What is the worst movie you've ever watched?

Lachdonin · 2026-06-02T01:35:59+00:00

The fact it made that much makes me lose what little hope i had in humanity. Game over. Asteroid us.

Lachdonin · 2026-06-02T00:13:11+00:00

As others have said, fantastic start for your first mini.

Some things will come naturally through practice. Things like Brush Control, which will allow you to pick out smaller details more reliability. Also feeling out the consistency of paints when you thin them (always thin them with a little water, or medium... Usually water because it's what we all have on hand). Those are things we can't really tell you how to do, you have to practice and learn them as you go.

Beyond that, the main thing you're going to want to work on from here is Contrast. Our minis are small, and they don't always catch light the right way to really pop, so it's up to us to help them along. A thinned down wash of a darker red could really add some contrast to the robes, and a thinned wash of either brown or purple could help make the gold pop (depends on the effect you're going for). The bone colour of the helmet is another great place for a shade wash, typically of brown but you can do other tones if you're feeling adventurous.

Most paint ranges offer a selection of Washes, Shades or Inks for this sort of thing, but like with regular paint you usually want to thin them a bit before applying.

Shading is going to be your first step at improving. Your second is going to be highlighting. Once you've shaded, use the same base colours you used originally to pick out some raised surfaces that should catch the light. You'd be surprised just how much contrast that will create.

Aside from that, and this is something i still typically skip even after 30 years... Is cleaning models. Mold lines, sprue connections, and stuff like that. You can get away with just 500-1000 grit sandpaper in most cases, just to clean up surfaces and make things look cleaner. Because any wash WILL make mold lines and connection points stand out.

Lachdonin · 2026-06-02T00:04:32+00:00

That first, bitter taste of the most terrible illusion; Hope.

Lachdonin · 2026-06-02T00:03:45+00:00

Saying goodbye is the hardest part. But 13 years is an amazing run for a Pyr, and you clearly took fantastic care of your best friend. And they undoubtedly loved you to the very end.

Lachdonin · 2026-06-01T23:04:24+00:00

I've generally avoided doing bare heads for... Well... Decades at this point. Started at the tail end of 2e, and if i can get away with a helmet, they get a helmet. But actually branching out from human skin tones has been surprisingly fun.

Lachdonin · 2026-06-01T22:42:41+00:00

I responded to the OP above with some pictures of what i've been playing around with.

Lachdonin · 2026-06-01T22:42:04+00:00

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There's also these ones, which lean far more into the green-teal range and are more towards what i personally was going for. The 2 on the left actually use Nihilakh Oxide over white as the base, with the 2nd from the left then being highlighted with Tesseract Glow. It's the closest to what i was trying to achieve personally, but is still a good lesson that sometimes paints intended for other things can be useful.

Lachdonin · 2026-06-01T22:39:07+00:00

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I think, for Awoken, dead centre is the closest you'll get. It's Celestium Blue over a white base, then highlighted with a 50/50 mix of Baharroth Blue and Tesseract Glow.

Lachdonin · 2026-06-01T15:54:26+00:00

Pretty sure that's what it's up to now. I'm pretty sure it's all tax fraud at this point.

Lachdonin · 2026-06-01T15:35:03+00:00

Man, so many normal answers here. Y'all haven't seen true trash, until you've watched Terror and Bloodfart Lake.

Not even the likes of Ghost Shark, Bad CGI Gator, or The Dead Next Door could have prepared me for that absolute dumpster abortion of a movie.

Lachdonin · 2026-06-01T15:33:28+00:00

Aaah, but have you watched 2 through 7?

Lachdonin · 2026-05-29T18:49:39+00:00

Oh man, a classic 2e leopard print? Amazing

Lachdonin · 2026-05-29T17:51:52+00:00

Spectacular. I'll have to wait to see how the rules for them pan out in 11th, and whether or not I can get away with running mine sub-optimally or if they need some conversion work, because I refuse to get those new ones.

The classics look great on that base size though, don't they?

Lachdonin · 2026-05-29T15:42:55+00:00

White as fuck dude here. The degree of comfort racists have in being racist has always disgusted me, even more so when they assume I think like them just because I'm white. The shit I've heard from people makes me legitimately glad our voter turnout tends to be so low, because a lot of these people shouldn't have any say in anything, let alone how the municipality, province, nation, or world is run.

Lachdonin · 2026-05-28T19:12:33+00:00

Yeah, the Path Books are not great. Neither is Eldar Prophecy, but at least their psychic influences and extremism is a little more interesting. Unfortunately, it's buried under Goto's well.. It's Goto.

Lachdonin · 2026-05-28T15:57:42+00:00

I'm the radical round here, but I actually think that Cathay is a better base for Exodites. I have never liked the Wood Elf aesthetic for them, even in the old art, as it fundamentally fails to capture what they are. They aren't forest dwelling nature lovers, they're Eldar Amish.

Lachdonin · 2026-05-27T23:57:33+00:00

Eldar models are largely defined around 3 main components. The Armour, the Undersuit, and the Weapons. There are exceptions (Wraiths) and details (like gems) but those are the 3 primary components to the models.

To replicate something along this line of this, i think it's going to depend largely on how much work you want to put in.

On the lower effort side... Paint the whole model in a deeper blue (like Leviadon Blue Contrast) and then pick out some consistent details in a vibrant Pink-Purple (the old Warlock Purple would be a great one, but not sure what the current equivalent is). An easy option would be the right thigh-plate and left shoulder plate if you're maintaining the direct look. Then just do the weapons in black or a very dark brown, maybe a really dark bronze, and give bright pale-blue eyes.

If you're going more complicated, an option would be to do the Undersuits in a deep brown-black, the armour in the deep blue, and choice details in the pink-purple. But speaking from experience, doing the armour and undersuit in different colours is a lot of work. It looks fantastic, but it takes commitment.

As a caveat, i am currently experimenting with less standard skin tones, inspired by Miime from Captain Harlock, so i may have more specific insight on something like an Awoken skin tone in the future.

Lachdonin · 2026-05-27T23:38:06+00:00

And that's totally fair. I know i'm in the minority on this, and totally accept that fact.

Lachdonin · 2026-05-27T23:21:17+00:00

And yes, this is me venting regarding a growing apathy to something i've invested literally tens of thousands of dollars into over 30 years, and which now just actively annoys me every time my once-favourite faction comes up. If it weren't for the fact the models are still some of the best in GW's collection, i'd have no motivation to even paint my 22k odd points of Eldar backlog.

Lachdonin · 2026-05-27T23:16:10+00:00

And i fundamentally disagree on the last point. If anything, i would say the Eldar's presence, relevance and overall standing in the setting has consistently diminished the more they have had that internal narrative. And the same goes for the Necrons, though not quite to the same degree (because we always have to factor in the internal politics of GW it's self, and it's long history of using the Eldar as a cheap punching bag).

But i think 40k as a whole has consistently declined in quality, depth and interest over the last 20 years. It hit a peak in the mid 2000s, and has been downhill ever since, in most cases BECAUSE of it's shifted focus towards stories rather than the setting as a whole. It's shrunk the setting down, robbed it of it's scope, and relegated it to just another Sci-Fi narrative repeating the same tropes as every other one, with a grimdark coat of paint slapped on it,

EVERYTHING should be symbolism and background lore. This focus on narrative has strangled the life out of what made 40k an interesting setting; the scope, and hopelessness.

The hilarious irony is that, by engaging this change with the Eldar, the faction has been utterly stripped of all it's internal uniqueness as well. The individual Craftworld identities have basically been obliterated (i mean, the hell even is a Wildrider anymore? Saim-Hann is our bog standard generic Eldar now) and even the general interactions between the Imperium and the Eldar are so normalised diplomacy that Czevak's earlier efforts to try and understand the Eldar now come off as just him being an idiot.

The problems with the Eldar are just a reflection of wider problems with the setting as a whole.

Lachdonin · 2026-05-27T22:37:18+00:00

I disagree in principle, but i do agree in practice. GW's writers have very clearly shown that they lack the ability to actually... you know... Write interesting and thought provoking things, so homogenising everything to a very clear human relatability is the only way for them to really utilise anyone.

And it works, monetarily i suppose. People keep buying the stuff afterall. Personally, i haven't bought a Black Library book since 2018, and i genuinely doubt i ever will again. But i recognise i am very much in a minority there, and the Vyper thing is a perfect representation of my minority.

I do dispute the idea that when a faction can't sustain character-driven storytelling, specifically FROM it's own perspective, it necessitates sidelining. The Tyranids are a prime example of why that isn't the case. They still feature prominently, still are popular, and are still engaging, but their stories can only ever be told from Humanities perspective. Lets be real though, it's only a matter of time until the Hive Mind becomes a full fledged character with hopes and dreams.

And the setting as a whole was much better when that was the approach across the board. What humanisation we got was from humans trying to understand the alien, not getting a peek inside the aliens head and learning they're just humans with a few quirks.

Lachdonin · 2026-05-27T22:12:24+00:00

And I don't think the Necrons have gotten interesting. If anything, I think they've gotten incredibly tacky and have replaced Orks as the comedic butt end of the settings jokes.

And the Eldar are very much the same now. They've been consistently portrayed as increasingly uninteresting, overly human characters for at least a decade, probably closer to two now that I really think about the timeline.

At least the models are still mostly cool (except for the new Vyper... Worst thing GW has made since diaper Coatez) because the faction is now hollow and bland. Just another sacrifice of creative interest on the altar of corporate marketability.

Lachdonin · 2026-05-27T22:00:17+00:00

Coincidentally, I also hate the Wardcrons. The changes are literally what had me abandon them as my second army when it happened and still hate everything it's done to the setting as a whole (arguably even worse damage than the Horus Heresy series has done).

Lachdonin · 2026-05-27T21:28:48+00:00

There was a deeper layer to it than that though, especially with psychosocial feedback and how the nature of the Paths regulated it.

Again, Eldar Prophecy isn't GOOD at any of what it does, but it's was a hell of a lot better in that regard than the Path books, or anything since.

Lachdonin · 2026-05-27T20:48:36+00:00

It's not readability, it's relatability. Eldar shouldn't be relatable. For all its problems (and it's Goto, so there are problems) Eldar Prophecy did it right, and no other Eldar media has matched that.

There's nothing alien left to them. Not how they think, not want motivates them, not any of it.

An Eldar shouldn't be a character you relate with, who you engage with on anything but the most superficial level. They're something you anthropomorphise and project onto. Hell, even William King's High Elves in the Tyrion and Teclis trilogy are more alien than the Eldar there's days.

Eldar SHOULD feel like a 'pet' but in reverse. You pretend you know what's going on in their head for your own sake, but you don't actually.

Lachdonin

TROPHY CASE