more from Privateer Press, but I think it's very brave of them to introduce a completely new faction into a game which is a few years old.