Definite Feeling Of Making Progress

Despite having problems, things seem to be  heading in the right direction. I have an army done and working on the idea for the next one. 

When I started the Sludge project (three years gone) the plan was to give them what I understood to be the trencher vibe. This involved using British WW1 style helmets and gear. I got hold of some helmets but they were too big for what I wanted. Very nice though and exactly the look I was after. I was also after backpacks. What I was looking at was going to cost about £100 just for the backpacks. So I changed the plan to not doing that. The whole production run was significantly cheaper than £100.

Oddly, I now find myself with the urge to do an Atomfall game which would require a some British bits from WW1/2. I nearly put some Sludge minis in the plan for this week. When I do get round to some new units, I should have some spare WW1/2 heads. So I see even more units for Sludge somewhere down the line. 

Having done enough to call a project finished (for now at least) makes me feel good. This leaves me open to new projects, which also feels good. Quar, Atomfallish and Stargrave (mk IV I think) are all coming up. This Quar's War is on hold due to release schedules. I have a few things I can do for Atomfall (which isn't technically on hold but I was waiting on The Damned to be delivered and the fact that I need some British Uniform paint) and Stargrave (also on hold pending a release at the end of May) but I have to finish the stuff in the queue painted first. 

I guess the real reason for wanting to do Atomfall is the decade long desire to buy and paint a wicker man mini. This is coupled with the excuse to buy a Blue Police Box. I just want one so I can put into pictures, not all of it, but just to hint that it is there.

I haven't been able to finish Atomfall. I get to much motion blur and even vertigo from watching a screen for too long. Games especially. What I have seen has been really good. I think its the vibe It the reminds me of childhood visits to The Lakes as a child in the 1970s. So I think its the next project.  

Start Of The Week - Brown Alert

Over the years I have come to recognise the signs in my life. One of them is tidying up. It's not that my house is a bomb site. Unless my daughter has been around. In which case it probably is. Most of the time it's tidy enough but not as tidy as I would probably want.

When I have something to do that I want to put off I start tidying up. I got a lot done last week but I didn't finish anything. This does not help my state of mind. So I have been tidying up. The workbench is clearer but far from clean. I even found time to finish my "Brown Alert" sign (if you want something to look like a turd I can absolutely recommend gor grunter fur. I suppose it is more like a beige alert now. 

So I think I have my twenty minis for the week. The one on the bottom left was purchased second hand, twenty years ago. In fairness, I think I got three of them and the other two were painted. 

There is a plan for next week, which I need to prep for. I have set an unofficial goal to paint all the metal minis I buy this year. I am hoping to get this done before the Phalanx Show in June. I also have an eye on Atomfall. 

This isn't much different to yesterday's picture but it seems to be motivating me. Maybe they need a bit more work than I thought.

Then there are a few random bits to take care of. If I get the chance.

End Of The Week - Disaster

Firstly I would like to blame everyone else. This is not remotely fair on the rest of the world. It's all on me. It's not that I haven't tried. I do hate the word try. This is the first time this year that I have failed to finish my ten mini goal.

I've spent a bit more time with my daughter than usual and another two days doing stuff with family. Then I have had car issues. And phone issues. It's also the week that I decided to work on my hex terrain, after watching the materials gather dust for six months. To finish everything off there was oblivion. Throw in some massive migraines and I am where I am.

The bench had twenty minis to work on this week. For the most part they all have a base coat. It's a few more hours work and I should be there. To be honest I could depend on the power of contrast paint and call about half of them done. That would be cheating though.

Despite falling to make my target, I am quite sanguine about it. I am close to finishing them. I dare say that I will finish these and whatever next week brings.

Family And The Start Of The Week

Yes this is Tuesday. Do not really the start of anything. But, well , you know, Easter etc. I have no excuse. But I am doing all this stuff for me.

A good chunk of my day was spent with family. Then there was the bit with Oblivion. Then there was the bit at the bench. It was the family stuff that I enjoyed the most. I am beginning to question where I am in a good way.

Painting wise I haven't got that much done. I did do some priming done. As I haven't got the riders done yet, and the riders need to have a duplicated colour scheme on their foot counterparts yet, decided to take what I could, the horses and the foot figures without mounts, and combined them with stuff already on the bench. 

It's only Tuesday and I am already thinking about the end of the week and weather I will get there.  This week is another broad range of minis. I am trying to prioritise the stuff I have purchased this year. There is a Stargrave mini in there that is several years old and a couple of super hero minis I got at the same time. Ish. Maybe. So probably seven or so years ago.

Having A Plan But Not A Goal

I am starting to see that I have a plan but not a goal. Perhaps this is a metaphor for life. My life especially. There are plenty of figures in the queue. For the most part I think of myself as happy in my work. I hear the phrase "here for a good time, not a long time". Which should be a more apt metaphor.

It is fair to say I have a good sized lead mountain. This is now somewhat smaller than the plastic one. There isn't much in the way of resin. By no means the biggest but enough to keep me going. Of the stuff I plan to paint, and assuming I can keep up the pace, I should be at the end of the metal queue before December (subject to whim and random acquisitions).

Whilst there is now a bigger queue of plastic, this doesn't work the same. With Stargrave for instance, I wanted about twenty minis and got eighty. It did give me an excuse to use the Frostrgrave gnolls. I usually end up with twenty to thirty freebies from magazines each year. Then there are a lot of collateral second hand purchases. I want that and it comes with this. I even have a couple of boxes of gifts. 

There are probably a  thousand plastic minis ready for the right project. I paid full price for less than a hundred of them and a lot cost around ten pence a mini. Add in the extra bits kept for kitbashing. I have another three hundred or so coming from various sources this year. These were cheap but not especially so. Additionally I plan to buy another hundred or so for "planned" projects. 

So I have a plan for Atomfall, Quar, and The Last War. Stargrave might be in the pipe. I have plenty and I will see what comes out for the Nickstarter this month. I can even think that I might end up doing The Silver Bayonet. There is a British supplement coming and I have some plastic minis in the collateral pile. So I can see me buying the two Brit sets.

I guess the reason that the Quar and The Last War appeal is that I have a plan for terrain. Not just a plan but I have the materials as well. This would be using my hex terrain at its core. That said, I have enough for a sci-fi and a desert project too. 

Remember

I know today the news has been dominated by a death. Much more important than the one I am thinking about today. Although a confirmed atheists, it's not good news. Despite the Pope's last meeting being with JD Vance and me hoping he works that magic when he gets home, the day goes on.

I am pretty sure she would be critiquing my work.

Today, for me at least, is all about my mum. If waster Sunday is about someone coming back from the dead, Easter Monday is about death. Today more so than usual. I've lost count of the years now. Her death was technically on the 13th but in the year she passed, the 13th was Easter Monday and this is the day I chose to remember. So as I watch my daughter play with the slime she got with her Easter kittycorn (no......just really don't ask) I am thinking about my mum.

There isn't much to say really. I miss her every day. My dad too. I wish they were here with me. But they are not. So I get on with it. Life is for the living. Time is the only commodity worth having. And little metal and plastic men.

End Of The Week - Happy Zombie Jesus Day (20)

Happy Easter. Hope it was a good one. It's been a busy day for me but tomorrow is looking like the day I will remember. For good and ill. A story for another day perhaps. I've spent a lot of time with my daughter this week and I have had some happy days.

So I hit the target for the week. And then some. There were a few "in progress" minis in there. Other than the Stargrave stuff, everything else has been in the queue for less than a year. The end result is I did a bit better than I had planned. Keeping on the path to my first year of painting a thousand minis.

I sorted out the details on the bases from last week. Then I have managed to prep the stuff from Salute. If I can get round to priming them, some of them will be in the queue for next week. I think the plan is to finish these over the next two weeks. Despite the Easter holidays being over, this is still looking like a busy week. Twenty minis is about right. I suppose I could push it a bit.

One of my many plans was to have mounted and dismounted characters. So this is part of the process. There are two lots of five or six of these and I will throw in some more foot dark age/fantasy minis to bring the total up to twenty. 

The plan after that is Atomfall. In part I am delaying this in the hopes that Wargames Atlantic will begin shipping The Damned. I can sense the stress that will fall upon me when I have to put all that plastic together. There are a few more purchases to make anyway so it is a ways off. If I get the minis done, I will buy the vehicles I want and work on some terrain.

On top of all of this I have been putting off the next phase of the hex terrain. The MDF bases are done, they just need to be glued to the foam. The foam has now been hanging around long enough to gather a substantial amount of dust. I can see me tinkering with that too.

Good Days

Another day with my daughter and I am feeling a little bit of bliss. Once she has hit the inevitable wall, and she is safely asleep, I do some tidying up and then on to some painting. I am exhausted but this settles my mind. It's now gone midnight and I should be in bed.

Not quite got a first coat on everything yet but I imagine I am fairly close. If I can get that done by close of play Friday I will be in a good place. Most are still a bit blobby but I am getting there.

Somewhere along the way a few more minis have been added. If I have extra paint on the pallete I might as well use it. I have no expectations of getting them finished this week, but you never know. 

Time to check on my daughter, make sure she is safe, give her a kiss on her head and tell her I love her.

Start Of The Week - Mixing It Up

After the purchases at the weekend I wanted to paint the new minis. They are ssssoooooo shiny. As I have been too busy to prime them today, and stand no chance of priming them during daylight hours this week, I am back to the queue. 

This means it is a mixture of minis. Some of which I got at Salute the last time I went, which was 2019. Five of the fifteen are stuff I purchased at York earlier this year.A few dark age minis, some fantasy, four post-apocalyptic types, three modern ish spy-fi minis and a couple for Stargrave. 

Aside from the dark age and fantasy stuff, I have no real plan for the others, so are just for funsies. In fairness, whilst there is a plan, the fantasy stuff is way off. I should really have a plan. I used to say failing to plan is planning to fail. Now I say failing to plan saves me about thirty minutes a day.

End Of The Week - Its Been A Hard One (16) (+32)

My plan for the week was for fifteen minis. Which, under the circumstances, was a big ask. I managed sixteen. I am saying that they are done. The bases need some work but they need a few shields and a couple of weapons.

I got some stuff from Salute. A long story. A long, long day yesterday. Almost a disaster and not as much fun as it sounds. More of that another time. One of the things I have always wanted to do is have some mounted characters and dismounted counterparts. I have a few, now I have a few more. Then there are a few militant clerics and some minis that will also end up as dark age clerics.

As for next week I haven't made up my mind yet. It's going to be another busy week. I think I am going to find the time for painting although I am not sure it will happen. In the end I will probably pick out another fifteen but I will be happy if I get to ten. I might even find the time to tinker a bit more with this week's work.

Almost Done For The Week

I now have some time to paint. It's looking like tomorrow (today) will be a bit of a wash. Mainly because I am going to Salute🙂. So I thought I would push things a bit. So expecting a big push on Sunday.

I appear to have acquired another mini in the queue which is from Crooked Dice. As he has a fur cloak so I figured he should be with the ulfhunder. He was bought to be a Viking cleric. He fits in with the history. As there isn't much to the history, I could paint him pink and give him a feather boa and it would be impossible to call it anachronistic.

Given the amount of time I have had this week, the progress is better than expected. Given I have been having a good time away from the bench, I am happy with the progress. I'm not sure that The New Cruelty feels the same way.

Analysis Paralysis

Some would call it analysis paralysis. You know when you have filled up a shopping cart more than a dozen times and you have either wandered off the page or it has timed out. assuming of course it wasn't a deliberate choice I would say it's dementia if I didn't know better.

The problem is not having a plan. Or at least a plan that I want to follow up on. I am about three temporary obsessions in so far this year. The Quar, something WWW I (but not Trench Crusade), and most recently Atomfall. Over the years I have come to the conclusion that if I bench any purchases for at least a week and I still want to buy after a week, then it is something I really want to do.

For the Atomfall project I initially did the maths and what I wanted to spend was about £600. Which is a bit too much. So I went away and had a word with myself. Until it comes in below £200. It helps that I don't have to spend all the money at the same time. To save some cash I was looking to buy stuff from one company. That was a mistake.

Underlying all of this is the fact that that I don't really have a plan. I looked back at what I had said at new year. This did not help. I didn't have a plan then either. So not much help. The Atomfall idea would end up with enough bits for a British WWW I force. Yes I know that Atomfall is technically set on the 1960s but I need gas masks. I am sure there is some stuff from Wargames Atlantic I can use instead. Then I seem to recall that there is a zombie set with British Policemen's helmets. It was also calling for a lot of bits of boxed sets. So the possibility for all sorts of bits always seems like a good idea. 

Then the idea kind of morphed. Perhaps I shouldn't have watched the wicker man last week. It occurs to me that I have had an urge to buy a wicker man for the tabletop. And a TARDIS. I have been contemplating a Five Klicks from the Zone campaign. I have been playing in a Five Leagues from the Borderlands campaign and really enjoying it. This means several forces and multiple bad guys. I have plenty of stuff but not much that I could use. Some Northstar Cultists would work. There isn't much WW II stuff but I was thinking I have an SA80 that with the right paintjob might pass as an EM3. I have been saying its the bastard son of an SLR and an SA80 for years.

Then there is The Damned. I am advised that they should start shipping soon. Ish. After two years of waiting. The original plan has long since gone by. So I have to have an idea for the fifty or so frames I am going to end up with. I suspect I will have to cut them off the frames to store them. This is going to take some time. This would do some bad guys but probably no more than two forces

When I looked into it, the list of kits quickly morphed. Late War British, British S.A.S., British WW 1, and some Partisans. To start with. I could buy some Villagers from the Traitors gate thing (shirt sleeve arms, top hats and who  doesn't want a crazy bad guy with a hand puppet?). Whilst I have some sci-fi beastmen coming, some fantasy ones would be useful. I am thinking Ramsey Campbell's Goatswood. Another opfor and some mutation bits. To be honest i think they don't exist so will have to make do with the stuff from Wargames Atlantic. I quietly think their stuff is pretty good. If I had to pick a favourite it would be a hard choice between them and Northstar.

I am short a few female heads (I was thinking the Northstar Scavengers II kit) and maybe some demons (again from Northstar but Frostgrave). Then there were a lot of Northstar kits I wanted to buy anyway. A limited plan turned into seven boxed sets and three 1950s/60s vehicles from Spectre. Then terrain I can most fudge.

It has to be said this is a touch over £200 but still better than £600. I suspect I will trim what I want a bit more, lean into what I have a lot more and somewhere along the way. SOOO... hopefully end somewhere sub £300 in a few months. Rather than pontificating, I will see what happens when I get my stuff from Wargames Atlantic. Whilst the project has passed, they are still goodlooking minis.

A Quick One

After a long day I am now about to go to bed. I have managed about three hours of painting over the last three days which is better than I thought. It's not a massive amount but it is progress. I've had to tire my daughter out with fun to get here. A hard life. 🤭

I've had some GW contrast paints on my bench for some time. Unless there is a specific need, they are usually the last choice, just because they are harder to use. So I went looking for the right bottles to decant them into. This was harder work than I thought. My paint racks fit Vallejo bottles. Empty bottles used to be easy to get hold of. I've experienced two retailers denying they exist. In the end I ordered them from Poland. Times are changing.

I now have a reasonable collection of paints. If I had to replace them I could opt to buy a second hand car instead. So probably not going to buy any more any time soon. Although I am eyeing some of the new British army paints and John Blanche sets. I may even have the space to store them.

Start Of The Week - Early To Bed

Here I am again. Listening to ever slight snoring. Which makes me smile. Still it's time to get on with the matters at hand. No more Sludge. For a while at least.

Back to the core of what I do. Dark Ages, specially Vikings. More Vikings. I wanted to be able to do a unit of Ulfhunder. That's berserkers without the good P.R., for the initiated. Then there was a small unit of cavalry. Not a big call for them in a Viking army. I also acquired some Saxons. Mainly because I have an NPC in the game I run who is Ulfberht the swordsmith. The fact that there are a lot of Ulfs this week is coinincidental. This may, or may not, be an actual person. But it seemed like a nice idea. Then there are a few extra Saxons for good measure. So this would be fifteen minis, by my calculations. Not a big number this week but I am expecting to be busy.

End Of The Week - By The Skin Of My Teeth (30)

Despite thinking this week was going to be a busy, I finished the plan at 11pm. It's all good. The last of the line units I had planned and a light line unit, which was purchased, part painted, a few weeks ago. It has been a bit of a slog but a rewarding one.

Easter holidays are about to happen. This means that I doubt I will paint as many little plastic men. I am sure my daughter won't mind and neither will I. For some reason I feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Next week is a bit up in the air. Whilst I have some more Sludge stuff prepared and ready to go, I don't think I have it in me. It is looking like I have a free weekend so maybe I will get something done. I suspect it will be whatever I think is going to be easy and probably more like ten minis than the thirty plus of the last few weeks.

I am now at over three hundred minis painted this year. The average is more than twenty a week. As a very wise man once told me, you have to get your streaks in.

The New Going Out

Once upon a time I would leaving a club round about now. With my sleep pattern being all over the place I am now wide awake at 2:30am. I am trying to think when I last had an alcoholic drink. Probably Christmas 2023. Rather than thinking about going home, I am home and reasonable happy with my attempts to catch up on my painting target for the week. ROCK AND ROLL!!!!

Whilst they are still at the bobby stage, they are a lot closer to being complete. The base layer is almost done. Then I have to look at titivating them a bit. I am now a lot happier. It looks like I might actually hit my target. Should I wake up in time.

Pushing My Luck

So I have been subject to a distinct lack of focus this week. It's not that I haven't got stuff done but if there is a hard way to get there then I have taken it. I haven't picked up a brush since Tuesday and then it was just to put some wash on the minis at the back end of the queue. 

So I have a decided to put myself against myself. So I have twelve down and eighteen to go. Before Sunday. Instead of making more counters, or paint racks or drawers, I intend to paint. I have a little over forty eight hours to get them done.

My fatigue has got to me this week. My own fault. Instead of painting, I decided to pull up the sycamore trees that have started to grow in my garden. I can safely say I have killed more trees than anyone else I know. There are three trees on the far side of my fence at the bottom of my garden. I can't say that there aren't things in this world that I hate more than sycamores, but pulling the little darlings out of the ground is right up there.

Start Of The Week - Almost At The End And Halfway Through

Unsurprisingly this is a week that is going to be all about Sludge. This probably isn't going to be the last week but it is very close to it. 

So I acquired some part painted minis. These were really for Turnip 28 but will nicely for what I am after. They won't be part of my army but they will make for a suitable opposition force. There are only twelve of them so no a full unit. 

Then we are finally on to the crossbowmen. The first will be a unit of 18 line crossbowman. They have some benefits in the game but really it is just an affectation. 

Finally the unit of six jagers with crossbows. The plan for these is to have pavaises. I haven't put backpacks on these but maybe I should. 

Changes On The Paint Station

It's been a while since I did any major changes to the paint bench or in the paints that I use. A person very close to me has given me some paints to try out. They don't need a specific painting are so I was thinking maybe I don't either.

I have to say it has been quite liberating. The new paints are quite cheap and they are available in a lot more shops. If you are a two thin coats fan, these are great as you can really layer up the colours when you have to put in a minimum of five coats.