Year-end miniature roundup

@alice

Two armies, one knight, one diorama, thirty character models, and a year of OSL practice. Plus the shelf of shame, which is still about the same size as last year.

Painting a 28mm dragon in stages

@alice

A 28mm dragon in three stages. This is the broadest possible breakdown — I'm skipping the dozen sub-steps because the point is the progression, not the recipe. Stage 1: Sketch...

Eldar craftworld: first squad complete

@alice

A 2012 box of primer finally finished. Box-art scheme, four evenings of painting, and a lesson about why some sculpts paint faster than others.

Studio reorganisation

@alice

I rearranged the painting desk this weekend. Before: After: The only thing that actually changed: I built two cheap MDF paint racks and forced every paint into one. The rule...

Reviewing the new Citadel Layer paints

@alice

Three new Layer paints versus their old-formula equivalents. Better coverage on the warm side, no meaningful change on the cool side. Worth buying if you already use Citadel.

Brush care for the lazy

@alice

A brush care guide for people who, like me, will never actually follow a brush care guide. The minimum Don't leave brushes in water. Even five minutes is enough to...

Marines refresh: before and after

@alice

A six-year-old marines force, refreshed in an hour per model. Three small changes that read as a completely different scheme at table distance.

Quick paint, three days, one squad

@alice

Three days. One ten-model squad. No agonising. The trick is to commit to "good enough on a moving table" rather than "good enough under a desk lamp at arm's length"....

Why I gave up on metallics for a year

@alice

Eleven months of forced non-metallic painting fixed my metallics. The trick was leaving the silver pots alone until my brain knew where the light was supposed to be.

Underpainting before basecoat

@alice

There's a long-standing argument about whether underpainting on tabletop minis is worth the time. I used to skip it. Now I don't. What I changed Two things, really: I started...