This weekend, my wife and I pottered up to Warhammer World for two 'Eavy Metal Masterclasses. One was about skin tones, the other about painting metal and also Non Metallic Metal.
We took a long weekend, after checking in to our hotel on the Friday, I pottered over to Warhammer World to kill some time rather than sitting around the hotel looking sad.
I popped up to the miniatures hall to see what had changed. There's plenty of updates there regularly, so its worth multiple trips. I spotted a new exhibition of the history of Citadel miniatures, and knowing that Orylgg and his readership would appreciate it, I took a bunch of photos. Some lucky folk may have already seen them, but I'm pretty sure not everyone has. When I've finished editing the photos and cleaning them up, I'll put up a post with them all in.
I also took a few shots to show what's currently "on campaign" as that can sometimes help predict what's going to be released at some point in the future - but I don't have enough data yet to say how far into the future! That will go up in a separate rumour post in a while too...
Then there was the painting classes themselves. The first one, on skin and faces, used the Savage Orc Boss and the Dark Elf Sorceress as models. I'm really happiest with the Savage Orc, although I know what I want to fix on his face (his lips don't blend enough back to the green), he was the model I felt most under control with and that I was learning at a nice easy pace.
The Dark Elf Sorceress was next. It turns out pale skin is really not my strong point, and I had quite a lot of problems with this one. I stopped for a bit towards the end, and also went and did my own thing a little bit with the eyes, as it was something I was not particularly good at. I definitely want to practice eyes in the future, but right now, my brush control really isn't up to it...
Sim gave me a little bit of a talking to after the class, quite rightfully. I should have paid more attention even when I was getting stuck, and not given up and stopped. I resolved on the second day to pay closer attention and try and keep going even when things got super hard.
The Chaos Lord, on the start of Day 2, was relatively easy. The blade was a bit harder, and I've still not got it right, but I'm not too concerned about that. It is, effectively, trying to do NMM but using metals, and while it will look awesome when I work it out, I've not worked it out yet...
Then, after lunch, Sanguinor. Non Metallic Metals. I had a suspicion this was going to be Very Hard, and I really tried to focus on not getting frustrated and stopping... It was incredibly hard! I had about an hour and a half when I totally forgot how to blend, and I felt like a toddler finger painting and splodging paint on at random.
I ended up redoing some parts of the model four or five times, but I ended up with this, which I'm pretty pleased with. I know what the next steps are to make it even better, and at some point I will do them - but after two full days of painting, there reached a point where I tried to do a next step, ruined something I was particularly proud of, and had to spend half an hour fixing the bit I'd just done!
All in all, I will definitely be doing more Masterclasses when I have the money, but I may think twice about doing two in a weekend again. I am definitely enthused about painting right now, and really wanting to set some time aside to get things done. I've also proved I can paint for five or six hours in a day if I don't have distractions and actually sit down and do it.
While the classes are quite pricey, I would say that given what you pick up and how much you improve, they are worth it just for that. The fact that paint is thrown in along with the brushes also helps take the edge off it. A photo of quite how much stuff I've come home with without slipping up at the store or buying any Forge World will follow in a while.
Unsurprisingly, with four free figures, my work in progress charts are not going to be very happy... Time to start using this painting motivation for good!
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