I could start from the beginning of my "painting career" about 20 years ago, but the story would be long and honestly not that interesting. The first model I ever painted was a skeleton from the time where you could buy those guys in boxes of 8; it was a horribly painted model and I won't be posting pictures of that thing any time soon. Instead I will begin the story with this guy - a model I painted just 5 years ago.
'What is so special about him?' You might ask. Well that shoulder pad was the first clean 'eavy-metal-esque paint job I had ever done, and it would a few weeks later become the place, where I painted my first freehand. As you can see from the model below, it wasn't a total disaster.
The freehand did however take a long time, and I got bored with it quickly, after which the army project died a quick and undignified death. I did however get my eyes open to the endless posibilities that come from large open surfaces (eg. shoulderpads and banners). I really liked that you could give a model some personality, simply by adding paint that wasn't restricted by the sculpt. This is something I have found to be especially true on cleaner paintjobs. A great example of this is my ultramarines (shown below). The paintjob isn't bad, but it would be very boring to look at if it wasn't for the freehand.
These models are probly the epitome of my painting style, and the techniques used are the ones I'm most comfortable with. They are however not the end of the story, but rather the beginning - a story I will hopefully be telling for a long time. These ultramarines were probably painted a year and a half ago, and alot has happened since. I won't be recapping everything in between, but I will post 2 pictures that perfectly sums up, just how much i have progressed since then.
It might not seem like much, but I can assure you that every detail on this model is an improvement on the ultramarines. The shadows are not just black, and the subtle blends make the the model more vivid and alive.
And then there's the freehand. This is the most fun I have had in a long time. I wouldn't dare do it on a whole army but who knows, some day I might have a stroke and paint a whole battleforce with this kind of freehand.
Anyways - Thanks for reading this far. I won't be posting much for a few weeks, as exams are draining much of my free time, but hopefully I will be able to post a short bit on my current projects.
Cheers - Andreas 2.0
