Mini of the Week 1-1-16

Welcome back to Mini of the Week, where every Friday I will find a miniature from around the web that exemplifies an aspect of our hobby and share it with you.

The Last Light by jarhead on Cool Mini or Not

I can't believe I have never shared this diorama as one of the Mini of the Week choices. Many of you may already be familiar with it, but for those who are not it's called The Last Light and was the Slayer Sword winner at the 2013 German Golden Demons. When I first saw this my jaw hit the floor, it's stunning. There is so much going on it's almost hard to take it all in. I love the movement created in the piece by the Tyranids swarming up over what looks like a spore chimney. The Sanguinary Guard at the top echoes this movement perfectly, finishing the arc. It's such a classic pose he's in to, jumping backwards while unloading with both of his pistols. I really like how light is used in this too, with the Sanguinary Guard seemingly radiating a warm light off of him onto the tip of the swarm. It's almost like he's the last light...hey!

Once you move past the overall impression of the piece and start zeroing in on individual details it gets even more impressive. This giant diorama is actually composed of multiple, smaller dioramas that are equally as interesting on their own. With this many model it's impressive that they were able to keep all of the posing natural looking. While each Blood Angel is painted as a center piece model, the Tyranids are more painted as a whole. What I mean by that is that they were painted to look best as a group not nessecarily individually. There are, of course, "hero" bugs, like the one above on top of the dreadnought, but if you look at the smaller ones swarming all around they are a little less. 

It works perfectly though. I feel like this was painted more like a traditional painting. You don't want to make every part of it refined and perfect, you want areas of it to be broader brushstrokes to frame in the truly important parts. In this way the mass of bigs work more to convey a feeling then to showcase off Hormagaunt #231. There's so much more I could talk about with this but instead I will let you go check out the rest of the pictures on Cool Mini or Not and on his own website. I figured this was a promising way to kick off the new year, happy 2016 everyone!

Be sure to check out more views of the model on Cool Mini or Not, and show the artist some love if you like it. You can also find a general overview of the finished model as well as a full breakdown of the building and painting process on Massive Voodoo.

Until next time,

Tyler M.

What do you think of this model? If you have any models or have seen any around the web that you feel deserve to be the Mini of the Week feel free to send them to me at tylerm@mengelminiatures.com with the title "Mini of the Week" and a brief description of how you painted it or a link to where you found it. There is also a dedicated board on the Mengel Miniatures Forum for Mini of the Week where you can discuss past entries or post of minis you think are deserving of the title.