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, 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 dsmp.

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

End Of The Week (27) (+40)

I swear I had no intention of going to a wargames show but somehow I ended up in York this morning. And, well, you know. So I added about forty figures. I came back happy but exhausted despite a good mate giving me a lift.

I got a figure for my daughter. Let me know if you have any idea who this is meant to be. No prizes but you will go up in my estimation. There may be some long term loss of social status.

Another promise broken includes twenty more dark age figures. I want a small number of cavalry, I fancied some more civilians and I have a plan for some ulfhunder (think berserker but wolf hides rather than bears). I do have a target to paint a figure within forty eight hours (ish) of purchase. If it gets finished on Tuesday I will call it a win. This explains why they are already attached to bases.

There are some fantasy figures too. Some female hobbits (I gave myself and out for these at new year) and some villainous types. I was after some more modern civilians so I got some of them. This has something to do with next week's project but more on that shortly.

It was a good week for painting. I finished 16 various police and twenty two animals. Given the painting of the animals as half, there is a lot less work in finishing them. I needed some bigger bases for the cows but will make them next week.

There are six more minis almost done and another eleven animals. Not to mention some small pieces of scatter terrain.

I have also got the laser cutter up and running. I ran out of paint storage (oh yeah I got four more Army Painter speed paints three of which were metallics that I wanted to try).

So I now have a standard paint rack, a small thing one to fill a gap and deeper set of shelves with more drawers to follow.

I got the laser out to print some hexes. This has taken six months to find the energy.

Next week the plan is to paint some modern ish figures. Some are Copplestone Castings Future Wars range and the others are Kiss Kiss Bang Bang range which are also Copplestone.

A good week all round.

How Not To Suffer From Hobby Inertia

As you can see in the picture there is a lot on my table. This demonstrates my current work in progress. There are a lot of separate projects. Somewhere deep in my brain there is some form of traditional idea that you should start a project, finish a project and then move on to the next one. It's some strange offshoot of the Protestant work ethic I thunk.

So this is my workflow. I like to have a few things going at the same time. If I paint a batch of ten minis I will usually opt to give myself some variety within the batch, a few sci-fi, some post apocalypse, a cowboy and top up the ten with some fantasy figures, as an example. Lots and lots of Copplestone magic. The variety keeps me interested and if It have ten random figures I can batch paint them with the same colours quickly and when I have done ten batches, none of the figures look the same.

Right now this is animal week. I have amassed a range of domesticated and wild animals and this is what is in the mix for the week. There are some that are already finished this week that didn't make it into the picture.

At the same time there are half a dozen or so near future/cyberpunk/sci-fi minis that I started last week. Tag onto the some Blood Bowl minis and this is the core of where I am at.

Over the years I have learned to love the dropper bottle. Most of my paint is in dropper bottles, even the G Dub stuff. Whilst so much better that the standard pots, every now and again I end up putting too much paint on the palette. Some part of me, sculpted by my parents and grandparents does not like waste. So if I end up finding an excuse to use it. So the number of projects expands. And expands. 

There are times when I get part way through what I have started and I get bored. Having painted a hundred Star Wars Legion minis I got bored. The BattleTech stuff has been there even longer. So rather than putting the work in progress stuff to a place that it out of site, and therefor out of mind, it stays on the bench. There are a few details (mainly) that need finishing and so when I find I have some spare paint, I can leap into action. That almost made me laugh.

I am certain that I will meet and exceed my target for the month this week,

End Of The Week (10)

I got here by the skin of my teeth. If it wasn't for insomnia I would not have made it this far. I can confidently claim completing ten figures this week. The real world and a lot of migraines got in my way. 

Really a mixed bag but erring on the side of post apocalypse. Some nice figures I think. So much so I can really say that I enjoyed myself.

Since finishing these I have moved on.  I can't claim that all of these are complete but they are pretty close. This would be another twenty to add to the total. They should all be finished this coming week. 

There has even been some work on the background project. There is some minor movement on the Blood Bowl front. Still quite a way off.

I am hoping to do some laser cutting and 3D printing as well as starting some more figures. On top of this I have promised myself I will read a novel a month (migraines seem to happen if I read too much). and I am getting pretty close.

I have some buildings I want to make on the laser cutter and more hexes for terrain. I might also take the opportunity to build some more shelves.

I have an array of animals that need painting. This picture is about two thirds of them. This is going to be the next task. If I get the stuff in the picture done I will call it twenty figures. So next week could see me finishing forty to fifty figures.

Battletech, Timing and Progress

I have a plan. I am sure we all do. My plans are always a little delayed. Forget gamer.inertis, this is the long COVID getting in the way. I eventually celebrate the little victories. I printed off some counters with the intention of attaching them to some bottle cap stickers. The process started in September. 

So I planned to play BattleTech at some point soon. So I had planned and designed some counters. Some of them didn't come out right, the black I was using is offset for some reason. So I still have more to do. But not today.

Had to laugh. My daughter saw the Care Bear I got her as a surprise. She climbed up to get it and crushed half a dozen B1 battle droids in the process. Oh wel

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. 

For The Love Of Blood Bowl

I have a strained and complex relationship with Games Workshop which has been going of for four decades now. Some of it is the old grognard thing, part of it is the great betrayal, some of its the money but most of it, well practically all of it, is they don't make games I want to play. I do like their paint and its easy to get hold of but they keep changing their range, which is a pain.

Over the years the one thing I have stuck with it Blood Bowl and some of the above issues apply. I don't have a copy of the first edition because it was cardboard standees but with one exception I think I have the later ones. I mean the broke my heart when the change the size of the minis, but the new ones, well they are very nice. The star player price gouging contines. I see a few star players going for as much as two  boxes of teams and you really do need two boxes of teams.

When the first season arrived I got two sets of it as it turned out it was the cheapest way to get the extra positionals I needed to fill out the team. It takes a third box to get as many linemen as you could possibly want but who needs that many linemen? Then up to a point I was buying two boxes of each team. I now have a lot of unpainted teams. 

One of my goals for the the Year was to paint a Blood Bowl team but secretly I am hoping I find the energy to do two. That said, I am on the up at the moment, but I will no doubt crash soon. The miniatures make a nice painting challenge. They are expensive enough that I will put some effort into the paint job. Probably not what I am capable of, but pretty close. I have to fill in the gaps between seeing my daughter. 

There is the whole subgame of team selection. What have you got? What is the best value for money? Whats going to score and what isn't going to die. If you have the extra cash are you going to take an inducement or a star player?

Then there is the game itself. Whilst the rules are simple enough the real complexity of the game is in the teams. Most teams have a strength and a weakness, whilst some may have neither or all weaknesses (I am looking at the Halflings as possible the weakest team , but I do love Hobbits, although the snotlings are pretty kack despite the ogres). This means that each team favours a particular play style, running, passing, bashing and grinding all play their part and there is always the opportunity for a breakaway play. Most teams have some form of counter to their opponents plays.

Of all of the GW games I think it is the most loved and not just by me. Even it its years in the wilderness there was a thriving global community of players. It balances better than any of the new games where some forces that are great in the main game, are never going to win.

I used to be part of the MAWS wargames club and this is where I first started playing with my lovingly hand-crafted, appalling looking undead team in the early nineties. It gave me a love of the game and an urge to have all the teams. Speaking of which I should probably get back to the paint table.

Life Vs. The Lifeless

So I woke with the urge to paint. I got a few things done and then sat down and started painting. Then I got hit by a massive migraine. My migraines are mostly a morning thing so I usually wait until they are done before I start anything. I thought I had gotten away with it. Still here we are. My ten minis for the week are not quite done but I am working on the detailing.

I get to have some family time on a Tuesday, or at least a close substitute so I am looking forward to that. 

The some Life Vs. The Lifeless by The Beautiful South earlier. "Optimism looks up and counts the stars, pessimism looks down and counts cracks" struck me hard. As did "That's what keeps you alive, the thought of undeserved death." I am struggling but feck it, you have to keep going. There is only forward, there is no going back.

Progress At Last

I feel like I am achieving something with the painting. To be honest I don't really have a plan and I usually do better with a plan. My ten figures for the week now have a base coat which is most contrast type paints. I have even manged to get some paint on the bases and a few colours gave had a second coat. Still a bit more to do but I am confident that I will get to ten figures or more this week.

This has been managed with a little bit of tinkering with the Blood Bowl skaven. I am not going out of my way to paint them but if I have some paint left over I can find something to do with it, As brown and black has featured on the palette a lot today and yesterday this means there has been some progress on the further and bits of metallic armour. I have even manged to paint the eyes. I still need to come up with a team kit colour. I usually do my teams in the colours of a rugby league team. I haven't found one that  does the skaven justice. I am think predominately purple with some green and a bit of yellow.

End of the week (13)

Despite the best of intentions, I haven't got much done. This is in spite of the fact that the weather here is a bit kack. It's currently 2c which is the warmest it's been all week, and I am struggling to see the house on the other side of the street because of the fog. So I was going out but have decided against it. On the bright side I haven't run out of mince pies yet.

 

So staying in isn't much better. I have got a bit done but not as much as I would like. Having been full pelt for Star Wars Legion I am beginning to get tired of it. So I was thinking maybe it's time to turn the Legion stuff into the background project and start something else. That said I have finished thirteen figures this week. This isn't start to finish but they have been hanging around for a while.

I have added some tauntaun riders into the mix although I need to find a few bits to finish them off. I am quite happy for these to be the Background Project.

So for the change I have dipped into my primed and based queue. This is a long queue. So entering the foreground is a bit of a mix of modernish / sci-fi in 28mm. Some  of it is Stargrave, which for some reason is on my mind. There is some stuff from Scotia. I mainly brought these because I think Mark Copplestone created them. There is a solitary Crooked Dice post-apocalypse mini. Then there is one guy that I have no idea where he comes from. I will be sticking with contrast type paints in the main so confidence is high that I will manage to complete these, start-to-finish, this week.

At the New Year I promised to paint a Blood Bowl Team this year. So I found my Skaven team. Well some of it at least. As the Star Wars Legion stuff is the background project, these are even further back. I haven't even settled on colours for the kit. Still I can paint the flesh fur, boots and the like. I had kind of promised myself that I wouldn't add anything else to the bench until I had finished some more stuff. What can I say, I am a week person.

Anyway, this is my bingo score card for the week. I am happy with my results so far but I am beginning to think some of my choices are a little ambitious.

End Of The Week (30)

Christmas and post Christmas are usually quiet weeks for me. The holidays have a way of getting in the way. To be honest if it is a choice between spending time with my daughter and paint, she wins everytime. In the time that I have had I have been finishing off some minis. Mostly Star wars Stuff I started in December.

I realise that I haven't done the rims, but I still need to figure out what I am doing with them. So I am calling them done. So that's thirty figures this week. Technically I can call it fifty five but I am not sure I want to push it that far. If I could keep up this pace without real life getting in the way I would be very happy indeed.

Next week will be more Star Wars Legion. I have a few more figures to finish. Some are a lot less finished than others. My evenings look busy but the tail end of the week should see some progress.

 

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.