I've been a bit lazy over the holidays when it comes to Confrontation and miniature painting in general, since I've been prepping for a couple of RPG sessions which I'm due to run next week back in my home town. Regardless, Confrontation is almost always on my mind, so in the spirit of the new year some mental energy was spent on reflecting on the past year, thus here we are.
This time last year (the period when the previous post ended) was like a small Christmas miracle. Not a creature was stirring on "The 7 Hills of Confrontation" discord server when all of a sudden the Living Legend known as Sweet popped his beautiful head into one of the channels. And lo! Up he comes with an announcement regarding the Confrontation Painting Challenge of 2024!
Needless to say I jumped on that faster than S’Érum would get offended by someone calling him a "snek". Truth be told, I am a lazy painter. When left to my own devices I tend to step away from the painting table all too often and progress is extremely slow. So what I've learned over the years is that challenges, competitions, leagues, or any similar collective endeavor in any hobby is absolutely golden when it comes to motivation and there should be no excuses not to participate in this one.
The gist of the challenge was this: starting from February, take a pic of your unpainted army and then paint your heart out all the way up to 400AP worth of models by the end of August. You're in a raffle for prizes and you get extra raffle tickets if you post your monthly progress with at least 50AP.
So the first challenge for me was to decide what to paint! At that point I haven't really collected anything remotely close to 400AP of a single faction, so I had to quickly make a decision. Previously I spotted a decent chunk of Cynwall and Sessair models locally, so picking one of those up would give me a solid start from which to start painting and fill in the blanks with new models over the seven upcoming months.
Out of those two factions, undoubtedly the Cynwall Elves are beyond iconic as an Aarklash staple. But you have to understand, I am easily intimidated by complex and beautiful sculpts (which the Elves definitely are), so as a result I usually tend to overthink painting such models and I'm extremely slow with those. Yet now we need swiftness, speed, and power, throbbing biceps which flex with a firm hold of our mighty brush while sitting on clenched buttocks and an occasional pause for a guttural scream as we pick up our next victim model. So what did I do? I did what any sane person would do. I got both the Elves and the Kelts.
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| Not pictured are two blisters of the Sons of Ogmios which I forgot to add to the shot... |
On a more serious note, I decided to go with Kelts mostly because they seemed easier to paint out of the two choices, since I'm used to painting a lot of skin and leather from other projects. I really didn't want to overthink the process during the challenge and I wanted an army which doesn't intimidate me with too much complexity. And above all else, Sessairs are awesome, don't listen to the naysayers who are plentiful on the server and should be shunned. You know who you are.
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| I've been told that I should go and touch grass... |
I also decided to get some basing goodies, since I wanted to try out some new techniques and get more into that part of the hobby. I'm really a sucker for nicely looking bases, so I took this opportunity to learn a thing or two along the way.
Couple of things to note though. I guess Sweet's main idea for the challenge (aside from pushing people to paint) was for participants to have an actual army that they can play with in the end. Honestly, I knew I was gonna fail this one right from the get go, since I was more focused on getting things painted and getting relaxed with painting Rackham things in general. But also, I knew I was going to "cheat" for a few months, since I knew in advance that a few months I'll be away from home for longer stretches of time so I had to cheat with models that have a higher AP value in order to meet the monthly quota of painted stuff.
I won't bore you with all of my thoughts about each and every model I painted for the challenge, but these are some personal highlights.
So immediately to start with, I painted one of the Sons of Ogmios. What an absolute lovely chonker! Usually I dislike painting larger models, mostly because bigger surfaces mean a bigger spotlight for poor painting skills and glaring mistakes, but this one was a joy from start to finish. I guess it is a testament to Rackham's awesomeness when it comes to sculpting, because there are so many neat details packed into their models, yet at the same time they never overdid it.
Painting for that initial month of the challenge was difficult, mostly because I had only two weeks available and I had a bunch of Infinity models which I also needed to paint, since at the same time I was participating in an escalation painting/gaming league and a whole lot of stuff had to be done there. But also, I had a frequent "helper" at the painting table and she made things extremely slow...
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| Fluffy chonk... |
Funny detail about working on the Sons of Ogmios though, while I was basing it I realized that I accidentally glued it to the base at a wrong angle, so it was leaning forward way more than it should have. But I actually ended up liking it like that way more, since the pose looks like he is charging at someone who severely pissed him off, probably some Alahan shitter.
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| "Out of my waaaay!" |
In a similar wain, I painted his smaller brother, the Giant Barbarian. It definitely lacks a bit in the pose dynamic which the Sons of Ogmios has and is much more static, but it is similarly chonky and nicely detailed.
As the months went by, I expanded the tribe with a few more purchases. I was pretty excited about the Danu Warriors since those sculpts are some of my Sessair favorites, but I sadly never got to painting them within the challenge, since during certain months painting more than one model was sadly not feasible and I really didn't want to slack on those.
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| Quick and bad photoshop mashup of the few pictures I took back when I purchased these... |
Featured above are the said few additional buys I made. There are sooo many more amazing models that I'd love to buy, Fiannas, Virae, the BEEFY BOYS (actually we're all beefy boys here, so you take a guess what I mean by these in caps), the third Danu Warrior, the sword/halberd Barbarians... ah, the list goes on and on.
If you looked closer at the picture which showed the Cynwal Elves, you'll notice that I also got an Air Elemental in that haul and I actually decided to use it in this Sessair project. Since I was painting the Kelt Shaman I wanted to give her a "little" summoned friend. Also, I was actually inspired to put on some paint on it because there are so few images of it painted online and as far as I know there is no official Rackham paintjob for it. What I saw online was mostly people painting it in off-white and gray colors, but I wanted to try out a different approach with blues. It does end up looking more like a water-based elemental at first glance, alas! I am pleased with the final look though, the golden/rusty bits pop with the blue on the model, plus the inclusion of the Air Elemental in Sessair ranks gives nice contrast to the composition of the whole tribe.
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| By the way, the idea with the base is that it is also air. |
The only models which I didn't enjoy so much were the Shaman and the Hunters. It's not that the sculpts are necessarily bad, but there's something missing to make them more dynamic. They don't really have anything special going for them that would make them unique (outside of the little squirrel sitting on the Shaman's shoulder) and I would guess that these are some of the younger Rackham sculpts, but I could be wrong on that. They were okay to paint, it just felt a little bit like a chore.
In complete contrast, I have to mention the three characters which I painted, because spending time with them felt special. Markhan the Wild, Bragh An Scathar, and of course Tanath, all three were such a joy to paint. The unique weapons, the little details, the poses and basing, everything about them felt like an invitation to pay attention and dedicate some extra time. They ooze with importance and glory on the table, which really makes me feel like I wouldn't want to be on their shit list. The only thing which I regret not doing, but I was actually too scared to mess it up, was the white face-paint on Bragh. I was happy with what I did up to that point, especially with the belt and the blade, but faltered a bit with the face, mostly due to the fact of how difficult it is to manipulate white. Oh well, maybe next time! Picture of all these bad boys are below!
Now, to make this post at least a bit useful and not have it all just be about self-indulgence, I'll give you my super secret recipe for painting the leather parts. One friend who saw the Sessair models in person actually asked me for it, so here ya go.
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| The paints for the dirty deed. |
It's actually nothing too complex, but it might annoy people who don't have patience to go through the whole process on all the leathery bits. Pictured above are all the paints you need, plus add one extra wretched brush which you will use for the stippling dirty work.
This is what we do:
- Rhinox Hide as base.
- Ivory, applied primarily stippled.
- Black, applied primarily stippled.
- Skrag Brown, applied primarily stippled. All three of these steps (2, 3, 4) can be fairly messy, and I'd recommend the Skrag being the "dominant" of the three. As stated for all three, primarily stipple, but also make scratches, dots, splotches, whatever. You don't have to pay attention to any kind of pattern or order, the point is that these should create natural layers and be fairly random. It's definitely going to look shit before it looks good, this is the shit part.
- Ushabti Bone on the edges of the leather, those raised bumpy parts all around.
- Washes. This is the fun part, since you can go wild with this one. Use all four washes at the same time, some either straight out of the pot, some mix together, just move them around the surface. This step adds depth to the leather. Usually how I did it is use Agarax, Reikland, and Nuln Oil (as stated, mixed or out of the pot, sometimes also adding a bit of Lahmian Medium to make some parts more watery), once those are dry I'd go evenly with one coat of Seraphim Sepia just to tie it all up. While you are at it, also add a coat of Seraphim Sepia over the Ushabti Bone ridges.
And that's that. It's an entertaining process since you get to be messy and not care about being too detailed, plus it gives decent results.
Overall, this event was an absolute blast. I love challenges like these, because they truly inspire me to put in the effort and it is really fun sharing your progress with the community and seeing what the other participants are coming up with. I just wish more people joined in, but hey, maybe next time, hopefully my entries inspired at least some of you.
On that note, shoutout to discord user Xris Wraith who managed to paint an absurd amount of Acheron models, which look absolutely stunning! In the end, Xris Wraith and I were the winners of the challenge, since we are both so talented and awesome. Actually no, we were the only participants who posted progress every month and thus had the most entries. But also, we're awesome, yes.
And of course, a special thank you to Sweet for all the efforts with organizing such an awesome event and being a source of inspiration in the Confrontation scene. So if you're reading this, THANK YOU, you absolute legend.
(EDIT: forgot to take a picture of the sweet (hur hur) prize I received for this endeavor and I was eager to publish this tonight, so I'll edit the post tomorrow.)
And also, thank you for reading, if you got this far. Now if you'll excuse me, gotta go flex!
P.S. I've added a post break here to avoid the layout of the blog being shitty, so if you want to view a photo dump of all the painted minis not shown above, click the link below to expand the post.
