ANFSCD*: Runemaster Thorn

*And Now For Something Completely Different: A sporadic post about my exploits outside the WH40K hobby.  I paint and play with other minis too!

After reading Corbania's "That's it! I'm Burnt Out!" post, I couldn't help but empathize.  At least twice this week, I sat in front of my painting station and thought "Man.  I can't bring myself to paint another blue guy."  But I still enjoy the hobby and I still love the relaxation I get with painting. So how to get it when I'm burnt out on Crimson Fists?

What I first tried to do was paint my Dark Angels or my Tau...but I found I couldn't even get into that.  It was still too similar and still too many models to do and still too much.  So I looked around my vast collections of minis for something else to paint.  Lo and behold, my Descent: Journeys in the Dark box set was out from a game a few weeks ago.  I'm playing in a long running monthly Road to Legends campaign and as a group, we've talked about painting our models for a long time.  So I finally took the plunge!

The nice thing about painting these models is that they come with reference cards for each character:

Runemaster Thorn

So all I have to do is extrapolate the colors and get to painting!  I started with my own guy first, the reasoning being that if I wanted to get back the Crimson Fists, then at least I'd look better than my fellow (unpainted) players.  I freely admit that I didn't work extra hard on Runemaster Thorn.  I gesso'ed him in black and then built up the colors form there.  Veteran painters should be able to identify colors and techniques. 

Another nice thing about trying a solo model is that it doesn't have to tie into the rest of your collection!  So you can try something new (like the skin tones on this old guy) you read about on some blog or article.  You can try different highlight schemes or wet blending or what have you.  I played it safe on this guy, but I feel like I did some stuff I've never done before like with the beard.  It's a stretch for me to paint hair since none of my Crimson Fists are Space Wolves in disguise (i.e. they aren't hairy!).

Runemaster Thorn is a spellcaster-type, but as he has the ability to teleport instead of move, I've been using him as a treasure grabber/portal activator.  As such, I've fallen a little behind in the gear curve as we prioritized equipping our true killer-types (the archer and the warrior, coming soon).  Eventually I'll gear up again, but right now I'm having a ton of fun porting around and sniping wounded monsters or grabbing their treasure and porting out before they can respond.

I'm debating if I should try flocking him (and the rest of the heroes), but I'm afraid I'll bury the feet.  Maybe I could try painting a rock pattern?  Or paint the base grey?  On a separate topic, how do you get out of your army painting rut?