Blockage cleared!

You know, sometimes there are miniatures that just sit half-painted for months, taunting you from the old tile that you used to use to mix paint on, that you are determined to finish but never seem to. Whenever you try, you pick them up, turn them over, dab on a little paint here and there, and then distract yourself with clearing your work surface, or filing some mould lines off of the miniatures that are part of the project after the next one. These were some of those:

Cultists from Heresy - These are lovely miniatures (and rumour is there might be a plastic kit of them at some point in the future), but I just struggled to finish them. The leader type's staff is a bit miscast, but it was so long between buying them and starting to paint them that I decided to just use it as-is rather than bugging Heresy for a replacement! It probably didn't help that they were originally started a couple of years ago, that I wasn't happy with how I painted the robes, the skin (the list goes on) - but it got to the point where I needed them finished (in the hopes of starting D&D) and so I wasn't getting anything else done.

On the painting desk at the same time was the following miniature, that I just couldn't get a decent finish on:

A shiny, shiny Drow adventurer. Apologies for the use of flash, but it's dark in here.

Now that these are out of the way, there's only a single miniature that needs finishing (the big bad for the adventure that I've written), which I'm currently considering stripping and starting from scratch (and it's literally only the flesh that I've done so far...)

When I wasn't finishing up several year old paintjobs last night, John challenged me to identify a number of mystery bits from his bits box, the majority of which he then gave me:

No whole miniatures, so I'm not adding any points to the tally! There's what looks to be:

•  a Daemon Prince sized sword
• the top half of a wraith type (that could probably be attached to some mounted legs or the top of a flowing cloak to fix)
• Aekold Helbrass, that someone has removed the sword (and a finger) from, that could probably be fixed with a sausage of green stuff and the addition of the aforementioned large sword
• a bird, from the old Wood Elf Special Character Skaw the Falconer, that will most likely become part of the ASOIAF project when I get around to doing wildlings and make myself a Varamyr Sixskins type skinchanger
• A weaponless Kislevite, that's pretty cool - likely to end up in the Zombieslayer project, when I get around to it
• The legs from the Blood Bowl thrower John gave me two and a half years ago - alas, the person that cut off the torso also apparently cut out the belly, but these could still be used to make an injured chap on a stretcher...

Speaking of Uncle Johnny, he mentioned the idea of making an Underworld Blood Bowl team, as he had a few 2nd edition goblins and skaven, so I dug him out this to bulk up the numbers:

an old skaven blitzer that I picked up at Salute a couple of years back. When I went to deliver it though, he had his Blood Bowl collection out on the desk, and it seems he owns 90% of the old-school BB minis ever released! There's a lot of nice stuff, but I think I still prefer 3rd :p

So, when all's said and done, it's time to turn to the tally:

25 vs 440 (yes I'm counting giving away the skaven as minus one to the acquired total!) = -415

So, at this rate by the end of the year I'll have painted a miniature every other week... Admittedly, I've not bought any miniatures in a while, so it's likely that this year's total won't slip any further away from the centre, although it's almost Christmas and yet again I've forgotten to buy a Sanity Claws to paint for the occasion...