Dave Paints - no, not that Dave... the other one.

[Jye Nicolson]

You're supposed to pick one of quality or quantity, no fair hogging them both

Very impressive work!

[The Other Dave]

OK, time for my "pat myself on the back" 2021 painting roundup! Life (and media consumption, but diving into the latter is probably related to the former) slowed my painting right down in these past few months, but overall I still managed a very respectable 100-odd models finished. Fewer than in previous years, but my collection is pretty mature in all areas and my limited storage space has meant I have to be a bit more picky about what I buy, and (again until life hit) I generally did a good job this year of keeping just a step ahead of the backlog.

Like last year, I'll split it up according to topic. First are "bits and bobs," little things that don't really fit into any of my big project categories:

First I repainted the chaos marines from Blackstone Fortress, since I sort of figured out how to get a better black using Contrasts:

(Also NMM on the trim, which didn't turn out great here but then I wasn't too motivated to make it really good.)

Then the Iron Golem I picked up when WarCry launched and had in a cupboard half-painted:


And some Tyranid Warriors I likewise had kicking around, with an eye towards using them in Kill Team:


And some Intercessors in my loyalist Death Guard successor chapter colors, the Twilight Guardians:

There's a Reiver fireteam mostly done to join them too.

And a couple Lords of Grossness in traditional Death Guard colors for Jye:


Plus some goblins, thinking of eventually making them fieldable in AoS, squig hopperoonies:

and some regular dudes to fill in gaps in my collection:

[The Other Dave]

The first big project was continuing to expand my Dusk Raider force:

A goodly number of more-or-less standard plague marines and characters of various stripes:






Some terminators:



And some daemon-engine-y things:

[The Other Dave]

The other big project for the year was, as usual, Underworlds, and I think some of this is my best painting to date, full stop. Plus I continued to find my footing and experiment with Contrasts - the plague marines use mostly "traditional" techniques, but these are all almost entirely contrast, with a bit of acrylic for highlights and metallic touches (plus the metal on the high elves, come to think of it). It's been a lot of fun to continue to experiment and push myself with these!












Some of the experiments worked out better than others! But I like them all each in their own way.

[The Other Dave]

And finally Titanicus, which was mostly knights this year as I went on a "how about having enough questoris so that I could field complete units of any weapons variation I'd be interested in?" binge that suddenly turned into "and now I have a complete fieldable knight household, huh".





Plus a Warbringer Nemesis, the base for which I'm particularly pleased with:


And some Aeronautical Imperialis planes I did for Jye, since they're the same scale!

[The Other Dave]

So yeah, a pretty good year all told! Currently in the queue are that Reiver fireteam for Kill Team, along with a Guard team; the two Underworlds warbands from the Harrowdeep box; some eldar fliers to complete the commission for Jye; and a Legio Mordaxis traitor force for Titanicus - which should keep me busy for a good bit!

[Primarch]

A lot of wonderfully painted models again this year. Well done. The variety of colours you've used for your Underworlds teams is really astounding when you see them all together like this.

[The Other Dave]

Thanks! And definitely, the combination of the super-saturated contrast range and the freedom Underworlds gives you to just go hog-wild and do whatever without worrying about whether you could keep it up over a whole army has really helped me get away from my "black undercoat, dark colors" habits.

[Jye Nicolson]

Another outstanding year, well done! Can attest they all look great on the table too, having clashed with all the Underworlds ones at least once I think?

[The Other Dave]

Sadly, I'm pretty sure I haven't gotten the Ravagers, the Bladecoven, or the Storm of Celestus to the table (yet!). Or if I did they just made absolutely no impression on me, which is at least equally probable . Fortunately, that does mean they're all high on the list for sleeving up a Rivals deck at least and giving them a go - after seeing K.Bushi's brother (whose name we'll have to learn eventually) use the Ravagers pretty dang effectively, I'm pretty interested in getting them to the table in January, maybe even with a Serious Deck.