My painting journey so far

It recently occurred to me that I have passed my first year of blogging without actually doing anything to mark the occasion. I was sitting around looking at everything I have painted, and decided that perhaps I should do a showcase of some of my single figures throughout the years to show the progress that I have made, and hopefully, inspire someone.

I picked up the hobby again around the time 5th Edition was launched and saw the opportunity to start the Eldar force I had always wanted since I was a kid, this Farseer was one of the first models that I painted up.

As you can see I have always been a fan of Ulthwé, but not so much a fan of highlighting. I guess as long as I had colour on the model I would be fine, but looking back at it, it definitely looks flat.

I wouldn't pick up the hobby until a few years later as I moved to an area outside of a GW store, but that soon changed.

After keeping up with the hobby through the Dawn of War games, I was inspired to paint an Autarch off the back of Retribution. Finecast had just come out and I bought this model to see what the fuss was about.

As usual, it was a horrible cast with mismouldings and weak joints everywhere, but I endeavoured nonetheless. It's not an outstanding paint job, but I had started to use shades to give some depth to the model. However, the less said about that sword the better. I wanted a sword crackling with energy, but got a psychedelic zebra instead.

One of the things that caught my eye and dragged me back to the hobby were the new Necrons, and I wanted to get my hands on Varguard Obyron. He was one of the first models I painted for my Tale of Many Gamers entry for that year.

Necrons are great for anyone to paint, lots of drybrushing, then add some green and you are done. It was one of the things that helped me churn out the models like a production line. It's one of the best ways to improve painting skills, to just keep painting often and I think it was at this point that I started to make great leaps and gave me the confidence to start tackling the Eldar once more.

This is probably the best contrast between two miniatures that I can showcase. The Blood Angel Sargent was painted at the start of 2013, and the Captain last week, yet the difference between the two is massive. But on the other hand, when I finished the sargent, I was happy with him, because at that time, it was the best that I could do.

Fast forward by a 18 months, and I am now sitting here happy with the Captain, maybe in 12 months I will look at him and see how I could have done better, but on the other hand I couldn't have got to that level without the other models, looking at them, seeing a spot that I could work at improving and then trying it out.

Finally, I come to Warhammer Fantasy, which presents another challenge with it's more organic shapes compared to the harsh lines and angles of the 41st Millennium. It also marks really, the first time that I am trying to paint an army without following what was set by Games Workshop background lore and treading my own path.

So hopefully, this has shown how my skills have developed over time, and hopefully again, someone could see this and think "if he can do it, then why not me", all it takes is the effort to paint each model to your best ability and the strength to be able to try something new each time.