As the Emperor Wills

So, after nearly four and a half years (five months if we are going to be accurate), I'm thinking about getting out of the hobby. Let me explain. I absolutely love painting miniatures. It's good for me and for my mental health. However, I've recently been thinking about 'what's next' for all that I paint. Unfortunately, I'm not much of a Wargamer due to my more introverted nature and with the attempts I've made to convince my kids to play with me crashing and burning, all that ends up is I've now got is a two 40k armies, a dozen Underworlds warbands and four Star Trek away teams which never get used (not to mention the smattering of random minis I've picked up either) and are taking up space in a house consisting of enough kids toys to resurrect Toys R' Us as well as my equally bloated comic book collection (but that's a story for another time and place). As such, I'm thinking of getting out, although not that that means I...

This past Thursday, I celebrated four years since I had returned to the hobby When I look and think back over everything I've built and painted in those four years, and especially when I compare my first mini with the mini I most recently painted, I do feel that I've achieved quite a lot, especially given the normal life things that I've had to work my hobbying around. That said, I do feel that maybe I've become a little complacent over time, allowing myself to fall into a sort of creative rut where I've felt my painting skills were 'good enough' Therefore, I've decided to say out loud the things I'd like to achieve during Year Five in the hopes of giving myself enough of incentive to break the ceiling I've given myself. So, the skills I'd like to learn/Improve in next 12 months are: Painting Faces - Something that I always struggle on. I feel I've gotten better during Year four, but further improvement wouldn't hurt. Laye...

This past week, I did something I didn't think I'd do (at least until I was forced to abandon the hobby due to real life); I sold some of my minis! Well, not really. I mean, it was only my Necrons. The majority of my Necron collection I'd acquire early in my return to the hobby when I had bought the 9th edition starter set, while the last of them (my Deathmarks) were picked up a few months later from an issue of the imperium magazine. The thing was, beyond painting, I didn't really use them, finding myself prefering my Space Marines and Sisters of Battle. Also with the exception of my Deathmarks, I never really felt my painting skills were all that good on them (which makes sense, given they were an early paint job). I'm truth, it wasn't until recently that I'd even considered selling them, as I wasn't quite sure how to do that. However, I recently learned of this website called Miniswap, where people could seemingly b...

Earlier today, I finished painting the Crimson Court, my fourth Warhammer Underworlds warband and, as I looked at the finished article, I wondered if I'd ever use them. During early 2025, I purchased the new edition of Warhammer Underworlds' Embergard box set as well as the Revenant of the Realm warbands box set. The reason for the latter was to own the Crimson Court warband (which I consider a gorgeous set of minis), while the former was to have a Warhammer game to play with my kids (because I found it generally difficult to play generally). And, initially, it did seem to do the job because my eldest showed some interest in playing at least a toned down version (no cards or warscrolls). Unfortunately, he did have a bad habit of altering the rules further (which bothered me) but at least he continued to show an interest. In fact, so optimistic did this make me that, over the recent Christmas period, I acquired the Spitewood expansion and the Seekers in Shadow box se...

Something I've been putting off for literal years, I recently decided to paint the STC Hab Bunker had bought long ago. Having already primed it in Chaos Black back to close to when I'd bought it, I found myself a little apprehensive, fearful it would take far too long. However, I powered through and got it done: First up was an all over Heavy Drybrush of Mechanicus Standard Grey Followed by a Drybrush of Eshin Grey And finally a Drybrush of Dawnstone Next up, the Base doors were painted in the Fang Then Shaded in Agrax Earth shade Before being Drybrushed in Russ Grey Before a final Drybrush in Fenrisian Grey Next were Base Lights and canisters which were given a undercoat of in Corax White I applied lights with Aethermatic Blue contrast While I Applied canisters with Iyanden Yellow contrast. Then, I drybrushed lights and canisters with White Scar Then came the metals which I based with Leadbelcher and Balthasar Gold (depending on whether I wanted gunmetal or brass)....

Back in late summer/September 2025 I got really lucky when I won a copy of the Army Painter Speedpaint Mega Set 2.0 Since then, I've been playing around with the painta that came inside this set, priming some outstanding Minis of the month in white while others that had been primed in black were resprayed with white (in a zenithal style (at least, I think that's how it's done)). All of these came out to varying results. However, with the Emperor's Children's Tormentor (which I'd originally planned to paint traditionally), I discovered a different that I really wanted to try out, doing so over the Christmas holiday). So, my plan was; Starting with a primer of Chaos Black (which was done way back in October to avoid the cold), I applied a drybrush of Corax White a la the Slapchop method (at least I think it was) Then I applied Familiar Pink on every panel I deemed to be that colour in its entirety (regardless of how much Corax White was on it. That...