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.
I’m pretty happy how quickly I was able to get some painting done in January. I started my Blighted Legionnaires early on and was able to finish them in less that two weeks. While I was working on them I also completed my Swamp Gobbers Bellows Crew. After that I took about a week or so off and before deciding to break into the big stuff. I’ve had a few warbeasts sitting around primed – a second Carnivean, a second Seraph, and my Raek – that I decided to try to do all at once. It’s slow going and the process is pretty monotonous but they’ve been sitting in my miniature case primed for long enough.
Raek Flesh Details
I haven’t finished the warbeasts yet but I hope to in February. I’m taking my time and trying a slightly different color scheme – doing something a little more gray and a little less blue. I’m also adding a little bit of texture to the beasts’ musculature to give it some additional visual interest. I still have some shading to do on the skintones – especially on the Seraph – but I’m making pretty good progress. I finished up the dirt and stone on their bases and now just have to do the wrecked warjack on the Carnivean’s base, the Seraph’s wings, and the bone and mouths on all the beasts.
Angelius Tail Repose
On top of the painting I’ve also started work reposing my second Angelius. I hacked apart the end of its tail and repositioned it using an paper clip armature. I’ve added some bulk with greenstuff already but haven’t gotten any detail work done on the top layer. I’m looking to finish the sculpting and assembling the rest of the model by the end of the month. That way I can have both Angelii primed and ready to paint so I can do them both when the mood finally strikes me. Given how much I like using these beasts I hope the mood strikes me sooner rather than later.
I did pick up Aiyana and Holt as well as a box of Incubii and a Feralgeist in January. I also had a few gift certificates that let me get a second Angelius and a box of Farrow Bone Grinders. Thirteen models in and twelve out left me one in the whole for the month, dropping my running total to a negative seven – definitely not the direction I was hoping to go.
At least there’s only about 7 models from February through April that I’m interested in getting, so I’ve got a good chance of pulling back into the positive pretty soon as long as I can keep up a decent pace. With any luck I can be in the black by the end of March.
Part of what I’ve been working on the past couple months have been miniatures for other people, so I couldn’t post progress at the end of November without giving away what I was working on. But now that the holidays are past I can actually talk about what I’ve been painting again.
November was about as bad as expected for miniature throughput. I picked up a full unit of Idrian Skirmishers and am glad I made that decision. I’ve played the a couple of times with Kreoss and once with the Testament of Menoth now and have been happy with them together – Protection of Menoth makes them very survivable and Pathfinder, Coordination, and Intercept give them a nice tactical flexibility. I want to paint these guys but have a lot on my plate at the moment. And since their UA has just been announced I’ll likely postpone the models until I can do the UA along with them.
Nephilim Soldier
I also went to an event at Fantasy Books and Games over in Illinois in November and won some store credit. Unfortunately they didn’t have a lot of stock in and I don’t go out there often enough to warrant saving it so I wound up buying Bosun Grogspar. I’m not sure how often I’ll use him but at least he should be fun to paint up.
On the upside I was finally able to get a handful of miniatures done for the month. I finished up my Nephilim Soldier and Kell Bailoch for myself as well as a Totem Hunter and a Reinholdt model I’ll be handing off to their respective owners. ย But that still left me 7 models in the hole for the month – and an even dozen in the hole cumulatively – but what are you going to do?
Browncoat Kell
When December rolled around, things looked promising for my throughput. The only model that came out that I wanted to pick up was a Raek, which meant I had a chance to get ahead. I started the month finishing a couple more gift miniatures – Morvahna and a Fell Caller – then decided to try and paint my Reindeer. It took right up through the 31st but I was finally able to complete all 5 of my Raptors, putting me up 6 models for the month and cutting my running deficit in half.
Morvahna
Looking forward I’m going to try to do my Blighted Legionnaires in January, as well as one or two more individual models if I get time. I really need to get the unit done – I’m already looking at picking up Lady Aiyana & Master Holt and a box of Incubi later in the month. I have some assembly that I want to get done as well. My Raek is still in its blister and I need to get the Neren the Scary I mentioned being asked to do a couple months ago based and primed so I can start on that as well.
WIP shots have been hard to come by lately – this update just has some finished shots. I haven’t had time to stop and take pictures as I paint and all of my current WIPs have either not had any progress made on them since last posting (Alahel) or are completed and will be up on my web site soon. I did get a mini tripod for my camera for Christmas so I’ll try and make more of an effort to take WIP pictures in January.
Well, I had intended to work in my miniature throughput for October but hit a little snag when I decided to go ahead and pick up the Orange Box earlier in the month. As I wrote in my last update, I finished up Hawk and 2 Doc Killingsworths at the start of the month and later I finished up Alten Ashley and 5 Warmongers. I don’t have any WIPs of these models – they’re already complete and awaiting my next update to Diminutive Denizens to go live.
Kell and my second Hawk are pretty much in the conditions they were in at the start of the month – I took a break from them when to do my Warmongers. I did finish Kell’s gun and Hawk’s base so they’re just a couple hours (each) away from being finished. Still close isn’t the same as complete, and since I did pick up 10 Legionnaires as expected leaving me in the 2 in red again for the month. But really… who’s surprised by that?
Looking forward, the good news is that after assembling the Legionnaires I’ve come to the conclusion that they’re going to be pretty quick to paint. Most of the models are either plate armor or their swords, and metallics don’t take too long once you have a system down. I think the hardest parts are going to be their skirts/robes where I’ll be doing some wet blending but even then there’s not that much surface area I’ll need to cover.
I think for November my goal is going to be completing Hawk, Kell, and a Neran the Scary that I was commissioned to do. I’m also going to try to do my Nephilim Soldier. Unfortunately Privateer Press keeps feeding my habit – the Idrian Skrimishers come out this month for my Protectorate army so that’s 8-10 more models that are going to get counted against me this month. I may try to squeeze my Legionnaires in this month to help offset them but I’m not sure I’ll be able to get to them with my newest non-orange time sink.
Now that I’ve finished Portal I’m holding off on the rest of the games in the Orange Box while I work on the RPG game I’m going to be running (gasp!). Starting the campaign is proving difficult for me, but that’s something I’ll talk about when I write on the game’s first session, which will take place later today (Sunday, Nov 4th). Hopefully I’ll be able to get something posted in the next couple weeks about the new game, including some of the new challenges I’m facing running this particular game. Vague enough? It’ll have to do; I’m saving the details until next time.
Part of my motivation to put this blog together initially was to allow me to post some status updates and WIP shots of my miniature painting since I only posted completed pieces over at Diminutive Denizens. However it always seems like I have things I rather do than take pictures of uncompleted models and write up how they’re going. At least I’ve gotten a healthy respect for people who do this regularly. ๐
A few months ago I decided to set a goal for myself of painting as many miniatures as I bought each month. That certainly flew in the face of my figmentia but I figured it would at least give me something to work for. And since I had mostly caught up with purchases for my Protectorate of Menoth and Legion of Menoth forces, my purchases were mostly going to be limited to new releases. Still, I soon realized that keeping up was going to be much harder than I first thought.
I’ve gotten a little bit of painting done lately but not as much as I would have liked. I’m still making progress, though, and I have a few WIP pictures of my latest projects that I can post.
Exemplar Vengers
The biggest reason for how little I’ve actually gotten painted as of late is my Exemplar Vengers. I don’t even want to try to total up how many hours I’ve spent on these models up to this point, but I’m sure it’s no small number. The gold edging on the armor plates – present on both the mount and the rider – was probably the biggest time sink. Between a black base coat, a coat of silver, a couple coats of gold, and a blackline just inside the edging, I spent a few evenings on that alone. But all in all I’m happy with how the cavalry turned out and I’ve enjoyed fielding them.
Dervish WIP
My most recent work has been on my Dervish light warjack, pictured to the left. ย After as much time as I spent on the cavalry, this model was actually pretty quick to paint. ย I did the purple and tan in one evening, then the metallics in another. ย A third evening was spent basing and some general clean-up and now he’s just about done. I’m not exactly happy with the menofixes on the forearm plates yet, but once I get them how I like them I’ll be ready to seal this miniature and call it done.
Custom Base
I’ve also been doing a little work on a base for another miniature I’m assembling at the moment. I started by taking a cast of a Cryxian bonejack (sans head) and putting it on a base. ย After that I drilled some holes where the leg would be and added some wire and brass tubing to look like a broken leg joint system. Then I smoothed some greenstuff in a pool at the neck which I’ll paint up as necrosludge. I have some plans for this jack’s head, but you’ll have to wait for the finished product to see that.
Harbinger Skin Tone
Last night I finally started on my Harbinger of Menoth. I’ve had this model for some time now but have been hesitant to start painting and assembling as I wasn’t sure just what I wanted to do with her. Now that I’ve got that all settled in my mind, I assembled her torso (including the brass rod which replaces the flag pole) and started painting her flesh. Instead of using one of my standard flesh tones – I have a yellowy one and a more pink one – I decide to mix the two. I’m pretty happy with the results so far and am anxious to see how it looks once the rest of the miniature is painted.
Finally I had to do a repair job on my Gorman di Wulf miniature. I loaned it to another gamer to use in a game a few weeks ago and he dropped it, chipping the paint on the helmet and the cloak. I didn’t get a picture of it after the fix, since it really looks the same as it does in my miniature gallery.
So that’s what I’ve been working on lately. I’m going to be concentrating on the Harbinger in the near future and hope to have her done in the next week or so. I’ll be taking my time with her and hopefully she’ll turn out well.
One of the original intents for this site was for me to chronicle my miniature painting, and now that I have a digital camera I can attempt to do so. Although I’ll try and share any tips and techniques when I get the opportunity, the real goal is to help motivate myself to continue to progress through my unpainted figures. The pictures here aren’t as good as in my finished gallery, but they’ll suffice for WIPs.
Shortly before the holidays I started assembling some of the Hordes miniatures I had recently picked up second hand to try to get a small army. Although I knew I wouldn’t have everything painted right away, I wanted to at least get things assembled to the point that they could be fielded. For the Seraph that meant painting it completely as I didn’t want to try to paint that thing once it was fully assembled and on its base, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
At the beginning of the year there was a movement on the Privateer Press forums to only play Warmachine and Hordes with painted miniatures for one year. I didn’t blarg back then; the only opportunity I had to express my opinion on painting and gaming was on a smaller fan forum I’m a member of. Now that my opinions are read by… well… three if not four whole readers, I’d like to take this opportunity to express my thoughts on wargaming and miniature painting.
The Fully Painted 2006 movement was started by the members of the Brushthralls – a group of fans who promote miniature painting with an emphasis on Privateer Press products. Let’s make this clear first: The Brushthralls are an asset to the Privateer Press community and their website is a great resource for miniature painters. The goal they set with their movement is lofty one, and I’m not about to begrudge someone for attempting. But in the thread where they announced Fully Painted 2006 there were posts from other community members referring to playing as unpainted miniatures as somehow substandard, as if those that played but didn’t paint were lesser individuals and were unworthy of playing against them.
I love painting. I would even go so far as to say it’s one of my passions. If I was forced to rank my hobbies, I’d say I’m a roleplayer first, miniature painter second, and wargamer third. That said I have to take issue with the attitude that if I place an unpainted miniature on the table then I’m somehow less of a player.
It’s time to switch gears a little bit and discuss my wargaming and painting hobbies to fill out the blarging categories I had planned to start with.
Roughly a year ago a friend and I picked up Warmachine, a miniature wargame by Privateer Press. Since then we’ve played roughly weekly and have added a couple of players to our little group (though one has gone MIA after becoming a father). Since I’ll likely talk about the game and the miniatures in the future I’m going to take this opportunity to talk about why Warmachine is my game of choice, why I play the faction I do, and finally how I came up with the color scheme I chose for my army.
I enjoy the warcaster-centric style of play that Warmachine features. Especially since while being the most powerful model in your army, the warcaster is still far from invulnerable and in most cases requires protection to keep him safe. And with good reason – in many cases killing your warcaster is how your opponent wins the game. To use a chess analogy, your warcaster is a combination of the king and the queen. This dichotomy forces you to balance using the piece as an offensive weapon with keeping it safe from your opponents. Read More “Warmachine: The Vermillion Menofix”
Well, I had intended to work in my miniature throughput for October but hit a little snag when I decided to go ahead and pick up 
