More Elves!

I've spent the last few days finishing up the Dragon and Dark Pegasus I need for this weekend’s Old World event. 

It actually ended up being a lot easier than I expected, finishing them both over the course of three long-ish painting sessions. I think the rider actually took more effort to do than the Dragon itself!

I really like the conversion I made for the Sorceress on Peg. I had originally planned for it to be simply a case of sticking the second rider from the Dragon kit on a kitbashed mount, but it it didn’t fit the saddle very well, so the project evolved massively until I’d basically cut up, filed, trimmed and rebuilt every part of the model!

It was a hell of a lot of  work and honestly I’d have probably been better off just giving in and buying an old metal Morathi model from ebay, but at least I’ve gotten a fun and unique model out of it!

While both models are far from perfect, I think they look decent enough and fit nicely with the rest of the army. Honestly, I actually don’t think the Dragon could have ever lived up to the image I had in my head for it. It’s been sitting on my hobby desk half finished for so long, I’ve had plenty of time to imagine how it’s going to end up. Done is better than perfect in this case!

That’s the bulk of my Dark Elves done now, or at least everything I want to be getting finished in the near future. I’ve still got a couple of units and characters I need get round to, but my hobby ADHD is definitely nudging me looking for something else to do, so it's time to switch things up for a while.

 I think I’m going to try and get some good pictures of the army as a whole at the event this weekend, then call this chunk of my backlog finished. The army is looking better than it ever has and I’m really proud of what I’ve managed to get done in just a few short months. I’ve even managed to break into positive painting figures in the process!

I’m not sure where my backlog-busting journey is going to take me next, but I’m feeling super energised right now. I’m on holiday this week too, so hopefully I’ll be able to launch myself into something fun. You’ll have to check back later to see what that might be though.

Until then though, happy hobbying!

Back to the Elves

I'm a little proud of this one. Not the models themselves, more the fact that I've managed to actually swing my attention back to an ongoing army project.

It's normally something I really struggle with. Once I’ve gotten the dopamine hit from completing a few units, my Hobby ADHD and actual Neurospicy distraction usually kicks in and I don't return to it for months, if at all. It's most of the reason I have so few painted, playable armies, despite having been in the hobby for over 20 years now!

The fact that I've got another event coming up has definitely helped, but I'm still taking it as a win!

So yeah, I've managed to get another unit of Dark Riders done across the last couple of evenings:

I also started on the Dragon I mentioned last time. Not too shabby a start, although still a way to go on it:

I'm hoping to harness my current streak of productivity and get him done by early next week, to avoid the usual last minute rush to sort stuff out, but we'll see what happens there. I'll keep you updated!

Pretty awesome moment!

I've been so busy getting my Dark Elves sorted for the event I mentioned in my new year post, I haven't had time to post updates on here!

Well I managed to finish up what I needed to, even though it was a bit of a scramble at the end. Obviously it's brilliant that I got the event list done in time,  but what's even better is that it led into a pretty big moment for me:

I can finally say that for the first time since i started the army 16 years ago, I have a fully painted 3000pt Dark Elf army!

I've still got loads to do and add to it, but I'm so happy right now. I bought some of these models when I was 18! Dark Elves have always been my favourite fantasy army and I've always had a very strong idea of what I wanted the force to be like. Long time readers of this blog will know that the army has been reworked, stripped and redone a few times over the years in pursuit of that vision. This is the first time it's all come together painted up together at once, to a standard I'm really happy with. It only took nearly two decades, three editions, the death of the setting and subsequent resurrection to achieve!

Honestly it's stuff like this which really cuts to the core of what my backlog busting is about: finishing up projects I keep getting wildly distracted from. Hopefully I can have a few more moments like this in tbe next few months!

The event itself was really good fun. I walked away with a single win out of three games, which is pretty much what I was hoping for. I met sonevgreat people and had a great time, so a win all round.

Not sure what what I'm going to work on next. I need a bit of a break after the slog of my Elves, so I'll probably do something small as a pallete cleanser. I'll see where the mood takes me.

Until next time, happy hobbying!

Trolls!

Despite being busy at work and the frankly ridiculous heat in the last couple of days, I've managed to get a little bit of hobby done.

I now have a solid goal to be working towards, which has really helped my focus. I signed up for a local Old World event at the start of October, so I need a fully painted army done by then. Deadlines focus my hobby ADD brilliantly, which is why I've got so many fully painted Middle Earth armies!

I decided to cheat on this one a little though and run Troll Horde. I only need to paint about 20 models for that! On the other hand, I get to paint a bunch of cool Trolls, so it's all good.

Forgive the cluttered hobby desk in the background. I didn't have the time to set up my light box for them:

They turned put alright I reckon. The poor light doesn't show them off as well as it could, but I'll get a better picture when I've got this full batch of 13 done.

I even managed to sneak in a little freehand to taint one of our local dwarf players, in the form of a pilfered banner!

Not bad I'd say, although I could definitely do better. It's been a while since I attempted anything like that.

Just another 8 Trolls to go and then I've got the Hag and Wyvern Boss to do. I'm chugging along nicely I'd say!

That's all for today though. I'll bring you more soon.

It's time to beat my backlog!

It's a bit of a grandiose title, but I'm determined to finally do something about the massive backlog of projects I've got building up.

It's probably no exaggeration to say that if I never bought another model again, I could go my entire life without running out of things to paint!

 

Honestly it's a bit ridiculous. Problem is, I get massive hobby ADD far more often than I see projects through to the end. Made worse by the fact I play so many game systems.

 

So I've decided to put in a bit more effort over the next few months to try and clear out some of the hobby clutter.

It's not really going to be a hobby purchase ban like I've done in the past, more like just being a bit more conscious about what I'm spending and trying not buy stuff I want for my armies until I've finished a chunk of stuff related to them first.

A good example are the Trolls I got done this week:

Not the best of pictures I'm afraid. Still working on how to get the best from my new phone camera. My point is though that I've got another 7 of these to get finished. I want to get a Troll Hag to go with them, but I'm not going to do that until all 12 are finished.

Sounds pretty simple and obvious when I put it like that, but I'm hoping it's a good way to try and tame the chaos and poor impulse control which tends to prevail in my hobby decisions.

I'm also going to try and post on here again more often as I've let this go to hell a bit recently. I've reached the stage where I'm pretty sure I'm the only seeing it on here, but it is nice to have a hobby log like this. I've been running this blog for 15 years, I can't stop now!

Anyway there's the update of what I'm up to. Apologies for the big gap between posts and I'll hopefully be back soon.

 Happy hobbying!

Savage things

So after my last post I was raring to go with hobby and get a load done. My body had other ideas though and I spent the next week and a half feeling extremely ill. Bloody typical!

Now I'm in the mend though, I've not only been able to get a couple more games of Old World in, but I've managed to sit down and do some hobby for the first time in a couple of weeks. 

Despite their absolutely abysmal performance in the game last night, I decided that my Boar Boyz were next up on my hobby desk. 

I'm actually really quite happy with how they turned out, considering it was just a few hours work.

 Weirdly, despite appearances, the Boars took longer than the Boys to do, needing several layers of drybrushing and washes, whereas the riders were mostly Contrast, with a few strategic highlights. I'm clearly starting to get get the method locked down for the army scheme, as it was a breeze to work through.

I think the purple really does make the whole thing pop. I'll definitely be integrating it more into the rest of the army as I go along.

That's it for today though. Hopefully this burst of progress will propel me forward and I'll be have more to show soon. I'm definitely riding this Old World kick right now, so no doubt it'll be something of that ilk, but only time will tell what specifically that might be. 

Until next time though, happy hobbying! 

Old World Shenanigans

Despite my best of intentions, I've been pretty lazy with posting so far this year. 

January is usually quite a productive month for me, as I normally work a bit less as things calm down from the Christmas rush, but it turned out to be an unexpectedly busy month this time round, between work and Pokemon Regionals. Then in February I just haven't found the time to sit down and post anything.

Luckily I actually got a ton of stuff done, albeit more at the start of January than past couple of week. I got the entire core of my Orcs and Goblins done for Old World.

 Turns out that a looming game release after three years of procrastinating was a fantastic motivator to get shit done!

I still need to finish up the Squigs, Chariot and a few extra dudes, but I still got a huge chunk done. It was mostly done using Contrast and speed painting techniques, but they look pretty great when ranked up, so I'm pretty happy with them. 

I'm actually really proud of how my Great Shaman/Wurrzag came out. It was only about three hours work, but I absolutely loved the result!

I wasn't originally planning to use a big Orc Shaman, preferring Gobbos when it comes to magic. He was just part of the big lot I bought ages ago, but I like the paint job on him so much I'm definitely going to try to squeeze him into a few lists.

On top of my Orcs, I also dug out my old Dark Elves and gave them some fancy new spaced movement trays to get them compatible with the new edition:

They still need a lot of work to bring them up to a good standard, plus I built/rebuilt a load of monsters to go with them, but I'll cover that in a later post. This is already getting pretty long already and I also wanted to show off a few pics from the games I've had already. 

I've been having an absolutely fantastic time in just the three games I've played so far. It's not just the nostalgia talking, there's just something about it which revs me up far more than anything has recently, especially compared to the latest incarnation of 40k.

Heresy and Middle Earth have come close, but honestly I can see this becoming the main game I'll be playing for a while, even more so than it did back in the day. It's incredibly good fun.

Anyway I'm going end this post here and try and be back soon with another, now I've gotten caught up. I'm actually off work this week, so hopefully I'll be able to get some stuff done which I can show off. It is nice to finally get a post out though. I do enjoy posting here, it's just not as easy to keep up as it used to be. 

Anyway, until next time, happy hobbyingl

Hobby Adventures

It's been a strange couple of weeks for me in the hobby. 

First of all, I'm happy to report that I managed to finish up the last of the Corsairs I needed for my event, embracing the 'good enough' mantra I talked about last post:

They came out pretty well in my opinion. Reasonably high tabletop standard, with a bit of extra effort put into Dalamyr, but nothing too fancy.

I had a really fun time at the event too. I met some great people and it was pretty excellent to be playing some Middle Earth again after several months of mostly 40k. Definitely going to have to find some time to get some more games in at some point!

That time might get a little squeezed though, as I've picked up a new game! After years of grumbling about what GW did to the Old World, a mate of mine down the local club has finally convinced me to give Age of Sigmar a try!

To be fair, I've been oggling the Hedonites range ever since it came out and I've been warming towards the fluff for a few years now, so I figured I'd give it a go using my existing Slaanesh Deamons army for 40k. Turns out it's surprisingly fun! It was actually the most fun I'd had playing with my Deamons for years! 

So I'm an Age of Sigmar player now. It certainly won't become the main game that I play, but it'll definitely scratch my Fantasy itch for a while, at least until Old World eventually comes out.

I needed some Mortals to go with my Deamons, so ended up picking up the Hedonites Vanguard box when when I went to collect the Leviathan box last weekend.

My excited mood was a little soured by just how fiddly and awkward the Blissbarbs were to build. They were *very* CAD designed and took me nearly six hours just to build this lot, but I persevered. 

I'm really looking forward to getting some paint on these. I'll have to hurry things along though, as GW dropped a massive bombshell over the weekend that is likely to suck up a lot of my hobby time and budget.

Epic's back next month!

I knew it was coming, but didn't expect it quite so soon. I'm a massive fan of Titanicus already, so I'm going to be buying into this in a big way! That means I need to definitely clear some space in my backlog.

So yeah, there's been some big swerves in what I'm doing, but I'm pretty psyched for the hobby again and feeling pretty good right now.

Watch this space, I'll be back soon! 

Looks like I'm back!

Well I was right, the Old World preview got me fired up. Even if the game's coming a bit later than I'd hoped, it still did the job of getting me painting again. I'm determined to finally get my Dark Elves sorted and ready for the table for when it does launch. 

I got so excited that I actually got an entire unit of Dark Riders done in less than a week, which is pretty damn speedy for me. 

They're certainly not the best paint job I've ever done, but they look good enough for me. I'm not a huge fan of these particular sculpts, but they'll do the job until I can get hold of some of the classic models. I'm holding out hope for a Made to Order for a lot of the 6th Ed metals when the game drops, as ebay prices are looking a little ridiculous right now! 

It actually feels pretty weird to be painting up my first Fantasy regiment in nearly six years, but it's a nice feeling. Fantasy was never my main game, but I still have a lot of nostalgia for it, so it's great to be able to return to an army I thought had been permanently shelved. 

Digging out everything I could find from various boxes, turns out I have a lot of work to do! 

Most of my old Dark Elf army was in the process of being stripped for repainting when it went into storage, so I basically have an entire army to paint up. Should keep me busy! 

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?