Scotia Grendel 10015: Daemonic Altar (June ’19 Terrain, Neglected Model Challenges)

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Scotia Grendel 10015: Daemonic Altar

Today we have a model that’s very much both a Neglected model, as well, as – obviously – scenery. As with the rest of the Scotia Grendel stuff I’ve shown off here over the past few years, I’ve had this piece since the 1990’s but never managed to paint it. I did start it a couple of years ago, but my interest in completing it petered out due to, well, a lack of interest until quite recently.

Scotia Grendel 10015: Daemonic Altar, Balewind Vortex, Warhammer Underworlds: Nightvault Arcane Hazards

What turned my interest around was the scheme that I (recently-ish) painted the Balewind Vortex in, followed by the Warhammer Underworlds Nightvault Arcane Hazards. (that’s a bloody mouthful, innit?) The deep blue-greens appealed, and the overall model felt like it woul dbe a good fit in with the other pieces done in the same scheme. So I went with that, and it still took over a month, but I finally got it done at the very end of June!

Scotia Grendel 10015: Daemonic Altar

So now I finally have another piece that can see the light of a tabletop, and as you can see above it fits in nicely enough with the general undead theme that the rest of the similarly-painted GW models have. Done!

Adrian Smith’s HATE – 3D Plastic Trees (June ’19 Terrain Challenge) + Contrast Paint Experiment #2

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Adrian Smith's HATE - 3D Plastic Trees

Broadly similar to yesterday’s post, we have my second terrain-based experiment with the new Citadel Contrast Paints. This time on the Kickstarter-exclusive (but the whole campaign was KS-exclusive?) 3D Trees from HATE. Based on how old and gnarled they looked, my initial plan was to paint them with a grey contrast paint to give them the “white-grey” look that very old, dead trees tend to end up with. Unfortunately, the grey contrast paint I tried (I forgot which) did not look good, so a very fast trip to the kitchen sink was required to wash the stuff off and salvage it quickly.

Seeing how nicely they turned out, I do regret not having gotten a second (or third!) set of these, as CMoN really knocked it out of the park with these models. I mean, I’ll live, but it goes to show (yet again) how pointless things like Kickstarter exclusives like trees and wolves and the like are. Hm.. I’ve just noticed that the trees came in a set of 8 in the end, rather than the 10 advertised….

Adrian Smith's HATE - 3D Plastic Trees

So after the clean up of the grey, I tried my plan-B of Wyldwood Contrast Paint. Despite initially not wanting to go with brown trees, this stuff worked really nicely. Following the one-coat of Wyldwood, I was careful not to handle them because the Contrast paint is pretty prone to rubbing off. So out they went for a spray. I followed that with careful touch-ups of the little bits I missed with the Wyldwood, an overall drybrush of bone, grey and a drybrush for the stony ground around the edges of their bases, painting in the skulls on the bases and the exposed wood with bone, another wash over the exposed wood, and then another spray.

Adrian Smith's HATE - 3D Plastic Trees

To finish off, I found they were still a bit shiny (not the contrast’s fault), so I gave them a brush-on coat of AK Interactive’s brush-on matte varnish, and then mixed some of that stuff in with two shades of weathering powders (mostly since I didn’t have the shade I wanted to use) and slapped that on the bottom parts of the roots and the rocks, wiping it off quickly.

Adrian Smith's HATE - 3D Plastic Trees

In the end, I’m very happy with how these turned out. Sure, I only used the Contrast paint as a base, and then followed up with my usual techniques – but that’s how I see them. I’m hardly going to entirely change my ways of painting after all of these years, but I’ll happily adapt some aspects to these paints when I choose to use them. I can credit them for motivation, though – it’s unlikely I’d have gotten around to starting these trees by now without the Contrast paint, and they did make it so that I got them finished in just a couple of days. That alone made them worthwhile for me!