Four more years! 2014 in review...

Ah, the annual year in review post, wherein your intrepid author aims to objectively review his project progress for the year without waffle or navel-gazing, which inevitably devolves into a list of things that I have still not completed and the things that distracted me from them!

I made 68 posts last year, making it my most prolific to date. Despite my claims last year that I'd try and post more wip posts rather than just painted miniatures, this didn't always happen (and in fact there are still wip projects waiting to be posted from the year before!) - an exception being the post before this one, but in the interest of full disclosure I'd have to admit that he only got posted because I was reminded of the fact that I was going to be posting more wip pics whilst working on a draft of this post!

I also managed to make at least one post a month, although the traditional drought towards the end of the year was still present - I just don't seem to get stuff done in the Autumn and Winter! This year admittedly though it was down to a number of factors, including some time spent playing Mass Effect, a downer period of wanting to get a new job, and preparation for the impending arrival of my daughter next year, which will also mean that I'll have less hobby time next year! Well, we all know I was never going to be an army painter anyway...

Tally

80 vs 80 = 0

I squeaked it back into the black (technically) at the eleventh hour, which is especially impressive considering the monumental size of the negative the year before!

2014: 0 (80 painted)

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

Last year's 'projects for next year':

Path to glory

Another year, and the warband is still sat undercoated in a box waiting for a tickle with the paintbrush. Admittedly a little paint has been daubed on some of the miniatures, but not enough to warrant a post about the affair. Whilst I did in fact get round to producing a finalised updated set of rules for the modern wargamer who fancied a spot of Chaos warband based skirmish wargaming, I still have as of yet to finish the Chaos Wastes themed scenery that has likewise been sat half-finished for over a year now... It's a bit of an odd fish this one, as it's a project that I'm enthused about, I have everything I need for it, and it's not exactly an unreasonable amount of miniatures to paint before calling it done, but it just seems whenever I go to put some time into it something else always seems more appealing... I'm not going to relegate this project to the back burner just yet, as it's still eminently achieve able, but admittedly that's what I said this time last year... 

Batman

I emptied the Heroclix figures out of my stripping pot, found that they were generally still as caked in paint as the year I'd put them in there, and then packed them away in a baggie. Onto the back burner for this project, for now at least...

Zombieslayer/slayers

I acquired some more for the collection, and painted Gotrek and Felix, but beyond  cleaning up and undercoating a couple if models no other progress has been made...

It's a bit like the Path to Glory project in a way, in that I've pretty much for everything I need, but whenever I sit down to paint something there's always something else that just piques my interest a little bit more...

Star Wars 

(This picture is from my wedding day)

The one project that looked like I was actually focusing on a single thing for once, after playing some Star Wars Battlefront with my godson back in August and joining the 6 Month Mountain Reduction Project, I beavered away and managed to knock out a few painted figures! All I need to do now is paint up an equivalent amount of Rebel Troopers and (gasp) I could even use them to play some sort of game!

A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones):

Waaaay back in February, I painted the House Stark troops that I'd previously converted. Other than that, I've converted a couple of Lannister troops, worked on my in armoured Jaime conversion (the head I have for it is just a smudge too big I think, curse you slender figures!), and done some work on the flesh times of my Ned conversion, but nothing else. The Christmas gift of some new Perry sprues should spur me into some more conversions though (and admittedly, the only reason I didn't start doing some on Christmas Day was that my superglue had dried out!)


Dungeons and Dragons

It seems ever more unlikely with the passage of time that my 4e game will take off (I mean, 5th edition is out now, it's been that long). That doesn't stop me from painting generic fantasy miniatures though, and as I'm currently playing in a Pathfinder campaign I may end up painting a few miniatures for that too, and then it's really just the same project with the serial numbers filed off and a snazzy new title...


Rise of the Planet of the Apes

I bought the hench gorilla I was after from Bushido the game, and put him in the tub of miniatures that I have for this project. I even picked up the Heroclix figures I was after for a couple of conversions (I wanted some 28mm discarded riot gear for apes to brandish), but having still not gotten around to seeing the film, bar a single slightly too small gorilla painted back in April my attention still hasn't swung around to painting up gangs of apes (and potentially the whacking great integral bases that need filing off of a number of the miniatures might have something to do with it too...)

Others:

The backburner projects: Halo, Three Kingdoms, Doctor Who, Blood Bowl, and all the rest - not a lot doing. I painted up a couple of Silence miniatures, and the occasional oddment that caught my eye, as is my way.

I did however finish the display board that I was making, that I now use in most (if not all) of the pictures that I post, so that's a victory of sorts I guess?

Next years projects:

(Yes, this will be the basis of next year's retrospective post)

ASOIAF

As mentioned, I've just had some new figures for this project, so will hopefully be able to take the two starter forces up to skirmish level (including painting my Ned conversion and finishing off my Jaime). This project has always suffered from being a bit too grand in scope, as I have ideas for all sorts of warbands, but if I can get a couple done then I can add a figure or two here and there gradually as time goes on... 

Since starting the draft of this post, I've built a couple of House Stark archers and bought a copy of the World of Ice & Fire book, so you may be seeing something from this project sooner than you'd expect!

The Last of Us

If I let myself buy some bits from Miniature Mojo (assuming that the bits that I want are back available on their webstore) then with the bits I already have squirrelled away and a little green stuff this project could be a goer, as it only needs about half a dozen conversions and it's ready to go! We've heard that before though, so we shall see...

The Thing

As my beloved put some 'not The Thing' survivor miniatures from Studio Miniatures in my stocking this Christmas, and I have a whole host of chaos spawn bits for making grubby fleshy monstrosities in my bits box, this is another small scale easily achieveable project that I will probably get distracted from...

Star Wars

As previously mentioned, basing and painting a squad of rebels is all I'd need to do to have two skirmish size forces, then it would just be a case of painting the occasional figure that caught my fancy (like the remaining bounty hunters, for example - if anyone has a spare Zuckuss figure lying around to complete my set I'd be eternally grateful...)

Path To Glory

Same as last year, I just need to finish painting the warband that's been under coated for gods knows how long... And then finish the scenery that is already almost done...

Mass Effect

Way back when (four years or so back) I started playing the original Mass Effect. Alas, my xbox wiped my save, and it was four years before I was ready to give it a second chance, and even then that is mostly because a friend of mine played through the games around the time of the birth of his son, and with the imminent arrival of my daughter I thought that seemed like as good a reason as any to give it another go! Being a Bioware game (oh, Knights of the Old Republic, how I loved you), it's a compelling sci if tale that really would translate quite well to something miniatures based, whether that be a tabletop wargame or perhaps the D20 RPG that you can find floating sound on the internet... Alas, I don't have any miniatures already in the lead mountain that can be pressed into service, but if I can get my hands on a copy of Sedition Wars and some Infinity and Mantic miniatures I should be able to come up with something! The main issue I've had so far is that all of the aliens look so very... alien, which makes it hard to proxy humanoid scifi miniatures for them! And don't get me started on the difficulty of finding a suitable head donor for a Batarian...

On the back burner:

ROTPOTA - going onto the backburner for now, because that's where it's most likely to get worked on when it distracts me from a main project! Although admittedly, between finishing the draft of this post and it actually hitting the internet, I've since re-watched the first (modern) film, so we'll see if that affects my future decisions on what to paint!

Nerdmarines - 3 minis to paint, but 2 are vehicles. Might get some love between larger projects, but we'll see...

Everything else - if you've read this blog more than once, you'll know my hobby preferences are like that of a magpie, so the occasional Doctor Who miniature (or maybe the Deadpool mini I got for Christmas) will probably sneak in here and there! 

Nerdmarines: squad and a half finished!

Fourteen tactical marines, combined with my original test marine, make up my two Troop choices for my first 500 points:

Oh, what a harsh mistress is unnatural light! Apparently several times during the painting of these I forgot how to apply paint to miniatures, but some tidying up later and they're at an acceptable tabletop standard. Some freehand tactical marks on the shoulder pads and the hazard striping on the sergeants chainsword add a little pizzazz to the units, especially when viewed from a slight distance! 

Well, I say freehand, a soft pencil and some ingenuity (and a steady hand with a tape measure) can help form a guideline in these situations:

Finishing these brings the tally to:

36 vs 35 = 1

Who would have thought, it's actually back into the positive! Plus, I've got a dreadnaught, razorback and librarian to paint yet for the first planned 500 points, although I might see if I can churn out a single figure for fun next time I have a couple of hours free before I start on them! I may even stick up a poll to see what I should paint as a break, so watch this space...

In other news, technically these miniatures were actually finished last week, but only had static grass applied and were posted today, as the wife and I were in Germany for the weekend:

(This is Germany. You can tell by the lack of fence by the railway)

What, you want a more obviously German picture? Fine:

Ah, sweet Deutschland, land of things being clearly labelled, how I miss you already...

Next time we'll have to go for longer than a long weekend though! It was odd being in a country when they won the World Cup though, how many Englishmen get to say that?

Edit the day after to add a picture if forgot about:

In Germany they have wargames magazines with freebies on!

So, yeah...

I bought a tank today.

It was a moment of weakness. I had 55 points left to spend (and a £5 voucher burning a hole in my wallet) and a razorback was exactly that (the points, not the money). 

Brings the tally down to:

22 vs 35 = -13

But hey, new toys! Unusually, I've actually built something the same day I bought it...

As the wife was reaching a couple of friends to knit tonight, when I wasn't bringing people cups of tea or cooking dinner I got to spend some quality tank building time...

However, having people round and rewatching episodes of Firefly isn't necessarily the most conducive environment to model making...

As I realised just after gluing the lid on, I missed installing the interior wall and had to tear it apart...

Which led to some filing and green-stuffing to try and tidy it up afterwards...

All's well that ends well though, as I now have me a tank!

Which brings me up to 500 points built (and based)!

Nerdmarines muster for war!

There have been rumblings of some potential 500 point 40k, so several episodes of Firefly rewatching later (and furiously fighting the urge to jump back into the Firefly project) we have 445 points of Nerdmarines built. They're a mix of monopose starter set marines (freely mixing and matching parts from different sets in the case of some models) and proper multipart marines from the box I got when I cancelled my White Dwarf subscription (and an old metal Captain with powerfist having taken a demotion to Vereran Sergeant status), with custom chapter shoulder pads using the moulds I rigged up a while ago for the original test model. Expect more in depth shots (such as the terrible conversion work I've done to de-Dark Angel the Dark Vengeance Librarian) should my attention span hold long enough to get something painted...

First figure of the year: test nerdmarine finished!

So, I managed to finish my test marine today:

Knarloc Green and Boltgun metal are the two main colours, with Dheneb Stone as the base of the cream accents. I'm fairly happy with how he turned out, although I could always be a better painter - my edge highlights are somewhat iffy in some places, and in hindsight Fenris Grey may have been too 'blue' a paint to use to highlight the black, but I guess you live and learn... He's not had any decals applied yet, as I'll probably wait until I have a squad's worth and do them all in one fell swoop!

With this lone finished miniature, this brings the tally a step back in the right direction, to:

1 vs 5 = -4


In all honesty though, I think the thing that I'm most surprised by is the lack of 'you can't call them nerdmarines that's not canon' comments on my previous post, maybe I pitched my tent in a more civilized corner of the internet after all...

Space Marines, shoulder pad moulding and the Tally's (inevitable) first hit of the year...

So, I ran into someone I hadn't seen on a train the other day, and we ended up discussing GW. Despite the conversation involving a lot of fist-shaking and cries of 'I know, they want how much for three figures!?', I came away with a refired enthusiasm for 40K, and some half-formed thoughts about painting up a 600 point skirmish force of Space Marines.

as you may or may not remember, a while back I mentioned that I already had plans (and the bits) for a custom Space Marine chapter - but then I thought to myself 'hey, Space Marines with metallic colour schemes look pretty snazzy, no?', and after a little playing around on an online Space Marine painter I came up with this colour scheme:

Fairly similar in concept to the original scheme, but with the addition of dark metallics and the two-tone helmet, purely because I think that they look quite striking. As you'll see later, I decided to keep their chapter logo as a book (due to my profession and general nerdity), which started me thinking about what sort of Chapter they'd be. Maybe they're a mysterious Dark Angels successor chapter, or have a higher occurrence of Librarians like the Blood Ravens? With all these ideas and more bubbling round in my head, I couldn't decide, and in the end decided to run them as vanilla Marines, maybe try out a few different chapter tactics to see how they feel, and worry about fluff and background until later, so for now, they shall be known as my Nerdmarines (TM).

The proof of the pudding is in the eating (or in the case of our hobby, painting), so I set about digging out a test model from one of the old starter sets:

After a quick clean up, having his bolter drilled out and a few dabs of glue, he was ready for basing and gesso-ing, and left overnight to dry.

Finding myself with a couple of hours spare today, I thought I'd see about giving him a lick of paint to see how the colour scheme looks when used in anger... Before I managed that though, I remembered that a while ago, I'd bought some Grey Knights shoulderpads with a mind to making a press-mould of a book themed chapter logo (because hey, it's easier to make uniform than trying to freehand something), and thought I might as well have a crack at it on the test marine (since if I like the results, he's going to be part of the force, so he might as well match his brethren). Unfortunately, I'd apparently had a tidy up,or they'd grown legs and wandered off, but I eventually managed to hunt down the sprue:

Once a suitable donor was selected, I carefully shaved off the ridge to make it match a standard Space Marine shoulderpad (the idea being that the mould will slip snugly over a standard shoulderpad, reducing the potential for misaligned insignia)

 And then carefully shaved and filed off the sword, to leave me with just the desired book:

As is traditional, I mounted the part on a square of plasticard (for ease of handling and to provide a flat surface for the edge of the mould):

 And then (after eventually finding my Blu Stuff after a ten minute search, as apparently my wife had also had a tidy up), following the standard instructions, I set about making a one-part Blu Stuff mould:

Which came out looking like this:

And with a little trimming to make it easier to handle (and more likely to actually slip over a plain shoulderpad) it ended up looking like this:

As I'd already undercoated my test marine, I set about scraping off some paint (so that my dinky green stuff book would be able to stick directly to the miniature rather than getting a less secure hold on a layer of paint):

Which was the point where I realised that, trying to dry fit my newly made mould onto the newly nude shoulderpad, having already glued my marine together, his bolter was massively in the way. Rather than trying to cut him apart (or more sensibly, just going and getting another marine out of the box and starting afresh), I set about making a new, skinnier mould, that would fit inside the shoulderpad's outer ridge, rather than covering it in its entirety:

(luckily, my slightly wonky cutting on the right hand side won't negatively affect the results, as it's only the raised book that will be transferred, the outer edge is purely for alignment purposes...)

A little (incredibly cold and dried up but still just about workable with a lot of kneading and swearing and prayer) Green Stuff later and we have a result!

He's currently sat on the radiator to cure, but I'm pretty happy with that result! Once he's had another dab of gesso he'll be ready (again) to test out the colour scheme on (although I'm not sure how I'll paint the book - should I paint it like an actual book, or metallic, or some other option?).

As you may have guessed from the title of this post though, that's not all. As usual, I made myself the vow that this year, once the tally reset over the New Year, I'd paint some miniatures before I bought anything new, to give myself something of a positive buffer (before Salute hits and the tally takes a nosedive). Somehow though, yesterday I found myself in Games Workshop with my wife, buying toys:

I think the logic was that she'd bought herself a new bag because it was (literally) shiny, and I said 'hey we have that in my hobby too but shiny-bloody-itis is usually more metaphorical' and the Starbucks we were in was just around the corner from GW and so yeah I bought these. I'd been looking to pick some Fenrisian Wolves up for a while now, to use as Dire Wolves in my Song of Ice and Fire Project (as they're quite frankly just the nicest dynamically posed wolves on the market, and not badly priced all things considered), and I picked up a pot of the new Technical Paint 'Nurgle's Rot', as an incentive to myself to paint the Nurgle Path to Glory warband that's been sat undercoated for a number of months...

Which, with a heavy heart, leaves the tally for 2014 at:

0 vs 5 = -5

I think what I really need is another WOMP...