The Painting Phase

The Painting Phase is a hobby podcast/vlog that was joined last year by Chris "Peachy" Peach, when he left Games Workshop.

I only follow a few content creators on youtube or as podcasts, (when I watch Youtube it's mostly cooking and additional content on tv series like ScreenCrush) and my podcasts schedule is pretty filled with the Horus Heresy audiobooks. When Krauthorn stopped their podcast last year, I was sad, because I like their content and the way they covered topics.

Both Jürgen and Fabian are former Games Workshop employees and this shines through, when they cover topics, especially as Jürgen stayed with Wargaming and is now working for Warlord Games. And many of the comments include a companies point of view, from what is possible etc. and this something that I appreciated on their episodes. As somebody who is not just a consumer in wargaming, but had multiple chances to take a look behind the curtains, into production etc. and is an economist by choice and training, it is something that I find very interesting.

So, when Peachy left GW and went with The Painting Phase, my first reaction was, yeah, he's doing a Duncan and tries to do his own thing. I liked the videos that Duncan made for Games Workshop, calm, informative and compact. I enjoy the memes, and some of the retro content, but beyond that don't have that much use for the tutorials etc. as their is already a broad variety of that available. I didn't need a variant of that - and that was the reason, why I didn't pay attention to the channel that much back then.

We all heard rumours on various things that worked or more precisely didn't work during Brexit, Covid etc. at Games Workshop, for example Cursed City, and when I read that Chris would explain some things on The Painting Phase, I gave it a go. And damn, that was entertaining. Geoff, Patrick and Chris talk about various topics, wargaming related, having a good time with a bit of banter in there. You certainly have to be confident with your english, as one of their listeners pointed out - having this at 1,5x speed probably isn't the best choice if you're not a native speaker.

The insights that Chris gives across multiple episodes are very interesting - at least for me - because he is a very balanced and reflected way of talking about it. And he explains, why he left Games Workshop and the reasons are so plausible, but he's still caught up saying "we" when he talks about Workshop. No wonder after 20 years and various career levels and fields of work, from managing a store to working inside the studio itself. This is no reckoning or trying to make a fast quid on patreon with "forbidden knowledge". And that makes it very sympathetic. While Chris talks about the limitations and partially false expectations towards a company like Games Workshop, and of course the wargaming market / hobby, Patrick adds in the experience from his short stay with Games Workshop, but as he was working with the video team, had a lot of insights on Warhammer+ and the Youtube content, and along with Geoff's insight as someone who's self employed, that creates a very complete. As this is mixed with experiences on building old multipart metal kits, paint jobs and army building, it is - once again at least for me - a very entertaining format to watch / listen. And I highly appreciate the grown up content creation. It's calm. No lense flares, no annoying promotion, pushing products or shaky cam. Just a few pals having a good time, chatting about the hobby and their experiences over the years.

I started with Peachy has left Games Workshop, Games Workshop Manager - what was it like? and continued with the episodes on crediting creators, Old World and Cadia, What happened to Cursed City, and there are quite a few more episodes for me to dive in, and I would like to suggest you give it a try as well.