My disciple
December 28, 2010People have reacted in very different ways to my hobby. Others think that it’s silly for a grown man to be playing with toys. Others show a polite interest. Some are amazed by the intricate detailing. You know the drill, don’t you?
There are, however, the rare few who go “I’d like to try that!” and I’m always happy to oblige. This time I brought a friend of mine, in her early twenties, into the fold. She’s a graphic designer and paints in her spare time, which lead first to her asking a fair few questions about my little darlings, and then asking to paint one.
It’s a fascinating thing to teach a new painter the tricks of the trade. I’m no pro painter, but I do take some pride in my work, having done this for close to 15 years now. A lot of the things that more experienced painters take for granted needed to be explained: how much paint on the brush, what are inks, what is drybrushing… It was so much fun!
The miniature I gave her to paint was a Catachan jungle fighter. I’ve chopped the mini’s huge pistol down in the distant past, in case you’re wondering. I still have no idea why she chose to paint him as a 90s raver horribly reminding me of Scooter, or why she wanted to paint the trooper’s dog tags as a blue scarf, but that is some awesome painting from a first timer. I stress that I didn’t paint anything on the model, not even the eyes. This is a model I’d happily game with, and much much better than my own early efforts at the tender age of 14. Or 18, for that matter. And actually a Catachan painted like that becomes a pretty nice, garish cyberpunk/Judge Dredd style ganger. Could be renegade Slaaneshi Imperial Guard, too.
Click for a larger version
I’m like a proud father, displaying that. More will definitely follow!
Dawn of the Lead 
Very good work, another one into the fold and female aswell.(insert insane laughter)
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Bwa-ha-haaa! đ
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Very neat work. Slap some highlights and washes on that, and its ready to go. And yeah, that does look a lot like a Megacity One or Necromunda ganger.
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There’s actually a fair bit more shading than is apparent in the picture, there’s a bit too much light there. I’ll pass the comment on!
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I worked at a GW store for 8 years, and spent a lot of time with teaching absolute beginners the secret art of miniature painting ;-). It’s always interesting to see that there are quite few naturals out there, and that most people can achieve great results with practice and discipline – after having complained that they could never paint such a small thing to a satisfactory level!
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Scooter is just the sort of douche that makes MC1 such a rough place to live in. Thats why they have Judge, so that they can shoot people like Scooter in the knees. And his mouth too, just in case he records anything else.
I like the “futuristic” colour scheme, its distinctive and a bit of fun.
That paint job is definitely neat enough for gaming with. So new painters just “get it” faster than others, like your friend obviously has.
I suggest that you immediately put your disciple to work on a bunch of figures that you never get around to painting (like Catachans or civilians or something). You might end up with a bunch of ravers/sci-fi NPCs ready to populate your games that may never get done otherwise.
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The Scooter thing had me howling in laughter, shared it with a select few friends too. Thanks!
I have to see if I indeed have some extra stuff that I need painted but can’t be bothered to paint myself. Who am I kidding, there’s bound to be loads…
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[…] (go here for my review). I put some more work into her, and I think it shows. The presence of The Disciple inspired me to use some of my understandably less used paints, and I think they really made the […]
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