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. 

2021 Review

As 2021 draws to a close and we go hurtling into 2022 with frightening speed, its time for my usual look back at my hobby year and forward at the year ahead. It's always nice to do these kinds of posts as it gives me a chance to see how far I've come in the last 12 months, as well as giving me the opportunity to gather my thoughts on where I'm going 

2021 has been an odd, but overall pretty good year hobby wise. Despite starting the year in lockdown, I managed to fit in a ton of games as things opened again, across a decent range of systems. 40k and Titanicus seem to have become my main focus, as well as a good amount of Middle Earth of course. It's been really excellent reconnecting with gaming friends who I've been separated from by the pandemic. My main source of socialisation has always been through gaming, so it's really made quite a difference to my mental health to have that back. Last year was really quite rough on me, even if I didn't realise it at the time. I'm certainly feeling a lot more grounded now I have that social outlet back in my life. 

That reconnection and the fact that games are actually being played has meant that I actually painted far more this year than I did even last year where we spent most of it in lockdown. Gaming and events has always been an excellent motivator for getting stuff done!

I can't help but be pretty impressed with that level of output tbh. I've been ridiculously productive and I feel my quality is going up all the time as well. My two best painted awards felt pretty good too! I'm actually shocked that I got best painted twice in rapid succession. I really don't think the armies which won were that impressive tbh, but I guess I've mastered the knack of making armies look good from about two feet away! 

I've got another Middle Earth event next week (assuming we don't get whacked by restrictions), so I'll have to see if I can get a hat trick!

Unfortunately for my backlog, a lot of the painting I've gotten done hasn't actually been from my existing projects, which means that shockingly I'm still in negative figures for my painting points! The big one was when I started Orks in the summer, which ballooned my total to ridiculous levels quite quickly, as well as the various other bits and pieces I picked up across the year. Anyone keeping an eye on my painting points would have seen them zigzig across the negative numbers quite drastically as I desperately tried to wrestle it under control! 

That's why I want to spent at least the early part of 2022 focusing on working on my existing projects. I'm sick of the endless fight against my backlog, so I'm going to be trying not to buy anything new for a few months. My big goal of the year is to get to the point where I have a fully painted force for every system I play, so I can only game with painted models. In turn, that should allow me to be strict with getting stuff painted before I play them. We'll see how that goes, but I think it's a pretty good goal to have. 

With that in mind, I've actually started 2022 o a really positive note. I've been sprucing up and adding to my Mirkwood Elves which I took to Shaun's event at the start of 2020.

That seems so long ago now. Covid really has warped my sense of time. Anyway, I decided to add a few highlights to my existing models and make them pop a bit more, ready for the event I'm attending next weekend. 

It certainly worked! I've absolutely fallen in love how they look now and it's making me want to go back and revisit the non Ranger elements of my Mirkwood army and bring them up to this level, plus actually finish the bits I lost interest in before. I have a bunch of armoured Elves I need to do, plus five different versions of Thrandui which have sat on my desk for longer than I even want to think about. 

I guess that's going to be my next project after turning my attention to sprucing up my Corsairs for this weekend as well, but tbh I'm not as fussed about those. It's nice to get my new year hobby off to a roaring start though.

Anyway, I've rambled enough for now. Happy New Year to you all and I hope your year is full of happy hobbying. I'll catch you all soon! 

Solutions and Dabblings

After several months of my Hobby Pledges sidebar being frozen uselessly in place due to Google screwing up the edit function, I've finally found a workaround for it. The sidebar is pretty much useless to me without learning html, so the entire section has been moved to a page of its own. 

It's not ideal, as i liked having it on the main page, but at least it's live on the blog again rather than just on the notepad app of my phone!

It also makes the front page of the blog look at little neater, so i suppose thats a silver lining.

Other than that, I've been taking things quite easy hobby wise. I got somewhat distracted by the release of the new Pokemon game! I did keep my eye in though by completing a couple of Nurgle bits for a mate:

We realised that after a few years of working on bits and pieces for him on and off that he nearly had a full 1500 points fully painted, so I'm going to make a concerted effort to try and get those done for him, if not before the New Year, then at least in early January.

It's not much, but at least I'm still moving forward. I've got a few projects bubbling away which I'll probably go into more detail about in the next post. Of course, I've got my traditional end of year post to pull together as well. Plenty to keep me busy as we roll inexorably towards Christmas. Wish me luck! 

More Pootling

As I predicted, I decided to take things pretty easy over the last week or so. All I did hobby-wise last week was finally spray up my Titanicus accessories:

Only took me three years! Seems a little thing, but it feels so good to have finally gotten it done. I was getting sick of not being able to see my pips properly whilst I was playing, so I chose the bright, most lurid colour I could to spray them with!

Then this week I've been back on holiday, but I've just been pootling along with hobby stuff. After one of my Xestobiax Titans took a cat-related tumble from a shelf, it got moved up the queue for sprucing up, so I spent Monday working on that with some YouTube videos on in the background.

It was surprisingly relaxing. There was something quite zen about sitting there and just neatening up a three year-old paint job. There's still a lot to do with it, but I think it's going to become my go to thing to return to when I want to chill between bigger projects. Talking of which... 

I finally returned to the backlog train hard today and got these guys finished up. They were really loose ends from the Mordor stuff I finished a few weeks ago, but pretty important for the Minas Morgul force I'm looking at doing.

I'm really happy with how they look, although to be fair I think the lightbox does them a lot of favours. Every time I've pointed this out to people though, I've been told to shut up and look at my two recent best painted awards! *grumbles*

At least they're done though and finally off my painting desk, leaving me free to work on some 40k and Titanicus stuff. Expect to see an update on that very soon!

Until then, stay safe and happy hobbying! 

Big Squig Energy

I really need to stop doubting my painting abilities so much. I only went and nabbed another Best Painted! 

I was pretty shocked tbh. I really didn't think my Cirith Ungol were anywhere near as good as my Hobbits, but clearly they impressed people, so I can't argue with that! 

It was a really fun event too. Was great to see a lot of people I haven't seen for ages and play some excellent games. It really brought home to me how much I love gaming in Middle Earth and I left with a lot of ideas for future projects. 

 

As for results, me and my mate didn't do overly well, but it was still a great day and it was a good laugh. Really looking forward to the next one! 

Not one to rest on my laurels, I went right back to my hobby desk! I finished up some Orks on Sunday night.

It's nice to actually finish up some models from the Beast Snaggas box. Apart from the Squighog Nob,  the box has  e, been laying forgotten in a dark corner of my hobby pile for the past few months while I've been distracted with other stuff. Of course it would have been better I'd finished something which was actually in my crusade roster, but oh well. With our Requisition Points expanding as we move into phase 2, they might end up in there anyway!

As for the models themselves, I'm far happier with how the riders turned out than the Bomb Squigs did. On the other hand, they're essentially glorified tokens so it makes sense that I focused more on the riders themselves. They're all good though and it's another thing off my slowly shrinking backlog!

I'm probably going to take things easy hobby-wise for the rest of this week. I'm back at work for a few days before going back on another week's holiday, so I don't expect to really do much at least until I'm off again. Rest assured though that I've got plenty of hobby ideas bubbling away, so I'll be back soon to share them with you.

 Until then, happy hobbying! 

A week of actual gaming!

I've had a pretty good week in the hobby. After being ridiculously busy for the last few months, I've finally gotten a week's holiday so I've actually had a chance to grab some long-overdue games. 

On Monday I managed to fit in the latest episode in our local Crusade campaign:

I faced some Daemons using Bel'akor's Legion and got a drubbing! I suppose I was overdue one, having easily won my previous two games. It was a good laugh though and tbh it was great just to get out and be sociable. 

Whilst I was there and under some decent natural lighting, I managed to nab a group pic of a bunch of my fully painted Orks. It's not quite everything I've gotten painted, just what was in my Crusade roster. Looking pretty good though, even if I do say so myself! 

My original plan was to use this campaign to get everything in my list painted before the Power Level goes up. We've reached the end of Phase 1 though and it turns out that my progress has been pretty lacking. I guess I'm going to have to try and catch up as we go forward. Fun fun!

Anyway, I also managed to get a game of Titanicus in with another friend today. When we arranged things the other day, it was just going to be a standard game. Then the rules for Corrupted Titans leaked last night, so we decided to have some fun to test them out.

In a running theme for this week, my Mortis lost horribly, but it was immense fun. Talking with Chris, I've come away with load of fun ideas on how to combine and use the new rules and my enthusiasm for the game is really bubbling away, so expect more gribbly Titans from me in the next few weeks!

As much fun as gaming has been, I've also managed to get my Mordor Orcs finished for Saturday's event:

They're not going to winning any awards, but they turned out decently enough and it's nice to finally get these done and put the way - they've been sitting half finished on my painting desk for nearly two years now! 

I managed to get a few extras done on top of those too:

The Captains are needed, but the Shaman and Kardush are going to part of my wider Mordor army. I managed to pick up the new plastic Witch King to go with them over the weekend, so that will probably be one of my next projects. I'm really starting to amass a good amount of stuff for my Mordor now, despite not actually meaning to collect too much of it. Bits and pieces just seem to have kept accumulating! 

Moving forward, I'm not actually sure what I want to work on next, beyond a few bits and pieces (*cough*Titans*cough*). I'll just have to see where my whim takes me. 

 Until next time folks, happy hobbying! 

A splurge of progress

It's that time again where I make excuses for why I haven't posted for a while. I'll be honest, I've just been incredibly lazy when it comes to keeping the blog updated. I've been pretty busy hobby-wise though.

For a start, I finally finished Bozrog!

I actually got him painted up pretty quickly once I turned my attention to it. It was mostly just building up layers of drybrushing, then picking out some details.

I might go back later and add a few transfers and a bit more weather, but I reckon he's pretty decent as he is.

Beyond that I've mostly been working on some Mordor Uruks for a doubles tournament I'm doing with a mate in a few weeks time:

They're not going to be be winning any best painted awards any time soon, but I'm happy with them. We're taking the Cirith Ungol legendary legion, so I've got to sit down this week and paint the command models, plus the Orc half, but that won't take too long.

The event should be great fun. Me and my mate aren't taking it seriously at all. We're just using it as an excuse to hang out for the first time in ages and have a laugh.

As if those weren't enough, I've also been sprucing up my Reaver Titans for Adeptus Titanicus:

With news of the Traitor Legios book on its way, I'm a lot more excited for the game than I've been for a while. The arrival of Corrupted Titans also gives me the perfect excuse to add some Nurgle-y details to them, so I've been having a lot of fun with technical paints! 

I've tried to keep things subtle, so a casual observer is likely to miss the chaotic influence at first, but the closer you look, the more you see. Finding the right balance has been an interesting exercise in self restraint. 

I am pretty happy with them though and I can't wait to carry on with the rest of the Maniple, as well as adding to it with a few more obviously corrupt Engines. That's in a few weeks time though, once this latest Middle Earth event is done with. 

So yeah, that's what's been keeping me busy. Shame I'm so terrible at blogging about it in a timely manner! I'd promise that's going to change, but we both know that's unlikely. You'll have to endure my occasional splurge catchup instead! Hopefully you've enjoyed it though. I'll post more again soon.

Until next time, happy hobbying!