WIP: Bloodthirster #1

Assembled and ready to paint

Firstly, apologies for the lack of posts lately. I have new models to show you, but the picture quality has been so bad I was embarrassed to post them. When that's rectified, I'll get you up to speed. In the meantime, here's something very different: a Bloodthirster of Khorne. I believe this one is referred to as a Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury, but if it's all the same with you, I'll stick with 'Bloodthirster'. That's what the previous versions of the model used to be called and as I don't plan on buying more than one, I don't feel the need to make a cheesy name even cheesier to differentiate. This one is a relatively new release—a re-sculpt of the classic Bloodthirsters of old, of which there have been quite a few over the years. I have to say I love this model. I never liked any of the earlier versions, but this one finally seems to have captured the essence of the background.

As the picture below will demonstrate, this is an airbrush project. I'm following a video by Awaken Realms (see here). It's a simple but brilliant tutorial that makes painting this great model look easy... and from my early experiments, it's actually not that far off. The tricky bit for me is that I'm new to airbrushing, so I don't yet have the natural control that the guy in the video does, but I could feel myself improving even as I worked on this piece and I'm pleased with my results. Below you can see my efforts so far. I've actually gone a stage further and done the washes and metal work too now, so I'm not far off finishing it, but I'll update you on that in a future post.

First stage airbrushing done

Anyone who has read my blog from the start (which was only in January) will know that I had grand plans for the hobby this year—plans that didn't involve Bloodthirsters of any kind. I also had a target to beat last year's painted model count of forty-two miniatures.* Those plans have since been shelved. Events outside of the hobby have prevented me from painting as often as I intended at the start of the year, reducing my hobby time significantly for a while. That may improve, but it's probably too late to hit my original target. My intention of having a usable Warhammer 40,000 army (even if I didn't decide to play a game with it) has also faltered more recently because of a loss of enthusiasm for that side of the hobby. I still thoroughly enjoy painting models, but I've lost all interest in the games. Games Workshop's rate of release for rules supplements, army specific codex books and over-complicated rulesets for Warhammer 40,000 has killed any enthusiasm to even consider exploring that side of the hobby. I'm keeping an open mind towards the controversial Age of Sigmar replacement for Warhammer, but if anything, I'm less interested in the gaming side now than ever before. I'll keep painting the models I want to paint and if that results in an army, so be it. For now I'm just happy to be holding a brush.

* For those interested, my current count for 2015 is fifteen finished models.