End Of The Week - Start Of The Summer

Well some progress has been made. My heart isn't in stuff at the moment. So I guess any movement is better than no movement. It's more a case of being busy this week but there are plenty of distractions.

So the Goblins for Blood Bowl. Like most GDub stuff there is a lot of detail. Fortunately not as much as the Skaven. I've almost finished a base layer for Varag. Some I can't complain. Except I do. Frequently.

Speaking of Skaven, I have put some paint to plastic. Not much, just a couple of colours. But it is a start. There has been a little bit of progress on the snow troopers and Sludge hussars too.

Start Of The End Of Something

My heart hasn't been in the game over the last month and my head? well who knows where that is. Summer holidays are looming and I am not sure how that's going to work.

Things are progressing. I have more Blood Bowl Skaven to paint. If you had asked me last week if I fancied painting some more Skaven I probably would have gone looking for a chainsaw. I'm thinking I might as well get them done now so at least the colours will match. There are a few goblins still in the queue.

Then there is Bilerot Vomitflesh, for my second favourite team when I am feeling the urge to bash. So plenty more Blood Bowl. These all need priming and currently it is raining here for the first time in ages. Fate mocks me.

                                                            

I've also got some Imperial Snow Troopers for Star Wars Legion. Which will bring me up to four units. Another unit that has been sat around for two years. I just found them and it seemed like a good idea at the time.

 

Start Of (Another Sludge) Week

It's all Sludge all of the time at the moment. It's nice to have a project. Gives me some sense of purpose. If the is the right thing when it comes to painting toy soldiers.

The plan calls for six more bodyguards, although I probably need some more than that eventually. As mentioned before, as a kind of tabletop, shorthand, these all have axes.  At some point these will get shields to match their charge. Some of these have added short muskets. These are mostly moulds taken from other stuff as in order to get enough I would have to spend £100 to get them.

Then its six foot knights. These are all going to have individual colour schemes, they are all nobility after all. These also come with moulded short muskets. At a pinch they can act as officers, although the more I think about it, it would hope I can get round to creating something a bit more individual.

Then there are two six man, six base units. These will work as either shock troops or jagers. Pretty much the same as the regular line units just with fewer bodies in them.

There is a bit more individuality in the minis this week. So a bit harder work but not too much. Its an easier week all round, so I should get there. I have a couple of minis I want to prime white, so I will get these done. One is going to be part of the back the background work as I want to put some effort into it. I have three monsters made from plants, so basically green. These are going into the background so that everytime green comes on the palette what is left will end on these minis. 

Time for the next Quar release is getting closer. It may be sometime around March April. If I can get the Sludge stuff done then maybe I will move on to the next project. The vehicles and the terrain work for both which is always a plus.

At some point I should move back to Star Wars Legion. I have enough of it to paint now. I am not planning on making any more purchases until I have finished what I have. In my head I have an idea for A Star Wars RPG. If I can make this work I might push this to the front of the queue. There are quite a lot of new releases this year. I can see me buying some of it but its mostly duplicates so is somewhere down the list. SOmehow I suspect the army boxes will be a lot more than the £100 the last lot ended up costing.

I have spent some money on BattleTech last year. Again I have promised myself that I won't spend any more money on it until I have finished, or almost finished, what I already have. This isn't going to cost money because I said so.

Midgard is also on the horizon. I have an idea for a unit of ulfhunder and I need a few more mounted figures. Then of course there are some sabot basing. I have this but it needs texturing and painting. A good choice for a back ground project. It has the advantage that I don't need to spend any more money as I have more than enough Vikings.

The Damned are also due. It has only taken two and a bit years. I can see a lot of it going into the bits box. My bits box can now pro bably fill a transit van. There was a plan for it at the time but that has long passed. I can see some stuff for Stargrave or Five Parsecs. I thought they have some post-apocalypse uses too. I had a plan to use some of them for Last War/Mork Borg. This would be at most ten out of about two hundred plus minis. That said, Trench Crusade has come along and I do have a plan for trenches this year. I am also sure that some bits will work with the Quar.

I keep getting nagged by the idea of going back into the Spanish Civil War and even A Very British Civil War. Then I seem to remember declaring 2025 the year of the Halfling. This is probably the most hard core niggle I have to itch.

Don't Buy Care Bears!!!!!

The one thing that really makes life living is my five year old daughter. All the things they say about father's of daughters is probably true. As best I can I like to spoil her. So I got her a Care Bear.

I hid it in my bedroom as a surprise. She came over and I had left my door open and she saw it within a minute of arrival. The bee line to the bear.

In order to get to the bear she somehow managed to climb up the paint stick. I had six b1 battle droids on the the stick. Six extremely fragile b1 battle droids. Well I guess I have a group of bits to use for hi-tech scatter terrain.

We are now at four Care Bears.

How Not To Suffer From Hobby Inertia

As you can see in the picture there is a lot on my table. This demonstrates my current work in progress. There are a lot of separate projects. Somewhere deep in my brain there is some form of traditional idea that you should start a project, finish a project and then move on to the next one. It's some strange offshoot of the Protestant work ethic I thunk.

So this is my workflow. I like to have a few things going at the same time. If I paint a batch of ten minis I will usually opt to give myself some variety within the batch, a few sci-fi, some post apocalypse, a cowboy and top up the ten with some fantasy figures, as an example. Lots and lots of Copplestone magic. The variety keeps me interested and if It have ten random figures I can batch paint them with the same colours quickly and when I have done ten batches, none of the figures look the same.

Right now this is animal week. I have amassed a range of domesticated and wild animals and this is what is in the mix for the week. There are some that are already finished this week that didn't make it into the picture.

At the same time there are half a dozen or so near future/cyberpunk/sci-fi minis that I started last week. Tag onto the some Blood Bowl minis and this is the core of where I am at.

Over the years I have learned to love the dropper bottle. Most of my paint is in dropper bottles, even the G Dub stuff. Whilst so much better that the standard pots, every now and again I end up putting too much paint on the palette. Some part of me, sculpted by my parents and grandparents does not like waste. So if I end up finding an excuse to use it. So the number of projects expands. And expands. 

There are times when I get part way through what I have started and I get bored. Having painted a hundred Star Wars Legion minis I got bored. The BattleTech stuff has been there even longer. So rather than putting the work in progress stuff to a place that it out of site, and therefor out of mind, it stays on the bench. There are a few details (mainly) that need finishing and so when I find I have some spare paint, I can leap into action. That almost made me laugh.

I am certain that I will meet and exceed my target for the month this week,

End Of The Week (10)

So another end of the week. I feel like its been a good week despite time being limited. A little bit of car problems, migraines, lack of sleep and the tail end of the bad weather didn't help but I got where I needed to be. I had my ten figures done my Wednesday and then real life got in the way. Some progress was made but really this was about laying the ground for next week I finished another couple of Star Wars Legion figures so things seem to be doing okay. I am sick of the sight of Star Wars Legion stuff at the moment, so whilst I have no plans to take them off the bench they might be the background project of background projects. I should probably find the rest of the bits of the tauntaun riders. The New, New Cruelty and the Bingo seem to be helping me out.

I've worked a bit on one of my other goals for the year which is to finish a Blood Bowl Team. I have some more skaven somewhere and a star player. Until I find the rest of the rats, this is going to stay as the background project. Really need that rat ogre although looking at the price point maybe a proxy will do. Skitter Stab Stab and Hakflem Scuttlespike would also be nice.

My plan for next week mostly involves some post-apoaclyptic minis. They are mostly Crooked Dice with a few Crusader Miniatures thrown in. I needed a couple more so I added a couple more sci-fi bits from Scotia. I have also manged four posts in a week. I am very proud but I can feel another migraine coming so time to go. 

End of the week (13)

Despite the best of intentions, I haven't got much done. This is in spite of the fact that the weather here is a bit kack. It's currently 2c which is the warmest it's been all week, and I am struggling to see the house on the other side of the street because of the fog. So I was going out but have decided against it. On the bright side I haven't run out of mince pies yet.

 

So staying in isn't much better. I have got a bit done but not as much as I would like. Having been full pelt for Star Wars Legion I am beginning to get tired of it. So I was thinking maybe it's time to turn the Legion stuff into the background project and start something else. That said I have finished thirteen figures this week. This isn't start to finish but they have been hanging around for a while.

I have added some tauntaun riders into the mix although I need to find a few bits to finish them off. I am quite happy for these to be the Background Project.

So for the change I have dipped into my primed and based queue. This is a long queue. So entering the foreground is a bit of a mix of modernish / sci-fi in 28mm. Some  of it is Stargrave, which for some reason is on my mind. There is some stuff from Scotia. I mainly brought these because I think Mark Copplestone created them. There is a solitary Crooked Dice post-apocalypse mini. Then there is one guy that I have no idea where he comes from. I will be sticking with contrast type paints in the main so confidence is high that I will manage to complete these, start-to-finish, this week.

At the New Year I promised to paint a Blood Bowl Team this year. So I found my Skaven team. Well some of it at least. As the Star Wars Legion stuff is the background project, these are even further back. I haven't even settled on colours for the kit. Still I can paint the flesh fur, boots and the like. I had kind of promised myself that I wouldn't add anything else to the bench until I had finished some more stuff. What can I say, I am a week person.

Anyway, this is my bingo score card for the week. I am happy with my results so far but I am beginning to think some of my choices are a little ambitious.

End Of The Week (30)

Christmas and post-Christmas are usually quiet weeks for me. The holidays have a way of getting in the way. To be honest if it is a choice between spending time with my daughter and paint, she wins everytime. In the time that I have had I have been finishing off some minis. Mostly Star Wars Legion stuff I started in December.

I realise that I haven't done the rims, but I still need to figure out what I am doing with them. So I am calling them done. So that's thirty figures this week. Technically I can call it fifty five but I am not sure I want to push it that far. If I could keep up this pace without real life getting in the way I would be very happy indeed.

Next week will be more Star Wars Legion. I have a few more figures to finish. Some are a lot less finished than others. My evenings look busy but the tail end of the week should see some progress.

 

Progress

Post Christmas I am back to doing some stuff. This includes reading, writing and painting. The fatigue is making things difficult and trying to do anything for a long period of time (something less than an hour) potentially starts a migraine. So it's stop and start. It's been easier to do less complicated stuff like painting bases. I have some rims to do but progress has been made. Usually involving a nap at some point.

So there has been some work on Battletech, Star Wars Legion and even the stuff in the background. This includes just about finishing half a dozen post apocalypse terminator style bots. Under the circumstances I am pretty happy.

More Thoughts On 3D Printing

So I have been doing a bit of work with my "brand new" toy. I have run about ten jobs through it now. My first attempt was an outstanding success. It was exactly what I was after. So I have tried a few more jobs.

The first thought I have is that it isn't easy. Of the ten or so jobs I have done so far about have have failed to print. I think I have worked out what the problem was. Yes, it was my fault. Will it get better? I will see. There is another job running as I type, so we will see.

So the remaining half have succeeded then? Errrrrmmmm. I think there have been a few cases where I have produced minutes I am completely happy with. Even then, lets just say there was nothing wrong with the print. The size isn't quite right. I haven't amended the size, they are just way to big. If a mini has no supports you can usually work out the height. The trouble is, those without supports depend on me putting supports in which is not so great,

Then there are prints that fail. On a tray full of minis, some or all of them might fail. There have been more abject failures than successes. I printed a couple of robots which came out alright. The trouble is that they are so flimsy, in order to keep them in scale, that they are just too fragile. They more or less disintegrated when I took the supports off. 

When all said and done there are only five figures that pass muster, One of them manages this because you can't see the bottom. Three look really good but are too tall. So out of ten ish print runs, there is only one figure that I am really happy with.

What next? Well I am going to keep going. I hope I am going to keep learning. 

3D Printing, Christmas And Other Things

In the first week of lockdown I brought a 3D resin printer. Over the years I had brought a few 3D printed bits and pieces and had generally found that, as least as far as FDM, they were a bit cheaper to buy but the quality wasn't all that. Most of the resin stuff I had brought off eBay just didn't turn up or was crushed. I could never get the thing to work. It seemed like such a waste of money that I gave up on the idea for a bit. A friend was given a resin orinteer. Decided he didn't want the fuss and went at got himself a bambu Labs printer. I have to say that this does nice work for an FDM printer. So he gave the resin printer, and a wash and cure station to me.

When I got the thing out of the box and it was exactly the same model as the one I already had.  When I had got that one I had spent days trying to get it to work and I gave it another go last year. With no joy. So I wrote it off as a dead duck and moved on. I had done all the research I could and it just didn't work.

Despite all of this I thought I would give it another go. It took some time but I eventually figured it out. The problem wasn't me it was the slicing software. Not just the random software I was using but the bespoke software for the machine. If I saved it different and used the oldest tiniest USB stick I could find, it worked. Then of course the wash and cure station didn't work but I quickly figured out what to do with that. I just need a new motherboard. 

So here am I, 3D printing. After four years of trying. It's mostly Star Wars Legion stuff. That seems to be more current focus. 

Then of course Christmas got in the way. There is a lot to do. Not least of which is the naughty elf. So I just get on with that. Around all the arsing about with the 3D printer. It's a process.

Having figured out that my XBOX was working and that it was my long covid riddled brain was at fault, I started on Dead Rising 4. Having played it through a lot and at about 95% of the achievements done, I used to be able to play the game on the hardest level. My brain isn't up to that anymore and I can't focus for long but I am making the most of it.

All this means I haven't been doing much painting. The Star Wars Legion stuff is still on the table as is the Battletech. There is a game coming up so I guess I should be finishing the mechs. My painting bench is the the bedroom which is where the 3D printer. So I have taken the decision to sleep on the sofa. This is not a long term solution so I will have to come up with some sort of solution. 

So here I am. Things are going as well as expected.

Not Quite Black Friday

Christmas comes but once a year. Which might be too often. For me the season starts with Black Friday. Not because I start my shopping but because of Dead Rising 4. I do like my zombies.

It now includes the first movie of the season. I do like a good holiday movie. Thanks to the king of the comedy zombie movie Bruce Campbell for staring in Black Friday. A movie so good they renamed it Black Friday! It's all in the exclamation point. I know it's not today, but I think I am happy with the season commencing a few days early. I mean it snowed last week. It's totally fine.

So it is back to the bench. I am thinking I have some zombies in the queue. I need to finish my Star Wars Legion stuff. This is getting pretty close. For the most part I am down to the detailing and sorting the bases out. 

This should be done by the weekend. Then I have no idea what happens next. I have plenty of choice.

Father's Day

Today was Father's Day. I've had a nice meal (eaten very quickly in the playground area of a beer garden because that's what you do) and I got a few nice presents. Phoenix Point (it's a shinier version of X-Com) is a game I have been after for a while and Count Dooku for Star Wars Legion.

This is the kind of present that makes happy. A good day all round.

The Big Lock In

I have been off work for a few days now. I've not got "it" I don't think but I have a cough that wakes the kids up. Not that I am getting to see them as I am currently in "splendid isolation". Still the bench is in good shape and I don't handle boredom well....so....

These have already been strange days for me. I went from working from home for eight years back to the real world of work. Mainly because I was about to become a dad, which I now am. This hasn't allowed as much me time. Until now.

At one point last year I really was getting back into painting and then the job and then the baby came along. No such excuse but good problems to have. In fact, as I am not allowed to go anywhere I have no excuses.

So back to the paint table. There are some figures to paint but I am currently feeling the terrain side of things, with maybe a little bit of figure painting on the side. So I have some post apocalypse stuff in mind.  For years now I have wanted to do some junk fences and, since around 2015, I have really been looking for the bits. Just about have enough now but still feeling the urge to over supply myself. There are a few bits that might make it useful for other things like modern or even sci-fi but they were really aimed to have the end of the world look. There is some junk piles. Always good for dressing up the battlefield. When I was having a tidy up I found some aquarium plants that I got to make trees for 6mm sci-fi in the mid nineties. They are getting incorporated into the junk, the fences and some areas of scrub. Last summer I started working on some mesa type terrain. I hope to get them finished off too. There are some scrap cars (some all out war and some really cheap stuff my mum got me before she died, imagine, still having toys brought for you in your fifties) that need that post apocalypse vibe finishing off. I have been planning a post apocalypse game set in London for a few years now and wanted to do something for that too. I have some ideas for scrap vehicles and thought I might do a scrap tank and a ruined scrap tank too. There are also some toy vehicles that I would like to make a bit more table top friendly. There is also some quasi industrial stuff to do. This is all scratched built but I am aiming for the higher end of scratch built so very little in the way of soup cans and bottle tops. The plan is a real deep  dive into the bits box I have been sat on for thirty years topped off with all the bit I have been acquiring over the last few years.

A long time ago (twenty plus years ago) I wanted to do something a bit more in keeping with more modern 28mm terrain alongside a version of the building that has been post apoclyfied (it is a word, I made it up). If time and the current pre-apocalypse allow, I might get here too.

I am also liking the sci-fi vibe at the moment with X-Com leading the way. I can see some terrain and maybe even some figures being done for that. Some of what I am doing and planning will work across a number of genres. I have been playing X-Com 2 which covers sci-fi and even post apocalypse which works out fine for me. Some of it should also work with the concepts I have for a mecha game.

There are some All Out War minis to finish off which I guess are also post apocalyptic. I was in the very early stages of doing a doom lords Blood Bowl team and there is also a Nurgle team which is just about ready to go. There are a whole load of random stuff on the bench to. There is stuff from twenty years ago from the future wars range by Foundry and some wild west stuff, which may also be foundry or Northstar. On a number of occasions I think I have said that I have finished off all the dark ages stuff. I just found some more so they are going to go into the queue to.

My main interest this year has been the Star Wars Legion game. At some point I would like to give it a go but my main interest was in using them for roleplaying as the only game I am in (was in/on hiatus). I ordered some more yesterday and I have a pile on the table.

There is a lot of stuff going on in the big wide world. Not sure what to do about it in this forum as there is plenty of good information out there. That said Now that I have a reason to pass stuff on to the next generation, maybe I will chose to post some stuff here.

End Of The Week - Not My Best Work (15)

Earlier on I was expecting a much busier day. The time of year and the end of daylight savings time, with some lack of sleep made and with what I was expecting to be doing today made time look a little short. Sunday is usually the day I do any last minute work to finish of my plan for the week. So I was was relatively happy when on the way to a jog I tripped over the curb, skinned my knee and fingers and did some damage to my foot. With all plans out of the window it was back home to put my leg up. And paint.

Despite some misgivings I have achieved my plan and surpassed my expectations. The New, New Cruelty is happy. I have tinkered about with some terrain and got along way through the prepping process for a load of figures. Not a bad week.

Some of the figures this week have been a bit entertaining to paint. The Rebels and the Star Saga scientists suffer from some flatness of detail. Nothing wrong with this but it is difficult to make them shine. The three Malifaux figures were good fun to paint. Lots of nice detail. At the end of the process I was quite happy with what I had done with them. Although looking at them now I can see there are a couple of missed details. These were for the Viktorias crew and until this week one of the Viktorias was missing. Now that I have found the figure I remembered why I didn't do it at the time I got them, one of the figure looks almost impossible to glue together (with any hope of the bits staying on and being apparently impossible to pin). Lastly there is a lonely cowboy which I started last week. Despite being on the table for over two weeks it was the last figure to get finished.

Next week is looking like a freeish week. Currently I plan to go to Salute next weekend. This will be the first time I have been to the biggest show in the country. Painting wise, I have a couple of figures that I have been using as background projects. Background projects have not figures highly just of late so I think I might grab some figures for that purpose. As for the main working objective I want to work on some Blood Bowl and I suspect that there might be a range of odds and sods. Some cowboys, the odd modern figure and post apocalypse seem appealing. Maybe some terrain might make in there somewhere.

Quick Start

Another week of working hard looks like it is in the offing. Already I am getting static from all quarters and I need to find even more paperwork. Still, enough griping as I also have some painting to do.

So another mixed bag this week. Last year I was all about getting blocks of stuff done. This ended with big queues and feeling just a little demotivated. At the moment, this really is working for me. So four more Mantic Star Saga figures are on the table. I did a little bit on these last week. There is one Artizan Designs cowboy which has been hanging around as well. the biggest chunk will be the Star Wars Legion Rebels. These have been staring at me for a few weeks now so probably time to crack on with them. Lastly there are three Malifaux figures. I plan to spend some extra time on these and get them as perfect as I can. It's about time I did something with them. They cost enough when I got them and they have been gathering dust for ages. Maybe it will push me into doing something practical with them.

The End Of Another Week - The Catch Up Continues (25)

The New, New Cruelty is very happy with me this week. I have hit practically all my targets and exceeded. Obviously you are not too interested in most of them but as far as figure painting has gone I have done pretty well. Twenty five more figures down and set against the tally for the year. I would like to be at 80 and could settle for 40. Another two weeks of producing at this level would mean that I have caught up with wear I want to be.

At the beginning of the week I was starting to get a little discouraged with the Stormtroopers I wanted to paint. There is a good solid plan for these soI am relatively well motivated to pint them. White is not my favourite to paint. this time around I think I have managed a fairly good job of it. I am not saying that I couldn't put some more effort in and improve these but for now at least they are good enough. These have been painted for an RPG so I doubt i will be painting more any time soon although it looks to me that there will be plenty more Star Wars stuff in the pipeline. These are a relatively recent gift so to my mind haven't made a big dent in the mountain.

For most of the stuff I paint I have a solid and clear plan. With these Frank figures this is not really the case. When I got them they were, and still are, going to be bad guys. I think I probably brought too many. Still they were there and I wanted something to paint. The Frank models have been sat around for at least two years if not more soI am happy that brings them to my attention.

The week ahead sees another mixed bag. There are 14 28mm figures above and a few larger figures below that are my main queue. There are some primed Home Guard I could move on to and some Blood Bowl stuff if needed.

All in all things are on the up.

Progress On The Stormtroopers

I don't seem to have done much other than painting white today. My love of Star Wars as a child was legendary. This process is testing that love at the moment. There has been a little bit of progress since then and I guess I could now paint the base rims, do  a bit of touching up and a few more details and I could call them done. A bit more work would get them above tabletop standard. I am probably going to move on to something else tomorrow but I will probably come back to these at the end of the week.

If I get what I have on the bench done (including what I am starting tomorrow) that will be fifty five figures completed in two weeks. This would be almost a record if not an actual personal best. By my reckoning I am now doing better than my minimum expectation for the year although I am still a little way off what I have aspired to.  Another couple of weeks of this rate of production would see me caught up. The other stuff I have to do is a little less inspiring or a lot more intensive which will make catching up a little harder.

How Much Do I Hate Painting White? - Or Stormtroopers Part 3

I haven't painted anything involving this much white in a long time. Come to think of it possibly ever. the are two reasons for this. 1) There isn't actually that much that is mostly pure white and 2) It's such an awkward colour and I normally don't forget this fact which I have since I started this project. Still better than yellow I guess. It didn't really start out as a project for me either. A friend was running Star Wars and the figures were a bit limited as they were using either tokens of the old Star Wars Miniatures game figures which I personally hate.

Still in need of a bit of work

So the Stormtroopers. Too much damn white. They are primed, details and washed. I am shading the white which is taking an age. This is a little discouraging. Even more so is the fact that I am probably going to have to do the whole process again although that should hopefully be a briefer process. Then I will have to look at basing them and I would be much happier basing the on discs or 2p coins as this takes much less time.
The truth is I am never going to be happy with them. At the moment I am hoping that I will get to the stage that I am happy enough.

Stormtroopers - Part Deux

Not much of an update today. I have primed the stormtroopers. A base coat of a light grey followed by a good hard zenithal of white. Hopefully this will give them a bit of pre-shading, so I won't have to go overboard on the washes. Then I did the black bits and that's where I am.

Still way too much like Mr Blobby for a closeup

Things look like they are progressing for me so hopefully I will get these done pretty quickly. The big man is in the background. I need some black primer which I haven't got. I have painted a few things primed in blackin the last year or so but they were probably primed a decade ago. Will have to go out and get some.