A long time ago battles raged access large swathes of fantasy land. Great armies rose and fell. High technology and magic were used to unleash devastation. As a kid, Warhammer was a bit complicated to play. I did however so a lot of painting of the miniatures. My key army was Eldar, space elves of the grim far future. Using their energy weapons and psychic abilities, this faction seemed the most interesting to me. On the Fantasy front I ended up with a strange mix of green skins and dwarves. Goblin Fanatics, shamans and squigs were my most prized models, but I never took them into battle (our friendship group was more 40K oriented).
The universe shattering events of recent times saw the reboot of Games Workshop’s long running Fantasy universe. Now is the Age of Sigmar. “Basically the world got blown up by Chaos and now everyone is flying around on a comet. Don’t read too much into it.” Tim summarised it pretty well.
Recently, I adopted a corps of Sylvaneth dryads. The Games Workshop store that used to be in the Belconnen mall re-appeared on Whedon close a few years ago and I’ve been there a few times now to pick up new paints. It’s still the same ol’ Games Workshop, really. Which is comforting, in its own way. Also, my painting skills are the same ol’ skills, apparently. Still, there is something remarkably meditative about painting miniatures. Hours disappear very quickly. The focus is very relaxing, even though it involves a fair bit of concentration. Now that I’m older I have more patience and that’s definitely key in this field.
Sylvaneth, formerly wood elves, are the Fantasy equivalent of Eldar. The drayds were painted with a base of Necrotic Corpse (Army Painter primer-in-a-can) followed with a base of Zandri Dust for the wood. This was washed with Seraphim Sepia. For the cloth, two layers Biel-tan Green shade. The leaves were also done with Biel-tan Green, followed by Moot Green layer and then Casandora Yellow. The whole lot was then drybrushed with Terminaturs Stone. Basically I made it up as I went along. On and off it took about three weeks to get all 16 done. The guy at the store suggested that I put them into the local “Golden Brush” competition which I’ve ended up doing. They’re a fair way from competition quality but it’ll be a good way to chart my progress / skill development.
Over the weekend whole new lineup for the faction hit the shelves, including a new unit called the tree-revenants. I picked some up and spent a lot of time cutting and gluing. They’re very detailed miniatures and for the first time I’ve decided to show some patience and do what I always promised myself I’d do – paint the complicated parts before gluing them together. For example, the waypipes on one of the figures almost entirely covers his chest so they should really be done individually. This time I’ll follow a painting guide and see what happens. With all the paint I now have in my possession, surely something decent can be done here.
