Painting a Brat for the hell of it.

Hello all!

The painting mojo took a bit of hit lately and I found myself surrounded by too many projects on my hobby desk. This I find is never good as it becomes a bog of grey, primed and half painted great idea at the time models, which I may or may not get back to. So I had a tidy! Cleared the area! Arranged my brushes and got clean water! I then broke out a model that I’ve been wanting to paint for ages and thought I’m going to spend the day painting you. So I did and, ladies and gentlemen, it was glorious! The reason it was so good was because the model belongs to no project, it was painted for the sheer joy of it and that is what I was missing.

It’s not my best painting but it was nice to try out colours I don’t usually put together and the inspiration for the scheme came from a much loved John Blanche painting he did way back when Necromunda was known as Confrontation. I’m sure you know the one? 🙂

CYBERPUNK 40K. Bringing the neon to the grim dark.

That’s right! I want to bring out the elements of 40K that are totally Cyberpunk. Why? Because I love Cyberpunk and with the release of Necromunda it is the perfect playground for such a thing.

First off, if you want to know more about Cyberpunk, have a read of this article on the subject. It’s well written and will give you a nice overview of the history of the sub genre and the films that were produced that shaped the style.

So recently I’ve been going back to my roots of sci-fi with the main focus on films like Akira, GiTS, Blade Runner and Johnny Mnemonic as well as artists like Simon Bisley, Kev Walker and Brom. Also the new releases on Netflix like BLAME, The Expanse and Altered Carbon have all got me thinking about applying cyberpunk themes to 40k and creating a gang of characters that are so wonderfully over the top and Cyberpunk that it hurts. Now 40K has a lot of Cyberpunk imagery already, just have a flick through Rogue Trader and you’ll see what I mean, so it is just a matter of focusing on the styles and colours that define Cyberpunk and bring them into the grim dark. As far as models are concerned the new plastic Necromunda models suit the imagery perfectly, as they should being largely inspired by what came before, but other manufacturers of miniatures will be used as well, along with my own designs that I’ll 3D print.

 

 

First up we have this lovely lady. Poison Shade. She’s bad, really bad. A pumped up, psycho poser with cannibalistic tendencies that loves blades and more blades, especially ones covered in poison. She’s quick, acrobatic and extremely strong and loves nothing more than being dominant over everyone, especially men, whom she’s been known to eat for breakfast with a nice hot mocha after killing them with her butt cheeks. Miss Shade is all scary and has made a living from being so. Hire her at your peril and desperate men beware. So ladies and gents cover your crotch as I present…………..

 

 

The main influence for this character came from the art of Simon Bisley. I’ve been a great lover of his in your face art for many years and I remember as a teenager being totally in awe of his style. His depictions of characters are wonderfully insane and so very over the top, especially his women characters. They are exaggerated to the point of being grotesque but even so you can’t help but look and you end up feeling dirty for doing so. No wonder I loved his work as a teenager 🙂 His art also possesses a vibrancy, a toxic overload of colour, which compliments his larger than life characters perfectly. That’s what I have tried to achieve with Miss Shade here. A toxic psycho you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark ally while boozed up and fiddling with your fly. You know it’s all going to end wrong.

 

This will be an ongoing project with no real-time limit and if any of you lovely creative readers want to get involved and poke some fun at 40K then please feel free.