The End is Nigh - Part 2. With the exception of the base (and that’s a whole new chapter) the remaining work on my Tank is a matter of finishing things off. Some parts need to be painted from scratch but most of the work involved tying-up lose ends from earlier work. Fix the hand holding the bell into place. This was a far more straightforward process than the mecha arm. I simply glued the bell hand in place with plastic glue. Once that had set, I filled the seam with dilute PVA and then retouched the paintwork. This felt like an enormously significant step as I was finally adding the sub-as ..read more

It's done!!! It’s been an intense few months of preparation and painting but I’ve finished my Daemon Engine in time for Golden Demon UK 2022, which is now upon us! I’m very proud of how this project has turned out because I’ve done the very best I can. It has been a brilliant experience but it’s now out of my hands and into the GD cabinet for judging. Fingers crossed! So it’s time to reveal the finished Tank in its entirety.  My planned pre-GD blog updates fell by the wayside. Once I’m back home and the GD dust has settled, I will upload a series of posts detailing the stages of t ..read more

So just when I though I’d be getting back into the swing of things, with a regular painting schedule, life had other ideas! We’d been planning some long-overdue house renovations (by long I mean 20 years!) and had scheduled them in for 2022. However the chance came to get the work done earlier and we took it. As a result our home was in complete upheaval, from October until mid-January, and there was no way on earth I could do any painting. Stressful as the disruption was it’s been great to finally get our bathroom and kitchen sorted and things are now getting back to normal, whatever that is ..read more

Ding Dong! I’m back! Not that I’ve been away as such but I decided to take a bit of a break from painting my Daemon Engine. Things had gone very well, and I’d made excellent progress, but I felt that I was beginning to get a bit too relaxed with the project. To do my best work I need to keep on my toes and I think I was getting a bit complacent. The break in painting has given me the opportunity to reset and refresh the feeling of a challenge.    To get re-started I decided to paint the bell, which I’d been keeping back for just such an occasion. The bell was perfect to paint as a ..read more

It’s time for a long overdue update! An interruption in my posting usually means that, for one reason or another, I’ve not been painting but that’s not the case this time! I’ve been happily painting away to a regular schedule and making steady progress. Quite simply when faced with a choice between painting and writing about painting I’ve opted for the former.  I’ve already written about the physical challenges presented by this model and they haven’t lessened. However I’ve now become used to handling and painting a model of this size and I’m coping quite well with this aspect of the pro ..read more

Skulls, Nurglings, Tentacles and a spot of bother with my microbeads! Since I started painting my Daemon Engine at the beginning of February, I’ve made very good progress because I’ve managed to paint for a few hours almost every day. In fact, at times, I’ve almost gotten ahead of myself. I went into the painting stage of this project with a plan, of course, but I had many different options. That’s because I’ve spent years thinking about this project so I have a lot of ideas for how I could paint it. Far more ideas than I can (or should) incorporate into one scheme!  So part of the chall ..read more

Painting skin tones in three (painfully complicated) steps!   Over the last few weeks I’ve established a good routine where I’m able to paint for a few hours every day and it feels like I’m making steady progress. There is still a lot to be resolved with regards to how I use my colour palette, but the more I get done the more developed my ideas become. I am especially happy with how well the flesh tones are coming together.    When I started painting, I thought that my plans for the flesh tones had gone out of the window in favour of something similar to what I’ve done before ..read more

    I’ve made a good start at establishing the flesh tones on my Demon Engine but, before I get too far into the project, I want to turn my attention to the metalics. The contrast between flesh and metal is a big part of what this model is all about. So I want to establish that contrast at an early stage. I’d decided quite some time ago that true metalics were the way to go on this project. The difference between the shiny true metalics and the flesh would add to the overall material contrasts on my model. The large size of the model lends itself to the use of true metalics as there ..read more

I wondered if I’d ever get to this stage but, at long last, I’m painting my Demon Tank! However, before the ‘fun’ could start, there was one last little bit of preparation to be done. I had to wash the model prior to priming it. This was to remove any grease and dust that had built up during the construction of the model. It’s essential to have a clean surface before you apply any paint. I first masked off the belly-mouth and then set to with an electric toothbrush and dish soap. Once I’d given the model a careful scrub, I gently rinsed it off under cool running water. This was a terrifying ..read more

So here we are in 2021 and let’s all hope it’s a better year than 2020! For the last few months I’ve been very quiet with regards to painting sculpting and being online because I simply wasn’t ‘in the mood’. That’s not to say I was down or depressed but rather my energy and enthusiasm were directed elsewhere. I rediscovered my love for Lego and spent a lot of my time building a version of Hogwarts Castle to sit on the top shelf of my desk. I didn’t especially need a new hobby but lockdown seemed like a good time to start one.  I chose a crazy time to put my tank onto the back burner be ..read more