Genestealer Cult Graffiti

Back in January, before the Genestealer Cult release/'Day of Ascension'  you may recall the Warhammer Community Facebook post about the Genestealer Cult Graffiti.

Well it transpired that it was in Manchester [where I work] and I immediately recognised the area and visited it as my own pilgrimage to meet this 3-armed Emperor.

I took some pictures but promplty forgot to share them on the blog, though probably did on twitter. It was amazing to see Chris Howker's work first hand [even if it had been defaced and repaired the day before].

It was quite the experience, even if the weather was a bit grim.

But an amazing piece and still in-situ and pristine in Manchester's Northern Quarter on Thomas  Street.

Alongside the Kellermorph are some equally filthy furry Xenos, which I believe are Flerken.

And these skelebob creatures that might have been done by Jay Sharples Art.

Teh full mural.

And this heresy - burn it! 🔥🔥🔥🔥

Warhammer Underworlds Shadespire Garrek's Reavers - TO DONE!

Garrek's Reavers - TO DONE! There was a point with these where I had no idea where I was going with them.

Luckily I had my Imperial Knights to focus on and with no real reason to be painting them the end result and the decisions needed to get there were broadly irrelevant.

Which is a wonderful learning experience -you have freedom to explore with no expectations and no targets to meet.

Although it helped I wasn't trying to follow a style it was a slight hindrance in that I had those questions about soft fabrics and wrappings.

So I'd definitely recommend doing something purely frivolous if you can fit it in amongst 'must do' tasks.

And as a palate [or even palette] cleanser it's also helpful in setting up your next project. It gives you renewed purpose having explored new territory.

Good old Garrek, he's a beast of a model in fact. As a sculpt it's really quite clever how subtly he's elevated to the leader status

The hair was almost by accident that I used purple to shade it. In fact I used it on the skin and all the armour plates. I'm not even sure if it's apparent but I felt like it was tying it all together.

I should have got a close-up of the decapitated head, it was one of the last things I did and really rough but came out quite cool - clearly newly severed.

Now, the scars... I'd had them all red but they looked too understated so I went purple on them and maybe they've gone too far the other way.

Possibly a couple of more washes, even a black might have made them less cartoonish but I wanted something else and that's what I got...

This guy's brand looks more like and open wound - the Tamiya Clear Red X-27 really came into it's own on these.

And just adding the gloss varnish on his helm I felt was a nice touch.

Come at me bro! Some black wash was added to the Tamiya Clear Red X-27 blood to make it darker. it also makes it matt, so you have to offset that with another dab of Tamiya Clear Red X-27, or gloss varnish.

A touch of blood from the spines rupturing out of his back - little touches just add more drama to the mmodel.

I don;t know why but I think this is my favourite of all the reavers. Maybe it;s because I think he looks like Willem Defoe?

The white background pics.

Individual character shots

And the Big Teal Stamp of Approval for giggles.

1.5 million

It was November 2016 when I hit one million views, that's an impressive milestone I think one all bloggers aspire to. However, I'm probably not alone in thinking at that time we'd been having a lot more visits from our Eastern European bot friends so what this stat really meant was anyone's guess. Subsequently I didn't think I'd do many page view milestones, unless it was a big one. I was perhaps thinking 2 million, but 1.5 million became a bigger deal because page views have dropped significantly over the last two years.

I've said many times that these arbitrary milestones feature only to serve as a thank you for those that visit the blog and as some justification that the effort is all worthwhile and, if so many get pleasure from my ramblings, to keep on doing it. I also think us bloggers aren’t really courting numbers, afterall we’re not YouTubers constantly saying “Guys, hit the subscribe, like the video and click the bell”. Where those sorts of metrics actually mean something to their success as a channel, we get by whether we have a view or not [Dave adopting the moral high ground 😉]. For us it’s just nice to have folk come along for the ride, but they don’t have to contribute to the journey.

Interestingly though, January had a spike of 20,418 pageviews, well above the 12,641 of December and six year low of 10,197 of November [although with the hiatus in effect that's understandable]. It's all just numbers really but for us bloggers they are some interesting statistics to ponder over, if not fully comprehend. And for those that are interested that traffic also generates between 1p or 2p a day in AdSense, regardless of clicking [for which I received a princely 6p off 2 clicks the other day!]. I don't even know if the adverts are even an issue now and I'd say it doesn't really matter but it's made £195 over the past 8 years and got me some interesting extras I wouldn't normally have bought.

Thank you everyone for your continued support.

Warhammer Underworlds Shadespire Steelhearts Champions - TO DONE!

Second of my completed Shadespire Warbands - Steelheart's Champions.

And I know it's now Night Vault and the actual game is Warhammer Underworlds but these technically were Shadespire warbands and the name is just altogether better.

Just a reminder I [loosely] followed Rob Paint's Model's base guide for these.

And I also followed his painting guide for the Stormcast Eternals themselves.

He obviously did a much better job and I threw in some battle damage too but I'm more than happy with the result.

2 things about steelheart: 1. I love the blending on his sword - I wish I could do black like this ALL the time. 2. The pupils for his eyes or on his top eyelids. It looks OK, but it isn;t right and one day I may have to fix that.

The purple wasn't quite as smoothly blended as I'd hoped. It had been looking quite dire and just the edition of that white line across the bottom made it far more interesting and draws the eye away from the dubious blends...

I also glossed all the weaponry, again to make up for what I didn't explore on the Chosen Axes

Pics on the white background.

See what I mean about his pupils. However, do me a favour click on the pick and zoom in to the leather groin protector - see those individual brush stroke highlights? I love them! While you're at it look at the blend on that sword closely - I need to do all my blends like this!

Anyway, a Big Teal Stamp of Approval for these guys.