2020 winding down...

Having come to terms with the fact that I’m not going to be able to hit my target of 52 painted miniatures this year, I’ve instead turned my energy to prepping some miniatures for next year’s painting!

I’ve also dug out some miniatures for a project that I haven’t posted about yet (but have confusingly written about in an as-yet unpublished draft of a post) to prep, and have been struck by the discrepancy in size between ranges:

Now I’m not usually a stickler for scale, but these em4 chaos look positively dinky next to the old Clan War miniatures! Luckily I’ve only got a couple of them, so I think that with some careful basing they should blend in with other ‘medium’ sized ranges, just looking like the bottom and top end of the scale!

Also, Christmas happened, and my family furnished me with some miniature goodies:

Some Reaper Mushroom Men, a not Mando, and some House Stark expys, taking the Tally to:

47 vs 147 = -100

Which of nothing else is a pleasingly round number to end on...

My plan for New Years Eve is going to be prepping more minis for next year, watching the Big Fat Quiz of the Year with my wife and drinking a festive beverage, so Happy New Year to everyone in advance!

Zomtober Bonus Post - The Others

Despite the expectation stated in my previous post that I wouldn't get a chance to finish anything else this Zomtober, between my wife being at work and my daughter having the mother of all naps I managed to paint these three from start to finish yesterday:

A set of three 'Draugr' from Elladan miniatures that are coincidentally the spitting image of the White Walkers from the Game of Thrones television series.

This is potentially the first horse I have ever painted, and it was actually pretty fun (although not every future horse that I paint will have hanging ribbons of flesh and exposed bone to pick out, so I don't know if that will affect my enjoyment).

The chain is a fun touch too, although in hindsight I wish that I'd soaked it in a dirty wash before attaching it so that it wasn't so shiny - I only thought this after having already glued one end of it inplace sadly, and it was a bit fiddly trying to apply Vallejo Smoke to the hanging chain in situ). Maybe I'll go back an try and give it a bit of a drybrush with a dark brown...

The sculpts were pretty straightforward to paint, hence me being able to finish them in a single day - their armour, which is the majority of the surface area of two of the three, was simply drybrushed with grey, then again with a medium silver, before being washed with black, to give an unnatural, unusual finish that I felt suited the alien nature of the Others. I think the Others are to Game of Thrones what Elves are to other fantasy settings - humanoid, but totally alien in their design and desires; inscrutable in their objectives (which will turn out to be nothing like the original assumption of them,meeting based on human logic and ideas).

(Don't worry, I went back and fixed that shiny spot on his shoulder just after taking these pictures)

(Ugh, I need to go back and tidy up just under his eye don't I)

Everything else was quickly layered up or washed and then highlighted, until they were done!

The ice weapons were probably the things that took the most time, as I ended up almost completely repainting them when my initial plan for them resulted in the looking too grey, so I glazed them back down with a couple of coats of Ice Blue and then worked them back up from there (this picture makes the white highlight look a little dull - the picture of the previous chap's sword is closer to true).


Finishing these three chaps brings the Tally to:

51 vs 342 = -291

Now that this little mini-project is over for now (although there's always scope to add a couple more Wights to bulk out the horde if it happens to take my fancy - plus, I need to make some Wildlings and Night's Watch for themto terrorise, but that means waiting for plastic Frostgrave barbarians and getting some old LOTR rangers respectively), what to do next? There are the Star Wars thugs that were bumped down the painting queue for Zomtober, but knowing myself as I do it's more likely that I'll grab a single miniature as something of a palette cleanser (and also to take the completed figures this year to 52), the only question is will it be something half done to clear space in the trays or something new? For the last couple of weeks, I've had a sudden hankering for the Horus Heresy, and then they announced Prospero Burns, so maybe I'll kitbash something to scratch that itch... Then again, I'm sure I've got a Santa somewhere I could prep ready for Christmas, but oh wait I'm sure I undercoated the War Doctor...

Acquisitions part 2: Winter has come!

Shortly after posting my last post, the aforementioned parcel from Germany arrived!

That's incredibly speedy service - I ordered these at 11 at night on Tuesday, they were despatched Wednesday and then arrived Saturday! That's quicker than the Skaven in my last post took to get to me from one county away, let alone another country!

I got the set of three, and they really are gorgeous:

They come with washers and magnets, and even a length of absolutely tiny modelling chain for the reins for the mounted figure - I'm absolutely blown away by this, as most miniatures don't even come with spears, let alone this amount of stuff!

I originally got in touch with Elmar at Elladan on Facebook to enquiry whether anyone would be stocking these at Salute, as these days money is a bit tighter than the halcyon days of I frugal youth, so to save on postage I tend to do most of my miniature spending once a year at Salute. Alas, no one was, so I popped an order on Elladan's new web store - the set, including postage from Germany came to around twenty pounds, which is eminently reasonable considering their quality! Elmar also threw in a few samples of some of their resin bits as well, to take the sting off of paying postage!

So overall, fantastic miniatures, fantastic service, and ridiculously fast delivery - go and order some from here (and no, I'm not on commission, I'm genuinely impressed!)

These arriving takes the Tally to:

20 vs 370 = -350

These will get based and painted along with the Gripping Beast Revanents that I picked up at last year's Salute, which might get supplemented with some more damaged wights if I can find someone with a spare command sprue of Mantic skeletons that they're willing to trade...