In the past year I've assembled and painted a handful of Airfix models so I was satisfied that I remembered which end of the paintbrush was which. Airfix models are reasonably large, however, and the last time I painted something as small as a citadel miniature was probably about 16 years or more ago. Suffice it to say I was worried about whether I would be able to have the steady hands required to produce a decent finish.
I've always liked goblins, so I decided to start with the Night Goblin Spearmen in the box. First up, I undercoated 20 of them with the Citadel Chaos Black undercoat spray which was a quick and painless process and gave a nice base coat to work with. Since the goblins would have black robes, I figured it would be a reasonably easy way to start as all I'd have to paint would be faces and hands, the spear, the shield, the belt, and if I felt confident then I could go for the teeth and eyes.
I remembered the golden rule which I'd read in White Dwarf years and years before - as long as you paint neatly then it doesn't matter if you've used fancy shading and blending and highlighting techniques; the model will still look presentable. So I got started, and a while later had finished goblin one - promptly named Steve by my better half.
So here's Steve - as you'll see there's nothing fancy about him, but I was quite pleased that the finish was neat enough, and particularly with the eyes and teeth as fine detail work was never my strong point. He also looks a bit dusty by now but then he's been not been in action for a few months so that's no surprise! The rest of the unit look pretty similar - but I'll post a photo of them with a bit more detail next time.
Ah, I have fond memories of Steve. Mainly because it was the simplicity of painting the goblins that convinced me to give the whole thing a go.
ReplyDeletePicking a starting army like them is a good first move, as they can be easily painted up to be presentable as you say, which will build up confidence to tackle other units (hence why I went with the Space Marines over in 40K).
Its quite surprising how easy it is to come up with a paint job that's acceptable, and something that sometimes gets a bit buried under the endless pictures of awesome paint jobs in the magazines and websites, which are amazing but can be a bit daunting to beginners.
(Although in fairness, paint jobs that look perfectly fine in person, sometimes don't translate as well to hires pictures, so I can understand why we maybe don't see more of them kicking about).