A handy tip for removing prepaints from their bases!

Digging through some older photos on my phone, I came across one that I meant to include with a previous post but must have overlooked:

A handy tip I picked up from a random YouTube video (I forget who from, but it may have been bensrpgpile) for removing plastic prepainted figures from their bases without the usual bloodshed - hold the figure in a towel, so if the knife does inevitably slip, it hits the towel rather than sinking straight into the delicate flesh of your fingers! I can't believe I've just been mangling myself doing this for the last decade or so...

A prize and a project pledge

First of all, this came in the post the other day:

A prize from the draw over on the lovely Ray's blog (who I'm sure you're all following already) - I almost missed out on this, as when the battery in my old phone started mysteriously swelling, as well as losing all my photos I lost my blogroll (and can't seem to get it back, despite several pleas to Bloglovin, the app I use for reading blogs on mobile devices) so I haven't been able to see anyone's posts for about s month now :/ luckily, Ray tracked me down and let me know I'd won though, so hoorah!

And now, a pledge.

I have a lot of half-painted miniatures.

A lot.

When I was much younger, and just getting back into this wargaming lark (painting miniatures from Darkson Designs for AE:WWII), I had a system - three small trays, each of which was probably large enough to hold 3 based miniatures. I didn't let myself start anything new until I'd cleared a space on a tray by finishing a miniature, and so would often force myself to finish something because I was desperate to paint something else that had caught my eye! Over time, my adherence to this system lapsed, and now I have several drawers full of half-painted (or in some cases just undercoated) miniatures.

So, I'm going to try and reinstate the project box in place of the three tray system:

It's currently full of various half-painted miniatures (all of which got popped in here at one point or another 'just to tidy them out of the way until I finish them' - as a brief aside, I thought my long-ago built but never finished Path To Glory war band was in this box, but looking at the picture whilst writing this post I can clearly see that they're not, and am wondering where I've put them...) and I plan to only work on miniatures that are currently in progress in the box, and will not build or undercoat any new models until there is a suitable space in the box for them (although before I embark on this I might swap some miniatures out from the project box for something from the drawers - maybe I'll give myself an out of 'I can only take something out of the box if I swap it for an equivalent volume of half-painted miniatures').

That doesn't sound so bad, I hear you say?

I'm also including the rest of the miniatures in the cupboard where this box lives in that:

So only once that volume of miniatures is reduced to the point that I have space in the project box can I start something new.

My, that's a lot of scarecrows.

Take my love, take my land, wait, wrong Firefly...

I like Batman's roster of villains - you've got the Joker, insanity personified; the scarecrow, the master of Fear; but then you've got guys like Garfield Lynns, a pyromaniac who gets taken under the wing of Killer Moth (chortle) and so pootles around with a pair of wings and a flamethrower. Chortling aside, he makes a few appearances that I've enjoyed in the Batman comics I'm currently reading (Knightfall era), including one where he gets a girlfriend, but she is disappointed to discover that his idea of the next step in their relationship is murdering her with fire whilst ranting about how he sees ladies dancing in the flames rather than anything more traditional. Also, my decision to pluck him out of the half-painted queue might have been affected by wanting to be able to post this screen-cap on here:

A mighty foe for the Batman indeed, foiled only by fire escapes (and yes, I am amused enough by comics panels that are amusing out out context to have a Pinterest board solely dedicated to them)

But anyway, blathering aside, here's what I've painted:

One of the nicest heroclix sculpts I've come across, if I recall correctly after his long bath in fairy power spray (that removed approximately 0% of the original paint job) he was actually four seraparate pieces that go together so seamlessly you'd barely notice.

Quite a limited colour palette (all the better to paint you quickly with my dear!), but a nice finish overall; I had a play with mixing some purple and blue glazes to make the nozzle of his flamethrower look somewhat heat-damaged, but I think I may have taken it a bit too far...

The smoke was surprisingly fun to paint, gradually lightening and smooshing colours around on it! 

Finishing him brings the Tally to:

2 vs 0 = +2

Star Wars: the rules awaken

I briefly attempted to get some more work done on a set of rules for gaming Star Wars today (after it took me a week or so to find my notes, and when I did it turned out I'd completed a lot less than I thought I had) but my daughter had other ideas:

I wasn't convinced on her ideas for Darth Vader's stats either. 

If you don't forward this golem to ten friends terrible things will happen...

A new year means a fresh start on the Tally, so I thought I'd start work on a bit of a buffer with something nice and easy - a chain golem, pretty much only one colour! 

He's an old sculpt from the Dreamblade CMG that I have a bunch of after running a demo many years ago when it first launched - the scale is a bit iffy on the majority of the human sculpts, but anything monstrous is generally usable with the rest of my collection!

Originally planned as a one day fell swoop, it actually took much longer than that, mostly due to my inability to find my pin vice for several days (which ended up being in the drawer where it always lives, that I had already checked at least three times...)

[edit to add something I forgot to mention several hours after posting] - please ignore the scrappy base, apparently I have already scavenged every terminator base from every 40K starter set I have, so I had to dig one out of the bottom of my A Song of Ice and Fire project box, from an eBay lot of LOTR figures, which were covered in an ungodly amount of glue that I had to pick and sand off!

After years of using battered paintbrushes and cut down matchsticks to awkwardly spread glue on bases, I've discovered that a glue spreader (like the ones you used in primary school) is actually the perfect tool for the job (although I shouldn't have been surprised really, as the clue is in the name!)

Pow, one completed chain golem, base coated, washed, and then drybrushed up. And then washed again in several key places, as the GW dry silver paint (I forget what it's called) is terrible and seemed to leech into some of the indents...

I went for turquoise eyes for a couple of reasons:

1 - my wife chose that pot of paint, so brownie points for using it (see, I do need more than the hundreds of pots of paint I already have, honest)

2 - red seems so cliched - what if he's not an inherently evil golem? Why limit myself to that?

If I were to paint him again, I'd probably work on some rust effects, and maybe some dried blood, but as he's being painted this time as a quickly Tally booster he stays factory fresh!

I am also super amused at his rear - I imagine there was a meeting at some point with an Art Director who was adamant that no matter what, despite the fact that it's a whacking great vaguely humanoid figure made of chains, it was of the utmost importance that the sculpt have defined buttocks. 

Finishing him takes the new Tally to:

1 vs 0 = +1

Wooooooo!

Hopefully I can keep it in the black a little while this year (which shouldn't be too hard considering I am broke as a joke), although Salute is normally where it takes a little bump... Also, I'm stuck in a bit of a loop currently - I want to paint some Rebels for the Star Wars project, to do which I need some bases. If I order some bases though, I'll order some figures too (because... Well, it would feel like a waste of an order of not) which would take me into the red. Hmm, need to work on that buffer some more (he says, studiously avoiding looking directly at the scores of half-painted miniatures tucked away in various drawers...)

2015 in review - already?!

The annual year in review post already? Wow, that really flashed past... As per usual, I'll review my 'progress' on the projects I honestly thought I'd crack on with this year (the more pessimisticly minded might see these posts as a listing of my failures, but I'd like to think I'm a bit more optimistically pragmatic than that...)

Tally

59 vs 155 = -96

Not the worst year for final tally score or for number of painted figures (that honour stays with the year I got married and started a new job), but nowhere near the best either! I dread to think how bad the numbers would have been if I hadn't finished that zombie herd for the Zomtober big finish though! Who knew, having a baby eats into your hobby time :s

2015: -96 (59 painted)

2014: 0 (80 painted)

2013: -416 (25 painted)
2012: -103 (68 painted)
2011: -173 (122 painted)

Last years projects (according to the plans made in the end of year post):

ASOIAF

A flurry of activity at the start of the year saw me complete a small chunk of figures for this project, including a couple of characters that I'd had in progress for quite some time, but then my attention wandered somewhat and didn't return this way at all. 

With those figures completed, I've probably got enough to actually play a small skirmish game, once I finish cribbing together some rules (and assuming I don't start planning mass battle armies...)

Weirdly though, walking in to work this morning thinking about writing this post, I got myself quite enthused thinking about all the conversions and plans I had for this project, so who knows, once I finish some Batman figures and clear some space in the painting queue I might revisit this project!

The Last of Us

Having not bought the bits I wanted from Miniature Mojo (or the lovely fungus infected heads from CP Models) I've had pretty much zero impetus to paint the models I already have for this project. Onto the back burner it goes!

The Thing

Looks like when I said last year that this was a small scale project that I'd likely get distracted from, I wasn't wrong! Zero progress made, so probably onto the back burner for this one...

Star Wars

I only finished two figures for this project in the last year, which would normally be enough to relegate a project to the back burner, but come on, it's Star Wars, so it gets a pass. As soon as I stock up on some more 25mm round bases, I could put together some Rebels in order to have two skirmish size forces; however, there are a number of figures I'd quite like to bolster the variety of sculpts that I do currently own, but being pretty broke prevents me from stocking up and seems to give me project parslysis! One day I'll get Zuckuss though, in order to be able to complete my set of the Bounty Hunters... Plus I'll try and save some pennies to pick up a copy of Imperial Assault, as that comes with a plethora of tiny plastic space men...

Path To Glory

I still own the figures, but keep getting distracted from actually finishing them. Onto the back burner!

Mass Effect

Around the time my daughter was born, I acquired a copy of Sedition Wars from a disillusioned friend, and bought some Mantic Enforcers and Infinity figures to use for Cerberus conversions - I have been unable to source suitable helmets for these though, which has prevented me making any progress... I live in hope that one day I'll find someone has put CAD files up somewhere so that I can get a friend to sneakily 3D print some!

On the back burner:

ROTPOTA - one of those projects that I tend to look at and think 'well, it really wouldn't take much to get these done oh wait what's that shiny thing over there'

Nerdmarines - haven't been touched. 

Batman - I painted the Scarecrow! I've got a bunch of half-painted minis for this (as well as a box of unassembled Knight Models figures); one day, one day...

Everything else - the zombie project (the project that got me back into miniatures, and started this blog!) got some love this year, with an unusually active Zomtober - not bad for a project that was so far down my list of priorities that it didn't even get a heading on last year's plans! I've got enough of a backlog of zombie miniatures to keep me busy for years to come, so I don't think it will ever go away, and hopefully at the very least next year will see me complete Zomtober again!

Other than that, it was mostly odds and sods that caught my fancy that got painted, like a couple of Superheroes when the wife and I were watching the Marvel Cinematic Universe releases and the puppet guy from Fallout...

Next years projects:

Star Wars

I'll try and paint a squad or two of Rebels, as well as the rest of my Bounty Hunters if I can get a Zuckuss. In an ideal world, I'd find a Roron Corobb miniature going cheap so that I had all the bits needed to replay Palpatine's abduction from the Clone Wars animated series, but I should probably walk before I run!

Also, I've recently been reading the old D20 RPG rules and voraciously consuming PDFs of old issues of Star Wars Gamer, so in the back of my mind I'm considering running a Star Wars RPG, but we'll have to wait and see on that front...

ASOIAF

I always quite enjoy converting soldiers for this project, so here's to hoping that once the decks are a bit clearer next year I'll be able to do some more of that!

Batman

I hope to at least finish the half dozen half-painted figures that I currently have on the go, and then make a start on the Knight Models figures that I have. The chap that I was going to play this with has just moved to Germany though, so there's less impetus to actually finish anything...

Zombies

No big plans for this really, but at the very least I'll aim to complete another Zomtober!

on the back burner:

The Last of Us - unlikely to get any progress made unless I get to make orders with Miniature Mojo and CP Models, but you never know...

The Thing - who knows...

Path to Glory - hmm, it's been so long on the back burner that GW have actually updated the rules themselves...

Mass Effect - if I can find suitable helmets, I have more than enough models to make a skirmish scale force. Until then...

ROTPOTA - *shrugs* 

I've got Fallout 4 to play on the PS4 too, so that might see some attention turned towards that project...

And who knows, maybe next year will be the year that I get around to buying a Sanity Claws on eBay and painting him up for Christmas?

A winner is me!

The lovely Dai over at lostdamnedstunted.blogspot.com recently held a draw, and I was one of the winners! Being the first name selected by the RNG gods, I even got first pick of the prizes, and so had this little lot turn up this week:

10 tiny but perfectly formed stormtroopers from the old WEG release:

They even came packed in an awesome old school TSR D&D minis box (note daughter's excited arms in this pic, as she thinks it's something for her):

I feel a bit bad winning though, as it seems like as opposed to being from Wales as I had assumed (being called Dai, loving rugby) according to the postmark they've come all the way from Sacramento!

Having heard that I had these coming, John did out some spares to add to my collection (presumably hoping to pervert me from the allure of my usual scale) [ignore the painted trooper for the Tally, he was just to show how they look painted up]

So, with these and the Boba Fett and Darth Vader I have tucked away already somewhere, I should have a tidy little Imperial force! Looks like I need to order some 20mm bases and get cracking! (Although I've got the Star Wars PS4 that comes with the new Battlefront game coming for Christmas, so it might be after that that my hobby mojo turns to Star Wars!)

Tally:

59 vs 155 = -96