Gorram’s 2026 Log

I haven’t been posting here much over the last couple of months but let’s dip a toe back in shall we?

I know it is terribly frowned upon to praise GW for anything but I really like their miniatures. I paint from a lot of different companies and across genres and scales but I still come back to Warhammer in some form regularly. For the next two-ish years, it’ll be regularly once a month. I decided after a bunch of humming and hawing over it to subscribe to the new Age of Sigmar partworks magazine, Spearhead. But only for as long as I can keep up with painting it. Models come in, models must be painted.

Due to timings, I ended up with the first six issues coming pretty much all at once so my first month’s worth of models consists of eight Stormcast Eternals and five Skaven.

My Stormcast are going to be Lightning Hawks. I’d love to tell you that I picked them because the lore sung to me but I just liked the colours. I nearly went for the Hammers of Sigmar (the standard ones you see all the time) because I’ve really enjoyed the Blacktalon animated series and quite fancy picking the character up at some point but I find the gold too garish for my tastes. Lightning Hawks it is then.

1. Prime black
2. Drybrush with Army Painter Gun Metal
3. Lighter drybrush of Citadel Stormhost Silver
4. Wash of AK Interactive dark grey wash
5. Several thin layers of Citadel Incubi Darkness on shields, shoulder pads and scabbards
6. Citadel Vallejo Cavalry Red for the weapon hafts and some of the material on the character models.
7. Citadel Retributor Gold on all the trim details
8. Wash previous two steps with Citadel Reikland Fleshshade
9. Bases are AK Interactive Wet Mud texture paste, washed with Citadel Agrax Earthshade, dry brushed with Citadel XV88 and then Summer tufts from Tajima1

All told this was about three evenings work and I’m very happy with the final results. It should also be easy enough to replicate as the rest of the Spearhead turns up.

I’ve spent most of the month working on my nids for the Warhammer World project I have going on. One of my hobby goals for the year though is taking part in the OTT community painting comp every month.

The January theme was Saints and Sinners and I didn’t really have anything that fit the bill. I was considering buying a Joan of Arc model just for the fun of it and then the universe went out of its way to encourage me.

The Rest is History podcast decided January was the time to release their four part series on her. It is a really interesting little series about someone that, if I’m honest, I knew very little about going in.

I knew that the model(s) I wanted were the mounted and on foot ones from Bad Squiddo. They were, as usual, really good casts with very little flash. They came with spears and two copies of each banner so if you make a mistake, you have a back up.

It is the opening weekend of the World Rally Championship this weekend but it is also my six day week so I’ve been playing catch up on the coverage. It did make for a very fun evening of painting though; a cracking rally and some lovely miniatures. They were lovely to paint and a great break from the army painting of the nids.

Spent the first day of the year painting up the core box for Star Trek Away Missions, Battle of Wolf 359. I bought it as a present for a friend’s birthday but a combination of me being disorganised and the Royal Mail being rubbish, I only ended up with one day to get the contents painted.

Today I woke up with a cold so won’t even be seeing her to give her the present XD

I wasn’t sure how I’d feel painting them as they are caricatures but in fact it was really fun. I’ve not had a lot of time for painting in the last month or so and having something like this was a nice way to ease back in.

I kept things very simple without edge highlighting or bothering with doing the eyes – at the end of the day they are for someone who is a board gamer and I needed them painted and varnished in a day.

Good start to the year though.