Being an uncle is entertaining – you bring presents, you know all the cool stuff, and you are a lot more fun than the rest of the adults.
Since we live in the UK and my nieces (6 and 8 years old) are in Hungary, I can see them only twice a year, so I try to make every visit special and memorable. Instead of just heaping them with random gifts, I always buy something that improves their creativity or their skills. To give a few examples, we have made gypsum mermaids and butterflies and we have painted them together. I showed them how to mix colours, I explained them colour theory, and I taught them techniques like edge highlighting, drybrushing and extreme highlighting. They are always curious and receptive, and the most rewarding thing in this process is that I can see that they use what they learnt earlier.
When I first saw Games Workshop’s Nighthaunts, I knew I had to build this army. I just loved the creepy and dramatic design of these miniatures, the clever usage of hollow structures and the mist-like shapes that give them a real ethereal look. It is design at its best!
When the two technical paints (Hexwraith Flame and Nighthaunt Gloom) were released, it became even more difficult to resist them: these guys developed special paints for the Nighthaunts! The reviews were all positive and I also found a bunch of amazing photos online. All you need is a white basecoat, a layer of these technical paints, and a bit of drybrushing or layering.
Since I also needed some ghosts for my RPG campaign and I have not seen any decent ghost miniatures anywhere else, I gave in and bought a set of Spirit Hosts.
The kit was a bit more difficult to build than I thought it would be, but it was worth it. I got a bit stuck after applying the white basecoat: Should I give them a grim look with Hexwraith Flame’s dark blue, or a more mystical look with Nighthaunt Gloom’s vibrant green? In the end, I decided to do a colour test, try my glazes, shades, and other technical paints, and pick the one that works the best.
Every story has to start somewhere… but where should I start mine?
Should I start with my decades long love of strategic games and miniatures? Or with me getting back to role-play games, both as a player and as a DM? Maybe a bit of both.
It was kind of a milestone last June when I bought the Shadespire boxed set after a long hiatus. I’ll write more in detail about this game later, for now let’s just say that it’s a tactical board game with cards and miniature figures, I love it and I really recommend it. I have always loved minis and models, and I have built and painted many of them over the past decades, so painting the Shadespire figures was beyond question.
I have to admit, the result was very far from what I imagined… Sure, it wasn’t a complete mess, it was acceptable, something I dare to call tabletop quality, but I wasn’t completely happy with it. Absolutely not… Some details were lost and some parts ended up totally different than planned. I continued with Steelheart’s Champions and the result was similar.
Steelheart’s Champions
I knew what I wanted to do with the figures, but when I was painting them, I just couldn’t work it out properly. Of course, I could blame the brushes, blame the paint and the figures, accuse every painter who had better works with doctoring the images… But let’s face it: I need more practice. So I decided to get more experience, paint more figures and use the minis for what they are meant to be used: play with them.
This blog is going to be my journal, where I record what I do, what I learn and where I track my progress…and of course, it’s also about games: role-play games, arena games, skirmish games, narrative battles!
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