Preening Dandies: August 2012

We've got a good haul of entries this August. I'll guess that the weak to moderate sunshine (with occasional showers) drove the Irish indoors. We'll be quick about the introduction, look up now for our monthly preening dandy, the Duke of Buckingham's horse, and then look down to see the entries.

StuG IV Platoon (Flames of War)
You may have thought we had artistic pretensions here, but check out "Instagram" Maynard's work. Subtle blurring and warm, sepia tones. Check. Tasteful staging of the scene. Check. Well thumbed book, undoubtedly of a certain intellectual value, left in shot. Check. All very lovely. It's unfortunate that the actual models appear be infested with mould. On a positive note, he's certainly got the hastily manufactured bare metal look down. They would make very good terrain pieces, perfectly scaled burnt out panzers in the snow. Mockery aside, considering less than a handful of minutes was invested in their painting, they can be deployed with a certain wry pride.

Reckoner (Warmachine)
Lowry actually sent in two entries this month in a fit of fervour. This Reckoner was the first, the other was Hierarch Severius. I went with the Reckoner, both for artistic reasons and a lingering fondness for such an cost-effective warjack. The burgundy red and unpolished brass colour scheme suits the theocratic fluff of the Protectorate and avoids the cartoonish look of some very similar schemes. The man continues to paint vast quantities of miniatures to an increasingly higher standard each month. The areas of clean, even white armour are quite striking and by keeping the emphasis on the upper torso, it keeps the viewer focused on the face of the jack and its protective carapace. In finishing, I must mention that the Menofix symbol is entirely hand painted. Despite owning the model, it took me about two minutes to realise that.

Sd Kfz 251/1 D (Flames of War)
Better known as a "Skid", I'm horror-stuck at the amount of work put into this 15mm halftrack, hero of many an ETC list. The Big BZ has gone to extremes to replicate the late-1944 Hinterhalt-Tarnung "Ambush" camouflage scheme exactly. This was one of the very few "official" German paint jobs, discontinued when they switched to the "We're so screwed, just splash some greenish yellow over the primer and get the damn tanks out there!" colour scheme. The effect is fantastic, you can actually see why this would be such an effective pattern in the shadow-dappled theatres of Western Europe. Do remember BZ in your thoughts in the years to come. We probably won't be seeing him anytime soon with an entire army of these Germans sitting on his painting table.

Wrongeye and Snapjaw (Hordes)
Here's to a startling feat of speed painting. It took Quozl three hours to take these models from bare metal to their finished state above. Impressive. The earthy green, browns and greys give the models a natural look which, in Snapjaw's case particularly, project the desired amount of menace. I'm quite surprised that the scales are so well-defined. I would have assumed that the time constraints would have impacted badly on such finesse work. My favourite element of piece is the bottle of liqueur in Wrongeye's hand. The classic choices of green or brown glass would have disappeared into the overall model while the bright blue draws the eye of the viewer.

Blood Angel (Warhammer 40K)
Firstly, warm congratulations on not painting an Ultramarine. Secondly, painting is a form of procrastination, get back to studying. I don't care if the exams are "over". Welshman is a true Games Workshop loyalist at heart and it's reflected in his classic painting style. He's remained true to the canon colours down to the green gem on the shoulder iconography. Generally, it's a very neat, crisp and bright paint scheme. I'm hard-pressed to find an error in his painting. The basing is also quite nice, the snow-encrusted sandbags look very realistic.

Feldwebel Dietrich Uthoff (Flames of War)
Frogdog is another of our new entrants. He sends in this tank-hunting hero of the Reich. He is, by far and away, this month's angriest looking model with a particularly enraged face. The actual Uthoff died killing four T-34s with anti-tank mines, his 15mm version's record stands at eight T-34s in a single game. The washes have been a little unkind to his face but the basing is great. It's a miniature diorama, with the hero springing from behind the wall and more ammo close to hand.

Space Marine Librarian (Warhammer 40K)
As models go, the Librarian is probably one of Games Workshop's nicer works. I think it's the psychic hood which gives the model such an interesting silhouette. Trget sends us his Ultramarine psyker right at the deadline, ruining what promised to be a Smurf-free month. The photo reveals an few errant paint splashes that I suspect are invisible to the naked eye but it's finished and playable. The main strength of his work is the skin of the model. People tend to paint excessively pink/pale faces and he's managed a realistic skin tone.

EDIT: Apparently, it's a Dark Angels Librarian in the required Codex colours.

Sherman Platoon (Flames of War)
This is an entry from one of the best painters in the club, Nosediver. He's gone for a quick, table-ready finish on the Shermans (the ETC imposed some time restraints) but couldn't quite keep the artist in him suppressed. Take a closer look at the army's objective markers, in the foreground of the shot. Both are custom conversions, based on parts from his collection of British troops and vehicles. The left-hand objective is particularly evocative, depicting a half-track crew ambushed as they sought to replace a tire on their vehicle.

Bloodletters of Khorne (Warhammer Fantasy)
We'll quick gloss (heh) over my own entry. Some might cough "basecoated and dipped", know that they're just overcome by jealousy. I will happily claim that the shine is actually god-like use of lighting effect painting techniques. While I'm at it, I'm also going to claim that there are 72 different layers of blending on the models and the sand used on the bases was hand-dried by Swedish supermodels. True story.

Ork Warboss (Warhammer 40K)
This is just cool. Jiggy sends in this nice piece of conversion work, kitbashed (I'm told) from Stormboyz, Nobz and a Puppetwars head. It's leaner than the standard Warboss but the muscle definition and face are excellent. Really can't fault any of it. I'm guessing the bandanas on his knees tie him into two of the Boyz squads in the main army. The brown-clothed ork look is quite common and doesn't actually fit the fluff (barring Snakebites), good not to see it. So again, like the Space Marine, it's a classic look but, in this case, with a touch more gritty realism.

Note: In bad news, someone pointed out the similarity to a certain 1980s celebratory move and now I can only see him as jumping with joy, Burgundy style.

 
Preening Dandies
Player Score
Lowry 5
Newbreed 5
Trget 4
Welshman 4
Sycopat 3
Nosediver 3
The Big BZ 1
Bristolscale7 1
Crazy Aido 1
Frogdog 1
Jiggy 1
Maynard 1
Quozl 1

As he's the clear league leader, I'm throwing in Lowry's other option here. Check out the fine threads on Epic Severius. The absence of the traditional red robes makes the War Pope look even better. And he's even standing on a small segment of the huddled masses. I approve. Notably, this is the only based model I've ever gotten from Lowry.


We'll be doing another roundup at the start of October so get your works into prd@onthestep.net before the end of September. As ever, our local tech adept states that photos above 5MB in size tend to bounce back so keep your entries below that size.

Rules Refresher
1) Each participant may only send in one entry for a given month. You can send in multiple photos of the entry but only one will be used.
2) The entry can be a single model or single unit. The smaller the unit, the more detail in the photo so aim low.
3) The model can be from any game system. If it's particularly esoteric, we'd appreciate a covering note explaining what it is.
4) The entry must have been finished within that given month. You can't submit completed pieces from your back catalogue.
5) If you want us to include a link back to more of your work, we'd be delighted to do that.

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