Back online, but only just...

So yeah, back online, but alas my laptop is now empty - no music, no pictures, no pdfs of obscure Gundam wargame rules...

Also, no rules for my zombie game that I'd been working on on and off for the last two years (I did originally start them in a notebook, but soon transferred to the laptop, thinking it would never fail me...)

Olly is sad.

Christmas treats and bad news...

Only one miniature in the Christmas haul this year, and that was the White Dwarf subscribers' mini. It's my first Finecast miniature, and I'm frankly terrified of it (it looks and feels weird...) but I'm sure I'll get over it. We still have 'Christmas 2' to do (where we see Mother's side of the family), but for now that puts the tally on:

122 vs 295 = -173

And now the bad news: my laptop, having not been used since before Christmas, now refuses to start. Bugger. So much for trying to blog on a more regular basis...

Just in time for Christmas...

So yeah, I knew Christmas was coming, and due to my super-preparedness prepped some minis ready for a festive post.
Due to generally otherwise being busy though, I only actually got round to painting them today:

Studio Miniatures' Christmas set, which I think I bought for the Christmas before last... and yes, I know, I really need to get a new pot of TCR, this one's seen better days...

Which leaves the tally looking like this:

122 vs 294  = -172

In other news, I finally got around to seeing Rise of the Planet of the Apes today, which set my mind to buzzing with ideas for converting chimps holding various bits of police riot gear; it's lucky I couldn't find any suitable miniatures straight away or next year's tally would already be taking a hit...

Well, that's the last post before Christmas, so I hope Santa brings everyone the toys they're hoping for, and if I don't post again before then, I hope New Year's is good for you all too.

Foundry goodies!

Arrived home from work today to find a pile of parcels outside my door, which opened into (amongst other things) this:

Yes, I couldn't help myself , I took advantage of Foundry's one day sale on the Kevin Dallimore books (oh the eye candy!) and used that as an excuse to pick up a couple of Flesh triads I'd had my eyes on for a while.

Also, I helped a nice man (Mr Marx) who was having a bit of a clearout, and took the bits in the middle off his hands. And yes, there's a miniature in there, which takes the tally to:

118 vs 294 = -176

Kung fu, discourse and lighting...

So, after claiming the end of radio silence... nothing for a while. 

I blame a multitude of factors: moving house, halo 2, and in some cases the fact that I've been staring at certain half-painted miniatures for long enough that I'm considering thowing them away and buying new, exciting, shinier ones (and yes, I realise that the sensible option would be to take them from half-painted to fully painted, but hey, sometimes your brain just wants to make excuses to buy new miniatures).

Despite all this, after a period of approximately eight hours of procrastination today (during which I watched several episodes of Adventure Time, drank several coffees, and went out for several cigarettes, so it's arguably not technically a wasted day) I managed to actually finish some miniatures:

A couple of dudes from Black Hat that will serve various roles - the sorceror type I see as being an ally for Conan (since I'm sure there should be at least one non-evil magic user in the universe), but can also slot into the generic fantasy project (like most anything else that gets the conan tag); whereas the martial artist is a monk for the 'paint a miniature for each dungeons and dragons class' that I shamelessly stole from EvilCartoonist and then didn't really do anything with, as well as being able to stand in as a martial artist for 7tv...

Onto the discourse part of the title: there are many miniatures I want, and many projects I want to start. I have a terrible problem with considering every movie I see and every game I play in terms of what 28mm miniatures I could buy to use for it, but never actually finish anything as I've lready started two more projects. I rewatched Sucker-punch and started planning conversions, I'm playing Halo 2 at the minute and planning on repainting some clix (after christmas though, let's hope Santa brings me a brick). I think I've found the secret though, the answer to my problem: 'give it a week'. After a week, I'll have either lost interest, or discovered another three things I want to do, or actually be considering starting something as a project. But even then, it's likely another week will pass before I actually start anything, as I'll have been distracted by something else shiny.

And so, onto the final part of the title: we need better lights in the Craft Room. That was it.

Which, as usual, brings us to:

118 vs 293 = -175

There are 23 days left of the year. If I painted 7.6 miniatures a day every day, I could end up with a score of -1. I've painted two miniatures in the last month, and truth be told they were already more than halfway done. I've said it before and I'll say it again, roll on the new year clock reset!

End of short period of radio silence

So, it's been all quiet for a while now, due mostly to moving house. The bulk of the back-breaking, soul-destroying part is over, but currently my desk looks like the picture (normally I'd put it next to the relevant piece of text, but I can't see a way to do that on my iPhone...)

Also worth noting is the sheer amount of stuff - a lot of stuff went into storage, but these boxes of games and whatnot are the ones I thought I'd need in the next six months, much to Nicole's consternation...

And, in the interest of full disclosure, of course more miniatures have arrived since the last post, 7 in fact, leaving the tally at:

116 vs 293 = -177

Rapidly running out of year, I think it's safe to say I won't be back in the positives until the clock resets with the new year...

Reaching my Threshold...

Scott Pilgrim references aside, I managed to paint my Threshold Team for Strange Aeons:

These badboys were bought at Salute, a mere six months ago (which is probably a record turnaround time from purchase to painted for me). I'll probably run the capped chap as an Agent with Lieutenant, and the two officers as Civilians with pistols and clubs (their truncheons!)  [and yes, I did remember to go back and paint in the capped chaps teeth after taking this picture...]

This chap however, whilst also being from Artizan, was actually bought a while before the others, and was originally intended to be the basis of a Captain Jack Harkness conversion. However, before I'd managed to make any progress, Crooked Dice released a rather spiffy not-Jack, so I based this chap on a lipped base and boom, a lick of paint later we have a Cthulhu-fighting Character that's also a bit of a lush (hey, it's thematic, I'll probably give him Morphine in-game...)

Which means (shock horror) I've actually got enough minis to play a game! As long as an opponent has enough minis to provide the other force... although I'm getting there on that front too:

It's not been all focused today though, as I also painted this:

An Operative type chap to chase down any naughty types in Firefly games. He'll probably be run using souped-up Swashbuckler stats, as reinforcements for the purple-bellies (just as soon as I get round to painting them...). He was originally a Star Wars miniature of some sort (a Genohadran assassin I think, but don't quote me on that) that had sat undercoated in one of the WIP drawers for god knows how long, and I thought it was high time he actually got some paint on.

So, with that little lot finished the tally looks like this:

116 vs 286 = -170

Creeping back in the right direction, but I don't for a second think that I'm going to end the year in the positive  (short of selling a ton of minis or taking time off from work to paint morning noon and night), I think a more realistic goal would be aiming to finish better than -150...