Duncan Rhodes shares Armageddon basing and Halo Flashpoint tutorials

A front page built for the next weekend project

Duncan Rhodes Painting Academy is leaning hard into the thing that keeps a painting desk alive: momentum. The homepage is pushing a fresh run of hobby content that does not just show off finished minis, it hands you the next job to start, whether that is a scorched ash-waste base for Warhammer 40,000 or a crisp Halo Flashpoint infantry piece with clean armor and freehand markings.

That matters because DRPA has always sold itself as more than a tutorial vault. Its own pitch is a membership hub for regular, in-depth and highly detailed tutorials, painting challenges, courses, give-aways, and a thriving community. In practice, that means the site is not only teaching technique, it is trying to keep your queue full so you never hit the dead zone where a project stalls because you cannot decide what to paint next.

Armageddon basing is the kind of practical tutorial people actually use

The headline utility piece is the Armageddon Ash Waste Base tutorial. This is the sort of guide that pays off immediately because it solves a problem every 40K painter runs into: how do you make a force look like it belongs on Armageddon instead of on a blank display shelf?

The tutorial is aimed at the setting’s scorched industrial wastelands, and that is exactly why it works as a weekend job. The emphasis is on when to start building the theme, which materials to gather, how to create smooth texture transitions, and how to land the red sand look that defines the world. That is useful because basing mistakes are usually about timing and texture, not ambition. If you wait until the end to think about the base, the miniature often looks pasted on instead of rooted in the scene.

Armageddon is a smart choice for this kind of content because the planet already carries weight in Warhammer lore. It is a strategically vital hive world and industrial hub, and it has been the battleground for the First, Second, and Third Wars for Armageddon. That background gives a basing guide real narrative leverage. You are not just sprinkling grit on a base, you are tying a model to one of the setting’s most recognizable war-torn landscapes.

For painters, the appeal is simple:

• it gives you a clear visual target
• it suits infantry, tanks, and characters alike
• it turns a tabletop army into a force with a consistent battlefield identity

Emile A239 shows the other side of the same hobby coin

On the other end of the spectrum, DRPA is highlighting an Emile A239 tutorial for Halo Flashpoint built around the Noble Team set. This is not a terrain recipe. It is a lesson in making a very different miniature line feel finished, sharp, and game-ready through careful armor work, detail picking, and freehand markings.

That distinction matters. Halo miniatures ask for a different kind of discipline than Warhammer infantry. The armor surfaces are cleaner, the shapes are more defined, and the decorative marks have to stay crisp if you want the model to read properly from tabletop distance. The tutorial’s value is that it treats those demands as a process, not a mystery. If you like sci-fi infantry but want a project that rewards control more than weathering tricks, this is the sort of build that keeps the brush hand honest.

The timing is good too, because the Noble Team expansion is a substantial release in its own right. Mantic Games says it includes six MasterCraft resin miniatures, plus UNSC man cannons and rules for Big Team Battles. That is the kind of kit that gives a painter multiple entry points: squad painting, centerpiece characters, and the chance to match the models to the game’s larger battle feel.

The podcast ties the whole package together

The academy is also pointing readers toward episode 29 of Beyond the Brush, the official DRPA podcast. The episode is titled We started a new game studio & Armageddon unboxing!, it is dated 6 May 2026, and it runs 1 hour and 12 minutes. The episode also reveals the name of the new games studio: Death Reaper Games.

That is more than side content. It reinforces the same workflow the tutorials are built around. A basing video leads into hobby chat, the hobby chat leads into the unboxing, and the unboxing feeds the next painting session. For a subscription site, that loop is the point. You are not just paying for isolated lessons, you are buying into a steady stream of prompts that keep the bench active.

Why the model works for painters who want to stay in motion

DRPA also makes its target audience clear: every video is aimed at beginner and intermediate painters, with some advanced techniques thrown in for painters who want to push a little further. That is the sweet spot for a subscription service that wants to stay useful over time. The lessons are accessible enough that you can start one after work, but specific enough that they still sharpen your results.

At £4.99 per month, the membership is positioned like an ongoing hobby tool rather than a luxury splurge. You are paying for a pipeline of projects: terrain that anchors your army, character work that tightens your brush control, and a podcast that keeps the broader hobby context in view. That mix is exactly what keeps a painting routine from going stale.

The smartest thing about this week’s lineup is that it does not pretend painting lives in one lane. Armageddon basing, Halo infantry, a new studio announcement, and a podcast episode all point in the same direction: give the hobbyist a reason to sit down tonight, then give them something concrete to finish by the weekend.