Stormcast, Ministorum Priest and old lead or how to keep busy doing many things at once

Almost two weeks have come and gone without posting. Time flies when you're having fun. I've actually been kept rather busy with work by day and happily smearing paint on unsuspecting miniatures by night. I just regularly forget to take pictures. Well let's have a quick run-through of some of my projects right now.

Now this guy looks grim enough to fit in the distopia that is the grim darkness of Warhammer 40K.

I stripped the paint of this Ministorum Priest and left his naked metal body within arms reach of my painting station. After painting rather a lot of red for my Adeptus Mechanicus force I suddenly felt the urge to paint white robes, so I put a brush to the man. He's currently lounging in a display case for one of models accompanied by (among others) inquisitor Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau and my Dark Eldar Archon.

I'll just keep trying until I find a color I like for my Stormcast.

Next up is my enduring love-hate struggle with Stormcast. I'm slowly warming up to the lore and I want to own an army of them (I already have the starter set models unpainted in a box somewhere). But just as I'm enjoying the models in Shadespire I look at another set and get one of those 'ugh Sigmarines' flareups. Well, long story short, I bought a whole bunch of the free with White Dwarf models a few years back and I occasionally come back to those to try a paint scheme that works for me. One thing I learned is that I don't like the gold and blue scheme. Can't say why but even the 'Eavy Metal ones look badly painted to me, making my versions trashbin ready. I like the silver guy but as my Ironjawz also have a (albeit rusty) metal paint scheme I want something different. Highlighting black will destroy my sanity etc.

Will it be the guy in blue or the one in white?

Last week I tried two new schemes. The one on the left is in the Stegadon Blue paint scheme of the Celestial Psychopaths (should look up the proper name at some point). The one on the right is my attempt to shamelessly steal someone's thunder. It is an approximation of this beautiful army on Ex Profundis. I love the way people go for the entire Dark Age of Sigmar theme and even though my high fantasy fetish motivates me to keep things slightly more upbeat I want that scheme. On the other hand, the blue almost makes the model look as if I can paint. Decisions, decisions, with the new starter box and magic effects kit arriving yesterday I may have to finally settle on a scheme.

Now there is some ancient history, I've actually given the old box a place of honor in my hobbyzone.

Next up is a story about stripping models. I got my hands on this ancient GW mail order box filled with old metal (and some plastic) that was otherwise headed for the trash. As a number of the models in it used to be mine this was a rather fortunate intercept. Getting my hands on (among other things) Skarloc's Wood Elf Archers, The Nightmare Legion and some chaos champions that I need to own is a nice bonus. Even though knowing myself I'll probably sell some models after reaching the conclusion I can't paint everything.

I used to say: 'When in doubt, pour acetone (check for plastics first)'...

Before that point I separated plastics from metals and dunked the metal lot in Acetone. After soaking for a week I pulled them out, scrubbed them only to discover the paint is not planning to move.

...but only these models came out clean enough.

One zombie and one undead horseman have been freed from successive layers of awful paint.

The rest just ignore my fervent brushing.

This pile is not at all or hardly willing to get cleaned.

Into the Biostrip-20 you lot!

For now I've decided to ditch the Acetone and try and see if Biostrip-20 does a better job of it. This I will get back to as soon as the models have had a chance to soak thoroughly in this wonderful (but decidedly more expensive than acetone) stuff. I've had more projects on the fire but as I've been rambling on for long enough, I'll save them for another post.