G’day all! 

My name is Nic (I shitpost as RussellCroweAOS on Twitter/Discord). I have been painting, converting and playing Warhammer for about 4-5 years now. As with many fat, balding middle-aged white men, I reconnected with the hobby during Covid. As a young lad in the early ’00s I fell in love with the aesthetics of Warhammer Fantasy & 40K, but my lack of fiscal freedom meant this passion never went beyond painting a box of Ork Boyz, and subscribing to White Dwarf for a few years until the price jumped to $12AUD a mag (I still feel the pain of that price hike to this day, crippled me). I can fondly recall poring over the WD magazines, enraptured by the incredible painting, conversions and terrain making. The written battle reports with large arrows showcasing unit movement were particularly iconic. The goofy sculpts and silliness of that time will forever remain a core memory for me, and one that still drives my style of painting and converting to this day. 

My fiancée and I have spent the last year travelling throughout Europe & Central Asia. We saved for the better part of a decade, quit our jobs and hit the road. I packed all the clothes I own into a backpack (5x T-shirts & 2x pairs of Ruggers™), so I had a suitcase free for… Warhammer! Since then, I’ve been fortunate to paint and play my way around some amazing locations (painted a unit of Brutes on the train in Uzbekistan, that was a moment), and have met incredible people and communities along the way.

I had originally brought a Sylvaneth army with me from Australia, but quickly sent that back home in a box once I realised that a year travelling Europe without a Destruction army was a year of my life wasted. This led me to picking up the Ironjawz unit-by-unit from eBay and Troll Trader, and away I went!

Sidenote: During this time, I managed to pickup one of my favourite models of all time, ol’ Nazgob the Orc Shaman. He was the Weirdnob Shaman General leading my army. In AoS 3.0 I was running an infantry-heavy Ironsunz list with the Spell Enhancement Warlord battalion. So Nazgob knew 8 spells in total but could only cast…1. 

All the capability, none of the ability. Ma man.

During Covid 19 I kicked off my Warhams journey by kitbashing Orks in 40K. I fell in love with the Evil Sunz, whose religious-level belief in the power of the colour red has a direct correlation to how fast they can go. I stumbled across a blog run by a guy called Peter Zellner during that time; he had this fantastic style that focused on big, punchy colours creating a high-contrast and vibrant palette. He still posts on instagram and his blog with colour recipes is linked here!

I had two goals for this project. Goal No.1 was to improve my ability to paint in Peter’s style, as at the time it was very different to my own. This paired well with my push to understand “NMM” (Non-Metallic Metal), which I’d dabbled with prior on the odd bust and centrepiece model. Goal No.2 was to get the project finished by Worlds. I was one of the Coaches for Team Australia AOS, and I had planned to play in the Singles prior to the big Teams event on the weekend – and we all know how good a tournament deadline is for that paint-push!

Originally, I had no plans to put my army forward for a painting nomination during Worlds, but at the end of my first game on Day 1 just before lunch, a big Scottish guy with a really broad-accent walked past my table and said “Tharts a luvley peece of PORK”. Since his eyebrow was not raised, and he was gesturing towards my Mawgrunta Gouger at the time, I assumed the sexual innuendo hidden within such a comment was unintentional; so I thanked him and made the spur of the moment choice to pop my name next to my army and put my hat in the ring – glad I did!

Worlds had flown in Louise Sugden of Rogue Hobbies fame to judge the painting for the events that week. In a crazy turn of events, I ended up winning the award for ‘Best Army on Show’! I was completely floored and a bit starstruck, as Louise is one of my favourite creators and had some bloody nice things to say to me afterwards about the army. All-round gem of a human.

Overall I am super stoked with how the army turned out. They are punchy, vibrant and really stand out on the tabletop. The coolness of the NMM complements the bright red armour nicely. When designing a paint scheme for an army, I like to identify 1-2x colours I can use across multiple facets. For the Ironjawz, I settled on purple as my primary shade and a pastel yellow as my primary highlight. Both of these “colour connectors” work across both cool and warm tones, which ensures the army had a cohesive feel.

The Process

For the NMM I used Deep Sea Blue (Vallejo) + Pastel Violet (Scale Colour Artist), and I lined both the armour and skin with Indigo Purple (Kimera). Pastel Yellow (SCA) was simply added to the red for the armour, green for the skin and pastel violet of the sword to create unified and popping highlights.

Whilst this might sound a bit complicated, at its heart it’s dead simple. The armour is Red, the sword is Blue, and Red + Blue = Purple! You can apply a similar effect on your army by washing the model at the end in a purple wash (Magos contrast is great for this!). If you’re painting Stormcast/ Varanguard/ Seraphon etc, washing Gold trim with Purple really brings it to life. Give it a try!

My method for this army was pretty straight forward: standard zenithal prime, then contrast paints to sketch out colour placement, followed by panel-lining, layering and highlights. The best thing I purchased whilst travelling was a small hiking headlamp for painting. I haven’t asked her directly, but I have a feeling I cut quite an erotic figure for my fiancée with this new piece of kit. The sight of me hunched over a too-small desk, wearing a hiking headlamp, repeatedly licking paint off a brush whilst painting plastic miniatures is sure to have given her goosebumps.

With that image, I’m signing off! I’ll be flying down to Sydney GT in November with a hugely converted Mega Gargant force, so if you see me come say hi, or follow along with the updates on my Twitter @RussellCroweAOS

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