Author: richard

A very interesting commission! Repair the wing tip of an absolutely enormous model of Drogon the Dragon from Game of Thrones.

The poor beast had arrived from China with damage to his right wing. Too expensive to ship it back so the owner had asked me if I could repair it for him.

First I drilled a small hole in both the talon and the wing tip and super glued a pin in to it. This pin was actually the “spikey bit” of a thumb tack. This was to give a bit more strength to hole assembly.

I then used some Green Stuff modeling clay to fill in the gap left between the talon and the wingtip and and shaped it to match the existing contours

Finally I painted the area to blend in with the wing. As good as new!

More fun with iMovie, this time using the “scary” trailer template. Skaven Bloodbowl team, colour scheme inspired by the Pittsburgh Steelers (my NFL team).

Relatively easy to put together (compared to the Dark Elf team anyway!), they were also fun to paint. I especially enjoyed making the warpstone bases – astrogranite debris paint, washed with a black washed and then dry-brushed with a light grey, followed by a transition of dark green to bright yellow to give the impression the ground is glowing.

If you like the video please comment or like it on you tube (that’s what everyone else is doing these days, right?). There are more pictures of the individual models featured in the gallery.

I was having a dig round my loft the other weekend and found a load of old 1990s era metal Games Workshop Wood Elf miniatures (the majority of which I’m selling on eBay right now – check the shop page if you’re interested!) and found a treeman i’d never painted.

I decided I’d like to convert it in to a Bloodbowl player for a Wood Elf team. Having never done any real conversion work with green stuff modeling clay before I thought this was an ideal time to experiment!

There are quite a few guides on YouTube ( I found this one very useful) on how to work with green stuff (the yellow and blue air drying modeling clay that is favoured by miniature painters) so after watching a few I decided my treeman needed a tabard to affix a squad number on.

Firstly I took the treeman off his original square base and stuck on a round one that matches the rest of the bloodbowl teams. I drilled a small hole in the front of base to allow him to carry the ball (not that this would be likely to happen in a game!)

I then took a reasonable sized ball of the mixed green stuff and flattened it between two slightly wet plastic bags (to prevent the green stuff from sticking). This created something that looked like a coin which I then cut off the sides to make a square which i stuck to the treeman’s front. I then repeated the procedure for the back.

To make some ropes I rolled a thin sausage of green stuff, folded it in half and then twisted it. I then stuck this twisted sausage over both shoulders on the treeman. You can find a video showing this technique here.

Finally I stuck a spare ball into his outstretched right arm to make it look like he was throwing a pass (or perhaps intercepting one).

I then painted him, airbrushing a dark brown followed by a few quick passes of a forest green to break up the colours a bit. I then picked out the exposed areas of wood and mossy bits with a paint brush before washing the whole model with agrax earthshade.

Finishing touches included adding static grass to the base and also a few mossy bits to various places.

I decided to leave squad number transfers until a wood elf team appears from Games Workshop (hopefully soon but who knows!) – they are likely to include transfers in a elven font in that box.

Due to an abundance of birthday Amazon vouchers (thanks Mum!) I’ve decided to buy an airbrush!

A wee bit of research on Amazon threw up a number of options – I went for a kit that included everything I needed to get started (containing airbrush, hose, compressor, moisture trap, power supply) and then a few extra bits – airbrush thinner, airbrush cleaner, cleaning pot, a dust mask, some disposable gloves and some ready mixed airbrush primer. While the reviews for the actual airbrush in the kit weren’t great I decided to go ahead and get the kit anyway and upgrade to a fancy airbrush later if the kit airbrush was indeed rubbish (it wasn’t!).

There are a few reasons why I wanted an airbrush.

1. The ability prime small numbers of miniatures no matter what the weather.

Previously, I’ve used spray cans to prime miniatures and it always feels wasteful in paint to do anything less that 7 or 8 minis at a time and, since i need to use the cans outside, I’ve had to wait until it was not raining and not too windy to do it (something that doesn’t happen that often in Scotland!) Now, I can prime one miniature with a tiny droplet of primer indoors!

2. I can base coat and highlight miniatures easily.
With the airbrush I can pretty much use any existing paint I’ve got as long as I thin it down sufficiently with the airbrush thinner. This means I can spray a base coat of any colour onto a model (rather than just the coloured spray primers I have). The speeds up the painting process by a great deal. I can also then spray from above with a highlight colour to give the impression that light is hitting the miniature from an overhead light-source. Follow this with a simple wash to emphasise darker recesses and then pick out detail with a standard paint brush and it gives a quick and easy paint job. This is particularly useful for creature models that are mainly one colour like these star spawn from Mansions of Madness.

3. I can do fades of colour really quickly.
With an airbrush it’s really easy to taper off the colour allowing you to create transitions very easily. With a normal paintbrush, the sword of the Catachan model below would have taken me ages, painstakingly brightening the paint and applying many many layers – but now with an airbrush one quick sweep allows me to create the same effect in a fraction of the time.

As I get more practice with the airbrush I’m hopeful I can do more and more interesting things with it – more dynamic fades, stencils that sort of thing. Stay tuned for more updates!

Fancy winning a Rebel Trooper Imperial Assault Ally pack painted by my own fair hand?

To win all you have to do is:

1) Either like and share my Facebook page and the competition post holly grove miniatures or follow my Instagram page and like the competition post @hollygroveminatures (or both!)

and…

2) Email your name (and your Facebook name or Instagram name so I know who you are) to hollygroveminiatures@gmail.com Please put “Rebel Troopers” in the subject line.

Terms and conditions:
Giveaway will run until Tuesday 8th May at 7pm (UK time). At which point I will draw a random winner and email them for their address. I will then post the prize to the lucky winner. Open only to UK addresses (sorry but I can’t afford international postage!). The prize consists of a Imperial Assault Rebel Trooper Ally pack complete with all cards and 3 painted Rebel Trooper (no substitutions are available).

Best of luck!

*UPDATE* 8th May 2018 – congratulations go to Aaron Eaton who won the rebel troopers!

I don’t only just paint miniatures on commission, I can also put miniatures together for you! Here we have a detachment of Ultramarines from the latest Warhammer 40K boxed set that has been sitting in someone’s house for over a year – unassembled and unable to be played with.

Looking at a big mass of plastic like this can be a little intimidating for the new gamer! First off, the right tools are essential. Here we have a set of snips, some small files, a craft knife and some polystyrene cement.

The best way to make sure you don’t make mistakes is to take your time and read the instructions fully first.

This page shows you how to identify which sprue contains which parts. The are all labelled with a letter.

And the corresponding letter can be found on the sprue itself, in this case the letter A (sometimes it is a little hard to find!)

I’m going to build the first space marine in the book. The instructions tell me which parts are needed – in this case parts 7,8,9,10,11 and 12 all from sprue F and a 32mm base.

Cut these parts out using your snips. Put the flat part of the cutters against the model to get a clean cut.

Shave off any excess plastic from the parts using the craft knife. You can also use the files to remove any obvious mold lines.

I like to gather all the bits for a model to test fit them before gluing.

Following the instructions I glue the main parts of the model together and then onto the base using polystyrene cement. This glue actually melts the plastic slightly before setting making an almost unbreakable join. Use the glue sparingly as if you get the glue on any details it will melt them too!

Almost there! Remain patient and let the glue set before gluing on the next parts.

Finished and ready for undercoating! Sometimes more mold lines appear once I’ve sprayed them but its not a big job to scrape them off just before starting painting.

If you’d like me to assemble your miniatures please get in touch for a quote!

Really fun commission to paint – the brief was to paint one Firespray like Jango Fett’s from Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and the other like the bounty hunter Kath Scarlet.

The Kath one had a start of a paint job on it already which needed to be painted over before I started.

After the base coat was on the fun part of Kath Scarlet’s design began and I started to pick out the panels that needed to be red.

After a bit of a black wash and a gloss varnish the ships were done!

My brand new website is live (well you know that cos you’re reading this!). Many thank yous go to Gavin for doing all the hard work putting it all together.

I’m going to use this blog to show you what I’ve been working on and also to hopefully give you a bit of an insight as to how I paint and the tools and techniques that I use.

Should have a new post about my latest commission up soon (a repaint of a pair of Firesprays from the x-wing miniatures game).