28 Years Later (Approx)

Project Blog by ironnie

Recommendations: 7

About the Project

Mid-1980's country bumpkin wandering streets of Edinburgh, trying to get to a university lecture, finds himself staring into a shop window filled with D&D figures. Intrigued he steps inside and before you know it he's leaving the shop with a few figures, some Humbrol paint pots and a selection of brushes. Painted up some figures, black to darken and white to lighten any colours, all very basic. However, this led to the shop owner asking me to paint some figures and introducing me to a local figure designer. Standards improved, thanks to Heavy Metal articles in White Dwarf, which led to better shading and highlighting. Inks for lining came next and some small dioramas for promotion of the designers figure line in another Edinburgh gaming shop, the original one having closed. This takes us through to the early 90's then painting became a bit sporadic, figure designer having hung up his green stuff and sculpting tools, and my life became busier with a career. Then, all of a sudden and a bit earlier than expected, retirement was upon me and the dried out paint pots, stiff brushes and boxes of metal, and plastic, called out. However, could I still paint? Picked some larger figures, approx' 40mm metal giants, to ease myself in, and quite surprised myself. Being critical, never happy with dry brushing but maybe I could improve with newer brushes along with some washes and/or glazing (needs to research to update my knowledge). One major thing that came back to me once I got into things was the mindfulness that comes with painting, not sure if the term was around back in the late 80's/early 90's, but I began to remember the calmness that the brain feels when hunched over a model. Hoping to keep digging into the boxes of unpainted models and enjoying my return to the brushes; there is a local shop that will take them off my hands (paint given as payment) as I am not a gamer and my wife is not one for clutter.

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Jun 14 2026

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Bit of a mix of figures for this entry but all carry a common theme when it comes to their painting – take something from the process of completing each figure/set of figures.

Giant/Troll – recovered from the bottom of the box without their main weapon, the large branch and a poorly cast face. This required remodelling to create the branch along with the thumb of the hand holding it. What did I learn? – I need to practice sculpting thumbs. The poorly cast facial features just got a ‘Ramones hair style’ fix.

The figures with the ‘Judge Dredd’ paint theme are old Blood Bowl miniatures, converted with some green stuff and plastic weapons I found lying around. The figures come from one of my ‘lets give Blood Bowl/gaming a go’ that never came to anything, so I needed to do something with the figures. What did I learn? – when converting and batch painting, don’t start painting until all the figures are converted as, unless I’ve taken an exact note of the painting technique, I’m unlikely to get the mix right across the whole range. Very frustrating and took a lot of going back over areas with washes/glazes.

Final figure is a Middle Earth/Mithril miniature bought many years ago. I had previously painted some of this range for an inn diorama. What did I learn? – I had forgotten how subtle the detailing is on these figure, (in my hands) dry brushing/washing struggling to reveal this. The sculpting is also delicate and I found affixing the hawk very stressful as I was worried about wrecking the figure when drilling for pinning. The sword the figure once held also broke as it was so thin, hence the hand-bow replacement.

Knight Maximus - first painted towards the end of the 80's for my girlfriend, now wife. He was mounted on a very crude dungeon diorama made from cardboard. This time he is positioned in front of a resin piece of which I have no recollection of acquiring but recently found at the bottom of a bits box and modified by extending the floor area. Maximus was stripped and repainted with an attempt at OSL, on him and the floor/wall. Despite its age I think this is a beautiful (GW) sculpt, made before the digital age, but with such character and uncomplicated design. I just love the pair of gloves folded through the belt.