Century: 2011

No, it's not an Alan Moore themed post, it's my 100th painted miniature of the year:

A generic sand monster! Originally a Mage Knight mini, lots of drybrushing took me up to a hundred painted miniatures for the year, ready to stomp all over prospective heroes. He's a bit boring though, so I painted a bunch more too:

A snake (originally a dnd prepaint), because Conan spends an inordinate amount of time battling mundane foes!

A giant frog, nature's deadliest predator! (hee hee, look at his funny eyes, and imagine that I'd managed to take a better picture that made the skintone look less flat...)

A Grenadier zombie that I picked up for pennies out of a little bucket on em4's stand at Salute!

A pair of zombies, taking my painted total to 74. The chap on the left is Ken, an old Partizan giveaway, and the surfer dude on the right is from Hasslefree. I like the fact that he's wearing a shark-tooth necklace that has obviously failed to protect him from shark attacks...

And last but not least, my favourite mini of this batch, a snakeman! Originally a Clan Wars Naga Abomination, he'll make a good Conan villain (even though fighting snakemen was always more Kull's thing, but hey, they had Thulsa Doom in the old Arnie movie...)

With that little lot added to the tally, we come to:

106 vs 285 = -179

Still no Mighty Zug (why do people keep bidding the amount he costs new on old grotty ones on eBay?) so no more progress on the Blood Bowl team, so I might see if I can get a Threshold team painted up for Strange Aeons. But, then again, every time I say I'm going to focus on a particular project the following blog posts are as eclectic as ever... And also, a series of Doctor Who has just finished, which is usually when I actually get Who minis painted...

Adeptus Titanicus on ebay!

So, having a bit of a clearout I've listed a couple of bits on eBay, the only one of which most of you will likely be interested in being the following:

The old long Out of Print Adeptus Titanicus game. I'm sad to see it go, but realistically, I'm probably never going to start an epic project (I prefer God's true scale, after all) - despite the loveliness that is all the little different plastic weapons:

For full details (and to bid!) see the listing at:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Long-OOP-Adeptus-Titanicus-epic-game-Games-Workshop-inc-original-rulebook-/140614272967?pt=UK_Toys_Wargames_RL&hash=item20bd4387c7

Monsters of rock!

Now let's see how many hits the blog gets from people searching for 80's metal compilations... (although in other news, I've had two hits on the blog from the search term "obscene miniature figure". What are people searching for?)

So yeah, my plan to remain focused on finishing my Blood Bowl team didn't exactly pan out. I ended up flipping through the rulebook, did some quick mental maths, and then realised that I'd planned to include the Mighty Zug in my team, a miniature that I do not own. So, onto the back burner they go until I can find a reasonably price copy of the Zug mini (although I'm impressed at the guy selling it on eBay at £14.99, more than double the price it's available at direct from Games Workshop...)

In distracting myself from painting fantasy football players, I made a start on some of the minis that got hit with undercoat last week (because I think I'm subconsciously sabotaging myself into having more half-painted miniatures than finished or bare metal combined...), and this beast was the only one that got finished. He was originally a miniature for Mage Knight Dungeons, and was great fun to paint (basecoat, drybrush, wash, go out for a coffee and a cigarette, drybrush, drybrush, drybrush, finishing). He's the first mini finished for my new Conan project, but as Conan's always fighting generic fantasy weirdies, most things for the project can also pull double duty in the dnd project.

On the Conan front though - my original plan was to paint up a few bits and bobs here and there as I worked my way through the Complete Chronicles of Conan, ordering and converting miniatures as the fancy took me story by story. However, I've since finished the entire thing (it was hard to put down, what can I say), and I still don't have a Conan mini! I'm tempted by some of the Reaper ones, but nowhere in the UK seems to keep them in stock...

And as usual, I've been buying things. You may recall a post or so back I mentioned my desire to start an old-school undead army based on the novel Zombieslayer? [well, old-school for me is mid-nineties, I'm only a youngster] - The first few bits arrived during the last week:

Kemmler, Krell, and some of the old skeleton horsemen, which came complete with their original box:

Ahh, the old box design, how I miss thee... I'm torn with Krell, whether to remove the back banner (because it looks silly - how does he get through doors?) or leave it on out of a sense of completeness...

Also arriving in the last week was this little bundle:

"10 human arab style figures", bought via eBay from a chap over on the LAF, as although they're a bit dinky, they'll do quite nicely as one-hit wonders for Conan to punch out. I quite fancy trying the Foundry Dusky Flesh Triad (and they've even got a sale on currently!) but the £8 postage pretty much forces you to buy £80 worth of stuff in order to get free shipping (and it seems they don't do 2000AD miniatures singly any more, only in packs of three...)

Inevitably, we come to the tally:

99 vs 285 = -186, which admittedly is a step in the wrong direction...

Fantasy Football

No, it's not the Blood Bowl team I mentioned I was painting, I got asked to go over the crappy paintjobs of some cake decorations to make it look like their hair actually fit their head. My favourites would probably have to be the guy I gave a swoopy side-parting to, or the chap on the right I added mutton chop sideburns to (hey, my attention span is only finite). And as tempting as it is, no, I'm not going to add them to the tally...

More importantly, it seems Games Workshop is quietly releasing a new game, which I feel obliged to buy despite not knowing anything about it since I still regret not saving my pocket money and buying Warhammer Quest when it was readily available (which explains the copy of Space Hulk still sat unused in my pile o'games). The main worry is, if I don't buy it, and they stop making it, I'll then want it. But more realistically, I'll buy it, and never use it, and still be sad that I don't have Warhammer Quest...

The Captain!

...his name is The Captain (see the Nextwave theme song here if you don't get the reference)

So yeah, several years after originally planning to do Nextwave in miniature, and only a couple of months after suitable Heroclix minis came out, I've actually finished painting something!

The freehand "Heartstar of the space between the galaxies" isn't perfect, but his sneakers look nice from this distance, so hey, it's a win overall I guess. I've got the rest of the Nextwave squad in the painting queue in various stages of completedness, but who knows when my fancy will swing this way again... (although, I yesterday discovered that Heroclix have made a Dirk Anger fig... but if I get that, I'll need to convert some wacky figs, like windmill-faced Samurai, apes dressed as Wolverine, and cuddly koala bears of doom...)

Finishing The Captain brings the tally to:

98 vs 270 = -172

Only a couple to go to break a century! I wish I had better focus. Once this post goes up, I'm planning on going back to painting my 3rd edition Blood Bowl Human team. However, it's entirely likely that I'll get distracted and start painting the 11th Doctor and Amy Pond, a not-Ash (of Evil Dead fame), or even Judge Dredd.

But don't quote me on that, I've got a load of miniatures ready for undercoating...

Back on the horse! (Redux)

Back in the swing of things, and actually painting miniatures, who knows how long it will last?

But before we get into all that, a slight diversion - I got taken to the Doctor Who Experience by my lovely young lady for my birthday! It was awesome, but can really be summed up in two pictures:

Olly loves Cybermen, but fears the scarecrow. There were many more pictures taken (although Nicole was less than impressed when I asked for front side and isometric views of every costume for painting reference...), but I think these two say it best...

Anyways, onto the miniatures (and apologies in advance for the worse than usual pictures, it's a new camera and a new light that needs a daylight bulb hampered by my measly skills):

An exotic bodyguard for 7tv to guard my evil genius whilst lazing around in a skimpy bikini -

She's from Copplestone iirc, and was my first time experimenting with a Foundry triad (Oriental Flesh). I quite liked using the triad, as it made painting flesh a lot more straightforward, and might pick up some more in future (curse Foundry's long-lamented postal charges, I may have to wait until next Salute to pick up the next batch...)

The Vulture! He's been sat in his base colours for... I don't know, a couple of years, but I finally got round to finishing him off. He's a repainted heroclix fig, with all the blurry facial detail and wacky scale that entails, but he was one of the first heroclix figs I ever got, so still holds a certain charm. With him done, I'm 66.66% of the way to having my own non-canon Sinister Six! (Although if I were to go canon, I'd probably go for the second line-up, consisting of:

• Doctor Octopus
• Mysterio
• Electro
• Sandman
• Vulture
• Hobgoblin

as that's who I'd most fancy painting).

And last but not least, some goons from Heresy, for use as technician types for 7tv (yeah, they had ipads then, what of it?) and SF goons for Doctor Who. I don't know why, but I do love to see a wedding ring on a miniature.

And thus, to the tally:

97 vs 270 = -173

Still not great, but getting better (and hey, we've almost hit a hundred finished minis!) - fingers crossed I can hold back from restarting Mass Effect (after all my xbox saves got wiped, I couldn't bring myself to start the big games again, but I'm getting a hankering...). Then again, it's only the fact that I can't seem to find my copy of Zombieslayer to re-read that's stopping me from building an old-school Undead Warhammer army (well, old-school to me at least, I'm only young); Kemmler leading blocks of zombies with zombie Wyverns, with none of this Vampire Lord malarky... Eh, it could go either way really...

This slump, this slump, this slump...

...she's in my head (to intentionally misquote The Presidents of the United States of America...)

So yeah, three and a half months and no updates. I mean, I've only actually cracked out the brushes and paints once in that time, and even then I only managed a couple of layers on a handful of minis before giving up and packing away. I mean, my desk currently looks like this:

I don't know what happened really to kill my desire to paint. It may have started with deciding to replay both Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic games, which reignited my interest in console gaming (which I hadn't really touched for a few months beforehand), and starting to play Magic again can't have helped. If anything, the main blow may have been my laptop suddenly refusing to connect to the internet (I'm on my young lady's currently), restricting my access to Lead Adventure and the multitude of awesome blogs I follow, meaning I have to come up with my own enthusiasm for the hobby rather than being enervated by everyone else's...

That's not to say I've not been considering several additional projects - Conan is awesome, full stop, and I could recycle generic fantasy monster minis from the dnd project; I've been playing a lot of Dynasty Warriors: Gundam recently, and looking lovingly at HLJ...; I read most of Joe Abercrombie's novels, and started considering how I'd adapt War of the Ring to game it... But for now, I'm trying not to buy any more miniatures for the immediate future (even though em4 have an awesome barbarian with a square-cut fringe...)

Despite saying I'm not buying any more miniatures, more have arrived since the last post:

A lovely Malcadon from Jimchenko, because Necromunda is awesome, and now I have one of each of the four original Spyrers. I mean, come on, even I can paint four miniatures, right?

The winners of the Frothers Cthuldo sculpting competition (as is traditional, something went wrong with the order, but they turned up eventually).

And a whole mess of goodies from Crooked Dice! Which reminds me, I'm sure there was an email saying good things would happen if I placed an order after the 21st of August... and there's the summer special... [right, just one order, that doesn't count right?]

Which brings the tally to:

90 vs 270 = -180! (which has to be bellowed in the style of Bullseye...)

Stupid tally. What started out as a motivational device soon became a rod for my back. But hey, I've started so I'll finish (curse you ridiculously cheap box of many miniatures earlier in the year...)

Thinking about it, I also acquired a copy of Advanced Heroquest (complete) and a copy of Adeptus Mechanicus (with extras) in late May, but I can't be doing with digging them out and counting the miniatures (especially considering one of the extras in the AM box was a box of hundreds of epic-scale Space Marines...) They're more like board games anyway [he lies to himself]... I'll probably sell the copy of AM at some point, all I really wanted was some teeny tiny Space Marines so that one day I could make a 28mm scale GW...

Back to my original point though - the slump. Today I got out the paints, got out the tray of half-painted miniatures, sighed, and put it all away again. Determined to do something hobby-related today though, I decided to dig out the stripping pot. Two and a half hours later, I was left with:

Some Denizen robots and consoles (that will eventually live in a 7tv Evil Genius lair), and some gw bits and bobs - I'm sure Fabius' backpack had previously been stripped, I just wish I knew where it was... And going back to my previous post, what's that? New codex for Sisters of Battle? Guess I was right...

And as is a law of nature, when 8 things come out of something, it makes sense to put 9 in:

Old-school Slayers! One day, I will have a unit of 30 Slayers. This I swear to you now, on my honour. It originally started out as 'I will paint Gotrek and Felix' (don't worry, Gotrek is in the jar too) but these things have a habit of escalating...

I should probably do a post at some point about the contents of my stripping jar, some of the minis have been in there for several years (although I might have to slip some 'cooler' bits in there, since it's mostly gw stuff in there...)

Which is where this post ends. Will our intrepid host get his mojo back? Will he ever finish a project? Will he ever see the top of his desk again?