February/March Painting – Back in the Black!

Despite my best intentions, I got absolutely no models finished in February. Not a single one. Talk about shooting my efficiency in the foot. I’m going to go out on a limb and say the primary culprit for this procrastination was an old nemesis which somehow caught back up with me: Sid Meyer’s Alpha Centauri. That cursed game consumed many hours back in college and when I made the mistake of reinstalling it I found myself falling into old habits. However March was an entirely different story.

While I didn’t complete any models in February, I did get a fair amount of work done. So by the mid-March I was putting the finishing touches on almost twenty models – a monthly high for me. I finished three warbeasts I had sitting around – a Seraph, Carnivean, and a Raek to start. I also finished up my second Seneschal and the last two Knight Exemplar Errant I had to do.

That alone would have been a good month but I decided earlier to try to speed paint some generic models for use in roleplaying games. I had a box of plastic GW Dark Elf Warriors that had been sitting around since my Mordheim days about six years go. I figured they’d make workable (if a bit spiky) common soldiers or guardsmen.

The dark elf box came with enough parts to make sixteen models armed with either spears or crossbows. I wanted some variety but also wanted to leave a few spare parts for conversion purposes so I assembled four spear wielders and four crossbowmen. I then took a couple of the officer swords and made two sword wielders. I wanted two more models with swords but didn’t have any left. Luckily the dark elf spear blades are long enough that I could snip off the blades and pin them directly to a couple models’ hands to be used as larger barbed swords. They’re not something that your average town guardsman would use but they’d work as an abstraction. I speed painted them between warbeasts and they were done in no time.

There’s no WIP pictures this time around – all the miniatures I was really working on are completed. My plan is to photograph them in the next couple weeks and will update Diminutive Denizens by the end of the month.

Since Privateer’s release schedule has been a bit slow lately I only picked up a few models: Reznik, two Shepherds, the Blighted Archer UA, and a Gudrun the Wanderer I got with some store credit won in a tournament. Still with the completion of the twelve plastic dark elves my March total was bumped up to eighteen and my net total has gone to +5, positive for the first time in six months. I know no one really cares how many models I get out the door but me, but it does feel nice to be making progress once again.