The last two months have been pretty hectic and having the time to sit down and do any painting has been a bit of a luxury. As a result I had to skip last months post. However, I have managed to get a little bit more on track and this month can show my leader, a fine sculpt in an action pose with his foot on the severed head of a green skin. The quality of finish on this model is probably the highest I have achieved for this army. I am very pleased with the way that he has turned out.
As well as the leader of the hold I have managed to get a cannon fully painted and the crew almost painted up. Once again the NMM approach has produced a nice final result but was very time consuming. It probably didn't help that I tried to show all the wood grain on the cannon body and then opted to add a highlight to that as well. To tie the war machine in with the rest of the army I originally painted the wheels yellow and black stripes but I wasn't happy with the final result and ended up stripping and re-painting them as you can see in the photo below.
This is one of two cannons, the other which is almost finished. The crew are almost complete but still have little bits and pieces that need doing. The second cannon and all six crew will be ready for final overview next month. Below shows the current state of the crew so far.
Adding to my spearmen (which I showed in a previous post) I have managed another six models including a full command of champion, musician and banner bearer.
I am especially pleased with the banner bearer and the banner pole which was mainly due to the influence of Frogbug who insisted that I do a stripey maypole effect on it. I was reticent to do this but I have to admit it does look pretty good and was a motif I carried on to the next unit finished for this month. Below is a close up of the banner bearer.
At the start of the challenge I had lots of models which I had acquired from a friend many years ago after we exchanged armies. I had some 40K imperial guard which I passed over for the dwarves. Amongst these were what I had thought to be dwarf clansmen but after starting the challenge and purchasing the 4th edition codex I realised that they were longbeards. These were too good not to get a coat of Deep Sea Blue and Volcanic Yellow so they joined the production line. Below you can see the unit without shields.
The biggest pain with these guys were the shields which took an age to paint. I'm still not happy with them and will need to revisit them and neaten up the final result. I initially painted up the shields with a Yellow Field as you can see from the photo below. However, when you put them against the minis I'm not sure that it works so I then painted up a shield with a black field. I'm still trying to make my mind up before I commit to gluing them to the models.
As I like gun line armies I added another 10 Thunderers to join the first unit. I believe that some of these sculpts may predate the thunderers shown in the army book. I have to admit that I like the variety in sculpt as I wasn't going for. mono-pose army with these guys.
Finally, what Dwarves Hold would be complete without a unit of Quarrellers. I have a unit of twelve, all individual sculpts. I would like to get the final two sculpts which are illustrated in the army book but despite scouring the obvious sites I haven't been able to locate them. That's a job for the future. You can see the dirty dozen below.
Looking back at what I have just typed I have realised that there are a fair few models that are completed. The challenge has led to me developing techniques in order to get the army finished. Looking at the models as a collective I feel that the quality of finish on these later models isn't as refined as the earlier ones but in order to cater for volume of models something has to give. However, I believe that I have got better at adding details which cause the models to 'Pop' on the table and so when seen all together the sum of the parts is much greater than the individual models or units.
A few units that I started painting and are in progress are a Runesmith and a Gyrocopter. I was desperately hoping to have them completed for this month but it wasn't to be. However, below is a photo of the current state and they will be completed before the end of July.
Part of the reason that these aren't complete is the fact that I am not the most focused when working and I tend to jump around a lot as I have the attention span of a gnat. One of the things that I have loved about this forum is the creativity of the people involved. There are some amazing painters in this group but there are also some brilliant writers and scenery builders. Whilst I do not have the imagination or the literary skills of many in this blog I have been inspired by the scenery and display aids that are frequently on show. This has been both a blessing and a curse as it has led to me losing painting time as I have endeavoured to create a display board for the army. I'm trying to go for a more vertical look with models on lots of levels rather than the traditional 2' X 2' board that I would normally go for. Therefore I have made a start on some scenery. I have built a couple of dwarves towers and battlements together with a gate which needs the top completed. I'm hoping that these raw builds will be completed for the final round up next month but in case they aren't then here is the current state. I've included a couple of figures to give an idea of scale.
Well that's it for now. It's 23.59 on the 30th June so this ic cutting it fine. Hope you like what you've seen.
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