2022 in review.

I hope you all had an excellent Christmas. As 2022 moves inexorably towards 2023, I figured that it's time for my traditional end of year review post.

It's certainly been an interesting year for me hobby wise. in terms of painting, a picture says a thousand words:

That's everything I've done this year. A pretty good chunk of stuff! Granted, it's less than last year, but last year was a little bit ridiculous in terms of what I got done. I'm very pleased to say I'm going into the new year firmly into positive figures on my painting points though, something which has been eluding me since I started tracking it all back in 2017.

I certainly feel I've been painting to a higher standard than last year too. I'm super proud of everything I've produced. Not that what I did last year was bad by any means, but I can definitely see how much I'm improving over time, which is super satisfying to see. With the pressure to clear my backlog no longer being a thing either, I can only see myself improving more and more over time, as I can take my time more on individual projects, rather than feeling the need to keep plunging forward to move things off my painting desk. 

As I gathered the models for the photo, I also noticed that I've been more focused than usual. My painting has definitely been more centred around 'chunks' of projects rather than the more scattershot approach I normally take. In hindsight, I think its because I've more playing more in events than individual games throughout the year, so I've been concentrating on getting armies ready rather than zigzagging between whatever catches my eye. That's definitely a good thing, as also means I'm able to play games with a lot more fully painted models than usual, which feels pretty nice. Hopefully I can keep that focus going into 2023. 

Talking of gaming, as I mentioned I've not been able to get out and play as much as I'd like to. I've gotten a lot of games in and they've been a lot of fun, but it's mostly been centred on various events I've attended. That's no bad thing, but it does means there's been huge chunks of time between being able to get out and play, which is something I'm going to work to even out going into 2023. I definitely feel a lot saner when I can get out an game regularly. The local club is changing the day they meet, which will mean it'll be far easier for me to attend, so that should help on that front. Their main focus is on 40k too, so that might help me actually get 2000 points of Orks done. 

On a slightly more sombre note, my biggest disappointment this year has been that the heresy campaign which I organised to try and get the locals excited for the new edition just fizzled out. It's kind of understandable. People have busy lives, now more than ever, but it's still a little disheartening to see happen. I'm hoping to organise some kind of big finale day some time in January to wrap the whole thing up in a meaningful way, so that should be good.

So moving forward into the new year, what are my hobby goals? Well I've learned better than to set myself specific goals, as my inner hobby butterfly would destroy any plan I make by about February! I am however, just going to focus on painting models already have for a while. I seem to be on a bit of an Ork kick atm, so I'm going to get on with that as we go into January. As I mentioned, I'll be able to attend my local club a bit more regularly, so I want enough painted to do their next 40k league. There's also a Middle Earth event in February that I need to get a little more Mordor done for, so I guess they're going into my painting queue too.

Beyond that I'm just going to continue with my annual 365 challenge and see where the winds of inspiration take me. I actually failed the challenge this year, thanks to having to move flat over the summer, but I won't beat myself up too much about it. It's more a way to try and prompt me to be working on stuff rather than it being a hard rule.

So that's a quick summary of my hobby in 2022. A bit more concise than usual, but at least it spares you from one of my rambling posts.

Happy New year to you all. What are your plans for 2023p

Mad, Bad and Chompy

I wasn't expecting to have any more to show you guys so soon! 

I honestly don't think I've ever painted a character model so quickly. I thought it would take a few more days at least, but I just sort of fell into a groove after I wrote my blog post yesterday and somehow he just got finished. 

So may I present 'Mad' Gulg, da Gitkrumpa, finished and ready to slug it out on the 29th:

I had a lot of fun painting him. The sculpt is so nice, it just seemed to paint itself.

It helped that I wanted to keep things relatively simple in terms of the scheme and had a clear idea of where I wanted to go with it, so it was just a matter of following the steps. 

The warpaint was a last minute flourish which came about as a bit of a happy accident. After messing around with highlighting, I just couldn't get the face to look how I wanted. Eventually I just went 'fuck it' and covered it over with the white. The arm tattoos came as an extension of that, but between them it just brought the model to life and gave it so much character, I couldn't have asked for better. 

Anyway, he should be the very last model I paint in 2022. I honestly can't see myself getting anything more done between now and the end of the year. On a serendipitous note though, this takes me to precisely zero on my painting points, so not only have I clawed back the progress I lost last month, but I also get to start 2023 on a completely fresh hobby sheet!

I can't see it staying that way for long, but I can hope at least.

I'm hoping to be back shortly before New Year with my usual yearly wrap up post, but in the meantime I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas and I'll see you all again soon. 

Season's Hobbying!

I thought I was done with getting some hobby in for 2022. Working in retail, December is normally ridiculously busy for me, but I've actually managed to crank out a little bit more before the end of the year. 

My local club is holding a festive arena-style game on the 28th, so I saw it as the perfect opportunity and deadline to try and get and my Squigboss done by:

There's still a lot of work needing to be done on him, but I'm really liking how he's shaping up so far. 

I'm really loving the yellow. I was tempted to do the Squig in Deathskulls Blue, but I already had that for my Squighog Nob so went with something a bit different. I'm glad I did, as even with it still needing a second drybrush, I think it really pops! 

I'm still debating whether he needs a Bosspole or not. Of course, any proper Ork Boss needs one, but I'm wondering whether it'd muddy the silhouette of the model too much. I'll probably judge it when the rest of him is done.

He also needs a good name, but I'll decide that later too. For now though, I hope you all have a good Christmas and I'll post more soon! 

So it happened again...

Remember yesterday when I posted about me being excited to be back into positive painting figures? Well I should have learned my lesson by now.

It started simply enough. I was up Athena Games in Norwich yesterday for a day of gaming, so I bought myself an Ork character as a reward for breaking even:

I've loved this model since it was revealed last year, figured I deserved a treat and had the painting points spare that I was still in the positive. So far so good.

Then a mate of mine turned up with a box of Mordor Orcs for me. I'd mentioned to him I needed some more spear dudes for one of my armies and was expecting him to turn up a few spares.

I was not expecting a full 24!

So yeah I'm in negative figures again, after less than 24 hours!

Luckily I've hit the week off work and in a bit of a painting groove, so I had a pretty productive day today finishing off some of the Ork repaints I've been cracking on with recently. I reckon I've done pretty well:

I'm still in negative figures, but I'm not too far off breaking even again for the second time in a week.

It's all good. I might even get some more done over the weekend. Depends how distracted I get with new Pokemon stuff. 

Happy Hobbying! 

Positive Figures!

I've had a pretty good time in my hobby the past couple of weeks. Just through working through my backlog, I've managed back into positive figures on my painting points again, after I blew them on the Heresy starter box over the summer.

Admittedly very little of the progress came from paint that box, but I still reckon I've done pretty well. 

First up, I managed to finish up the quintet of Thranduil sculpts I was working on last time:

I'm really quite proud of how they turned out. Thranduil is one of my favourite characters from the Hobbit trilogy, so I'm glad I could do him justice. I just need to actually bring myself to paint the Army around him now! 

I also finished up that Sicarian from last time too:

I'm less happy with how it turned out. There's plenty I'd do differently if I painted again, but it looks decent enough and I'm glad it's done so I can move on to other, more exciting stuff.

I've also started repaining my Orks. I know I only did them last year, but tbh they were a bit rough and ready. I've now found a better basing scheme for them and it's given me an opportunity to bring them up to a standard I'm more happy with.

They're not going to be my main focus, but something nice to plug away at when I fancy a break from other projects. Given the state of 40k atm, it's about as close to interacting with the game as I'm going to get, but it'll be nice to hopefully have a fully painted army ready to go when 10th edition rolls around and I can start enjoying it again!

That's all for today, but I'm hoping to try and get some more up soon, if I'm not distracted too much by the new Pokemon games. Until next time though, happy hobbying! 

A Division of Labour

For the first time in a long time I'm actually in a position where I don't feel the need to be actively buying models. Beyond my 30k Imperial Fists, which I'm expanding as the campaign goes along, I have pretty much everything I want/need right now.

That makes the next few months the perfect opportunity to try and make some progress on my backlog. It's quite a nice position to be in tbh. It gives me a chance to focus on some stuff that's fallen to the wayside as I've gotten distracted by the constant stream of shiny new releases. 

On the other hand there's the issue of that backlog. It's getting a little bit ridiculous. I'm starting to come to the conclusion that I'm too much of a perfectionist to have several army projects on the go at once, especially when one of those armies are Orks. Luckily I have a secret weapon - I'm going to cheat! 

Well not exactly. A mate of mine has been having a lot of fun using the 'Slapchop' method to churn out a load of models recent, particularly his Leagues of Votann army box:

I'm sure you'll agree that they really are lovely. Even more impressive is that he got the entire box done in just a few weeks! 

I was looking at the scheme he'd used and realised that it's actually really close to how I want my Deathskulls to be, so I asked if he wouldn't taking some of my bikes and vehicles to paint. 

Considering I've painted a ton of Death Guard stuff for him over the last few years, he was happy to return the favour. 

So yeah, a bunch of my Orks have gone off to be painted elsewhere, which frees me up to work within my hobby comfort zone: smaller, more detailed projects.

I've had the week off work, so I've had a bit of time of get some painting done. I finished these last night:

I seem to have amassed quite a few different sculpts of Thranduil over the last few years and somehow I've failed to get any of them painted, so it made sense to work on them all at the same time. I've got another two still to finish up after these! 

It's very strange to be essentially batch painting my centrepiece model, but it's also nice to get consistency between them all. I really like how they've turned out. I think the purple really makes the darker colour scheme pop.

I've also got a Sicarian half-done on my hobby desk, but I seem to have lost a bit of momentum on painting it:

Hopefully I can kick my hobby mojo back towards finishing it soon. I think my current pallete cleanser of Middle Earth stuff should do the trick, but we'll see. 

At least I'm staying productive, but it would be nice if I could stay a little more focused. You'd have thought I'd be used to me being a hobby by now!

Oh well, I'll keep you updated on how I get on. Until next time, happy hobbying! 

Keeping up to date and moving forward

In my last post I talked about my hobby mojo coming back and said I'd post again soon. Don't worry, it hasn't abandoned me already, I just wanted to have something completed to show you guys before I put anything up. Work had other ideas though. I've been ridiculously busy! 

At least I'm here now. I had actually written a much longer post, but the Blogger app seems to have eaten the draft, so this will be a much quicker one than I intended. I want to get back to blogging again on a regular basis, as even if I don't get as much response from here as I used to, it does help me organise my thoughts and stay on the right track.

Anyway, enough about that, I have some excellent news - I won another Best Painted award!

It goes rather nicely alongside the other two which I've won in the past year!

I'm rather happy with that, considering the amount of work I put into the display board.

It was actually quite a close run thing, only winning by a single vote. It's good to see other people stepping up their painting game. High quality models benefit everyone!

Moving on from that though, I've been working on my Imperial Fists campaign army, starting with the Phalanx Warders which I started nearly four months ago, before I even moved:

It feels so good to finally get these finished. Like I said, I started these when I first got the Age of Darkness box, way back in July, so they've been on my to do list for quite a while now. I even managed to get another five done pretty quickly after that, along with Castellan Holt, my commander for the campaign, plus a Contemptor Dreadnought done as well. Clearly I was on a roll! 

Hopefully the rest of the army won't be too far behind. I've managed to work out a relatively quick and easy recipe that gives pretty nice looking results, so the progress should just keep on rolling, in theory. 

I've got a bit of time off work next week, so hopefully I'll have plenty of time to crack on and get some hobby done.

That's all for today though. Until next time, happy hobbying! 

And now for something a little different...

It's been a little while since my last post. I really haven't had much of a drive for hobby since I moved into my new flat until the last couple weeks. Part of that has been. How busy I've been, but also being in an entirely new space made it hard to settle down into my normal hobby routines.

As usual, it's been an approaching Middle Earth event that's drawn me out of my funk. Rather than painting an army this time though, I decided to do something a little different and make a display board for my Hobbits.

I'll admit it's partially a shameless bid for another Best Army trophy, but it's mainly just a way to get my hobby juices flowing again. It seems to be working so far, though running out of static grass is an annoying stumbling block I've hit. Luckily Amazon should be coming to my rescue tomorrow morning!

It's been pretty fun doing something so different to what I normally work, although it's been a lot more involved a project than I originally anticipated. I expected to have it finished nearly a week ago!

Hopefully all this effort will pay off at the event, although it's already having the main intended effect of getting me raring to go on hobby projects. Next up after this I want to crack on with my Imperial Fists campaign army, which has been sitting in just an undercoated state for way longer than I intended! 

Wish me luck. Hopefully now I've jolted some life back into my hobby mojo, I'll be posting regularly again. Knowing me though, it's about 50/50 which way it'll fall! I'll definitely post up the finished board when it's done though. 

Heresy progress

It's been a few weeks since the Heresy box launched. I'm still in the process of moving, so haven't had a chance to go as crazy with it as if hoped. I've managed to make a start though, so I figured I'd show you guys what I've been up to:

After a ridiculous amount of experimentation, I finally managed to find a colour I liked for my Emperor's Children, so I've been able to launch into working on my 3rd Legion in earnest. Perhaps experimenting on the boxed set models wasn't the best of plans, but it at least helped me visualise how it would look on the final army. Now I'm happy with the basic purple, the next step is adding the crazy, clashing colours to turn them into a proper Siege of Terra force!

Flipping it over to the Loyalists, I also made a start on my Imperial Fists. They're going to be my army for the campaign I'm putting together in my local area and an interesting change of pace.

They're the first Loyalist army I've ever done for Heresy, so it's been interesting trying not to got too wild and make them look very 'clean' and reasonably regimented. I'm also discovering why so many people hate painting yellow. It's taken forever just to get a smooth yellow as the base layer for these five!

I'm also starting to remember just how detailed the FW upgrade kits are. I may simplify things and use more of the base Mk6 kits for the second squad or I might go loopy painting all that detail! 

Despite all the 'fun' of batch painting yellow which lies ahead, I'm really looking forward to pulling this army together. I'm wanting to link them in with the history of my Golden Knights Primaris army. I've got the idea that the Commander, Gideon Holt will be the founder of the future Chapter, so I need to work out a good way to incorporate the colours and heraldry of the Knights into the army whilst still having them look like 'proper' Imperial Fists. 

For me, this kind of pseudo-historical tie in is what makes the Heresy so fun. It gives me an excellent opportunity to indulge in my nerdy side writing the background, so hopefully I'll have a chance to share that soon.

I'll post progress on these as it happens. Hopefully I'll be able to get more done once I'm in my new place and have my new hobby desk set up. Until then though, happy hobbying! 

I did it!!!

I actually did it!!

I reached positive painting figures!

For the first time since I started tracking it in late 2017, I've painted more models than I've bought!

I got thinking after my last post. With how quickly my Savage Orcs paint up using Contrast, surely I could get a few more done before the Horus Heresy box arrived on Saturday?

Turns out I was right:

Tools about three hours of work in total, including drying time on the varnish. Piece of cake!

 Contrast really does seem the way to go on horde armies like this. I'm often guilty of overcomplicating my schemes, so it's refreshing to find something quick and easy and stick to it. 

With this kind of momentum, I think it'll be pretty easy for me to work on them a few at a time alongside my other projects until the Army is done. 

It feels very strange to finally be looking at the positive side of my progress tracker. Strange, but good though. I've been painting an absolute ton of stuff over the last few years and there's been times when I've felt it would never reach this point.

And just as I was sitting back and savouring my victory, this arrived a day early...

Nooooo!!!

It still counts, right?

Right? 

Back and ready for Heresy

I've been absent from the online hobby sphere for a few weeks. Unfortunately real life has been kicking my arse a bit. I've had to unexpectedly find somewhere new to live, killing my hobby mojo.

Luckily that's been resolved just in time for me to go back to getting very excited for the launch of the new Heresy box. It does mean that my plans to get into positive figures on my painting points before it arrived have fallen to the wayside. I missed it by a single point!

I'm a little gutted, but I suppose it can't be helped with everything that's been going on. I'll just have to try and get the boxed set done quickly to try and offset it.

So what have I been painting to reach this point? Well first up I stripped some Thousand Sons Land Speeders and drafted them into my Emperor's Children:

I was really using them as a test piece for my 30k EC scheme and I think it turned out pretty well. It was just a base of Xereus Purple, a drybrush of Genestealer, then a pin wash of Druchii Violet. Really quick and easy, plus I think it looks pretty striking on the table. Hopefully the scheme will let me whizz through the box in record time! I'll also be starting my Imperial Fists at the same time, but I've found a good recipe for those too which I'm looking forward to trying out in the very near future!

As for the other thing I've been working on, this came completely out of left field.

When I was starting to pack to move I found a load of unbuilt Savage Orcs I had in a box, having bought them for cheap off a mate a few months back. I was saving them for when The Old World eventually drops, but I fancied doing something a little different as a pallet cleanser. I was shocked at just how quickly and nicely they painted up using Contrast colours and a few light drybrushes. I'm definitely going have to make point of getting the other 60 done once I've got my new hobby desk set up!

That's all for today, although expect a lot of posts very soon as I tear into the box when it arrives. I also get to plan out my new hobby space, so that should be a lot of fun too.

Until then, happy hobbying! 

In Midnight Clad

I appear to be well and truly on a Heresy kick. The more news and leaks I see for the upcoming 2.0 release, the more excited I'm getting. I've got some quite extensive plans for my EC's once the big boxed game releases, but I'm in the slightly annoying position of not being able to do much until the new plastics launch.

For now  I'm funneling my energy into helping my mate get his Night Lords spruced up and ready for the new edition.

He painted them a few years ago, but he felt they needed a bit of a refresh and he likes my painting style, so he asked me to help. I was happy to step in, as it lets me scratch my heresy itch while I wait for my own plans to become available. 

I've always loved Night Lords, but I'm unlikely ever to do an army of my own, so it was quite nice to be able to work on them without committing to yet another army. It was also nice to have a bit of change of style from the various stuff I've been working on recently. 

I couldn't resist adding one of my own ideas into the mix though. I loved the idea behind Nakrid Thole the moment I read his profile in book 9 and instantly had the idea for combining Sevatar's body with the Escher whip to represent him, but I haven't had the opportunity to turn it into a reality until now. My mate admits he's unlikely to ever use him on the table, as he uses Sevatar as his Warlord, but loves the model and reckons he'll be able find a use some form or another, so let me just get on with it. 

I've been cracking through these at a pretty good pace, finishing three squads in as many weeks. Tbh it's a fairly easy recipe to follow, but I've also been given the freedom to add my own flair wherever I want to. I've been raiding my bits box and making use of pieces which I thought I'd never find a use for, like that half-mask from the Primaris Reiver kit which I thought couldn't be used at all without it looking ridiculous, but it actually works pretty well I reckon!

I just need to wait for some Volkite Chargers to arrive for them, then it's just some Raptors and a Dread to go. Not bad at all for a mini project between projects. The downside now of course is that I'm wanting to do an army of my own. I'm going to have to try and resist that particular urge though. I have quite enough on my plate at the moment!

I'll post more when I have it. Happy hobbying! 

Catching up part 2

I've had a pretty busy few weeks, but now that Pokemon Regionals have come and gone (I bombed, in case you were wondering), I finally have a chance to sit down and write the promised part two of my previous post.

 This will serve as a sort of bookend to the mass of progress I've been making on my backlog in the first part of 2022. I had planned to keep on chipping away at it across the entire year, but various Adepticon announcements mean that my hobby plans may well be veering wildly off into the weeds very soon. Unfortunate, but at least I'll be doing it with a massively reduced backlog!

Enough waffling though, here's the rest of what I've been up to recently:

That's a pair of mounted and fully magnetised Warbosses to lead my Deathskulls. The one on the looted Vyper is Mognutz, but I still need to come up with a name for the other one.

They started out when I bought the Wartrike a few months back, but as I was building it I quickly realised I also wanted a Warboss on Bike to lead my Kult of Speed. I didn't really want to buy the Forge World one, due to my self imposed hobby embargo, so my Orky mind went to work. A few hours and a rummage in my hobby cupboard later and I'd come up with the idea for a 'counts as' Biker Boss, an ambitious Flyboy with a Vyper he'd 'nicked off da pointy ears'. 

Mognutz was an Ork of simple ambition: ever since he was a Yoof, all he wanted to do was fly. Unfortunately his enthusiasm far outweighed his abilities and after several rambunctious test flights, the last of which ended up in the demolition of Warboss Gazza's hut, he was unceremoniously exiled from his tribe.

After a few years of kicking around the Ash Wastes of Tinus Minoris, Mognutz fell in with a mob of local Speed Freeks, where he continued his attempts to get and, more importantly, stay airborne, steadily climbing the hierarchy of the mob until after another unfortunate series of Deffkopta accidents, he decided to stick to firmer ground for a while, leading a group of Warbikers. 

Then one day his fortunes took a distinct uptick. Tearing ahead of the main Speed Mob, his bikes were suddenly ambushed by a trio of Eldar skimmers. Seizing the initiative, Mognutz threw himself from the saddle of his bike onto the lead vehicle as it flew overhead, headbutting the gunner unconscious and tearing the driver clear out his seat and flinging him aside. Cackling maniacally even as the skimmer started dipping towards the ground, Mognutz slewed the strange looking weapon on the back around and shot the other two vehicles clean out the sky. The whoops of his fellow Speed Freeks filled his ears even as the Vyper crunched into the dust of the desert.

After cracking a few heads to silence the derision which followed, Mognutz ordered his mob to drag the wrecked speeder back to the nearest settlement, where he paid every toof he had, plus a few more unwillingly donated, to Big Mek Bozrog to rebuild it into what he called 'Da Ded Shiny Speeda'. Wisely he decided to delegate actually piloting the thing to a succession of Grot 'volunteers'. 

Since that day, Mognutz' star has been on the rise. He struck out on his own across the Wastes with his lads, slowly gathering a great Speed Mob of his own around him and hiring himself out to the highest bidder. Usually this took the form of ambitious Meks who wanted some protection against their rivals, whilst not having to worry about being replaced in leadership by their supposed hired muscle. All Mognutz cared about by then was speed. The ladz who chose to follow him just made it easier to go wherever he liked. 

That is how most recently Mognutz has ended up in the employ of Big Mek Bozrog, whom Mognutz has a curious fondness for, having been the builder of his mechanical steed. Mognutz is content to take orders from the upstart Mek Boss, so long his bikes and wagons keep getting repaired, he has plenty of gits to krump and he can keep going fast to get to them. 

As if that wasn't a mad enough idea, I then decided to squeeze the maximum amount of flexibility I could out of him and magnetised him to be usable on foot too. Then my real Orky mind kicked in and decided not to stop there. Why not make him able to swap mounts whenever I want? A bit of tweaking and careful application of some magnets and it was done! 

There's no real use to doing so, apart from cosmetic appearances, but I wouldn't be a proper Greenskin player if I didn't use the biggest and meanest Ork as my Warlord at all times! 

It was pretty fun to paint them up too, but I'm also glad they're done, as it took a lot of work to get them up to the standard I wanted. You wouldn't think it'd be that difficult to paint things which are mostly made of scrap, but I actually would argue to takes even longer to do well that painting things cleanly! 

So that's me caught up. Next on my plate for my Orks will probably be a bunch of bikes. I'll have to fit them in around something else which has suddenly appeared slap bang in the middle of my hobby goals though. As I mentioned briefly earlier, the Heresy announcement at Adepticon has gotten me ridiculously excited for 30k again, so I've got a funny feeling that's where my hobby output will be firmly aimed in the near future. I've already started sprucing up my mate's Night Lords for him:

In theory, this shouldnt take me too long to do. It's just cleaning up his work from a few years back and adding a few more shades. The real fun will be when the plastic MK6 launches and I'm up to my ears in Emperor’s Children again! 

There's fun times ahead though. Its great to be excited for Heresy again. We'll just have to see what the new edition brings.

That's all for today though. Until next time, happy hobbying! 

Catching Up Part 1

Wow, has it really been over a month since I posted anything on here? Oops.

I'll freely admit that it was mostly down to laziness. I've gotten a fair amount of stuff done, I just couldn't be bothered to write posts about it. I guess that's come back to hire me!

I got so much done in fact that I'm going to have to split it across multiple posts. I've been on a bit of a personal kick to try and clear my hobby desk of unfinished models. It hasn't worked, but I've certainly made some serious progress!

That's how I came to paint a random model which I'm unlikely to ever actually use:

I bought the Showgirls set for Malifaux way back in 2014. The game looked cool, but after a couple of demo games, I decided it wasn't for me, so I never got around to painting the set. That's why this has been sitting around untouched ever since.

I fancied a bit of a pallete cleanser a few weeks back so I sat down and painted her over the course of about 6 hours. She turned out pretty well I reckon. Not my best work, but good enough for something which is going to just sit in my display cabinet for the rest of time! If I e er find the rest of the Showgirls, I might do them too at some point, but it's nice to get her done at least.

After that I turned my attention to something much bigger:

You might remember before Christmas I started working on sprucing up my Xestobiax Warlord 'Metatron Omnissiah'. Well my enthusiasm kind of petered out on it so I ended up sitting on my desk for ages, until last week when I decided to crack on with it. Again I basically did it all in a single sitting. That's the way my hobby mojo seems to be hitting me atm, so I just rolled with it. 

I'm quite proud of this, especially the way the white turned out, which was a bit patchy when I painted this the first time a few years back. I keep saying it, but it's really quite remarkable how much my painting has improved in the space of just a couple of years. I'm looking forward to getting the whole Maniple done to this standard, once I've cleared a few more things off my backlog. I do need to get some custom transfers made for the Legio symbol at some point, but I'll worry about that later. 

That's it for part 1. Hopefully I'll be able to pull together part 2 this week before I go away for Pokemon Regionals. Depends how prepared I am going into it though. Wish me luck! 

Beasties and Pox

If there's one thing that can be said about my level of hobby progress, it's that I'm consistently inconsistent!

I spent the better part of a week basically doing nothing, then once again I churned out loads in a couple of days.

I decided to take quick break from my Elves to paint up some beasties for Middle Earth. There's a new Forge World character out who allows me to use them in a Mordor list so I rifled through my bits cupboard to see what I could cobble together:

They're nothing special tbh. Mostly painted with washes with a few highlights and hit with some gloss varnish on the Spiders. I am pretty impressed that I managed to finally make use of my Skull Pass Spiders though, after nearly 15 years! I'm not entirely sure where the Fenrisian Wolf came from, but he made for a handy Warg, so he got thrown in there too. Not bad for a few hours work!

The other thing I've been working on is for a mate:

The guy I've been painting all those Death Guard for wanted some Possessed, so inspired by ADB' Black Legion series, we had the pretty cool idea that they could all be captured Imperials. It's been pretty fun messing around with colour schemes and 'scumming them up'. This batch is nearly finished, just needing a few details picking out. He's wanting at least five more though so I get to play around with a few more Chapters. I'm open to suggestions on what those could be!

Anyway that's all for today. Figured you guys would enjoy the little update. Not sure if I'll get much done in the rest of this week, but I've got next week off work, so hopefully there will be more progress to show you then.

Happy hobbying! 

More generic Elf progress

I seem to be doing hobby in fits and starts atm. After a week and a half of not touching a brush at all, I finished work early the other night, sat down to paint and somehow cranked out about 8 hours of hobby time!

Can't really argue with tbh. I've just got to roll with whatever motivation my brain choses to give me at any one time.

In this case it's yet more Elves:

It's been really nice just working on a single project like this. Everything seems to go so much quicker as I develop a sort of muscle memory for each step. It's almost a shame that these are the last of the Ranger section of the army, but the same methods will translate over well to the armoured Elves, so it's all good.

Surprisingly, that Legolas sculpt has grown on me a little as I painted it. I originally wasn't a fan of it at all, but I picked him up as part of a Made to Order bundle with Tauriel, but he just looked too small and bland for my liking. 

Now though, I wouldn't say it's my favourite Leggy sculpt by a long shot, but I gained more appreciation for it as I painted him. I'll probably still use the metal versions of him as my leader, but this guy might end up seeing some use if I need an extra Ranger or Sentinel to throw into a list. 

That's it for today though. I'm going to try and ride this renewed surge if hobby mojo fir a few days, but your guess is as good as mine as to whether it results in anything. 

Until next time, happy hobbying! 

Generic Elf Progress

I've had a pretty quiet hobby week. As predicted, me being back at work has somewhat sapped my energy for working on anything hobby related. I'll try and rectify that this week though, as I'll have a few more days to myself. 

Luckily you don't have to miss out on a progress post though, as I actually forgot to put something up which I painted last week:

It's just continuing to spruce up my existing Mirkwood Elves, but progress is progress! 

Those finecast armoured Elves are an absolute pain to paint, especially the shields, but at least they're done now. I've got another 9 of them unpainted to do after these so that should be 'fun'. It is nice to be making progress on them though. Once all the infantry is done, I'll move on to my various Thranduil sculpts which need doing. My vague goal is to have the army finished in the first quarter of this year. I'll probably have to see how I go on that though, as I keep getting distracted by my Orks! 

Anyway that's it for today. Just a quick one, but hopefully something will click back into place and I'll have more to share with you soon. 

Happy Hobbying! 

Keep 'em coming

My goal to stay focused on existing projects going in 2022 seems to be paying off. I managed to get a Deff Dread done for my Orks in the last couple of days:

Considering that it's been sat on my to do pile since the summer with just the basecoats down, it's rather nice to see it in all it's finished glory!

It's also been fully magnetised so weapons can be swapped freely, although I'm rather favouring the triple Klaw/Skorcha combo atm.

The ultimate goal is to magnetise up all the options and have then be interchangable between all my Dreads and Killer Kans. I'm too lazy to paint them all up in one go though, so I figure they can wait until the Kans are ready to be done! 

I even managed to get some games in over my week off, as well as attending a local Middle Earth event. I'd love to say that my new Dread has been pulling his weight, but he's developed a rather unfortunate habit of copping Melta shots to the face! 

 It's been pretty good to get out gaming though, now things are calming down a bit after Christmas. It's certainly helping to keep my motivation up too!

I'm back at work from tonight, but hopefully that won't put too much of a damper on my progress. We'll see though. Until next time, stay safe and happy hobbying! 

*Makes Helicopter noises*

After pledging to try to finish off my existing projects this year, I seem to have started the new year off on the right note:

Granted these were started in 2021 but they're done now and that's what matters.

I've actually been plugging away at these on and off for a couple of months. Considering they were starter box minis from about 15 years ago, there's a hell of a lot of detail on them, far more than I ever anticipated. It feels so good to finally get them moved onto my finished pile. 

They're mostly restored from my collection of old Ork models which I bought back in 5th Edition. Given the prices that they're going for on ebay atm, I'm really glad I had a stash! Anyone who got the old Black Reach Deffkoptas will also tell you what a pain they were to store without breaking the blades or flying stands. Luckily I've come up with a solution to both of those this time around thanks to the modern advent of 3d printing and magnets within the hobby:

The blades were about twenty quid from Etsy and I had the magnets knocking around anyway. Apart from a few hiccups with balancing issues, I think it's a pretty elegant solution for the question of how to transport them to games without spending my entire life repairing them!

The only downside I see with these is that I eventually want 18 of them in my Speed Mob list, so I've got a lot more work looming in the future to duplicate these twice. Still, it's nice to have these done for now, especially as I've got a crusade game planned for Friday where they'll make their debut against an unsuspecting Salamanders player, so that should be fun!

That's it for today though. I'm hoping to get more done this week, but we'll see how it goes.