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!

Another bunch of weirdos

I've really gotten into the groove with these random Inquisition dudes. I managed to finish up a few more over the last week or so, including the Inquisitor conversion I built in 2015!

It's so nice to be able to finally get these finished in a way which does justice to my original vision of them. It really shows me how far my standard of painting has come over the years. There's no way I would have managed this back in the day!

That said, I just realised as I'm writing that I forgot to finish off the coils on the Plasma Pistol and the lenses on the Servo Skull. Oops! I'll have to fix that at some point!

Just a quick update for today. I wanted to post this before I move into prep for my next Old World event in two weeks. Should be less of a slog this time, with just a Dragon rider and a few horses to do. I'm quite looking forward to it though, especially as the Dragon was a present from a friend the Christmas before last. 

Anyway, happy hobbying and I'll catch you next post!

A whole bunch of 'Munda

I haven't posted for a few weeks, but don't worry. I haven't fallen off the blogging wagon already, I've just not had a whole lot of energy to paint, so I've had nothing to show off.

Then I hit a huge productive streak in the last couple of days, so I suddenly have enough to show off out of basically nowhere. It's weird how the hobby motivation ebbs and flows sometimes!

As I predicted last time, after the slog of finishing up my Orks, I turned my attention to Necromunda for some low effort wins.

I got the set of Malstrain Genestealers from my Secundus box done over a couple of evenings, despite not having any particular use for them in my immediate future:

I think they turned out brilliantly tbh, far beyond my wildest expectations! So much so that I'm actually tempted to get some more of them, as I'm a little sad the project is over already!

They were mostly done using watered down washes, then picking out a few few interest points like eyes and blisters, then adding some Tesseract Glow to their bases. I probably spent longer waiting for washes to dry than actually painting them!

I was on a bit of a roll after those, with my creative juices flowing nicely. I decided to use that to finally get my Orrus Spyrers from the same box knocked out too, meaning that I can cross off everything from a boxed set from my backlog. A bit of a rarity!

Anyway, I got those done pretty quickly too. Here's the results:

I don't think they turned out quite as well as the 'Stealers, but i think that's more an issue with the models having no clear focal point than anything else.

I went for a metallic scheme with them, based loosely on Iron Man's colours. I've had the idea knocking about since I bought them to have each Spyrer type be based on a different Marvel super hero, so this is the start of that. I'll buy the others later, but I think this makes a pretty good start to that plan.

So that's a good chunk knocked off my backlog, netting me 21 points towards my total. I'm not sure where I'm going to turn my attention next, but I should actually get some decent free time over the next few weeks, so I'm expecting to getting a good chunk of hobby done. We'll see if that actually happens though.

Until next time, happy hobbying!

Back from the dead!

I haven't posted on here for over a year. Most of the reason for that was the dwindling or non existent interactions on my posts over the last few years. Compared to how active and vibrant the hobby blogosphere was 10-15 years ago, it just felt like i was shouting into the void. As you can imagine, it kind of killed my enthusiasm for posting.

But now in a fitting move for Halloween, I'm bringing it lurching back to life!

I'm still under no illusions as to how dead a medium blogs are in this age of social media, but I figure that posting on here regularly again is the best way to document the big self-imposed hobby challenge I'm about to embark on. If there's anyone here reading this, then you can come along for the ride. Say hi if you are!

 I mentioned a hobby challenge, so you might be wondering what I'm up to? Well, if you've read this blog over the years, you'll know that I've been locked in a never-ending war with my massive pile of shame, tracked using my points system.

Well that backlog's gotten a bit out of hand again and it's driving me completely insane, especially after finding a ton of half-finished projects when clearing out the shed the other week. As a result, I've put myself on another model purchase ban for a little while, but with a bit of a twist this time. Rather than just doing damage control and barely pulling my head above water like I normally do, I want to build up a bit of headroom with it this time and make a meaningful dent in my ridiculous pile of unfinished stuff.

With that in mind, I've set an end goal to work towards, rather than just stopping once I'm in positive figures. I want to reach +300 painting points by next summer, from my current total of -115. Its a bit of arbitrary goal, but my thinking is that it should put a hell of a dent in my 'to do' list, whilst not being so impossible to reach that i get discouraged.

Next summer as an end date is a good and (in my mind at least!) well-reasoned goal though. All rumours and logic place 11th edition 40k as coming out then. I'm not going to fool myself into thinking that I'm not going to buy anything when that drops, so that seems a good point to have a healthy, much-reduced backlog ready for!

I'm also not going full cold turkey on my hobby purchases. I'm going to treat myself every now and then, again mostly so I don't get discouraged. I've been cataloguing everything I need to paint, dividing it by army and game system, then further sub-dividing it, listing the stuff which I most want or need to get done. Once everything on one of those sub-lists is finished, I'm going to treat myself to something I want, with the caveat that it's got to match that category. 

For example, for my Necromunda stuff, I've got the following on my 'Need to do' list:

- Secundus Genestealers

- Spyrers

- Necromunda Weirdos 

- Arbites 

- Escher cats

Once those are done, I can treat myself to a Forgeworld character pack I've had my eye on for a while. Likewise, once I've cleared my Saturnine box from my list, I can can buy something for my Thousand Sons.

This might seem like I'm making this far too complicated, but ive learned over the years that my Autistic brain needs structure to stuff like this to keep me focused. This is basically a very long-winded way for saying I'm going to hopefully have a very productive 9 months or so of hobby ahead of me!

To start me off, I've been working on my Orks the past few weeks. They're by far the shortest category on my list and the ones I've been lost engaged with, having been playing a summer league and tourney at my local club. I've painted most of a Speed Freaks army over that time, with just a few things left to finish up.

Most recently I've gotten a Boomdakka Snazzwagon, converted from a Taurox done:

That's been sitting unfinished in various forms since 2017, so its good to get it finished at last! It was originally bought for my Inquisition, but I haven't done anything with that army since 8th Edition, so it got a new home my Deathskulls. Reckon it turned out pretty well. It was hard to get a good photo as it doesnt fit in my light box, but hopefully it looks good anyway!

The other thing I finished was some Rogue Trader Boyz i bought off a mate on a whim a few months back:

I didn't really have a use for them, I just have a fondness for old sculpts and poor impulse control. That probably goes a way to explaining my need to do this backlog-busting challenge! These were great fun to work on though and will probably end up finding a home in my Kommandos, which need a few extra bodies.

Next up will probably be a converted Shokkjump Dragster and some Deffkoptas to finish off the Ork part of my 'Need to do' list. I'll keep you updated on how I do.

Its good to be back!

Happy Hobbying!