Albion Fenbeast - the Oldhammer Paint a Trish challenge

Back in April of this year I took part in the amazing Make A Trish challenge that was hosted on The Oldhammer Community on Facebook and organised by that champion of the Oldhammer blogsphere Asslessman.

The goal was to build and paint a miniature sculpted by the legendary Trish Carden, who as it happens was also going to provide a prize to the winner of a one off miniature sculpted for the challenge.

The final image of my entry is below, the Albion Fenbeast. I'll go into the whole process of the challenge throughout this post.

The Rules of The Challenge:

(There were very few rules to be fair)

• Must be a Trish Carden Miniature
• Post an image of the unpainted miniature alongside the provided portrait of Trish to throw your hat in and take part
• Paint the model by the end of the month
• post 1 and only 1 picture in the final album (multiple views allowed in the one image of course)
• Trish would pick the winner at the end of the challenge

And below is the absolutely charming little daemon chappy that Trish sculpted as the prize!

Now, as it happens... I had an Albion Fenbeast sculpted by Trish that had literally been sat withing reaching distance of me for months on my desk, waiting for me to stop being a lazy bum and to get it stripped ready for repainting.

So this challenge came at the perfect time to motivate me to do so. And straight into a jar of isopropyl alcohol he went.

Half an hour soaking and a little scrubbing and I was set, took the picture of my figure alongside the portrait to announce my entry and we were off!

Building (and modifying) The Figure:

It's no secret to many of my long time friends and followers, I just cant leave a figure alone without modifying it in some way.

I wanted to bring the model to life with more detail, swampy/mossy textures and roots. I wanted the creature to feel like a living part of it's environment so the same textures were used on the base and figure. I gave it a bigger base to have more room to set the scene, it was built up using layers of cork to begin with.

The mossy texture is bicarbonate of soda sprinkled over slightly watered down liquid greenstuff, the roots are real dried roots. And I added a few more skulls and bones around the whole figure and base.

Painting The Figure:

I used the airbrush to lay down the basic colours all over, I didn't mind a bit of overspray on this figure as it adds to the organic look.

When it came to traditional brush-work I added washes, then re-highlighted several times until I built the contrast I liked the look of, going back and forth until I was happy.

There was an all over enamel wash that tied everything together and really put some life into the final paint-job.

The Finished Figure:

The last touches to finishing the figure was all detailing with plant-life. Grass tufts, foam flock, miniature leaves, which I used all over the miniature and base. The water was a bit of an experiment, I used several layers of clear structure gel and I think it turned out rather nicely.

And here are the final shots of the complete Albion Fenbeast.

But What Is This!?!

As you can see... There is a charming little daemon fellow standing on my desktop...
That's right! I only went and bloody won the challenge!!!

I was absolutely over the moon when I found out... And I didn't find out until quite after everybody else because I missed the announcement, it was only later when somebody tagged me that I realised!

This was a brilliant community challenge to get involved in, I was completely taken by surprise at winning. There were a lot of amazing entries, some that I personally thought were much better than mine.

My thanks have to go out to JB for being an absolute champ organising it and many thanks to Trish herself, not only for the wonderful prize miniature, but for all the amazing miniatures she has had a hand in creating over the years sitting in everyone's collections.

Take care.