Richyp's 2019 Retrospective: A year of contrasts(tm)

Much like the models featured I've decided to follow the trend of posting a hobby retrospective, only done hastily. First up I'll cover the gaming aspect of my year, both in Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40k, followed by a month-by-month image dump of some of the stuff I've painted. I've got a single image with almost everything in it that'll be the catch-all for everything as I didn't individually and lovingly photo all my stuff and a lot of it is now boxed away in the cold, dark depths of my garage.

Gaming

Nah.

Hobby

Nah...t gonna lie, I painted a lot this year, also by year I mean from the middle of December last year to the middle of December this year. You can see the group shot above in case you fall asleep before the end, and at least I can show off this bit before that happens. It doesn't include the Idoneth Deepkin Thralls or any of the Warhammer Underworlds war bands that I painted because the former were painted 2 days after this picture and the latter were given away as gifts. All in approximately 300 or so models total in the last 12 months.

Now for the monthly breakdown; the mental breakdown may have occurred around September.

Dec 2018 - Jan 2019

At the end of December last year I decided to paint a couple of Nighthaunt models that I had sitting around from when I bought Soul Wars earlier in the year. This of course meant going out and buying more stuff before even painting any of the actual Soul Wars models, it was also an excuse to widen the net to a "Generic Death" army because I really like Skeletons and Start Collecting boxes.

Here's the Leaders

Left to right: Necromancer, Vampire Lord, Wight King and another Necromancer.

They currently lead:

20 Skeleton Warriors
10 Grave Guard (Armoured Skeleton Warriors
3 Spirit Hosts
3 Vargheists
4 Banshees
2 Dreadblade Harrows
4 Glaivewraith Stalkers
A Knight of Shrouds
A Guardian of Souls

By my count that's 50 models with the 4 Heroes.

January's army

January ended up with our Discord's first painting contest, the Darkoath Chieftain, he's one of my favourite painted things from this year:

The 1980's are calling they want their Saturday morning cartoons back.

Fun fact, that guy has every single "Edge Paint" (rip) on it and while messing with the rotting corpse colours I came up with the idea for February's project...

February 2018

The call of Papa Nurgle is strong, like a good cheese.

The corpse from the Darkoath model led me to find a really easy Nurgle flesh colour scheme, it's basically my pre-contrast contrast mixture of strong coloured paint thinned down to oblivion over white. In this case I think it was a mix of Biel-Tan and Agrax over Death Guard Green primer.

The Sorcerer is just the standard Slaves to Darkness Chaos Sorcerer with a Blight Kings head swap and a few bells and whistles added (hurr). The guy on the left is a converted Genestealer Cult Abbarant, and the other guy is Beasts of Chaos Ungor (all from box sets I've not painted).

Needed some battleline units, so I painted up some trusty Plaguebearers (and the Herald/Poxbringer)

The happy bunch.

In case you're looking at the pictures and thinking "How do I get green slimy bases?" worry not, I documented it here in on of our HTPE articles: How to Base Everything: Slime.

A converted up Chaos Lord.

I painted up some Beasts of Chaos marked a Nurgle too, here they are pictured with the rest of the gang (The Chaos Warriors and the Blight Kings are from last year)

Like a "good" cheese.

That was it for February, and March apparently as I didn't do anything that month.

March

MIA

April

April had me carrying on with the Nurgle theme, only this time Nurgle with guns as I'd decided to paint some more models to add to my tiny Death Guard Kill-Team. First up was a colour scheme test to make sure I could still reasonably match the ones I painted last year.

Left if the original Barry OSL one and right is the new speedier version.

The new scheme is a bit stronger in tone but it looks ok for the low effort.

Finished tester

And another

Etc...

I painted up the Spindle Drones from Blackstone Fortress in a rusty matching scheme to hover around the Bloat Drone.

Rustle Drones

And a new Lord to lead them

Lord Felthius (with better head)

The Death Guard kick carried on into early May.

May

Started May by ending Death Guard, the final model being the Bloat Drone (a repaint of the one I did in 2017).

GlowSL

By Star Wars day (May 4th) I'd pretty much done with Death Guard, so here's the group shot:

2019's 40k Stinky boys

By the end of May I was painting red things, and my first baby knight:

Small, medium, large and XL

I also repainted my all time favourite model (the Lady Stormcast model) in a more standard colour scheme than before, and while repainting her I went back and re-did an Ork Warboss at the same time.

I love this model.

...and this one.

June

With Contrast(tm) on the horizon, I'd decided to set myself random speed painting challenges by getting people to vote on what Space Marine chapter to paint that evening. First up was a Blood Raven, the 90 minuter.

Red Primer is Power, guard it well.

I also painted Inquisitor Greyfax to try and pull off the elusive candle glow effect, I may have gone OTT here, but I liked the result

Hot!

CONTRAST......

Contrast came out after I painted Greyfax so I immediately decided to brush paint the worst coloured Space Marines (in terms of brush painting anyway), the Imperial Fists, here's a group shot of the Iyanden Yellow boys (with Dorn highlights)

Contrast Fists

and a lone Reiver

Yellow

More experiments with Contrast

Err, Ad-Mech?

90-Minute Salamander

Speedmander

July

Remember the speed Raven, here's his Contrasted brother (thinned Wyldwood over Mephiston primer):

Speed Raven 2.0

The rest of the Speed Marines

Taste the rainbow

While painting them I watched the LotR Trilogy, ultimately that was a mistake as it meant buying more stuff

Precious Barry rock.

I dislike painting horses, because of reasons

Mordor joke here.

More Mordor

The Bazgul

Theoden King

Aethermatic Blue, done

You shall not paint any more LotR.

Shame the Ent models are so bad, maybe I'll just buy one of those Sylvaneth Trees...

August

fffffff

Just a skirmish Warband then

Why play skirmish when Path to Glory is a thing (Games played count still 0)

The unbeaten.

What's that? Cities of Sigmar is coming soon, complete with Living City rules... well ok then...

Big Lad

Autumn (it was August) themed City

The last model for the City was a "Stormcast Knight-Azyros", so I converted one up from a Dryad and a Chaos Furries dude.

Stormcast?

September

MIA (new job)

October

MIA (new job)

November

Back in action, two months off means painting random things to get back in the groove. First up was a Skaven Warplock Bombardier

Purple?

Purple!

These guys are missing from the group shot, but if I ever do Slaanesh themed guys they may return.

I painted one guy from Feast of Bones, because I got distracted with the impending Sisters release.

I will comeback to the Bone Reapers, soon(ish)

My Secret Santa gift this year was an awesome one, the Idoneth Deepkin Eidolon. Challenge was to paint him in a day. Challenge accepted.

Speedy Secret Santa

Just in time for December...

December

My SoB Battlebox arrived at the end of November, but I'm bundling it in with December because I tried to paint the whole box in a week. I got really close (never did the Seraphim). Here's some of the models:

The Full Gang

Arco-Flagellants and Penitent Engine

Battle Sister Squad

Da Red Gobbo, out of nowhere

His red friend, Da Red Bloodo

It's getting even more random now...

Blood of Thrall?

And a couple of speed painting challenges to end the year..

The 90 minute Death Guard

The 60 minute version

and finally an attempt at a Contrast 30 minute model (this came out really well for 0 effort, and will be the basis of my scheme when Mortal Realms launches next month).

Barryhaunt

300 models is a lot of models and going over the photos was quite scary, I seriously doubt that I'll be able to do that amount again, but then this year I didn't expect to either, but then as they say "Hindsight is...

2020

Next week is the new year, and ironically I may have played more games by the 3rd day of the year than models painted as we're having a get together at Warhammer World. In terms of hobby related plans I did grab a copy of Wrath and Rapture so I can paint up some Slaanesh models (I'm especially looking forward to the Infernal Enrapturess).