2019: a year in review

(Nu Gundam)

Happy 9th Birthday to this blog! There have been times I've been tempted to give it up (due to factors like the increasing difficulty to make posts from mobile devices more than anything else) but I'm glad that it's still around!

As is traditional, here is a look back at the year that was...


Tally

Thanks entirely to an eleventh hour effort as detailed in my last post, the Tally is ending up in the positive for the second year in a row (also ever).

Whilst I may not have painted that much, I also didn't buy much either! I may sell some more backlog miniatures next year to fund splurging at Salute (having missed it last year), so who knows whether I can make it three years in a row...

46 vs 43 = +3

2019: +3 (46 painted)
2018: +52 (52 painted)
2017: -14 (47 painted)
2016: -287 (56 painted)

2015: -96 (59 painted)

2014: 0 (80 painted)

2013: -416 (25 painted)
2012: -103 (68 painted)
2011: -173 (122 painted)

So, a pattern has emerged - for the last few years, I have tended to paint around 50 miniatures a year!

Posts

19 this year, the fewest since the blog began by quite some margin. As ever, Zomtober was a major pull in getting myself painting and posting! The birth of my son is the main factor in this - I managed 32 posts the year my daughter was born, but two children are an exponential factor, as anyone with children will know! As my daughter got older, we settled into a bedtime routine that allowed for Daddy to have hobby time once she was in bed, so in the next couple of years we may hopefully return to higher levels of productivity!


Challenge

• Finish something  old
• Finish a piece of terrain
• Prep all of the monkeys in the monkey box
• Build a wargames board

• Paint all of the miniatures in a boxed game
• Play a game of Blackstone Fortress with fully painted miniatures
• Finish a complete skirmish force for a project (at least 16 miniatures, unless it's for a much smaller scale game like Batman)
• Repaint something (either a miniature that I have previously painted, or one that was received painted

• Convert a miniature and show WIP pics

• Finish a member of the Nextwave team

• Average at least a miniature a week by the end of the year (so, paint 52 miniatures)
• End the year with the Tally in the positive!

So, not my most Challenge focused year, but then again it never is! I tend to think of the Challenge as something to guide me when I'm seeking inspiration (hence pulling Tabby out of the painting queue to add another to the list of painted Nextwave members) rather than a routine or stick to beat myself with...

Some people might argue that I should abandon it altogether, as I rarely hit many of my self-set targets, but where's the fun in that?


Projects (according to last year's end of year post)

Warhammer Quest Blackstone Fortress

A couple of enemy groups finished, with the next one already undercoated and awaiting their turn on the painting table. I got somewhat sidetracked trying to convert additional models for the Traitor Guard, which when I couldn't find heads that I was happy with stalled the whole project. Plan for 2020 - just crack on with them!


ASOIAF

A single wildling. It's odd, this is the project that I find myself thinking I'd like to do things for when idly musing, but it hasn't seemed to translate into finished miniatures. The thirty odd undercoated wildlings sat on my desk might be a daunting roadblock to that though... we'll see if I pick up some of the Fireforge Northern chaps at Salute though, which may jumpstart it again...

Star Wars

I managed to paint a Jedi for May the Fourth and a single engineer, which is double my usual annual Star Wars output! We're currently re-watching all the movies in preparation for going to see the new one, and I've had a hankering recently to go back and read the Darth Vader / Doctor Aphra comics, so who knows if that will translate into enthusiasm for painting...


Zombies

Zomtober is the thing that gets me posting without fail, so I'll pledge now to do it again in 2020! Maybe I'll even go back to my set of work in progress rules and give them another pass over (although they stalled last time because I started overthinking things and ended up trying to completely rebuild one of the core mechanics...)

Hellboy

The Kickstarter showed up the week my son was born, so plans to paint were somewhat delayed. The expansions have also since been delivered, so I've got plenty of material to be working on!

Back Burner

Necromunda - nothing this year.

40K - a Howling Banshee, hopefully some more odd miniatures here and there next year. There's a Sister of Battle sat on my painting tile currently for testing a paint scheme out on, so if that turns out pleasingly I can theoretically work my way through the rest of the backlog all the while resisting the urge to buy the new miniatures when they come out!

Fallout - nothing this year

ROTPOTA - As is now a long-running joke, and I've said it before, but maybe next year is the year I finally finish prepping the apes...

Projects for 2020

Warhammer Quest Blackstone Fortress

Still looks cool, still want to paint and play it. I'm fairly impressed at myself having not bought any of the expansions yet too. Maybe I'll treat myself if I manage to paint 100% of the miniatures in the set...

D&D

A lot of the miniatures I paint when the fancy takes me seem to be generic fantasy monsters, so I thought I should probably add Dungeons and Dragons to the projects list! A couple of related items have been added to the Challenge to tie into this, as you'll see later on...

ASOIAF 

Maybe if I break the undercoated Wildlings down into smaller batches and tackle them a little at a time I'll get through them... Then again, maybe I should focus back on adding to my Starks and Lannisters with the intention of making them playable forces. And then finish the rules.

Hellboy

'play a game with painted miniatures' is staying in the Challenge this year, and this is another viable contender for ticking that off! The (admittedly first world) problem with having backed the Kickstarter for this is that there is an absolute shed load of miniatures with it - I figure if I polish of a couple of hero types and then batch paint all the frog chaps that isn't an insurmountable goal...

Star Wars

I pledge to do May the Fourth again this year at the very least. Re-watching the prequels in preparation for seeing the new film gave me the urge to paint some battle droids, but I've screwed the lid down on that for now, as starting a new time period in a project is too much even for me! Although I could just do a mini project, Grievous' abduction of Palpatine from the animated Clone Wars series, hmmm...

Zombies

Zomtober is a given. If I find any bargains on the Walking Dead miniatures at Salute that might influence what the theme of this year's entries will be...

The Thing

I need to find a suitable dog head, that's the roadblock between me and motivation on this project. If I can find that, then I should have all of the bits I need to convert a couple more medium sized Things, and I've got a MacReady miniature already (that came in my Christmas stocking a few years back - long enough ago that it must have been pre-children, as I don't think I've had a stocking of my own since then!)

Reality's Edge

I've had a real hankering for Cyberpunk recently. It might have been kick-started by watching Alita, and I'm V excited (pun intended) for Cyberpunk 2077 next year although it's actually this year now! I got a review copy of the rulebook, and whilst in my mind I immediately began envisioning a huge project where I built a whole dystopian cityscape, more realistically I'd settle for painting a couple of suitable miniatures and maybe a little piece of terrain or two to start. If anyone has a blister of Bishoujo Senshi (sp?) from Rezolution in their lead pile that they would be happy to trade off let me know!

Backburner:

40K - I'm not committing to painting an army or anything, but as and when the fancy takes me I'll hopefully ad the occasional model to my Inquisitorial Warbands (maybe I'll even get round to finishing some of the Inquisitor conversions that have been sat half finished for the best part of a decade...)

Necromunda - no concrete plans, bu I still love Necromunda too much to write it off entirely...

Fallout - Weathering is very soothing, so in between other things I may squeeze in the occasional Fallout mini. Last year, I was tempted to dig out the Mass Effect project minis, but didn't get very far with that either...

ROTPOTA - Always. Never. Ape.

Next Year's Challenge

• Finish something  old
• Finish a piece of terrain
• Prep all of the monkeys in the monkey box
• Paint all of the miniatures in a boxed game
• Play a board game with fully painted miniatures
• Finish a complete skirmish force for a project (at least 16 miniatures, unless it's for a much smaller scale game like Batman)
• Repaint something (either a miniature that I have previously painted, or one that was received painted

• Convert a miniature and show WIP pic

• Finish the last member of the Nextwave team
• Complete the classes project (potentially adding the races from the Players Handbook to the mix)
• Add at least 4 entries to the Monstrous Alphabet Project
• Average at least a miniature a week by the end of the year (so, paint 52 miniatures)
• End the year with the Tally in the positive!

So, I've got plenty of old things to finish (there are almost certainly still miniatures sat in the painting queue that were undercoated before this blog began), and as ever I've carefully phrased some of the challenges to allow me to weasel my way into a loophole ('paint all of the miniatures in a boxed game', for example). I've already stripped something to be repainted (as I'd originally hoped to cross that off of the Challenge list last year but ran out of time). In hindsight, I should have posted my WIP pics of my Thing conversions last year on here rather than Instagram, as I could have crossed that off too! 52 minis and ending the Tally in the positive are always a doable target though I think...

...

But wait, what is this Monstrous Alphabet Project you speak of, the more eagle-eyed readers cry. Over the last few years, I've painted a variety of monsters just on the off-chance I ever get round to running a D&D campaign, so I thought I'd turn it into a mini challenge and see if I could paint at least one thing for each letter of the alphabet. I'm only counting things with an actual Monster Manual entry, nothing from the appendices or NPC lists (sorry Giant Centipedes and Cultists!)

Going back over previous blog entries, the Monstrous Alphabet currently stands at this:

A is for
B is for
C is for
D is for
E is for Elemental (More than one)
F is for Flameskull
G is for Goblin
H is for
I is for
J is for
I is for
L is for Lich
M is for Mind Flayer, Myconid, Mummy
N is for
O is for Owlbear
P is for
Q is for
R is for
S is for Shambling Mound, Scarecrow, Skeleton
T is for
U is for
V is for
W is for
X is for
Y is for
Z is for Zombie

So, plenty of room to work with! I'm not looking forward to Q though...

Nobody, nobody trusts anybody now, and we’re all very tired...

Things!

Wondering whether I could finish anything off before the year ended that might make a dent in the Challenge / Tally numbers, my eyes alighted on a group of unpainted miniatures that have been sat on the mantelpiece in my dining room for a couple of months now awaiting for inspiration/ motivation to strike again for me to convert some more of them, and thought I’d take the plunge and get them painted!

While long term I want to add some more to the group (including a large ‘boss’ sized Spawn akin to the Blair monster) for now we have:

One ‘medium’ spawn - in the future I’d like to make two more, one inspired by the dog creature and one by the split face Thing that they initially bring back to the base.

Much fun was had splattering Blood for the Blood God and Gloss Varnish over these miniatures to give them the gribbly effect that you see on screen!

A couple of Thing facsimiles, converted from Sedition Wars miniatures with mechanical parts generally scraped or melted off and liquid green stuff used to hide it, as well as parts from the Wood Elf Dryad kit from the depths of my bits box! Their trousers were painted like bloody long johns, because as we know “I think it rips through your clothes when it takes you over. Windows found some shredded and bloody long-johns in the trash but the name tag was missing. They could be anybody's.”

Then comes the first of the ‘partial’ Things - I envision a rule whereby if you take out a larger Thing, there’s a chance that part of it manages to escape and potentially still infect your survivors. These first two were heads from the remnants of a Wargames Factory zombie sprue (keep everything, even if it’s awful - the soft detail on these made them ideal for half transformed parts!) and a milliput mound of tendrils.

The next couple are Warhammer zombie bits with some additions - I especially loved the idea of a leg spawning great long Thing insectoid legs and scuttling after you with a weird loping, hopping gait!

Last but not least, we have a partial inspired by one of the most iconic scenes in the movie, the bit where Norris’ head decides to get out of dodge and runs off on its own on spidery legs. Incredibly fiddly to build (and a nightmare to photograph!), even though the eyes have come out looking a little more cartoony than I’d envisioned I’m still pretty happy with the result!

Painting these (over the course of a couple of evenings this week while we frantically work our way through a Star Wars movies rewatch before we go and see the new one) brings the Tally to:

46 vs 43 = +3

Right, nobody gift me any miniatures tomorrow!

All I need now is to paint up a Macready and convert some more Things...

So yeah, when I said I'd returned...

...that might have been a little premature.

Son came, and all productivity went out of the window.

(this is the day he was born, he's bigger now)

One of his middle names is Cassian (at my wife's suggestion, to my surprise), so we have an action figure ready for when he's older:

As alluded to in my previous post, I'd been trying to convert some additional Traitor Guard to make the squads in Blackstone Fortress up to ten man units, but after some fun kitbashing I just couldn't seem to get the heads to a point I was happy with them...

I struggled to find any donor heads that I liked, so tried to cast some, but results were... mixed. I think maybe since I had already built the miniatures it was a little tricky to make an easily useable mould...

Enthusiasm faltered somewhat after this. If anyone has any ideas for suitable heads (or spare heads from the BSF traitor guard left over from a conversion) let me know so I can rescue this project from limbo...

After this, I had a hankering for some 40k (a friend of mine had recently rekindled his own enthusiasm for 40k, and I'm easily swept along by enthusiasm), and dug out my abandoned paused Chaos Space Marine project. I mulled over what to do with them, and had a weird epiphany where suddenly the Black Legion made sense to me. Previously, they'd seemed like the Chaotic Ultramarines, the vanilla option, but as I was sifting through my bits box thinking what colour scheme would work for an army with Noise Marines, Plague Marines and some weird Dark Mechanicus stuff, something clicked in my head and I realized that the Black Legion are the best of all worlds - slap a snazzy black and gold paint job on any chaos mini and you've got a great looking veteran of the Long War ready to roll poorly shooting at less pointy Space Marines.

I built and undercoated a small force, but apparently I only managed to take a single picture of a chap that I converted to be wielding a melta gun before my attention wandered again:

(I also added a couple of bits to the Tally buying some Plague Marines, mostly because it was one of these minis that I saw a very nice Black Legion paintjob on that started the ball rolling in my mind...)

Taking a break from miniatures (because why focus on one hobby when you can spread yourself over three or four - see also videogames, binge-watching Parks and Rec with my wife as she's on Maternity Leave) I built some Gunpla:

Build Burning Gundam, beautiful and delightfully poseable, and also a valuable learning experience - don't use Tamiya panel liner accent colour like it's an ink wash, as it will eat through plastic:

(they were fixed with judicious application of glue, then sanding it back down and painting them to look like they had never been carelessly ruined).

Also - Wing Gundam Fenice, which is built, but still needs going back over to fix any seam lines, then painting and posing:

It's been a couple of months since reaching this point though...

Then, inspiration struck for a long back-burnered project:

Had a hankering to re-watch the film while my wife was out at a hen do, and set to digging out a selection of gribbly bits (and then watching the 2011 prequel, which honestly I enjoyed)

Ah, horrific aberrations in miniature form presented without comment. Inspiration burned fiercely and I finished building half a dozen or so miniatures, but ground to a halt somewhat when I couldn't find a suitably sized dog head that I liked. To see someone that actually finished their Thing project (and also that is good), click here for inspiration. If I make one more man-sized Thing, two more Spawn sized Things, and one boss sized Thing that should be enough to knock up some rules...

Then, running into a friend of mine, the conversation ran over a selection of RPG topics, touching on the Iron Kingdoms RPG, and I was reminded of how good the fluff is for Warmachine, with a complex, mulit-layered plot that actually advances. I had every MK1 book, and decided to go back and get caught up with everything I'd missed in the last decade (seriously, if you've never read any Warmachine lore, give it a go - I think they set up a company to generate steampunk war fiction and the wargame was just a happy accident that spun out of it). As these things tend to, this gave me a hankering to paint some miniatures. Handily, I already had a selection of miniatures in the Lead Mountain, and thus was able to dig out some bits and bobs without spending any money.

Well, that was the plan anyway.

What can I say, I was minding my own business trawling eBay and I'm a sucker for a bargain. Also for classic sculpts like this Haley. 

Side note: reading old issues of No Quarter, Kev White sculpted way more Warmachine and Hordes miniatures than I had previously realised. 

So yeah, Haley (because I love her in the lore. Not because she's an epic time controlling protagonist, but because she spends an amount of time going 'oh bugger it' which amuses me) and some Stormsmiths, because I like their triangulate ability, it appeals to the maths side of me.

Also, since I got Haley, I got her character Jack Thorn too so she'd have a friend. And a Squire, because I've wanted a little robot battery for a while.

So into the stripping pot they go:

(with a few chums)

Not everything I wanted to strip would fit in the pot though... There's a lunchbox full of leftovers I've got my eye on though as soon as I can slip it past my wife...

While we're on the subject of hits to the Tally, I found myself with an hour to kill between visits at work (darn trains) so nipped into a games shop that I'd never been into, and as you should always support local businesses that you enjoy or else they will disappear treated myself to some Thri-Keen from the Nolzur's miniatures line:

Probably not something I'd ever use, but I've got a soft spot for those wacky bug men. Anyway, there were no beholders.

So, four months of purchases brings the Tally to:

2 vs 27 = -25

Honestly, could have been way worse. 

I looked over the 2019 Challenge just in case I'd accidentally knocked something off, but no such luck. If I finish a miniature every other day until the end of the year, I should be able to cross off at least one thing...

While it may seem that I've mostly been building and accruing miniatures, some painting has occurred, it's just that I've generally got someone with me:

So, expect to see some finished miniatures in the near future...

(check out those liver spots - thanks to the Midwinter Minis painting videos for inspiring that)

2016 end of year post

Ah, the annual end of year retrospective post, wherein I analyse loosely how little my yearly output matched the aims that I had set out the previous year, and then waffle on a bit, glad that the Tally resets to zero and I'm finally back in the black (also known as 'the most wonderful time of the year')

Tally

56 vs 343 = -287

2016: -287 (56 painted)

2015: -96 (59 painted)

2014: 0 (80 painted)

2013: -416 (25 painted)
2012: -103 (68 painted)
2011: -173 (122 painted)

Not my worst year, and not bad considering the Tally mostly took a hit when I came into possession of a very large box of warhammer all the way back in March. I'd actually been doing pretty well up until that point (although in the interest of full disclosure that's because I was saving all of my hobby pennies for the annual outing to Salute, but that admission paints me in less of a 'saintly paragon of self control' light). Once again Zomtober was a fairly weighty contributing factor to my painted models total, as I got a bit carried away and went somewhat over the one model a week target for the month...

Whilst writing this, I've discovered a mathematical error in the Tally as it appeared in my posts thus far, and so have adjusted the finished total accordingly! In my defence, I'd only missed one acquistion (the freebie on the first issue of the relaunched White Dwarf, which it seems I added to the Tally but forgot to keep on the total the post after...)

Posts

40 posts this year - apparently I was chattiest in 2014 when I managed to make 69...

Aside from posting nothing at all in June (having moved house at the start of the month, all of my paints and miniatures were boxed up until I got my hobby basement sorted!) it seems that I've actually managed to post semi-regularly this year - this feels fairly surprising, as now my daughter is getting older I seem to have less hobby time (gone are the days when she was basically a beautiful sleeping potato, these days I tend to find miniatures in her doll house or she wants to sit on my lap and paint too).

Starting an Instagram account for my painting seems to have helped with engaging with other hobbyists too, as I can post WIP pictures and things rather than having to have something finished to show as tends to be the case with my posts on here.


Projects (according to last year's end of year post)

Star Wars

Only one miniature finished for this project (the Talz Copilot), but a few bits half done.

Every time I go to prep the rebel miniatures I have to make an opposing force for the stormtroopers that I painted way back when, I end up browsing for more to fill in the gaps in my collection to make useable forces, and can't justify the cost to buy from the states- does anyone have any they want to trade so that I can kickstart this project and actually get something painted?

The same goes for Zuckuss - my lack thereof seems to have become a bigger mental stumbling block than it should, really, and I've vowed to myself that I won't paint my nice shiny (and now long Out of Print) Knight Models Boba Fett until I've painted 4-Lom and Zuckuss, to make a complete set of the Bounty Hunters from Empire...

ASOIAF

Only the Wights and Others that I painted for Zomtober were actually finished and posted up on the blog, but there have also been a few bits converted or half-painted behind the scenes over the year, so the project endures...

Batman

A couple of bits finished for this, but as ever in a disorganised fashion as things struck my fancy - I even actually finished the Bat himself this month! Still haven't started any of the expensive official Knight Models miniatures that I have though...

Zombies

Nothing modern finished this year, just the fantasy zombies for Zomtober. It's one of those projects that I can always add something to though (and have plenty of things assembled or undercoated, ready to go whenever it takes my fancy)

on the back burner:

The Last of Us - still haven't made any real progress on this, other than occasionally taking out the bits I had put aside, sighing, and then putting them away again (although my Joel and Ellie miniatures were pulled out as backups for this year's Zomtober, but ended up getting shelved in favour of the direction I ended up going) - with The Last of Us 2 being announced though, maybe that will swing my hobby focus back this way...

The Thing -I dug out my selection of gribbly bits from my bits box, then got distracted googling other people's conversions for gaming The Thing in 28mm, and got a bit disheartened because what I found other people had done was really good...

Path to Glory - The same story as ever - the entire warband is sat undercoated in the tray of WIP miniatures in the top of my hobby desk. When White Dwarf relaunched and had a free Khorne Champion on the front, I speculatively rolled up a warband for him, but it didn't spur me to actually build or paint anything...

Mass Effect -Still waiting on finding some suitable helmets for the Cerberus Assault Trooper conversions. Also, my friend that currently has access to a 3D printer is changing jobs soon, so it might become even less likely to happen...

ROTPOTA- I really need to get on with painting some monkeys. I have some lovely monkeys, but most of them have fairly hefty integral bases, and when it comes to choosing how to spend my limited hobby time some relaxing painting or kitbashing with Perry bits tends to win out over grinding off lumps of metal with a rotary tool...

Whilst Fallout wasn't specifically a listed project in last year's post (merely being alluded to) the number of completed miniatures increased four-fold, although admittedly that's because it was only a single miniature strong before this year started! 

Once again, still no Sanity Claws for Christmas. Mostly because I only ever really think about it at this time of year when it's way too late to get one in time for Christmas, and I'm too broke to get one anyway!

Projects for 2017:

Star Wars - I saw Rogue One last week. I really want to convert some Commandos. Or kitbash some fancy black Stormtroopers using Stormtrooper bodies and helmets from specialist Clone Troopers. And maybe buy Star Wars Imperial Assault. Seriously, anyone with old WOTC minis to trade, get in touch.

ASOIAF - I'm going to finish this project before GRRM finishes the book series, so no rush.

Japes aside, I still enjoy converting and painting miniatures for this project (plus, I have quite the stash of bits for it) - maybe I'll even work on some long-plannede conversions, as hinted at by my choice of image...

Zombies - I'm aiming to do Zomtober again this year. Although technically it was AE:WWII that got me back into the hobby way back when after my teenage hiatus, it was the zombie project that was my first real project, and so a main project it will likely always stay. I've probably painted more zombies than I'll realistically need over the last few years, but there's always something else I can add, whether it's more zombies from the various stashes of miniatures in my hobby drawers, or more survivors, that can be used interchangably with the majority of my other 'mildly post-apocalyptic' projects like The Last of Us or Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

On the back burner:

Batman - I'll still pick at the occasional model, but without worrying about what. I think in part I'm moving this project out of the spotlight to trick myself into getting something done, as that seems to be the case when I focus on something else...
Fallout - it would be a main project if I had more minis that I could use for it. Who knows though, maybe I'll actually properly read the Salute guide this year and find out if Brother Vinni is in attendance before he's sold out of all of his Nuclear Sandlot miniatures... Then again, I've actually had a chance to sink a few hours into Fallout 4 over the festive period, and been inspired to convert some miniatures that I have squirreled away, so you never know...
The Last of Us - as previously mentioned, it's a solid maybe. If I end up placing that order with CP models though...
Path to Glory - I should probably drop this off of the list, given how long it's beenon here (and how many unposted WIP pictures I have of the conversions), but part of me still wants to believe that I'll be able to turn my focus onto these and knock them out fairly quickly. More likely, however, is that I'd probably pull out the tray they're in and get distracted by the basecoated 3rd edition Human Blood Bowl team that's sat next to them...
ROTPOTA - hangs on by a thread, because really all I need to do is paint some apes!

So, place your bets on what actually gets painted next year!