Last year my goal was to get 2000 points of Soulblight Gravelords painted, including the Revenant Legion box set. While I didn’t nearly make that goal, I did get nearly half the set done and get into lots of unexpected stuff.
January
To start off the year I painted up the liche conversion to go with its Hobby Heresy article. This guy was heavily inspired by old Warhammer artwork and will be used as the necromancer for my Hyshian themed Soulblight Gravelords.
This month also saw building and painting of the classic Skeleton Chariot. I got into Warhammer in the late 90’s with a fifth edition Undead army. This was one of the models I never got at the time, but manages to snag this one new in shrink at a reasonable price. The old kit holds up well. I did some minor alterations to the arms and spear to repose them how I wanted.
To finish off the month I painted a Tyranid Warrior for How to Paint Everything: Tyranids. The scheme was one I’d wanted to try out for some time. It’s based on a Black and Yellow Garden Spider.
February
First up for February was ‘Rambones’, an Aly Morrison sculpt from the late 80’s citadel skeletons. This is an oddball model I’d wanted to get hold of for a while. Had fun painting the watch face!
Next I painted Anasta Malkorion. This model has a somewhat unique aesthetic among the Soulblight range and I feel it works well for my Hyshian Gravelords scheme.
March
Built a lot of zombies!
April
April saw the last minute building and painting of my Smashbash entry (along with more zombie building!). You can see more about it on the article I did for the post competition wrap up Hobby Heresy: Smashbash Kitbash Event 2022 Recap. For this I made a War Dog Stalker out of some busted models: mainly a sentinel, mortarch mount, and a badly recast contemptor dreadnought someone gave me.
May
This month I began painting those zombies I mentioned earlier. After doing a test model my goal was to break the process down into easily repeated steps. All skin the same color, all cloth the same color, all roots the same, etc.
August
In June and July my hobby dropped off due to other projects and the whirlwind that is life. However in August I picked back up with Deathrattle Skeletons. After doing a test model I painted up the rest of a 10 model unit.
September-October
These months were back to zombies, finishing up a 20 strong unit. I really like this kit, it has lots of interesting variation and great character.
In addition to hobby I completed or added to three articles:
Necropolis28: A Narrative Diorama Skirmish Game
Goonhammer Guide to 28mm plastic multipart skeletons
How to Paint Everything: Zombie Flesh
November
In November I worked on building Grave Guard and Black Knights. The Grave Guard are being built with the great weapon option and a 3d printed head swap. The Black Knights are getting similar heads and are using spears from the Deathrattle Skeleton kit and round shields. My thought with this is to bring the old kits more in line with the aesthetic of new Deathrattle and the Hyshian Gravelords scheme.
Next up was a chameleon skink and a Terrawing from the new Warcry set for a How to Paint Everything.
December
This month I have quite a few works in progress that I won’t get into, but I did finish this oldhammer skeleton. It’s Finrum the Liche, a Citadel C17 skeleton from 1984. His face was giving me Misfits vibes so I gave him a nice crimson cloak.
Looking Ahead
This coming year my plan is to get a Necropolis board finished and at least a couple warbands ready to play. Also have plans to get a 6th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Vampire Counts army ready to go. I have the models, just need to get them all built, based, and ready to paint. I want to get some more Soulblight Gravelords built and painted too. Then there is Smashbash 2023 coming up and surely lots of other distractions…
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