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.

The End Of The Week (24)

So the end of the week is here. Pretty sure my daughter had given the The Rona. I feel like kack and I can't taste anything. Not sure about smell as I am so full of snot. But I have managed the target of the week and I have already started on the stuff for next week.

This now completes my first two units for Sludge, both line infantry. They are now stuck to bases which need some texture. I can't say this is my best work. Well I could but this would be an outrageous lie. It is however good enough for the purpose intended, An army that is rarely going to get played.

For some reason I am feeling the need for structure. I have the bingo, but feel the need for something with a bit more crunch. So I have a plan.

2/3         24 mixed Sludge jagers/shock troops, bodyguards, foot knights

9/3         18 sludge pike build Sludge cavalry.

16/3         6 ulfhunder 3 mounted viking 

23/3       18 sludge zouaves

30/3       12 modern ish

6/4     12 Sludge mounted

13/4       12 da/fantasy 

20/4       12 sci fi ish

27/4      12 Sludge mounted 

4/5        12 Stargrave 

11/5          ? battletech 

18/5      6 Sludge crossbow, 18 Sludge crossbow

27/5        to OPFOR or not to OPFOR?

Now for next week. I wanted some more bodyguards. Just for a visual shorthand, bodyguards are equipped with axes. Then I wanted a couple of officers and a unit of foot knights. I can't remember if this is four or six figures, I will have what I will have. Then there are two units which could be jagers or shock troopers.

Then I am planning another few weeks of Sludge after this although I may have a palate cleanse. My plan as to paint all the stuff I got in York at show this year. All of this is now primed and based aside from the stuff I wanted to prime white. mostly Vikings but some modernish stuff too.

I haven't done any Sludge cavalry yet and I have a pike unit to go. I have two line units for an opfor done already. I have plans for a unit of zouves and a unit of crossbows. The zouves may end up being some Scots Napoleonics or some actual ACW Zouaves. At some point I got six Napoleonic infantry from the cover of a magazine.  which will do for shock troopers or jagers. I also want a jager unit with crossbows. I want some knightly horse and some heavy and light cavalry. If I go all in then I might think about hussars. I also want a mounted commander and associated mounted bodyguard. This project might run and run. I need a chaplain and a sorcerer. Finally, for the stuff I have a plan for, I need to do some artillery. I have what I need for this, I just need to put it together. 

Then there is stuff I don't have a form plan for. Saints for one. I need to source a behemoth that fits my army. A fifty four millimetre knight with some work maybe? Needs some google-fu. The expansion for Sludge, Sludge Nations, also allows for a flamethrowers. Always fun, unless you are on the receiving end of course. Finally, well in the sense that I could give up here, I need some crawlers. A light and a heavy one at least. My next project is going to be This Quar's War. This is a game that is slightly better resourced and has the right sort of tanks. If I don't put tank commanders in them they will work.  Finally, ideas for which I don't have a plan for, yet, are a sacred icon and artificer with a repeating musket. What was the name of the character from Sharpe again?  

Moving on after that I need to be thinking about the future. I have a few plans for a fantasy army for Midgard. I have dome some unit trays for this as I think I may well get a game in. My next purchase is probably going to be This Quar's War. If only because it is a game that no one but me will play. This is going to be another situation where I will be buying both sides. This isn't such a big deal as armies don't stretch much beyond thirty minis. This is probably going to require less than one hundred figures to cover all possibilities I can think of.  This requires the next Quar box set to come out. 

After that, or maybe before, I am thinking about Halfings. They don't fit any real plan though. My gaming life goal, well one of them is to have a mini that I can use for each character class, race and gender. Where possible, there should be a choice. I mean a thief often looks like a ranger right? 

Just in terms of overall numbers, I am doing well. I have already manged to substantially paint more than I have in the in the last two years combined. If I can keep the pace up, which is a bit of an ask, this will be my first year where I painted a thousand figures. The New Cruelty is pleased regardless.

Start of the Week

I can feel a migraine coming. It feels like a big one. Sounds are making my ear drums hurt. I will be getting the precursors soon so time to stop.

It's full speed ahead for Sludge. So I primed what I needed and a few more after a bit of mini prep. Then I have given everything a really harsh wash. I use my own mix which is a bit darker than most of the others you can buy. 

The week ahead is a busy one. Twenty four minis may be ambitious. Especially with the migraines, which seem to be coming pretty thick and fast at the moment.

Time to find a dark room and an audiobook.

End Of The Week (31.5)

Here we are again. I got way more done than expected as I fixed my lighting issues quicker than expected. It also that I needed to throw myself into something. 

So I think I finished off most of the short arses from last week. In addition there is a pig from two weeks ago. There are a few more in the pipe some of which are newly purchased.

My plan for next week was to paint a unit for Sludge. Sludge being a game that captured the internet for a couple of weeks and one that has stayed with me. I fear it is going to go down the same hole as Titansgrave. 

Somehow I finished these figures this week. Not a whole unit though. Somewhere along the line I had mixed up the minis from two units. So next week I think I will finish the two units off with a few more besides. If things go well I might try and finish another smaller unit. I needed to knock up about six more minis on top of what I had.

Basing may be an issue. The units should be in groups of three on 40mm bases. I am not sure I like that. It means that they can never be used for anything else. Mind you, I am not sure what I could use them for anything else.

The above is my reminder for what paint I used. 

I even found some time to work on the rats. The Skaven Blood Bowl team is coming along. I was sure there were a few more. I found two more.

The weather was good the other day. The first day I considered priming minis. So that's what I did. Picking a figure, that totalled about seventy five more minis for the queue. I am fairly confident about getting them done. 

This also gave me a chance to crank the laser up and finish another box of shelves. 

Getting so much done feels like it should be a good thing. In reality I suspect bad things are coming. To deal with this I have been making myself busy. The last three years, if not the last ten have not been good for me. It's not been without it's moments, the high light being about five years ago, the trend has been very difficult to map. It is currently trending downward. 

So maybe next week will be a good one.

Midweekish Madness

I got tired of waiting for the bulbs to arrive. Having been told it would be Friday, they arrived the following day, whilst I was out. Given the new delivery date of Saturday I purchased another bulb as I happened to be in a shop. Today was a good day for painting.

So I made some progress. I even tried to stick with the plan. My primary target was to finish off the remaining minis from short arse week and even a pig I missed from the week before. It would definitely have benefitted from being stripped and started again but what the hell. There are two left and these just need details.

Then I wanted to make progress on the Blood Bowl Skaven. These are still a long way off but I think I am a lot closer to having a finished first layer. There is still some tidying up to do and they are a bit bobby.

Looking forward I need a plan for next week. I have been looking at This Quar's War all week. The bingo plan calls for a complete army. Being the latest shiny thing, they could fit the bill. In reality I had kind of promised myself that the army, and probably enough figures to do two forces, was going to be Sludge. So I finally put them in the queue. I had done a few test paint jobs and these made it into the job lot. Plus a bodyguard. As this is an army paint scheme, I anticipate this will take a week. They are not short arses but I guess the surface area is a little less than most of the stuff I have painted recently. Then I have the urge to paint the Viking minis, especially the horses.

After I finished this I had a massive migraine. I suspect this is going to put me off painting and pretty much everything else for a few days.

End Of The Week (32.5)

I started the week with a plan. It was a good one too. But no plan survives contact with children. So currently watching the little one running around a trampoline park. At least at the time I am writing this. I am claiming thirty and a half minis for the week. The half and some of the whole numbers being animals.

There was a twitchy sphincter moment when I didn't think I was going to get close to finishing what I started. I got some time after the little one went to sleep and more or less caught up/+. I am now nicely North of one hundred painted minis. So on balnce, I am happy and The New, New Cruelty fins the situation acceptable.

So there were a few bits that needed finishing from last week. The five armed civilians, which I think are Scotia, have been hanging around since last week so it was nice to get them done. There was also a female crossbow woman from  Northstar's Frostgrave range, that needed a few spots of paint. Other than the pigs, all the animals were started and finished this week, whilst the pigs just required a few details. Don't ask where they came from as they were a random purchase on the market. The darker animal between the bugs is a bit of a mystery. I was assuming this was a domesticated dog but it has some prominent brows which could be nascent horns, making it a goat. The treasure pile was given to me by a friend, in the late nineties. It had been sat in a bits box for some time after being purchased from a bargain bin so its probably a late eighties GW mini.

The main focus of the week was the guys in suits. These should work for any modern game and some sci-fi stuff. They are a mix of Future Wars and Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang from Copplestone.

As I have the laser cutter up and running, this has been used for a bit.  I might be playing Midgard: Heroic Battles so I thought I would get ahead with some bases, counters and measuring gauges. I have also finished the one hundred and thirty of so hex tiles for the next terrain hex project.

I have prepped a fair number of figures. Most of what I got in York is now bases on textured bases. I was planning on painting these but they are not primed. This should give me enough figures for an ulfhunder unit for  Midgard. What's above is about half of them.

Next week is all about the little guys.

The First 48

I set myself the target of painting a figure I purchased within forty eight hours. As mentioned I did some shopping yesterday. Just to prove it to the god of painting, this is the evidence of my success. At one point I was told that grandiose ideas was an early sign of madness. Clearly not in my case.🤔

For extra authenticity he is still a little bit damp.

Not my best work but not too shabby. One more priest for the White Twin.

End Of The Week (10)

So another end of the week. I feel like its been a good week despite time being limited. A little bit of car problems, migraines, lack of sleep and the tail end of the bad weather didn't help but I got where I needed to be. I had my ten figures done my Wednesday and then real life got in the way. Some progress was made but really this was about laying the ground for next week I finished another couple of Star Wars Legion figures so things seem to be doing okay. I am sick of the sight of Star Wars Legion stuff at the moment, so whilst I have no plans to take them off the bench they might be the background project of background projects. I should probably find the rest of the bits of the tauntaun riders. The New, New Cruelty and the Bingo seem to be helping me out.

I've worked a bit on one of my other goals for the year which is to finish a Blood Bowl Team. I have some more skaven somewhere and a star player. Until I find the rest of the rats, this is going to stay as the background project. Really need that rat ogre although looking at the price point maybe a proxy will do. Skitter Stab Stab and Hakflem Scuttlespike would also be nice.

My plan for next week mostly involves some post-apoaclyptic minis. They are mostly Crooked Dice with a few Crusader Miniatures thrown in. I needed a couple more so I added a couple more sci-fi bits from Scotia. I have also manged four posts in a week. I am very proud but I can feel another migraine coming so time to go. 

The First Day OF The New, New Cruelty

I started out with the idea to do bingo to keep me motivated for the year. It works for other people, so why not give it a try. So I woke up and got on with it. I was looking at a good way to kick start the year. I have had a tin filled with work in process minis stuck on old GW paint pots which have sat there for at least two years. Some of them have taken a little bit of a bashing and they were all covered in fluff. 

For the last month or so they have been the background project. To the uninitiated this is something on the bench that isn't my primary project but is  something I started to paint with my usual gusto that has gotten lost with the appearance of the new shiny. Generally they only get touched when I have some spare paint on the palette.

So as per the rules of bingo, I have finished the backlog, painted ten minis and have achieved a bonus by painting ten more. As the rules call for figures completed in 2025, with the emphasis on finished, I am claiming three boxes. I can claim 106 items so if I keep up this pace I will hit my target by early February. Ah got to love the hubris of a New Years resolution.

Just to annoy myself I have lost a Wookie. Not a full sized one obviously. There should be four and I can only find three. There is more Star Wars Legion stuff coming. I think tomorrow I will finish a good chunk of these done.

2025 Bingo, The New, New Cruelty And Lessons in Prevarication

It is time to reinstate The New Cruelty!!! Would that make it The New New Cruelty? For the uninitiated, this is my way of getting things done. Well painting and gaming stuff done. The Big Bug put a stop to it as well as life in general. Well here we are.

My energy on the low side lately. A side effect on the Big Bug. It seems to get in the way a lot. So in an attempt to move things forward I thought I would pay attention to the wider gaming community and a bit from the wider world too. Yes I am talking Painting Bingo as an adjunct to The New, New Cruelty. 

Then I thought maybe I could widen it out a bit. So it started with Painting Bingo. The big bug has taken away a good chunk of my mojo. Maybe having something to nark off would help. Then I thought if I could get myself to paint at least ten minis a month that would be an achievement. I mean I would like to do ten a week. The same should probably go for printing 3D minis. So I figured of I managed to double a target I could get a bonus. 

Then my brain got working. Which is hard work itself. Back In the Days of the Gold Old Days of The New Cruelty that I was managing four times the output and I had less on. So maybe I would put in the opportunity for some bonuses. If I manage to do double a target then I get extra jam. But only up to so much.

 

I figured that maybe I could spread it out to the rest of my life. The big bug has made reading difficult. Well reading anything of size. So maybe I could read a novel a month. Then I thought about putting some goals in there. 

So here we are. Instead of doing I am farting about with perhaps the most involved Painting Bingo ever. Such is my way. When I need an example of what procrastination looks like, I will come and look at this page/.It has taken a while to get it written because I keep running on empty. Its a good way to make me fart about for a few hours. The blocks for something about the way are really there because I can't think of something to put in there. I will know them when it happens.

Not much point in doing this if I don't get anything out of it. So I was going to give myself £50 for every block I completed. Then I worked out how much that would be. That seemed a lot. So then I thought maybe tone it down a little. Maybe half that.

Really this is an ambitious goal for me. My energy levels are low. Perhaps the lowest ever. Thanks to the Big Bug. So I am looking at this as part of a recovery plan. Exercise should form a part of this too. Maybe that is just a step to far at the moment. Getting the energy to do the basics is hard enough without medication.

End Of The Week - Better than expected (37)

It's not been such a bad week for figure painting. Most of what I have been working on for the last three weeks is now done and somenew stuff has made it through to completion. I am not feeling finishing the last two figues off for some reason but I am sure I will get round to them soon enough. I did start the Lizardmen skinks and have finished the first twelve and I have started the next dozen which are well on the way to being finished.

Skinks. There are rather a lot of them and more yet to do. These are a nice easy paint job as they are mostly low-detail plastic. There will be more next week and probably the week after that too. I now really hate turquoise.

This guy is the Frostgrave Snow Troll. He looks better here than he does in real life. I can see a few gaming uses for him so he seemed like a worthwhile project.

These are all Wargames Foundry  Street Violence figures. I got a job lot of eBay more than ten years ago when I was foing a lot of moden role playing. This is a nice range of figures and relatively easy to paint.

More Street Violence figues from the Foundry. These come from a coupleof different sets but as they are all dressed in green this seemed like the place to put them. Thre is no real purpose other than I was tired of them sitting there.

Artizan designs is where I got these cowboys from. Thy have just been sat around fo a while, the best part of five years I guess. When I first started painting 28mm figues for the blog I think it was some moe of the figues I got with these. How times fly.

This is really a mixed bag. On the far left is a Frostgrave vampire. I don't mcuh like this figure and I struggled to get him to look right. Second left is a Reaper gladiator whcih I got about fifteen years ago making it the oldest of todays crop. I am not sure about the crazy lady on the inner right but I think she came fom Black Tree Designs. On the outer left is the latest of what I have been calling the last of the Viking project. This figure came from Gripping Beast about five years ago when I first started the project off.

There is supposed to be another pictue here but it seems to be having problems loading it up. It's another four Street Violence figures. Some are meant to be members of the A-Team from the eighties which I guess dates the range or at least the designer. he others are just some random figues I got in the bulk buy.

I guess all of the Foundry stuff was set to do double duty for modern and post-apocalypse stuff. On the whole I like thema lot and they fit well with my Copplestone stuff. Definately more at the heroic end of the market.

Generally I would call this a good week but it has been a grind. The New, New Cruelty is happy enough. In genreal I have been just about okay with what I have achieved this year. I am glad I have almost finished most of what I have set out to do and I am now almost back on track again if not still slightly ahead. Given that I usually class figures like the skinks as half a figure I am still behind (should be closer to 31 and not 37).

End Of The Week - ?/^&$%" (0)

Some progress has been made, never as much as I would like. Most of the current project and the background project now has a base colour and a wash although there are a few I have barely touched. Almost not detailing has been done and that is what generally takes the time. What I have done so far looks pretty good to me. If I pushed it today I would probably finish but I have friends here so that is unlikely to happen. My plan is basically to add another five figures into the mix. If I can finish them next week it would put be back on track. A bit of basing of some more elves (alfar) has been done. These are planned as black alfar for the Viking Game.

Today's post is a little bit early so maybe I am being a little bit premature in saying this but I haven't finished any figures again this week. It has been a very busy week for me. Painting has played a major part in it but unfortunately the paint has been emulsion and the objects involved were walls. Someone now has a Slytherin themed bedroom. After a series of some hard and some fun days, painting has not been on the top of the agenda.

Instead of painting I have been board gaming. This has been an enjoyable distraction. There may be some more of that next week. I will probably get around to posting some pictures of the games when I get round to it.

End Of The Week - Not My Best Work (15)

Earlier on I was expecting a much busier day. The time of year and the end of daylight savings time, with some lack of sleep made and with what I was expecting to be doing today made time look a little short. Sunday is usually the day I do any last minute work to finish of my plan for the week. So I was was relatively happy when on the way to a jog I tripped over the curb, skinned my knee and fingers and did some damage to my foot. With all plans out of the window it was back home to put my leg up. And paint.

Despite some misgivings I have achieved my plan and surpassed my expectations. The New, New Cruelty is happy. I have tinkered about with some terrain and got along way through the prepping process for a load of figures. Not a bad week.

Some of the figures this week have been a bit entertaining to paint. The Rebels and the Star Saga scientists suffer from some flatness of detail. Nothing wrong with this but it is difficult to make them shine. The three Malifaux figures were good fun to paint. Lots of nice detail. At the end of the process I was quite happy with what I had done with them. Although looking at them now I can see there are a couple of missed details. These were for the Viktorias crew and until this week one of the Viktorias was missing. Now that I have found the figure I remembered why I didn't do it at the time I got them, one of the figure looks almost impossible to glue together (with any hope of the bits staying on and being apparently impossible to pin). Lastly there is a lonely cowboy which I started last week. Despite being on the table for over two weeks it was the last figure to get finished.

Next week is looking like a freeish week. Currently I plan to go to Salute next weekend. This will be the first time I have been to the biggest show in the country. Painting wise, I have a couple of figures that I have been using as background projects. Background projects have not figures highly just of late so I think I might grab some figures for that purpose. As for the main working objective I want to work on some Blood Bowl and I suspect that there might be a range of odds and sods. Some cowboys, the odd modern figure and post apocalypse seem appealing. Maybe some terrain might make in there somewhere.

End Of The Week - Back In The Saddle (32)

For a while Sunday evening was the time that I looked back at the progress of the week. Progress has been somewhat limited in the last year since moving out of my last home. This has been a major disappointment for me but I just haven't had anywhere to paint. Now I do and I have gone at it with some gusto this week.

My plan, according to The New, New Cruelty is to catch up on my planned painting schedule. This is a minimum of five figures per week with hopefully ten figures per week and this must include catching up on the figures I have missed already this year. I managed to finish thirty figures. This has got to be my best week ever. If I am looking at five figures then I am already almost caught up, if not I am now up to date for February. If I can keep the pace up for a couple of weeks I will be more or less up to date.

A few years ago I was planning on running a Weird War Two involving time travel. These were some of the figures I got for that. They are Nacht Jager are from Artizan Designs I think. They got put into the queue last year when painting was on my mind again. So they got primed and have sat there since November. It would be nice to have a couple more packs of them.

My plan at the time called for some quick wins and as well as painting the Germans in armour I have some Home Guard figures to paint. So when it came to priming them in British uniform I sprayed a load of other figures in the same colour. This includes all of The Department of Paranormal Studies by Artizan and I the others are by Pulp Figures. These are first to come under the brush was some figures planned for Weird War Two. Some scientist types and a few others.

There were also some civilian figures which I think are Warlord French Resistance figures. Partly for weird war Two and maybe for Very British Civil War. As I wanted a bit of variety in the ten I only painted three in British uniform.

In the queue was one Frostgrave figure. Not my favourite on the range which  is probably why it hasn't been painted yet. I need to replace the sword as I have managed to drop it and badly mangle it in the painting process.

Every now and again I come across a figure that I hate painting and worse still hate the finished item. When I look at it I think in terms of holding on to it, hiding it or taking a hammer to it (a nerdy version of the TV show Snog Marry Avoid).  This is a Reaper Bones figure which I usually like. the quality is rubbish and the detail is soft. It looks like it should have come out of a mid-noughties board game. Size wise it doesn't fit with anything. Currently I am thinking of hiding it.

In the same colour batch I did some more Viking game figures. These are a bit of a mixed bag. Some are Celtic figures from Conquest Games (it is a bit of a North Star fest tonight). They were purchased because they fit my concept of Franks for the Viking game (which is nothing like what they were but it's a fantasy game and it works for me). I assume they are sculpted by Mark Copplestone who is a designer I really like. Sadly one of the slinger poses seems to have a dodgy hand. Other bits I think are Gripping Beast.

More of the Conquest Games celtic figures again. This time done in a different painting style. More wash than paint here.

I have done a fair bit of prep for next week. The Stormtroopers I prepped a few weeks ago are primed and ready to go. I have some more Franks to do which I will do in the same "wash style". I have also prepped some post apocalypse/modern scatter terrain. There is a plan to have a play about with some older terrain and update it a little.

The New, New Cruelty

About two years ago I came up with an idea to motivate myself. It is easy for me to focus on somethings and not on others and in the round I know I need to give a little time to all. For me this became difficult so I set myself a list of things to do each week with the intention of keeping to most of them, most of the time. Nothing too slavish but enough to give me a steer on what I should be doing. I called this The New Cruelty. The name comes from a Nazi themed restaurant In Steve Martin's film, L.A. Story, which is one of my all time fave films. It features Patrick Stewart (yes the guy that played Picard) as the maitre'd barking at guests and telling them what they could and could not have off the menu.

So as I am turning things around with the blog it made me think about the idea and that maybe it was time to revamp it. Things have changed in my life so things have probably changed with my approach to the New Cruelty.

1) Paint five 28mm figures (minimum) in a week or the equivalent thereof in other scales. By the end of the year I must have caught up on what I have missed so there must be at least 260 figures complete.  I aim to get ten per week done. 
2) Participate in at least one game of something per week be that wargame, RPG or board game.
3) Surf the net for less than four two hours a day (ouch). Tougher one than last time I was looking at this. Anything relating to my blog does not count.
4) Exercise is something I need to keep up with. I have a target on the FitBit. Whilst it is acceptable to miss targets on any given day I will meet the overall target for the week. I can't take the dog for a good long walk any more as the ex got custody of the dog.
5) Write ten blog posts per month. It was once per day when I initially started this but that was the idea for the year that year. No way I can keep up that pace. If at all possible and I can do a post around every other day I will get to a thousand posts by the end of the year.
6) Stop intending to do things and do things instead (well this still stands although I feel I have got more of a handle on things at the moment). 
7) Work out and stick to a morning and night time ritual.
8) Take vitamins etc.
9) If there is something that I need to do, write in a blog post so that it will get done (this is perhaps the most painful aspect of The New Cruelty).
10) Do something every day that helps me find a job and that advances one of my life goals.
11) Get out of the house and do something interesting or worthwhile at least once per week.
12) Eat less crap.

So some stuff has changed but maybe not too much. My life priorities are still pretty much the same with the exception of the last three points. Maybe I need to tighten this up a bit so I can use it a little better. Maybe next week.

Happy New Year Or 2019 - The Plan

So the end of a another year. Time for the usual renewal and looking forward to the future kind of post. Right now it does feel like a time of renewal. The New Year appears to be a time when my life is about to change. Significantly so. In previous years this has been a fundamentally upbeat post. It is odd that it was this day last year that everything started to change. Today things seem very precarious still. My predictions for the year to come seem to be more vague ideas than they have been in years gone by. This year has seen me me lose my auntie, my home, my relationship, my beloved car and about seventy five percent of my income. I have recently quit my job and now have to find one. Where I am living may be untenable soon. Many of these problems may sort themselves out and I have a feeling they will. Sadly it looks like nothing is going to sort out Fallout 76.

This year has been a bit of a let down on the gaming front at least so I am at a bit of a loss of what to write this year. After splitting up at the beginning of the year I haven’t had a proper paint station. So, whilst I have done a little bit of painting, I haven't finished a figure since March. I guess this is the real reason why I haven’t done much blogging this year.

I have been blogging for almost seven years now. This year has seen a bit of a bump. When I look at the blog numbers, the post count seems to support this. The post count plummets in April and there have even been three months with no posts at all. That said it has not been my worst year for posting. Somehow I have managed to put on about sixty five thousand hits. Not all of these have been from dodgy sites in Russia either so not bad when all considered.

It has also been a year where money has been tight. I have purchase very few figures. Again less than any other year. The grand total would be less than fifty. I have had about as many again brought for me. I am very grateful for that especially as I have had little free money.

There have been a couple of things I am proud off this year. Firstly, and mostly related to painting was the fact that I took the time to clear my bench of part painted stuff. This took a good chunk of time at the beginning of the year. Like many of you I have a significant lead mountain (and plastic and resin) but the part painted mountain was driving me up the wall. It felt good to get all the part painted stuff done. Then of course I realised that I have even more part painted stuff but that is by the by.

Perhaps the best for me was that I finished the rules for the Viking game. Now formally Northmen: A Time Of Sagas. I have been tinkering with them but they are playable. I have also done a lot of world building. Now I am happy to play the game and plan to start the ball rolling in February.

Figure painting wise this has been the worst year in a decade. My much maligned paint station is now sorely missed. Currently the shortage of space makes the prospect of getting another workstation unlikely in the short term.

Of those new figures Blood Bowl has featured highly. This has amounted to about a third of what has arrived across the year. I now have what I need to do Doom Lords, Skaven, and Dwarves with a few other bits and pieces. Last year the Skaven Team was the next one to be done. In terms of painting I have not painted a single figure for this game this year although I did finish the Orc team troll that had been sat around, 95% finished since the year before. All in all a bit of a wash out and I have not even started on what I had planned which was two full teams so in the region of thirty to thirty five figures.

At the beginning of the year Titansgrave, or rather the figures for it was catching my attention. Many of the figures could be used in other games. Some Sci-fi dwarves were finished. Obviously there were not enough of these. 

😏 

I have no specialists and no female characters and so may get some of these this year. One of my friends plays a lot of Shadowrun so I figured they they would also work out for that. I up-painted some Future Savages for this game. I really like these figures, which were designed by Mark Copplestone. These will do double duty for post-apocalypse. Also doing double duty for Titansgrave and post-apocalypse were the chaos cultists. I was quite pleased with how these turned out in the end. As part of the plan I would have liked to do some conversions of the plastic gnolls originally purchased for Frostgrave I planned, and would have liked to have brought some more figures for his game. That said I think I pretty much achieved my target for the year on this one. Like most other games, this will be a few years in the making I think.

The Viking game I run was expected to take up a big chunk of my painting time this year. It didn’t. I have plenty of stuff primed for the game from the year before last. If I totalled up all the fantasy figures I have done this year I might have painted about twenty, many of which are not really Viking in nature. I was expecting to paint fifty and maybe ninety. So again a definite undershoot. Frostgrave was also part of this years plan. Some of the figures might be useful for this but not many. I have more or less given up on this as a project but I suspect that most of them might get used for other things.

Zombies is another failure. I was going to take part in the annual Zomtober event. I even had figures purchased last year that I had planned to use. I did get six Mantic figures for Christmas which was nice. I had hoped to get about thirty figures done. I think I managed four as part of finishing off what I had on the bench. There is still a pile of older plastic stuff as well but I was expecting to get a fair chunk of the Mantic stuff I got last year done. I was hoping to paint at least a trays worth of figures so again a bit of a bust.

Kingdom Death Monster is something that I would really like. It is a game that I would throw a lot of effort at. Sadly I haven’t had the money and whilst I could be looking at it it as a present that is just too much money to spend. This project looks like it has died on the vine.

As far as background projects go nothing has really advanced. 6mm Napoleonics hasn’t gone anywhere. Weird War II/VBCW has seen some figures being primed but nothing more. In my head the 15mm mecha game has become a 28mm mecha game. I have done some work on the idea and have updated the rules but nothing more. Earlier on in the year I did some work on my ideas for a Savage World game set in the Underground of a post-apocalypse London. Some of the figures I painted at the beginning of the year will count as progress on this front. I quote “The English Civil Figures I have seem destined to stay in their box and the super hero figures are probably going to stay unpainted.” about sums it up.

X-Com is a game I talk about almost every year (going back for twenty years) and this year I haven’t really done much of that I haven’t painted or brought any figures although it has been on my mind. The new computer game left me a little uninspired. Having talked about it with a few people there seems to be some interest in the game so maybe things will progress. I would be happy to get a game on the table. At the moment it’s on the back burner but maybe I could get some stuff done later in the year.

In total I have painted just under one hundred and twenty figures this year. This is about half of what I had hoped. This only really happened because I had a good start to the year. Even with this limited amount of figures done the lead mountain has officially gone down this year. The New Cruelty is very unhappy.

This is the point where I start making predictions for 2019. This seems like a fools game at the moment. There are some things I would like to do but I think I am going to be a little less ambitious this year.

So for the new year Blood Bowl is something I would like to work on. I have planned to get some Forgeworld pieces for the Skaven team but haven’t had the money. So I would like to get this done in 2019. I would like to get another team, probably he Dwarves, done as well and maybe buy some more figures and paint another team as well. I have the Doom Lords in boxes and it would be nice to get them done as well. As I put a lot of effort into these figures they tend to take up a lot of time so this might be more ambitious (already being ambitious within a paragraph of me saying that I wasn’t going to do that) than I can manage. Some more Nurgle and the Champions of Death would be nice. Two teams of about eighteen to twenty figures would be a reasonable objective.

Having played in a Star Wars RPG this year I have been taken with the idea of running that game although probably as a Savage Worlds game rather than one of the published rules. Solo was a great film no matter what the critics say and I have watched Rogue One several times. All this keeps giving me ideas. About half the figures that have come my way this year have been for the Star Wars Legion game. I thought about the Imperial Assault game but like the figures for Legion better even if they are massively too big. These are ripe for conversion. I suspect that I will be buying some more and maybe some conversion stuff. I would like to see sixty figure/two foam trays full of figures completed.

As I am going to be running the Viking Game and I am feeling the fantasy vibe, I suspect that I will be painting figures for this came at some point during the year. If I throw in some more mainstream fantasy stuff in this section I can see me doing quite a lot of work. I have a load of small lizardmen primed and based and ready to go, just like last year oddly. The same can be said for some GW LOTR rangers which is fancy more as thieves or bandits. There are gnolls and cultists too. Celtic dwarves and some gnomes (not for the Viking game) from CP Models are still on the wish list. The latter will probably get ordered in bulk and converted for Titansgrave. There are some halfling figures due out that might catch my attention (some of which may end up being converted for Titansgrave). I would be surprised if I painted less than fifty this year although a few more would be nice.

Zombies are bound to play a part if I get my painting mojo going. There is plenty of Mantic stuff still to do including the Made To Suffer expansion that I got for Christmas. A couple of boxes of prone figures might get purchased and Here’s Negan might come my way this year. Whilst I guess I have sixty plus figures to paint I would be happy if I managed a foam tray full/about thirty figures.

As far as background projects go there is stuff I would like to work on. The apocalypse is never far from my mind. It would be nice to do some work on this he post-apocalypse in the London Underground seems like it might see some work and some of these may morph into Fallout. I have been playing Red Dead Redemption II a bit and I might think about doing some more cowboys but this seems less likely (it should have been Fallout 76 but I really don't want to talk about that right now). Having seen a few things about strange happening in Arizona (an area that I am drawn to for gaming for some reason) I might try and do some Conspiracy X like.

The New Cruelty has called for about five figures per week. Obviously this hasn’t happened this year and I don’t think it is going to happen this year. I am not expecting to start painting in the next month or so. When I do I am not expecting to have as much time on my hands. Setting a target of an average of ten figures a month rather than five per week seems more appropriate. The New Cruelty will be a little less cruel this year.

The future of the blog, well it is still pretty secure. I would like to think I am going to do better than I expect at the moment. I would like to get back into it a bit more so would hope to do at least two posts per week. If I can manage a little more I may even get to a thousand posts. This means that I need to do something to blog about. This year is another birthday milestone for me. This seems to be a year for a change.

So here we are. It’s a watch and wait kind of year in the offing.

Thanks for reading the blog this year. I really do do it for me but it is nice to know that somebody else is out there and reading what I have to write. A happy new year to you all. Hope it’s a good one and brings you everything you want.

The Urge To Paint / Mobile Paint Station

Painting 28mm miniatures is my passion and along with the building of terrain, video gaming, roleplaying and board gaming this is what takes up my free time. I have spent the last six months of so not painting. The move and the need to get some money coming in has kind of superseded the urge to paint. As much as anything else it has been finding a place to paint. Despite being a house, the place where I am living at the moment is smaller than pretty much anywhere I have lived in the last twenty years. So I have no place for workbench. Right now I am regretting getting rid of my old cupboard. I know I complained about it a lot at the time but right now I am longing for it. I started the year with the desire to continue The New Cruelty. Perhaps it is time to get back to both.

So I have had to come up with an alternative solution. The only place I have to work is my kitchen table. Obviously this is not a great place to paint and it's a fairly high traffic area so I can't leave anything setup indefinitely. Despite being broke I looked up some of the commercially available solutions. Mostly they don't suit me and are far from cheap. I am used to a lot of space and a lot of paint. This leaves me with what I have to hand. Which is a lot of boxes. Most of my stuff is currently in Really Useful Boxes, the hobbyist's best friend. So this is the idea....

So Really Useful Boxes it is. It will work out fine. Just as long as I breath in through my nose and out through my mouth and remind myself that this is a temporary solution. With non-bespoke solutions nothing quite fits but this is not a big issue as the setup does not have to be hyper-portable. I would like to have all my paint in the one box but I guess that's my own fault for having too much paint.

Let's see how quickly I can get naffed off with this.

Things would be progressing further if I could actually find any paint brushes.

So The End Of The Week (Is Nigh)

So I have painted some more Future Skirmish Savages and I am quite happy with them. They are nicely complicated models which have given me a whole load of ideas. Whilst I have been painting them I have also been writing up a bit of a background for them as well. I am mainly thinking about my sUnderdground background as I have been going along. This has also inspired me to do a similar background for the Cultists I did a few weeks ago. Which in turn lead to ideas about raiders, cleansers, bygones (mutated neanderthal/chimpanzee ish throwbacks), crazies and wilders. These should all fit in with my figure painting plans. I have also been painting some other Grenadier figures. Sadly I am not so happy with them.

My plan is to get some more but money is a bit tight at the moment so I might have to put that plan off for a bit. Another five or six of the right figures would be enough to have all the savages I might want.

During the week I was doing some sorting out and found most of the rest of the Copplestone / Grenadier figures I have. I have started work on some of them and have some more for next week. This has given me a bit of a first world problem. I have started using old GW plastic bases for sci-fi stuff lately but all the older stuff is on 2p sized bases. This is kicking me in my aesthetic core.

Anyway The New Cruelty is happy. I have finished eight figures this week and there are a load of figures very close to being done. I also have some stuff I want to work on now. I have managed to get most of my health goals done with the odd near miss. I haven't spent much, if any, time playing video games this week. This has given me time to do the writing.

The post-apocalypse vibe is pulling me in again. I am looking at figures and even thinking in terms of terrain in a serious way. In part I am think about Summerland and Underground but even Fallout would be a nice game to get back into although that would have to be a different game than I originally had planned. My original game had involved a lot of big battles and I am not sure how I would manage to get hold of the number of figures (I think it was over two hundred) that I would need. That said, I have other projects on the go that I currently have figures for.

So next week is looking like more of the old Grenadier / Copplestone stuff and maybe planning some terrain.