Revisiting Gnawdoom, a classic Skaven Grey Seer

When it comes to Skaven on the second hand market, I have a hard time leaving them to others. Recently I lucked out and got my hands on a bunch of Skaven that contained a model I'd been hoping to get for quite some time: Gnawdoom the Skaven Grey Seer. This is the wizard that was sent to Maisontaal to recover the Black Ark in the Terror of the Lichmaster book.

Painting Gnawdoom the grey seer again after all these years was a joy.

Now to be entirely honest: I already owned this miniature before acquiring it again. I painted the previous version somewhere at the tail end of the eighties, start of the nineties (Nirvana blasting over the speakers), when I began collecting Skaven. The model stands between the rest of my horde in the: 'I'm a bit torn about these'-section. On the one hand I don't want to strip the paint of all my old paint work (I like to remember where I started). On the other hand: I think I can do better these days (at least, I hope so). So the chance to revisit an old model with a copy is a sweet way to dodge the dip. 

I'm still not fully satisfied with painting black cloth, but I'm getting to a point where I'm willing to call it adequate. 

It is quite a joy to paint up eighties metal. One of the things I like most about the models from this era is the lack of bric-à-brac. I tend to lose patience (and heart) when I encounter yet another bushel of pouches or plethora of buckles on a modern model (I'm looking at you Kharadron Overlords!). 

Lets give the classic Skaven a little friend, or better yet a clone (oh dear I'm turning into a 40K version of Bob Ross).

Anyway, on to a few side by sides. For the color scheme I decided not to go with my current instinct, but instead to follow my sixteen year old self. That meant blue robes and a black cape. I did allow myself to go for proper Grey Seer albino white fur on the newer incarnation. 

Its quite funny how much bigger a base can make a model look. The 32mm I used on the new version makes the model looks about twice as big on the tabletop.

The robes posed quite a challenge (good thing I posted a picture of the cloak above /s). I don't understand why, but I never quite get the highlighting on the folds to look as well as I would like. Perhaps I'm overthinking it, but more modern plastic robes just paint up easier.

Time for Skitterleap! I had to share this shot of my poor intimidated Skaven on the paint station. 

Anyway I have yet another ancient model with a fresh paint job. About the only classic Skaven still really missing from my collection are the one with the warplock jezzail (I don't own this one at all) and the classic Skaven warlord with the halberd above his head (I have him painted up to my old standard and need a second one). I'll just keep checking the second hand sites, who knows what'll turn up. Maybe a horde of metal Skaven Slaves or Clanrats too (hey, one can dream (lets throw in a nice horde of classic Fimir while we're at it)).

A freshly prepared oil paint pallet, so clean, so full of hope and dreams (and they all slipped away on a thick layer of gloss coat).

In other unrelated news: I tried painting with oils again. This time I discovered the hard way you shouldn't gloss coat a model if you want to paint it using oils. Long story short: I spent an evening watching my oil paints flow away to other sections of the model and rubbing paints off instead of blending them together. Note to future self (and anyone planning on playing with oils): gloss coat is for pin washing only, use dull coat for actual oil painting over acrylics. 

And the winner for least inspiring picture of the year (already determined in January) is this one of the backdrops as I was unpacking them. <insert canned applause here>

Last but not least, I got myself new backdrops for my photos. Completely in the style of this blog I then painted a single miniature, making the backdrop practically invisible. I'll blab about my new backdrops in the future (exciting stuff, I know ;). Now let's get back to sploshing paint on models again.

"Looking in my crystal ball I see 'Squeeeeee' in your future!"

Small addendum: my wife complained the duo-picture from this angle wasn't sharp enough, so I added this one to give a better view.