Slave To Slaanesh WIP

Greetings all, I wanted to use this personal thread to give a more in depth introduction, along with using it not just for my WIP ( which will be the meat of the posts ) but for general related rambling, information, and even history from this side of the pond. We could even call it chaotic musings with visuals but on to my intro.

First of all I feel it important to cover some things in detail, which UK members ( since I know many are from there ) may find both interesting and may not be aware of, certain "80s" gamer's may totally relate to this and some of it may even be common knowledge but regardless, some of you might find it entertaining in terms of "classic" gw era history.

During the mid and late 1980s, there was no GW official stores in canada, instead we had a number of what we would call "indy" hobby shops and game shops, around 1987 in pickering ontario, the local mall had a chain store ( at least in Ontario it was a chain store ) called Leisure World, while these were chain stores they were also unique ( having visited many of them in different cities in Ontario ), this particular store was even for the 80s, a bit of a phenomena you could say, the owner ( sheldon was his name ) was peddling just about everything you could think of, from art supplies, to knitting hobbies, right down to gi joe and transformers, model kits, it was literally like a toy store mixed with a traditional hobby shop and games shop, toward 88 he even branched into selling NES games behind the counter!

Anyway one afternoon after having lunch at Eatons around mid 1987 ( back when malls and department stores had indy restaurants not like this plastic cheap food court that has taken over ), my family and I were walking out past the stores and some little painted men in the window caught my eye, so naturally I rushed in and was in some little boys dream land of wonder, upon the walls were rows and rows of citadel miniatures ( and ral partha and ramf ), both the old stapled baggies and the then "new" individual art army blisters. I must have spent close to an hour ( and annoying my parents ) looking all of these in total shock and wonder, while it was nothing like an official GW blister wall, it was at least 2 full walls stacked 6 feet high.

I believe my first blister was a citadel generic blister of 2 of kev adams zombies ( I still have that mini btw and yes it will be painted up in this blog ), after that I was really hooked and I remember getting about 3 realm of chaos "chaos warriors" that were jes goodwin sculpts, I remember one report card them buying me one of those "hard plastic give a pc environment mom knots in her pubes" Knights Of The Cleansing Flame regiment ( which I believe was a regiments of renown unit back then ), and I seem to remember a Khornate Goblin ( yes!!! ) stapled single mini, that came with a tiny warhammer 40k ( for real! ) stat sheet with some written up blurb about his god khorne, I know he was pre slotta and came in a chaos set at one time but he was clearly over here, packaged this way, along with many other repackaged citadel stuff with those little stat sheets.

There was a number of minis I bought back then, not piles but I clearly remember one of JG's ogres ( the one with ball n chain and sword with his hand resting on his hip ), a few undead blisters of skeletons, an eldar grav gun and crew, back then some came with those hex bases, anyway like many I also started off using testors junk enamel, for some reason I don't remember them carrying citadel paints or ever mentioning them, nor seeing white dwarf sold there, but he had plenty of citadel blisters for sale and marauder.

I mention this because around that time, the majority of game shops were only starting to import GW and Citadel product, it was basically import only ( in canada at least ) at that time, of course due to GW's rather wild, chaotic and UK style, this was something very unique to north american gamers, who were generally used to typical TSR type fantasy art and products, which dominated the market here. What's interesting is on one of my trips to that Leisure world I ran into a english guy who was in his early 20s and he was going on about how cool "Skayyyyvinnn" were, although I walked out with an undead blister haha.

Years later I had moved away and lived on an island for a while, it was hell and very remote. I had my GW product and it kept me sane for those years, well perhaps around late 1991 I went back to Toronto for a visit, and while walking along Queen Street West ( one of two GW shops in canada then ), I saw a very familiar yellow logo with a green background that said "Games Workshop", I think I must have done a double take and walked up and saw a whole bunch of beautifully painted ( I mean really and I will get to that ) citadel minis in a revolving cabinet, and walked inside.

I suddenly saw rows upon rows of GW and Citadel product, both kids my age, teens and even adults all standing around tables being rather loud and having a good time, I saw a painting table with a box of tons of citadel paints, people sitting there painting, I saw CD's of lots of metal behind the till and Alice in Chains blasting away, I met Mick and Logan for the first time and could not believe the minis I first found in 1987 actually had an official store and how amazing this all was.

My memory may be a little hazy these days, but I clearly remember what I bought that first trip. It was Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay with the character pack ( still own it too ), a few blisters of undead, including some night horrors, a blister of "norse barbarians" to use for Advanced HeroQuest which I also bought, Logan got me to buy a box of plastic beakies too, I also bought a box of the "space marine strike force" which was actually just 15 metal jes goodwin marines, I believe they made a sgt which was actually just a sculpted head and body and legs you glued together but same model from that box, I also think it was a tad rare because I only saw a blister of them a few times then never again.

They were sold out of the basic citadel paint set, so instead Mick handed me the Advanced HeroQuest paint set, and I also bought the creature and expert set, I have only but a few of these colours left sadly today.

Upon later visits I bought space hulk with all expansions, blood bowl and eventually got into epic ( 2nd ed ) along with all the multi army plastic boxes, and the army expansion boxes too with all the cards, I had a pretty good collection of random "starter side games", the first WD I bought was 139 I believe, which was space fleet on the cover and while its fallen to pieces I still have Tim Prow's blood angel article which I used religiously to learn how to paint the 'eavy metal way.

It may have been down to my age, but for some reason while I loved WHB, I never actually built an army from it or got into it ( I am HARDCORE into it now 8th specifically ), but I will state Marauder had a huge impression on me, and I will claim at that time they were indeed a cut above most of citadels sculpts, outside of jes goodwin. That's not to say the perry twins and others were bad, but the marauder stuff...especially the empire, dwarves and orcs all stood out far more than any of the mid and later 80s sculpts in terms of a coherent style. What WHFB minis I collected were in fact due to me playing AHQ, so I branched into a group of different ones to use and have on hand for that.

I feel its important to also state here, due to GW not having a strong enough presence in canada then, that most "gamers" were of the TSR/RPG variety, eventually GW got it's foothold over here and growth, but this was more towards the mid 90s outside of Toronto. There were of course many wargamers but they were into historicals at that time, till more and more hobby shops imported GW product.

Speaking of Toronto, and the GW store on Queen Street West in fact, Logan was the manager at the time. The store had about 3 cabinets, the painting itself to this day stood out from any other GW store...or indy store, I have ever visited, I would even claim that Logan himself and mick, were just a step behind official "eavy metal quality", I eyeballed these many times and the blending and layering, the neatness was really almost on par with what we saw in WD etc. Interestingly enough, Logan eventually worked on the Inferno comic, I believe both Mick and Logan had some falling out with GW ( I don't know what really happened here it's mostly rumor ) but last I heard Logan was working for Hasbro designing things and doing a lot of concept art and so on. I really would love to see if either of them have any of their painted minis left with photos because I clearly remember seeing a big tzeentch daemon army in the cabs, along with ultra marines and many other single minis, some of the GD entries were also there and mind blowing.

Fast forward to now, I have probably an unhealthy amount of plastic armies for both 40k and FB, I even branched into LOTR. This thread will mainly focus on those, and from time to time when I lay my hands on some classic citadel I will paint those up.

Up next is some rather useful general painting information and then onto wip shots...

My paints and general modeling information.

As you can see in this first shot, it contains some classic citadel colour pots, 3 original inks from the expert set ( actually second batch black cda pots the very first were droppers ), a pot of half full hobgoblin orange, a single retail pot of spearstaff brown, and an orange from the epic space marine paint set ( forget the name its bit on the red side but still orange ), goblin green, and I forget the name but the lighter layer for space wolves, the rest are second edition citadel colour hex pots.

I want to clarify something here that I've read around different forums from time to time, I don't want to sound like a know it all jerk, but being a professional artist and having a strong eye for detail and colors ( and owning and having used the original line ), I will accurately state here and now for the record some facts.

1 yes coat d' arms still sells paints, they still sell paints that come in the bottles that the first line of citadel colour came in, they are NOT the exact same paints as the ORIGINAL citadel color paints. That is simply fact!

It is more accurate to say that HMG still makes more or less citadel paints that are very close to the original line of colors, some are very very close, others are WAY off. Secondly their "super wash" line are NOT the same as the original citadel inks, not even close.

Their metallics are not even close to their original metallics either, their gold lacks that greenish hue that it used to have, their metallics however are GOOD quality, and their paints are GOOD quality. People claiming these paints are the exact same as the original citadel colour paints are giving out 100% false information. That is not to say it's intentional, but it needs to be fully stated because initially I also believed this until I imported a bunch from the troll trader in the UK, what I can claim is that many of the colours in fact are very close to the BOLTER shell colours, and some of the 2nd edition hex pots, but even those were not 100% the same as the original citadel colour batches that were sold in the box sets and the silver ( which had some non silver variants too ) labels for retail racks.

2 back then....and even today...regardless of what CDA claims, or anyone else....their paints colour shades are NOT consistent every time, this one has been a bit unconfirmed and mentioned on different posts, but I'm looking at both of my "putrid green/rotting flesh" new bottles and clearly both are very different in shade, I noticed this back when it was the first original line and it's not changed, chances are they probably do eyeball their pigment loads even if they don't want to admit that, does it matter ? with how much you get per pot probably not unless you are painting an entire space marine chapter.

3 Citadel inks I am not 100% sure who made them, if it was really CDA/HMG or if they actually bought ink from winsor and newton and had CDA repackage it for them, what I can state is that their original ink seems VERY close to what even W&N drawing ink is today, although even real paint companies would have had variation of not just pigment but binder etc vs the 1980s. However through reading certain interviews with eavy metal painters and them admitting to using w&n inks back then, it may have actually been HMG who made the original inks, I would personally love to know an official answer on this as it may shed some light in certain areas.

If you want to use inks that are the closest to the original citadel colour inks, I highly suggest buying up as many winsor and newton drawing ink colours you can, I've done some personal tests and it's very difficult to tell the difference between the two, I happen to have 3 bottles that are about 70% full from back then, I've also tested them vs the hex inks and even the bolter pot inks, it's about the closest you can get in my opinion.

The original citadel inks are ONE shade of at least 2 ( or even 3 today ) winsor and newton drawing inks produced today, that is to say, purple ink is of the redish tone, not the blueberry purple, green ink is more of the emerald like deep sea green, it's not a mid green or yellow shade, blue ink seems to be an ultramarine like strong mid blue, I mention this because I know that w&n inks are two shades of each of those colors, so if you are buying them make sure that it's the right one or you will end up with a very different shade of that color, on the flip side it basically gives you close to the original citadel ink line with new color shade options.

I don't think I've read of any of the original eavy metal painters discussing how they used the inks, but this is fairly common knowledge today, I believe some of the EM team may have watered them down a little bit and some may have used them close to full strength, naturally drawing inks do NOT behave in any way like the current citadel washes. They have surface tension, so what I personally do is I add a single drop ( sometimes 2 ) of acrylic flow improver into all my inks ( since I use all of them for minis only ), because I do not want them full strength I also add at least 5ml of water into every ink pot, this dilutes them to a still strong consistency and if needed I can dilute them even more on the pallet.

With the current CDA pots I also add a single drop or two of flow improver to each pot, and I also add about 10ml of water, the CDA paints have a very inconsistent pigment and thickness, so the thicker ones I tend to add 10ml of water, the more transparent "thin colors" I add about 5ml only, any long term painter knows you have to water down your paints for good clean coverage, some more than others...perhaps not every paint out there but it's usually a good idea and will always help a paint job, even if 2-3 layers is time consuming, but if your paying current GW prices why the hell would you paint total thick crud on such expensive plastic crack right ? water down your paints kids and old buggers!

I also add cut up excess metal sprue bits into little chunks and throw them in each pot, this really helps the shake each time and helps bring all the colours back if the binder has separated too much, such as the case with the "foundation line".

I can only recommend flow improver as it helps the paint flow better and get into those deep areas that sometimes the surface tension causes to not cover as well as what you would like, some paint's don't really need this and I wont claim you have to use it for a good paint job, but it will certainly make your overall painting experience better I think. For inks and washes it basically turns inks ( or even paint if you water it down to that level ) to behave how the current washes do, you will be quite pleased with how a w&n watered down ink behaves with flow improver, you can even get into matte medium to avoid that horrible gloss that inks often leave when dry.

Just understand that the pigment richness of inks is VERY strong and different vs what the current washes are like, you can also turn your inks into glazes with enough water added. I also happen to be a very big fan of FW acrylic artist inks, I cannot say enough good things about this brand and the quality, they are soooo rich and so amazing to use, that when I get more cash I'm considering buying up a ton of them since their uses are many, you can easily add these into paints to alter the strength or simply create strong rich colors that may not be to your liking with certain brands paints. Try their sepia for an amazing "flesh wash" I swear by it and for leathers and horses! yes w&n is good for that "classic" citadel ink look, but FW wins hands down for quality and colours plus the price and size is cheaper and more and they have these sexy dropper glass things built right into the lids, not even V can touch that!

It's a bit ironic because I went on a whim here and bought them years ago, then read Andy Craigs interview about them and he was spot on with it all and I really think anyone who has not tried them will fall in love with how versatile and quality these inks are, what's funny is the company behind that usually is not the best in terms of paint itself, they are more of a student quality brand vs like m.graham or daniel smith ( I work in watercolor and oil ), the literal two best scientific tested paint makers today for lightfastness and pigment load and yea I will put money on that.

Last up is my newer paints, these are all the current line of citadel color, along with the first washes ( and some of the newer ones ) plus some foundation paints, I keep the foundation paints because most of them are more of a muted duller colour than their current base line, they are close to that shade but some still have a very good place in some styles and tones, the binder is crap in them though and always seems to separate.

There has been a lot of negative and positive comments over the current citadel paint line, and I don't think it's been officially confirmed yet that these are now really being made again by hmg ( although they are being made in the UK ), I have personally found that the new line is of a good quality, in fact better than the last range, and certainly has wonderful colors. The base black is the worst black I have ever used though, I fanatically now use CDA black only and it behaves amazingly well, I may have got a bad batch of citadel black but it is very oily and does not seem to cover like a base paint, my pot is horrible stuff...but with that said...

Almost every pot of the new range of citadel I have opened, both the teeth grip back hinge and the non hinge, all seem to be what I call "very gummy and thick" paint, in fact I would even question the ml listed and what is really inside the pot, soooooooo...while adding my usual drop of flow improver, I almost always add 10 ml of water, even then I sometimes have to add more and no this does not ruin them or make them too thin, it actually kinda turns them into almost the base consistency of most CDA paints, and even those often need some watering down at times. Usually you would want your paint to be about the thickness of milk, so this is perfectly fine to do and it will keep the paint almost ready to use and alive much longer than if you left them untouched, so this is something I recommend to those who do face this same problem, it will get around that and keep them good for years.

There has in fact been a few pots I opened that looked like a ball of thick glue paint!

As a professional artist I will make clear that yes we should be adept at mixing colours, and I indeed do this over traditional 2d painting, I will also state there is many many times that having those exact mixes, and certain colours on hand are a boon, you can never own enough paints, and you should become adept at mixing paints, the two have their place.

In the case of miniature painting, due to sometimes having to paint large armies, having those exact specific colour batches on hand and their shades, is very handy, do you really want to eyeball mixing that exact dark angels green every time and so on ? hell no I want my army to all look the same shade vs standing out as some weird shade of green on that other unit, of course this is another story if each rank n file has a specific look but you can also understand why having many colors that work well can be a boon and work out better in these situations, but I also encourage you all to mix paints, come up with unique colours, and learn how to make colours you need because through that your own blending and layering skills will also improve through shadow values, which is in fact one of the hardest things for students and painters to master, its why working in monochrome can help towards later colour painting, it teaches those values which are vital at times.

I personally use the winsor and newton sable artist watercolour brushes for my miniature painting, they are not as good as no7 but I prefer the handles on these and find they are just perfect for me, I tend to use cotman el cheapo student brand for drybrushing and sometimes priming by hand, they last a good while and are cheap enough to not worry if they get ruined, I also suggest buying artists brush cleaner to keep the points good and in overall good shape. When it comes to other tools I tend to use squadron brand of modeling files, as I really like to do the best job I can at cleaning up mold lines, and these do a much better job than scraping will do with a hobby knife, you can get the best control I find with them and a very smooth sanding so there is almost zero traces of mold lines left, with a knife it tends to simply scrape but sometimes leave little nicks and stuff.

In the end use what works for you, but do research, test brands and experiment so you can have the least headaches when painting minis. Since I would like to help people with my own experiences in miniature painting from over the years, and because many are not always taught some of this information, I think my coming WIP can contribute to the comunity, also the fact I learned from the original EM articles and was inspired by that era ( it's actually what I learned first before I went onto traditional 2d painting ), I think some tutorials and so on will help improve peoples work and maybe teach them some oldschool tricks that I learned also, of course it's important for everyone to develop their own styles too.

Looking forward to painting models now ^^'

In teh gwim darkness of teh far futar! there is no points, there is no old world, I would tell ye of the Age of Shitemar Failhammer!


Ok so sadly I do not have many "oldhammer" citadel minis left, I do have a small handful and those will be posted here as they are worked on, but I wanted this first wip to be a bit special, and to follow things the oldschool way.

It's a non marauder aly morrison skeleton, his original spear tip broke off years ago, thinking back to the old EM days, converting was all the rage, plenty of studio showcase minis had one conversion or another, many times these were very simple conversions vs what we see today. Anyway I have a fair bit of ( and growing ) 8th FB plastic minis, I think most of us all know how ancient the 4e undead line was, so I was quite excited when the "then" new undead plastics starting coming out around 2008 I think, and while the current skeleton warriors box is not 100% done by aly, I feel it screams marauder undead, and what most likely "marauder" minis would have developed into. Of course marauder had a huge impact on me when they were available and while I have little taste for aly's 40k work, I still enjoy and love his classic fantasy work, especially his "imperial" dwarves and empire.

In fact I have 60 of the skeletons, and I'm working towards 100 for a true forest of spears n bones. Well looking at this old mini, looking at past EM showcases and articles, knowing how things were done back then since I grew up at the time, I said hell let's go full out oldschool here. So I sat here for a good hour debating how to "convert" and fix this mini, it was fairly easy I simply drilled out the old spear hand and looked through my bitz, I settled on this semi corroded spear with flowing strips to replace the old metal sculpted spear. I did have to shave down the plastic skel hand and then take my file to really round it off so it was even with the rest of the shaft, not too difficult but a bit delicate work but had to be done in order to fit through the drilled hand, which worked out wonderfully.

I chose this because it compliments the areas of the mini that have bits of worn chainmail ( also because I plan to use a colour oop that would only work on cloth not metal which this mini is mainly bone and armor ) and pitting in the breastplate, along with the little tears in the boots, I'm glad this spear has the tattered cloth flowing as it helps to emphasise some action in the sorta "static" look of the mini, however I would point out that while the overall detail techniques are dated by modern standards, what I personally and instantly always loved about classic citadel 80s undead line, was the almost "punky shambling evil undead" style they had to them, certainly some stuff is silly today, but aly sculpted most of his skeletons with a slightly evil bend to the eye sockets, this was subtle but it pushed them enough to make them look the part, compared the the rounded eye sockets of the skeleton plastic army. I believe many of these hold up well today and they totally embody that "oldhammer" vibe and visual aesthetic many of us adore.

Due to aly working on the current plastic kit, certain aspects of that style have made it's way into the current plastic skeleton warriors, and lucky for me the weapons really fit well with the old line, they are just the right size as the original spears were a similar length, but the new spear heads are much longer and thinner...in fact more realistic in size, so I feel this simple conversion is going to turn out quite well when painted up, I've not decided 100% on which shield I will use of the two I've chosen from my scraps, I like the coffin lid as it's a throw back to classic citadel undead, but I also think the sculpted bone shield compliments the overall pose and miniature too.

There was a period around the late 80s - early 90s where I saw certain bases that seemed odd to me for being the "sand pva" method, I had an idea how they got that look but it was never confirmed till I read colin dixon's EM page describing exactly what I thought, if you look back at certain GD entries from this period, and fraser grey's work, and some random EM showcases, you will notice what looks like goopy blotches of sand on bases, but it's in fact greenstuff/miliput that has been pressed onto the base and then a drawing compass needle point has been jabbed into it, this creates that look and sure enough this is exactly what colin described and I find it's a more retro but interesting look than sand which I was never a fan of, because it looks like every mini is sinking into it.

Anyway I took this a step further by making the surface of the ground a bit lumpy and then stabbing it painstakingly to make sure it was fully dented all over to look like that classic sculpted grass, once painted this will be far more evident, it's a look I'm very much a fan of and finally am doing it myself after all these years.

I'm going to limit myself to late 80s and early 90s paint techniques to keep with the theme and vibe, since I grew up learning that it's not difficult and should help capture the authenticity. I may or may not do a white or black undercoat, colin did both depending on how much metal there was, I do however plan to make use of 2 out of production classic 80s citadel paints.

More to come later...