Paul's Dwarf Army January Rank and File First Unit 156 points completed

 I've been back in the hobby for a few years now after a long hiatus. Prior to this I was into army painting and have four completed 8th Edition armies. My painting techniques were batch painting with a limited colour palette and basic layering techniques. The individual models would not win any prizes but en masse on the tabletop they looked ok. On returning to the hobby I wasn't playing the game any more and I started to paint in a different way. Through online forums I met some amazing people and started painting for competitions. When I did the test model for this army I was just enjoying the process of painting the individual model. So I employed a lot of the techniques that I'd improved at and learnt such as glazing and NMM. These are great when you have plenty of time to spend on a model but I have come to realise that doing a whole army like this is going to be more difficult than I first realised. However, I've started so I'll finish and I have to admit I'm pleased with the way they are looking.

Below is the first unit for the army. 10 Thunderers with a full command unit of leader, musician and standard bearer. This comes to a total of 156 points.

Going forward I will need to adjust the way I approach the painting process. The yellow is built up on a black undercoat with four different colours being glazed over each other to build up colour and contrast. Whilst I think it looks great it is time consuming and I will need to think about the process going forward so that I am not struggling to hit the deadlines for future instalments. The other mistake I made was painting the armour and gold in NMM. I don't have any alternative now that I've painted the first unit and I think that it contrasts nicely with the yellow and black. I realised that as the painting process was dragging on that smooth blends weren't going to be an option if I want 1500 plus points painted in a reasonable time. So I'm hoping that layering so that contrast creates the illusion will cover up the lack of smooth transitions. Below are some more images of the regiment showing each of the models form three different angles. 

 

The next unit I'm attempting are 15 miners. These are mainly clad in mail coats so I'm going to get lots of practise with NMM chainmail. Wish me luck and see you next month.