CharlieTee Paints for me...

Photo by Charlie Tee

Long term readers of this blog will remember that around when I started I agreed to paint a friend’s Herald of Tzeentch. Many years later, it was still unfinished, so I resolved when I moved house I’d commission someone to finish it off so my friend could finally get her model back painted.

Conveniently, my friend Charlie Tee has set up a painting business and Twitch Channel called, surprisingly, Charlie Tee Paints. I sent it off a little while ago, and today I got this wonderful ‘before’ and ‘after’ comparison.

With the herald now winging its way to its owner, I thought my readership would like to see it. I can absolutely recommend Charlie’s painting business to people, and I hear they have commission slots available at the time of writing. (If you’re reading this in six months time, who knows? Write and ask them!)

Warhammer 40,000 Open Day - Exhibition - Armies on Parade Display

More pictures taken while I was at the Warhammer 40,000 Open Day at Warhammer World. This time, the exhibition of Armies of Parade entrants.

First up is an internet famous one! This is an amazing Dark Eldar display piece done by James Taro. I think it's a bit of a shame that there wasn't a national Armies on Parade competition last year or this year, as I think this would have been a serious contender for winning last year.

I like Orks, and I'm very fond of irresponsible giant land ships. This board has both. It doesn't look great from a distance as the multi-coloured metal plates break up the outline a lot, but it's really nice.

Here's an awesome chaos board, with a lot of work gone into customising the board to add the chaos star.

An awesome chaos daemons board, invading an Imperial city. Some of the daemons have had some green stuff work done to change their faces.

This Ork board is apparently inspired by the old Deff Skwadron comic.

Nice little Grey Knight force working alongside some Storm Troopers. Coteaz supervises from the building on the back.

A nice simple Adeptus Mechanicus and Skitarii board - really like the rusted pipes and weathering.

This is a Tomb Kings / Nagash Age of Sigmar board - the idea of the column of skeletons coming out of the Realmgate is a really nice one.

If you look closely, you can also see some spirit hosts just behind the portal, painted in the same colours. I really like that effect.

Bit of a Space Hulk vibe going on here...

An oldie but a goodie - one of the White Dwarf team's Empire board.

Forge World Exalted Keeper of Secrets: Painted by Golem Painting Studio (NSFW)

Many of you will remember that among my many failings was buying people presents which I was also going to assemble and paint, and not assembling and painting them. This daemon was bought as a birthday present for a good friend many years ago, and I then failed to do anything about it for far too long.

I finally decided that enough was enough, and asked Golem Painting Studio to make my abject failure go away. They have, as I expected, knocked it out of the park...

Photo by Golem Painting Studio
Used with Permission

Photo by Golem Painting Studio
Used with Permission

Photo by Golem Painting Studio
Used with Permission

I'm very pleased to cross this beautiful girl off the "to do" list in such a spectacular way.

Pomodoro and Progress

So, following my review of last year and many ambitious commitments, I decided to start as I meant to go on, and be pretty productive.

I've been meaning to try out the Pomodoro Technique for a while now. For those of you not into clicking links, the short version is that you spend 25 minutes doing a thing, then take a five minute break. Then you do another 25 minutes, and 5 minute break, and so on, taking a longer (half hour to an hour) break every 4 Pomodori. They're named after the tomato shaped kitchen timer the chap who came up with the idea first used (Pomodoro being Italian for tomato).

And it worked pretty well. I managed 5 Pomodori on New Year's Day, getting all sorts of things sorted, from starting assembly and preparation on Zoe and Pi-Well, through to actually getting some more paint on the infamous Herald of Tzeentch.

I then ran into the problem with Pomodori, because I then didn't get anything done for two days. The Pomodoro technique is really useful for keeping on working once you've started - several times after fifteen minutes I'd finished a thing, and instead of slacking off and stopping, I went and did a little more on something else. It was super helpful with that. What it didn't do was help me get the willpower to start.

This is where I'd really recommend people think about spending an hour a day at their hobby and making it a habit. I heard about this on the Independent Characters podcast, and some wags have started calling it #tuttletime (currently doing OK on Facebook, not trending on twitter). Poor Carl. As he rightfully points out, he had the idea suggested to him by Paul Rudge, but "Paul Rudge Points" or "Rudge Recurrences" just don't have the same alliteration.

Still, the time was useful, and I did get some more painting in later in the week, as the renegade / cultist is finally done. I also bit the bullet and sent out the Exalted Slaanesh Daemon to Golem Painting Studio. I think after having something more than four years which is a present for something else is the point to admit you're probably taking too long doing it... I'm also super excited to see what they do with it.

So, how are my commitments looking one week in?

Projects a month: 1/2
Operation: Complete Other People's Stuff: 0/3
Hall of Shame: 0/5
Finishing the 2014 backlog: 1/20

My painting review of 2014

It looks like I've been a bit more productive this year!

Finished models

Wicked Dolls for Malifaux

Adeptus Arbites Kitbash

20 Guardsmen

Collodi for Malifaux

MkI Thunder Armour

Commissar Lord

Imperial Priest

Leman Russ Tank

Bloodletter

An angry Squat

Codename: Oberon by Mantic

A mildly tipsy Squat

Anvil Industry Werewolf

Bonus: Stuff other people painted for me!

Imperial Beastmen, painted by Simlauren

Imperial Guard Bombard, painted by Golem Painting Studio

How did I do?

Well, that's certainly better than I managed last year. But if you scroll down that post, you'll see I set myself some goals. How well did I do with those?

Not include models I'm selling in my tracking systems next year
Well, that was an easy one.

Take part in the Independent Characters Hobby Progress Challenge
Well, I took part - but I sort of intended to complete it! I didn't complete the challenge, but I certainly got a lot more models painted as a result.

Finish the blasted Collodi crew
Oh dear. I got halfway there, but there's still four Marionettes to finish basing.

500 point Warriors of Chaos Army
Not started.

All of Salute 2012's purchases painted
Nope. The Storm Troopers were done last year, but there's still a female Commissar, the show Mayan and all the Sarissa Precision stuff that's not finished yet.

No new systems (Infinity, this means you) until I've fully painted one of my other skirmish games up
Abject failure. You'll notice my posts about lovely Infinity stuff, and you will notice above no skirmish games completed...

Future Plans

I think that trying to plan a full year is a mistake. I have projects I want to progress, but I may get distracted by a different project. Y'all understand that, right? So, I'll separate out "what I'm interested in at the moment" and "what I'm committing to".

I've taken to listing my projects on a project page of the blog. It's not fully written out yet - I do it as and when, as I get inspired by different projects. The eternal project of the Imperial Guard is written up, as is the Cypher project.

My big drive at the moment is Infinity - I've found deadlines are good for me getting things done, so being booked onto two Infinity events (one in January, one in February) will help me get my Infinity stuff sorted.

Otherwise, I'd like to get some Guard stuff done, enough Inquisition done to field a small allied contingent, and get some Malifaux in.

Commitments

So, important things with commitments is to be realistic, so lets start by setting some realistic ground rules. Any Kickstarter projects, either arriving or backing, don't count to the wider restrictions, because, well, I just get sad otherwise. Presents (Christmas, Birthday, etc) don't count. Salute most definitely doesn't count.

I have just over 16 years of painting mountain if I keep painting and modelling at the rate I did last year. It'd be probably be better if I got it down to around a decade.

That really means that as a base minimum, I should be finishing two projects a month - 24 a year. That's going to be the basic rule. There's some "stretch goals" to work for too.

- Finish more than two projects in a month, and limit purchases the following month to however much I beat the target by

- Finish "Operation: Complete Other People's Stuff". (only 3 items left!)

- Clear the Hall of Shame of anything started before 2014. (5 items)

- Finish anything I started before the start of 2015. (20 items)

These ones are all aspirational - which means that unlike "finish 2 things in a month", I can aim for them if I'm doing well, but don't feel so bad if I miss them. I'm also very keen to focus a lot of effort on things I've been given as presents, because, you know, it's not cool to have things people gave you sitting in boxes. I don't just want to be resting on my mint plastic/resin/metal treasure like a geek Smaug. It's not comfy, for starters.

A miraculous miracle, and a daemonic goal

I struggled through the heat to my painting desk this weekend to find a miraculous sight. My Bloodletter's base had cured itself! It turns out I'd layered the crackle paint on so thick it had taken about a week to dry!

I have also been rightly shamed and criticised by a good friend over a present I bought them years ago, with the intention of assembling and painting it for them as well, remains sitting in a box, un-started. I am now absolutely resolved to get this sorted by Christmas - this is doubly challenging, as it is the Forge World Keeper of Secrets, which is not a small job!

Still super pleased with that base

So, I took a serious look at what I need to do to make this happen. At the time of discussion, before the Bloodletter got finished, I had ten projects in progress, which is craziness and madness. I also had too many little niggly projects in the "not started" queue. Aaaand I had the Hobby Progress August challenge to get done.

So, I set myself the following things so my dear and lovely friend could see where her Daemon is in the queue:

In progress moved to done: 10
Start quick wins from the "to do" pile: 10
Guard Painting Commitment Started: 1
Guard Painting Commitment Finished: 1

I've now added this tracker to my "in progress" page so its all up on the net to shame me into action. And to motivate me further, I'm putting my allowance where my mouth is. If Ms Stabby is not painted by Christmas, I'm going to pay someone to do it - I'm putting money aside each month to cover it. Of course, I'm going to breeze this deadline with no problem and then I'll have put aside a nice little present for myself.

As a note, here's how I finally finished off the Bloodletter. Masking tape carefully protecting him while I "Purity Seal"ed the base so it stays where it is now. The gift wrapped blood letter just looked so silly I had to snap something of him.

That wasn't the only progress I made at the weekend. The Gunnarsen brothers, violent abhuman mercenaries, were also fully assembled.

And, just to make things interesting, I've signed up for a tournament at Dark Sphere on the first weekend of August ("Dakka on Bakka"), and I want to try and add a special something for then (my August commitment, in fact). Its likely I've only got half of the weekend between then and now available! Time to get busy...

Leman Russ Completed, Help Needed, and a Kickstarter Delivers

Firstly, on Saturday morning, I was pleased to receive my pledge from the "Trolls of Trudvang" Kickstarter by JoeK Minis. I'd been keeping an eye on this one and not really planning to pledge (not being a fan of the big troll) but then an option came up for just the little troll, who I kind of liked, so I bit.

My Microsoft Paint skills are
clearly not up to the level
that my hand painting ones are

JoeK Minis are the first Kickstarter I've ever backed to deliver everything I pledged for, and in a double win - they did so on time. I've made the above trophy of awesomeness for JoeK to celebrate this achievement alongside his many others.

This weekend, I also painted a Leman Russ Battle Tank I've had lying around assembled and unpainted for a Very Long Time. This is my third Leman Russ - I now have two normal ones and one Demolisher. I tried out the excellent battle damage tutorial which Games Workshop did, which I've linked to below.



Finally, I have a big problem. I was tinkering around with a Bloodletter to try out a few paint effects. In fact, I was incredibly happy with the ones I did on him - and then I royally stuffed up the base.

As you can see, the Agrellan Earth I was basing with has gotten all over the bottom of his legs (and also has come out horribly - I think I put it on too thick). Has anyone got any ideas for rescuing this - either making it look not terrible or getting the stuff off without ruining the rest of the paint job?

And finally, here's a teaser to what I'm working on next...

Regaining the zen - putting some paint on a model

I really, really don't like to think about how long I've had my friend Becky's Tzeentch Herald. I'm a terrible, terrible person, but I'm gosh-darned going to get it finished for her eventually!

Anyhow, after my little issue earlier in the week with my Beastman Kitbashing, I decided to try and regain some of my fragile equilibrium with some actual painting, and turned back to the Herald, who has been sitting resolutely not done on my painting board for far too long!

I'm now working on getting colours other than pink onto our Herald-y friend. The blue on the feathers is a nice contrast, and the two different shades of metal seem to work quite well.  This is his back, where he has a little crop of feathers coming out from under his arm pit. Tzeentchian underarm hair / feathers does seem to be a little out of control!

Here he is from the front. I've now started up the layering and blending on the beak. My idea here is to have his pink flesh blend into a bone coloured area which is clearly harder, then through to a dark purple where you'd normally do horn / bone with a dark brown.

I'm also intending to bring the blue on his dagger back a bit - that's the first wash, and I want to put more silver metal back onto it, but I went a little too heavy on the wash, and you've got to wait for that to dry before trying to fix it, or it will All Go Wrong.

I started painting this model before my painting lesson from Tommie at Golem Painting Studio. It really has highlighted how much I've come on in terms of thinking about where to put paint on a model, let alone in the techniques to actually put it on the model, as a result of that class. He's just held a "Painting Essentials" class this weekend (I know Mr Lee went, so check out his blog for the inevitable review), but there will almost certainly be more.

Go.

No matter how far you are in your painting, from starting out all the way through to some genius with a brush, he will probably have something to teach you. I currently regard it as the best money I've ever spent in the hobby.

Weekly progress: Completed models, cool wallpapers and tinkering around with Kanban

Some of you may remember the ridiculous exclusive I achieved about Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon. (Beasts of War did manage to get some footage up the following month, but I broke the game-play picture scoop!) Well, while following back a referral from a lovely German forum over the weekend, I spotted some thumbnails of some more pictures. A quick search of the Slitherine website found a forum post with some pretty Armageddon Wallpapers. Get them while they're hot!

How did people find my "Infinity Week"? It was a bit of an experiment for me. Daily posting isn't something I'm going to be able to do that often, but I had enough material and blitzed everything over the weekend and scheduled it out. So, what have I been doing over the course of the week?

My darling wife had a bit of a word about my Kanban Board. I showed her the layout I'd been using and as an impartial observer, she prodded some holes in it. I'd upped my "Work in Progress" in the painting column to 6, with the intention of every two things moved out of it, I'd reduce the limit by one until it was back down at 3, which would keep things moving. She pointed out that would just slow down me dealing with the underlying problem. I also have two completed items in the assembly column waiting to move into painting, so it wouldn't really help move much along, just maintain an already too high work in progress limit. She also rightfully pointed out that preparation and assembly should probably be combined, which I did, causing yet another over limit column.

(I've also added a limit on my "to do" column, which is items I've bought, of the current items I've purchased but not started. I want to get this down from 136 to about 100, though I'm not sure how long this is going to take. That one I _am_ going to keep at the higher limit, and work a "2 out, 1 in" policy, otherwise I will be Very Sad. However, any new items should now be going right on the top of the column so I pick them up as my next thing to do, which should cut down my ridiculous habit of buying something to paint up at some point in the future.)

Anyway, on to things I've actually done!

There's now five of the corpse tokens finished, and I've decided to go with the method on the bottom left - a layer of water effect, washing over that layer, then once that's dried, another layer of water effect. So I have another five of those to complete.

The disk for my friend's Herald of Tzeentch is now done - just the Herald to get done now! I can see some pink in my future...

Three of the Marionettes are getting much closer to being done - just some last details to pick up, and they should be ready for basing.

However, Collodi himself and the other Marionette are both ready for basing! I'm incredibly pleased about this as they've been something I've been working on FOREVER.

Now, this leads on to an interesting observation. On my Kanban board, all that's happened is this:

Collodi has moved into the basing column - because the Marionettes aren't all painted, and the disk is done, but the Herald is not. There's a ton of work which isn't showing, because it isn't finished in the stage it's at.

Now, I'd show my normal spreadsheet at this point, but quite frankly, it looks like a flat line - that massive pile of incomplete work means that any day's work just doesn't have an opportunity to show up. So, I stripped down a copy of the sheet to only include items that I've started on the Kanban board.

So, each of the two systems has its own advantages. The spreadsheet shows that I've done something, but gives a false sense of progress in terms of getting things finished.

The spreadsheet also shows something else interesting - until last week, I tried to focus on doing a massive blitz each weekend - notice the complete and total lack of progress . . . I then changed to trying to do a little bit each day - for much better results. It broke down the barrier of me wanting to sit down at the painting desk, and even on days when I wasn't really in the mood for painting, some little bits and bobs got done. Given the success of "paint a little each day", I intend to continue with it wherever possible.