Bestest of 2023 - part 2
In this blogpost I am covering the bits of work that I most enjoyed painting or came out nice from the commission side of my painting in 2023 which to be honest in probably 99% of my painting. As a commission painter I usually get quite a variety of stuff to paint although 2023 has probably been dominated by MCP and Shatterpoint.
2023 started off unusually with a small Necromunda job. I think this is the only Necromunda I have painted and it was quite a nice change. I suspect that as most Necromunda gangs are smallish that people tend to paint their own stuff as it is less intimidating than a larger army. The lot that came to me contained both the Squat prospector above and the Van Saar gangers below.
Infinity remained a constant throughout the year with a massive Aleph job that I will come to later plus a lot of other factions. One of my favourite models from the range painted early in the year was Mcmurrough who is some sort of werewolf hero in a kilt for the Ariadne faction. He is a big boy and is now in resin i think. Pictured below solo and with some other Caledonian guys.
more here
I have several customers in the UK and USA who are keen MCP collectors and at any given point in the year I usually have some MCP in the queue. One of my favourite characters is Aquarium man aka Arnim Zola. He can be a bit tricky to paint being yellow and having the clear plastic and i use liquid masking.
More favourites are Nebula and Modok. Nebula has a dynamism that is really cool in a small mini while MODOK is just fun doing the metallics.
more here
40k was also more prominent this year which again is unusual for me as I don't really post on the 40k FB but this year brought a few jobs, one of them actually 30k. The 30k was some Emperors Children armour of which my favourite was this Kratos tank.
I'd like to claim the golden eagle things as my own but they are in fact GW decals!
More actual 40k stuff was in the form of Eldar painted as Biel Tan Craftworld and included a mighty Eldar Titan which did in fact look a bit Buzz Lightyearish.
There were also a couple of wave serpents and some fire dragons. The latter were in some form of resin and not as clean cast as I expect from GW
The early part of the year was taken up with a big Shatterpoint job painting 5 core boxes for distribution to various stores on the release of the core game. I initially huffed and puffed about accepting the work but was convinced by family. In the end as a one man band and with a hard deadline of air tickets to visit my daughter in San Francisco I accepted 5 sets and was really glad i did no more!
The minis and terrain were all nice but assembling and painting 5 sets in assembly line fashion was not my idea of great fun but all turned out well in the end I think.
After launch quite a few other bits and bobs came in for Shatterpoint of which my favourite was the 'We are brave' set seen below. I have never painted a yellow to orange fade before so this was novel!
Much less colourful was an ongoing Bolt Action job which seemed to be 2nd SS panzer at approximately 1:1 scale that has being arriving in batches for a couple of years! There has been a lot of cool kit and a request for the infantry to be painted in a form of camo called Rauchtarnmuster which is a sort of blurry version of the normal base colours and I did a fuller blog explaining how I attempt to paint this here https://www.firstcommissionpainting.co.uk/single-post/rapidish-rauchtarnmuster
Also all the commission this year https://www.2nd-ss-panzer-28mm.firstcommissionpainting.co.uk/
This was also a job where i bodged up and built 4 lots of nebelwerfer frames incorrectly and then had to buy 4 more rubicon kits to replace them....live and learn! On the plus side I have 4 251 kits and have printed off the 3d bits to convert them into interesting versions which i will pop up for sale in the new year...
Another big job this year was the AOS Kharadron Dwarf frigate. This was bigger than i anticipated and i did not estimate the cost well on the quote. This is always a bit of a pothole on jobs that i havent done before but the actual model turned out pretty nicely. I am a bit of a LOTR style dwarf fan and am not keen on guns or steam anything for dwarves never mind flying steamships!! Having said that it is a good kit and looks good if you like that aesthetic.
More Infinity arrived mid year and it was almost every Aleph min ever made. The full gallery exists here https://www.firstcommissionpainting.co.uk/single-post/achilles-to-yadus-the-a-to-z-of-aleph
and is a very impressive collection so just a couple of highlights here.
Well worth a look if you like Infinity. The colour scheme was suggested by the customer and is not original to me.
Always welcome on my painting desk are Knight models Batman minis. I have quite a few myself and was happy to paint up a couple of new crews to me, Batman who laughs and the new Scarecrow crew. Again the whole gallery is here https://www.bmg-scarecow-and-bat.firstcommissionpainting.co.uk/
Scarecrow Asylum staff
Batman who laughs
Finally and the pieces de resistance as we move into 2024 the year of The Old World two classic terrain pieces came my way. Both have been oop for over a decade and reach ridiculous prices on ebay. Firstly The GW Fortified Manor.
The Manor comes with masses of extra walls, fences etc
And finally, Skullvane. A kit which can be built in several ways if you paint all the pieces.
This is an amazing kit way ahead of its time and hopefully will get an old world release. For more pictures see here https://www.warhammer-tower.firstcommissionpainting.co.uk/
Thats all for 2023