Start Of The Week - The Usual, Prevarication

Here I am again. I started with really good intentions. At midday I was even at the bench. Then I realised that I had absolutely no interest in painting the minis I had selected. Somewhere along the line I did some laser design stuff. Stacking trays. Gave me a serious migraine. 

I went through a period of buying stuff I really wanted, basing it, priming and then putting it away for later. I've bought some more stuff since then but of the three hundred or so I had I am down to less than fifty. Naturally these are the ones that are really not grabbing my attention. 

I've gone back through my plan for the year, and even previous years. Not really feeling this either. I think I have painted all the metal I have got this year (aside from one which is destined to become a statue).

So I am promoting the Skaven to the front of the queue. 

There are a few goblins ready to go and I have Varag put together but in need of priming (little chance of this happening today due to the rain).

Varag is a brute so I'm calling him the equivalent of three figures. There are a couple of more Blood Bowl teams about to jump off the shelf.

I have some Sludge stuff primed and ready to go. These are some light infantry with crossbows. Only need six of them.

This guy is for my daughter. Sshh. He is top secret. Let's just say his number is taken.

Finally I have some stuff from last week to finish off. I've decided to put the Stargrave stuff into the background.

We are looking at around thirty five minis for the week. I will be happy with twenty five or so. I have an urge to do some terrain. So I might do a bit of trimming. For practical reasons, I count figures as complete when I finish painting the minis. So I am already a good way though with a lot of stuff this week. So it should be easy to get to twenty. Something tells me Varag might be the first casualty.

End Of The Week - Lucky (13)

As things go I haven't quite hit my target. Despite another late start in the week I have managed to get another thirteen minis done. This leaves me with another seven in part process. This is not a total success. I have met my minimum standards for the week but not my goal. That said I am still on target for a thousand figures for 2025.

What is finished is very genestealer. Ish. I quite like what I have done. If I was going to do Stargrave I think these guys would be an option. I am sure I have some more of these guys around somewhere. Maybe someday. Just in case I need a reminder, these were the paints you used.

I am looking at what I haven't finished and I'm not close to finishing and it's the Stargrave stuff. This is probably because I have the least interest in finishing them. This didn't seem to be a problem with the space gnolls I did the other week. My muse is a fickle mistress.

Subverting Tropes

I sat down with some minis that were inspired by the old genestealer crossbreeds. They came out not long before the genestealer cults got released.  I had a plan for them when I got them and that plan died due to lack of interest.

My plan called for them to be something different. For them to stand out in their own way. They aren't genestealer and I didn't want them to look like them. Yet here we are. Almost all purple and blue. So much for subverting the trope.

They are alongside some Stargrave minis. My plan now is that these might end up as a Stargrave crew as well as a potential enemy force. 

Right now there is still some work to do. For the most part they are only on the base layer of contrast paint. There is still some highlighting and pritification to be done. There is a good bet I won't finish them by tomorrow but I am thinking I will get there by Monday.

Start Of The Week. On A Thursday. Again

So I've gone to the queue. I'm finding it harder to pick out something I want to paint. At least paint right now. So as it's late in the week again and I plan to finish twenty figures this week. The plan calls for limited colour palettes to help speed things up.

A few years ago I got into the idea of running a game of Titans grave: Tha Ashes of Valkana. This is a sci,/fantasy RPG that at the time was being championed by Wil Wheaton (so it must be good). I have some early 40k minis and I wanted to use them as a starting point. One of the things I wanted was the old genestealer hybrids. This was pre genestealer cults. The prices for what I was looking for would have got me a second hand car. Then I found these guys from Macrocosm. They do old style squat soldiers as well as cult ones, and I have some of them here.

Just to make up the numbers I thought I would add in some Stargrave stuff (Stargrave, Frostrgrave, Tiransgrave I am starting to see a pattern). When I was last looking at the figures I had painted I realised I had relatively few heavy weapons. This is mainly because I hadn't painted any. So probably not a bad time to start painting some.

So I should probably get on with it. I've done some tidying up and sorting out. I've even had a bacon sandwich. Time to pick a brush up.

End Of The Start Of The End Of The Week. I Think (25)

So I have finished last week's twenty five minis. The last three days have flown by with little real progress on the bench. There has been some fun and I have put some problems to bed. So reasonably happy. I'm tired but fairly happy. 

First are what will be the last of the main protagonist force, the men of Regional Control. I say the last, I will almost certainly do more. There are another eight of them. All still looking British but as rag tag as I can make them.

Then there are the thralls. Compassionless, unstoppable killers that never stop coming for you. They are unrelentingly but are not the fastest enemy out there. 

Then there are the ghouls. Most think these are either the early or late stage of the thralls. Whilst fierce in combat, it is their speed that makes them deadly. 

Lastly are my first real attempt at the fascists. There are only four of them. The short term plan is to get up to about twenty. The minis are a sludge of British and German kit with some random bits included.

This was a hard week. This week is also going to be a hard week. It's my clubs show this weekend but I am going to miss it because I have my daughter and I am going to a birthday party. I think I know what I am doing. More stuff from the backlog. Mainly because it's easy. I don't have any work to do. I'm not close to finishing the pre based and primed backlog but I am already a lot closer to finishing it off than I was this time last year. More on that soon.

The End Of The Week And Father's Day

So today was father's day and a fantastic day it was. I got to spend some time with my daughter which is always good time. So basically I am a happy boy. Smiles all round. The only down side is that it had to end.

I've spent most of the day wearing a baseball cap that belonged to my dad. I'd owned a few but never really worn them much until I inherited a few from him. Hard to think it's been over nine years since the he passed. This is the first year that I have really felt that things were trending upward since he died. With the notable exception of my daughter.

Progress has been hard won this week. I feel like I have made less advances than a Russian conscript army. Like an American soldier celebrating Trump's birthday, I just haven't hit my stride let alone made any marches forward. It says a lot when four times as many people turn up for a firework display as turn up for a parade honouring the army, just because someone else made it about them and not about the national military tradition. I feel for the guys wearing the boots and more so for the ones that used to wear them. That said, America seems to treat it's soldiers better than us British.

But I digress 

This is probably because I haven't finished anything. After a slow start to the week I thought I was going to finish things off after I got in after dropping my daughter off. What happened was I sat down and dozed off. When I woke up I was pretty much done. It took me about six hours to get off the sofa. The New Cruelty is extremely unhappy. Things may be a little better organised here. So....You know.

So looking forward. There isn't that much work left to do. Monday looks busy, at least the morning does. Wednesday evening and much of the weekend is also looks busy. I have no new figures and no plans to put anything together. So it looks like I will be diving into the backlog. If I can find some more stuff I have purchased this year, that will be at the front of the queue.

Insomnia Rules

It's the wee small hours here as I type this. I can't sleep. I can't do much if anything else. Over the course of the afternoon I did get some painting done. So the biggest block of colour is done on all the minis. 

Givern the short amount of time I have allocated for painting this week this is going to be some rough and ready work. Fortunately about half of the minis should be rough and ready by design. I am not using the Z word as I don't think they fit the classically accepted definition. That said, they are not exactly human anymore either and tending to injuries and self care are no longer priorities.

I actually fell asleep whilst I was typing this up. So my blog even puts me to sleep.