The Conclave concludes, and a note on personal style

The Inquisitional Conclave comes to an end! To check out the results for all of the various entries, take a visit to the Neverness blog post here: The 2020 Inquisitional Conclave

First, let's address the timetable. I had the whole month of August to paint this single miniature. I even got off to a good start (kinda) and bought the model early in the month! AND I made a post about it! But then, I said a dumb thing.

"...I should have a better update next week!" 

Pretty par for the course for me, but still. I did fully intend to do at least one update post before the final "here's the result" post. I really did. Instead, though, I ended up doing what I always do...

Finish 99% of the whole project in a single 4-hour-long sitting at the last minute.

I can't decide if it's a good habit or a bad one, to be honest. On one hand, it tends to be a complete "follow the muse" type of experience, while on the other hand it means I sometimes have a difficult time repeating a certain color or effect if it occurred while I was "in the zone" so to speak.

Hmmmm maybe we should just jump into the specifics on the Inquisitor... BUT WAIT! This is a blog, after all, so before we go too far let me preface this by saying something about my personal style and my biggest influences. It's my blog and I can do that if I want to, dammit!

I've long been on the path of dirty, grimy, macabre realism. Not all projects/minis call for that, but if a project can make sense and gives me even an inch in that direction... I'm going grunge, and busting out da powdah. It's probably been five or so years, at least, since I started coloring my minis using washes and inks, priming light and working to dark instead of the standard "prime it black and work up" that most people tend to favor. I think that method, going light to dark, has been a huge influence in my push towards this particular "grimdark" aesthetic (as all the cool kids on the internet now call it, apparently). Now, as far as reference material and influences, I typically never use them. I scroll a lot of galleries and posts of painted minis and save the ones I like best, sure, but I'm not one to actually put a reference up while I'm painting myself; I tend to just... see where the project takes me. However, in all my scrolling and saving, I've found two key style influences that I go back to over and over again, just pouring over the pictures and absorbing the style. 

First, one that most probably won't know: The Garden of Hecate

Still some of the coolest miniatures I've ever seen!

A blog centered around the macabre, insane creations of a true genius for the craft, I just don't have enough good things to say about this. I saw this image somewhere a couple of years ago, probably Pinterest, and exclaimed, "Holy shit, this person GETS it!" and then I tracked the picture back to the blog and found a smorgasbord of content just like this. I've honestly never even delved too, too deep on that blog, just in an effort to save it for myself over time. It's all so wonderful, I don't want to consume it all just yet. 

Now, for number 2 (though really this is the biggest influence for me for many years, I've only just recently acknowledged it): John Blanche, famed artist and creator throughout Warhammer history.

So filthy. So beautiful.

This madman does things seemingly without effort that I can only dream of ever achieving, and almost every single piece I look at leaves me with a feeling of, "Dammit why didn't I think of that? I wish my brain would just me create things like that." So now, I consider myself a follower of the Blanchitsu Way, striving in my efforts to create such luridly messy and colorful works.  

Okay, so now on to the Inquisitor!

Freshly assembled, with a new head that I took from an Exorcist kit and on a base I 3D printed

Lately, I've discovered that I adore oil paints. They do the messy blending and moving around that I want them to do, with an extended working time and the ability to create effects by adding paint and then removing it, or even just thinning it selectively once it's already on the model, with some thinner. I'm still learning a lot every time I sit down with it, but it's reinvigorated my enthusiasm for painting lately and I'm honestly enjoying the struggle. The weirdest hurdle has actually been priming the minis, because it's very easy to remove the rattle can stuff with the thinner!

I started with a black primer, then gave it a heavy zenithal of bone white. I already knew I was going to covering all of this pre-shading up with the oil paints (when using acrylic washes and glazes you can very much use this pre-shading throughout the whole process, though) but it's a strong habit of mine because it helps me spot all of the details and different elements of the mini I might want to pick out. Like I said before, I just sit down and see what happens... I'm not much of a planner.

I started with some Vallejo "Liquid Gold" paints I picked up years ago after seeing them on a YouTube video of a guy painting some Grey Knights. When I first got them I was pretty disappointed, and I actually didn't care for them because I missed the fact that they weren't water-based when I bought them. Turns out I just needed to level up a bit, and I think I'm finally at the point where I'm ready to use them more. They're still a bit of a unique tool in my arsenal because they're actually alcohol-based and you use isopropyl instead of thinner/mineral spirits when you use them, and they dry within seconds of the paint hitting the model. They also have a very, very strong shine to them, as they are basically just some very nice metallic flake suspended in the alcohol solution rather than an acrylic gel. I started off just covering all of the armor with Old Gold, then giving it some depth with Copper, and finally giving the high areas some extra shine with Rich Gold.

Then, I blocked out the xenos weapon and skull, and her head with some acrylic stone and bone white, so that I could do some oil washing and clean-away. When working with the oils/enamels, you can put layers of acrylic paints/sealers if you don't want anything "below" that color removed when you start using the thinner to clean off paint. As long as the acrylic paint is completely dry, you're not going to accidentally remove any of it with the thinner unless you're really pushing down or using a rough cloth or q-tip or something.

 

Okay, so at this point the muse took me, my ASMR meditative breathing videos were going in the background... and I didn't put down a brush with a coherent thought to take a picture or take a drink or get up for anything until the point in this next picture, several hours later. Like at least 2 hours, probably 3 is more realistic? I honestly couldn't tell you. Believe it or not, there are only 4 added colors in the next picture, as well as black and white acrylics for a couple of things like the eye and eye patch, and the highlight on her hair. This is a couple of different enamel browns, Burnt Umber and Saddle Brown, I think,  shown just above and left of the mini (I didn't end up using the redder one on the right), and a Testor's "Green" and Testor's "Yellow" (like the little ones that come in a model car learn-to-paint kit you'd find at Walmart, lol) to do the dragon. Oh, and Red on the purity seal. Shit. So 5 colors. Whatever.

That was all I could do for that particular night of work, because oils have a slower drying time than a typical acrylic paint. I left her to sit for roughly 24 hours and then painted some Desert Sand acrylic on the base, then as soon as that dried I dusted her with some dulcote from a rattle can and applied some red oxide weathering powder (aka "da powdah" as mentioned in many previous blogs) which sticks down nicely to the drying (extremely thin) layer of dulcote without clumping. This time, though, I went a step further and used the same method as when cleaning away the oil paints, and with a q-tip and some thinner gave the base some variation and depth by cleaning some of the powdah back off.

And that's the completed project! All in all, I'm quite happy with her, and hope to have her accompany my growing Adeptus Sororitas / Sisters of Battle / Whatever We're Calling It Now forces on the field of battle sooner rather than later. 

...not gonna lie though I actually really like the name Adeptus Sororitas better it's so macabre and serious and nerdy hnnnnnnngghhhhh...

Hope you enjoyed the post! Sometime in the near future (...must stay vague on time commitments...) I've got some pictures taken already to do several new posts, primarily about the Adeptus Sororitas force I'm building to combat the treacherous armies of my son's T'au. But I do have one special one planned that should be a fun surprise! Well, for me, anyway. *shrug*