2024 Update and how to lose interest in a project

Hello dear reader(s?)!

Little update here, I'm not dead 2023 has been quite the ride and I'm hoping for a more interesting 2024.

I don't blog as much as I used to for different reasons, first being a dad it's my greatest pride to be able to take care of my kid, second, some sort of boom of tutorials and patreon all over the place where people can learn to paint/build/whatever by people who are much more interested in creating contents with an higher quality than what I can do.

This mostly mean I don't really see the point on doing tutorial when much better content is already available! And I don't mean that in a bad way as it's great to see so many people happy to share their knowledge.

I'm still hoping to have the motivation to do smaller tutorial or run down of paints used when I publish something as that's still the recurring question 

2023 saw my participation in "slow grow" horus heresy campaign, which left me buzzing with motivation to do more custodes with the orion as the latest centrepiece, I also finally painted AND finished a bust, what a time to be alive ! Which also make it the biggest army I own with more than 4000 pts and growing. Fun fact, that's only 32 minis... 

I will do a more focused article on them when I can as I received so many requests for the paints used and try to get a group shot at the same time

I received and painted a blood bowl amazon team, this make it the fastest project from reception to finished.

Since I'm going to leave my little office/painting room to the second baby, I also took the opportunity to get rid of a lot of stuff that hasn't seen the light of day in weeks, months, years for some. Also looking to create a little portable painting station somewhere, tbd!

Some frustration during the year at work transformed to a spree of different project which were quickly abandoned then sold, I'm trying to not go down the rabbit hole again, but on notable note, instead of buying full armies I did order some very nice busts to paint and put in the cabinet and 75mm minis !

I started again AND sold again Titanicus as I can't play too many games, now the focus is completing the custodes and waiting for gw to finally release more sisters of silence as I really love them.
And age of sigmar to play with buddies at home mostly, I'm not too interested in competitive play and HH story driven play is much more in line with my motivation to play.
Though even that is not enough to motivate myself to paint 50 marines to actually paint a legion, go figure 😅

Latest from the chopping block is the seraphon as I come to the realisation, I really don't like painting scales and drybrush (except for bases). Which is a shame as the slann was really fun if a lot of work!

Anyway, I'm still hoping to publish more articles during this year if everything goes according to plan (spoiler, it usually doesn't work like that).

My amazon team which is a kinda speed painted but at the same time not really, a fun exercise in darker skin tones. The game was fun but not exactly what I expected though.

And a wonderful little bust from pedro fernandez, fully painted by hand for a change

Alright, that's enough rambles for today and thank you for reading !

Take care 

David

[Tutorial] Lightning power weapon

Sooo I'm not dead, and actually I've been painting quite a lot to be honest, 2021 was a bit of a strange year, but I may get back to it on another post as most of you are not here for this.

De l’activité sur le blog !!! Eh oui je ne suis pas mort, j’ai même été particulièrement actif sur le coté peinture, mais beaucoup moins bon sur la partie blogging, 2021 ayant été une année un peu difficile pour moi, je reviendrais peut-être là-dessus dans un autre post.

So, after playing a bit with a scheme for my custodes force (new year, new army got me again....), I decided to do amethyst power weapon inspired by a few representations I saw on Instagram, and by the overwhelming response I received on social media and request for step by step, it seems to be a success!

So here we are with the first tutorial of the year (will there be another one? no idea)!

Comme d’habitude, je me suis fais avoir par le « new year, new army » et n’ayant que très peu de retenu je suis parti sur les custodes en me disant que je n’aurais pas besoin d’en faire 10000. Après quelque recherche sur les réseaux sociaux, je me suis décidé pour des armes énergétiques violettes. Avec le test de base, le résultat sur le blade champion et devant le nombre de demandes, voici le 1^er tuto de l’année pour refaire ce type d’effet.

Disclaimer, this is just one way of doing it with amethysty but it is more or less adaptable to any colour you want, just keep in mind different colour may react differently with black and white paint, you could also simplify the way to do it, feel free to experiment!

Comme toujours, ceci n’est que mon approche basée sur ma façon de peindre, il y a surement plein d’autres façon probablement plus rapide de faire quelque chose de similaire. Je suis parti sur une couleur améthyste mais la couleur principale est interchangeable selon vos préférences, gardé en tête que toutes les couleurs ne réagissent pas de la même façon au mélange au blanc et noir.

Paint used:

- Black (which ever you like)
- Amethyst vallejo fantasy pro
- White pro acryl (the best white ever) 

I'll use the blade of an achillus dreadnought for reference as it's pretty big, it's easier to see the process
Les photos proviennent de la lance du dreadnought Achillus qui permet de bien se rendre compte du procédé

1. Just paint the blade black
 On passe la lame en noir pour être propre

2. Time to sketch the general lightning with a mix of white and amethyst, just give a direction to your highlight as this will be smoothed later. I don't dilute the mix to much as you want a good coverage, give it two coats to have a nice and plain highlight
 On sketch rapidement l’effet général de l’éclair pour donner la direction globale avec un mélange de blanc et d’améthyste, je reste assez grossier avec une peinture moyennement diluée afin de bien couvrir, mais 2 passages sur les parties centrales sont nécessaires pour bien couvrir le noir.

3. With white and a tiny bit of amethyst defines the origin of the light source with the paint a bit more diluted, pull the paint toward the light source to leave the pigment at the junction between the blade and the handle

Avec un blanc légèrement cassé à l’améthyste, je viens marquer ma source de lumière en tirant mon pinceau vers la source afin de bien déposé les pigments de blanc sur la jonction lame-poignée 

4. Time to glaze, with pure amethyst diluted, glaze the whole blade just avoid the white source. You'll need to do this a few times. In this case, it took me 3 passes.
C’est le moment d’adoucir les transitions, avec des glacis d’améthyste pure, je viens fondre les éclaircissements avec la base noir en passant sur toute la surface. Plusieurs passages sont nécessaires, dans ce cas, j’ai eu besoin de 3 passages. 

5. Just glaze some white again to bring back the light source if like me you want a bit overboard with the previous step. The bigger the white area, the brighter the light source will appear.
Vu que je me suis un peu emporté avec les glacis, je viens reprendre ma source avec mon blanc cassé, gardé en tête que plus la zone blanche sera grande, plus la source donnera l’impression d’être intense.

6. Fun time, we're going to draw the lightning with white and tiny bit of amethyst, you'll need a nice and pointy brush with a big belly, the paint needs to be well diluted and don't charge too much the brush or you won't be able to control your line. Now it's a good idea to have a reference for the lightning but in a nutshell, connect some tiny lines instead of trying the paint the whole thing in one go. Take your time and try to connect lines where you applied the highlight on step 2     
 C’est le moment de dessiner les éclairs à l’aide de notre blanc cassé ! La peinture doit être bien dilué et il est important d’avoir un pinceau avec une bonne pointe et un bon réservoir pour pouvoir travailler et contrôler le trait. Ne charger pas trop le pinceau non plus sous peine de faire des amas, testé rapidement sur votre pouce pour avant de vous lancer sur la lame, avoir une référence d’un éclair aide aussi pour reproduire le tracé. Travaillez en petits traits qui se connectent plutôt que d’essayer de le dessiner en une fois et joignez différentes lignes sur les éclaircissements réalisés à l’étape 2

7. To bring everything together, glazed again with amethyst
Un petit glacis d’améthyste pour lier le tout

8.go back with white to highlight the lightning where the line cross or where they meet the edge of the blad, with a few lightnings connecting together on the edge,  this will create a really bright point
Je viens reprendre mes éclairs avec le blanc cassé sur les zones ou plusieurs « branches » se croisent et donner l’effet d’intensité variable dans l’éclair. Je force également le blanc sur les zones touchant le tranchant de la lame.

9. Shade the recess and black line the filigree or details on the blade with black being careful not to go over the previous work
Je viens ombrer les creux et surligner les filigranes avec du noir légèrement dilué en faisant attention à ne pas recouvrir le travail précédent.

10. To finish the blade, highlight the edge with white and tiny, tiny bit of amethyst but instead of doing a straight line try to stipple the edge to give a bit of texture and voilà! (You can see I missed the top edge on the picture, and this has been corrected now) you can add a bit of white to the light source if it's not light enough
Je fini la lame en venant éclaircir les arêtes avec mon blanc cassé, mais au lieu de faire une ligne continue, je viens tapoter mon pinceau pour créer une texture sur ces arêtes et en forçant le trait sur les zones ou l’éclair rejoint le tranchant. Je viens marquer à nouveau ma source pour renforcer l’effet et voilà !

There are a few steps involved but it's pretty quick on basic custodes blade, this weapon is massive and took a bit longer.
Ceci peut sembler fastidieux mais c’est en réalité très rapide sur les petites lames des custodes standard, les armes des dreadnoughts étant particulièrement grandes.

Anyway, enjoy painting and feel free to tag me if you try the tutorial!

N’hésitez pas à essayer avec d’autres couleurs et tager moi si vous essayer le tuto !

Happy painting

David - Anamnesis