Paint it or Punt it

Unfortunately February came and went without us managing to get another session painting up Star Wars. Life just kept getting in the way. We finally got a couple of hours this week to crack them out and start the painful first lesson of “how we paint white armour”. The Normie reports enjoying the act of painting but doesn’t completely believe me that all models go through a stage of looking bad before they look good 😂 He’s been using the first scheme from the Zorpazorp painting tutorial and I’m confident it will look good once it’s done.

I’ve been avoiding the minis unless the Normie was around because I didn’t want to race ahead. So this week in our 2.5 hour session I threw Black Templar and Skeleton Horde contrast paints over a white base coat. I might go back and put a bit more Black Templar on them as I’m not entirely happy with how it looks. In the name of keeping things easy for the Normie, I’m sticking to the same techniques so next up is a dry brush and some detailing. Simple basing scheme and they should be good to go in another 3 hour session I reckon.

Most of the rest of the month has been focused on RPG stuff as we are about to start a new campaign and I’m in the early stages of planning one myself. I did a little organising of my Pathfinder Pawns whilst catching up on the Weekenders from last week. The sleeves are used by coin/stamp collectors and are perfect for the cardboard pawns. I need to buy some of the larger sleeves for the larger/gigantic monsters but everything is now alphabetical and easy to flick though.

I also painted up the barricades from the Legion core box. I only have black primer instead of the grey I’d have preferred. The mould lines are very noticeable on them which was frustratingly time consuming to tidy up. Next I just did layers of dry brushing and finished with a wash (not pictured). They don’t look amazing but for something extra to chuck down on the table, they’ll do.

Tonight I discovered an unexpected boon to having everything catalogued. I knew I wanted to work on something whilst I caught up with some YouTube but I didn’t have any set plans. Low and behold, I now have a spreadsheet I can flip through to come up with something. I decided to pull out the box of RPG minis and see what took my fancy.

First up was some Moonclan grots. At some point they have been intended as an archery unit for an AOS army but I abandoned those plans a couple of years ago. I kept these twenty because I figured at some point I’ll use them in an RPG campaign of a game like Rangers of Shadowdeep.

Tonight I focused on getting a few arms swapped to a nice mix of melee and ranged and getting everyone on bases.

Next up was an old Orc chariot. I wanted each piece to be useable separately so there’s actually a cart, two orcs and two boars. I’m debating basing the cart to use as a piece of scatter terrain but I think I already have something similar so I might just leave it for now.

Unfortunately the weather is awful so I don’t know when I’ll get them primed. At some point I’ll need to look into brush on primer!

Most of February has been spent getting rid of models through eBay. It I did do a little painting. I bought these dwarves when Blood Bowl relaunched in 2016, they played one match, the group fell off the game and they have sat part painted ever since. Recently a couple of friends are talking about getting back in to the game and though I think it’ll wind up being more talk than actual action, I figured now was as good a time as any to bash these out.

Now I’m not going to lie, one of the reasons they have sat so long is I didn’t enjoy painting them in the slightest. I picked out a colour scheme I liked but once I got started I just couldn’t find the enthusiasm. Honestly Blood Bowl is a game I’ve played because other people love it rather than any overwhelming passion for it myself.

For this attempt, I decided to use the team as a testing ground for some Contrast paints that I have picked up for other projects. The Contrast colours used are Skeleton Hoard, Dark Angels Green and Black Templar. I then went in with various normal paints.

The basing is very simple, just some pva and a nice bright green flock. I wanted something that was almost cartoon like in colour for the pitch. I’ll paint in some white lines and possibly splatter some Blood for the Blood God this week but other than that, I’m calling them done.

I didn’t enjoy painting these anymore this time around but they are now done. I didn’t bother with extra highlights etc, this was a quick tabletop standard job. Should we get games going in the future at least I can bring a fully painted team.

I knew that coming in to this project I was going to have to provide myself with numbers to confirm/deny what I think I’ve done towards it. That’s just how my brain works. It is too easy to tell yourself that you are making progress without actually doing it. For example I like to think that I’m good at getting rid of things that aren’t being played however after counting everything I own I realised that I haven’t been for the last few years!

Part of January was taken up doing an stocktake of every model in the flat and sorting them into two piles – Painting (keeping) or Punting (selling). I downloaded a spreadsheet designed by Rodge back when he did his 100% Painted Challenge. As the goal of this project is ultimately to get to 100% painted by the end of next year, the functionality of it is perfect for what I’m looking for.

I’m actually embarrassed by these numbers – I knew I hadn’t painted much over the last few years but this is daft! I have a lot of models that are built and part painted but apparently getting a model to “completed” is a problem for me.

I found a box of mixed minis after I had inputted everything to the numbers will actually be a little different but only by maybe a half dozen models.

To get into the Painted column, a model has to be painted to at least tabletop standard and properly based.

Obviously the main two ways to get to 100% are to paint more or sell things that are unpainted. Of what’s here, more than half are marked to go.

Once I did the stocktake I made the mistake of putting everything back in the cupboard to tidy the place up and then have done nothing with them all since 🙂 I caught myself two days ago mentally justifying keeping the Kings of War dwarves and realised I need to get back on track. In the last 24 hours I’ve put 10+ listings up on eBay (inc the dwarves) and it’s feeling better already.

Now to get on with the painting side of the project!

Very short post for this one. Normally I’m not bothered about changing board game components, I don’t paint the minis and I don’t buy the expensive MDF inserts for storage.

Recently I’ve finally had the chance to play Mansions of Madness with some friends having only played it solo before. It is such a great game and has totally won me over to app assisted games in general. I’m not sure yet I feel I’ve got my money’s worth out of the core box and I’m dubious that I will but for now I’m keeping hold of it.

My biggest problem with the game is that the bases for the minis are absolutely hideous. They are these big black square things that have a ton of wasted space and just block the beautiful artwork on the boards below. I’m unlikely to paint the minis but I do have a bunch of acrylic bases bought for a long dead project.

Initially I stuck them down with plastic glue but the hold was a little soft for my tastes. I’ve redone them with superglue but if that doesn’t hold I’ll go back and pin them.

On the whole, I’m much happier with how they look. The PC minis are all bases on neat grey rounds out of the box so I’m leaving those be. This was an hour’s work whilst watching Mandalorian so it was an evening entirely well spent.

[I’m continuing to have problems uploading to the site with anything other than Edge so posts will be done in batches for the time being]

The Clone Wars Core box for Legion arrived about ten days ago and my Normie friend an I sat down one evening to introduce the Build step of an army. He’d picked the Clone half of the box so all his minis came off sprue and in baggies. The droid half of the box is all on sprue

Now the Normie is quite a tense guy and this was his first experience trying precision with super glue. Despite the volume of swearing, he actually seemed to enjoy it. I don’t think if I had plunked a whole 800 point army in front of him the reaction would have been the same but within a few hours he had his side finished

The droid half of the box took more time and was a bit of a bugger to put together. Honestly FFG why does every B1 head come in two parts???

I’ve still got the droiekas to make but everything else is now built and primed, waiting for the next chance to meet up and start the painting lessons. Unfortunately that may be some time given that the Normie is trapped in Yorkshire because of Ciara!

Two of my hobby pledges for the year revolve around getting friends into minis games and having a bunch of terrain made for the flat. With the restocking of Clone Wars starter boxes for Legion being available for a matter of hours, my Pathfinder GM and I are splitting it and starting him in the hobby of painting. I’ll be taking droids and he’ll be embarking on the hobby by painting white clone armour.

A few weeks back I saw a post on the Zorpazorp Facebook group about someone having done a Legion conversion of the Battle Companies rules for Middle Earth SBG and knew immediately this was how we’d start. He’s an RPer and the idea of building a handful of minis and watching them level up during a squad focus narrative campaign would be a great way to bridge.

I have sci fi terrain from when I played Infinity but it is a bit clean and cyberpunk for most Star Wars worlds. I’ll spend some time on it soon to grubby it up a bit and we’ll definitely get some use out of it.

I wanted something special to roll out for this though and the battle of Geonosis is just too perfect to not use. The table has to be done cheaply because, even though we’re getting past the longest January of all time, February is an expensive month of birthdays in my family. Looking around I have some insulation foam left over from another project I’m working on and I have a piece of 1” thick upholstery foam from a long forgotten cosplay project that has been bundled up like a cocaine drop for years.

I stopped at this point because the next stage is plucking the foam and sanding the towers which I can’t face the mess of tonight! I won’t be able to do anything tomorrow but hopefully I’ll have more progress to show on Thursday.

I painted up the Pelennor Fields box set last year and, though I’m not the best painter, I’m proud of how they turned out. Now they sit in a box in a cupboard and I haven’t seen them in months.

If I want to paint more, feeling motivated is obviously going to be hugely important. Part of that can come from posting here and playing games with painted armies but I honestly think that seeing my work and allowing myself the thoroughly unScottish emotion of pride in my own efforts will have the most influence.

I asked on the Toptable Gaming facebook group about display cabinets and got told that the standard is from Ikea. Fast forward a few weeks and here we go…

No models in it yet but I am happy with it so far. I was told that there are eBay sellers who carry more shelves but I think I’ll stick with the three for right now. The Motivation Box is also the only piece of furniture in the flat that is secured to the wall because there will be a cat on it within hours 😂

Next up is not actually something that goes in the case but it is proper hobby.

Went round to a friend’s for a bit of hobby time this afternoon and took a couple of rangers along with me. I’m not sure what my final colour scheme will be for them. Part of me says paint them differently because they are for battle companies which is about the individuals but ultimately they are to be part of a larger army so I’d like uniformity.

For colours, I looked to the movies for some inspiration

For today I tested two different schemes. I think I prefer the first one but I might add in some of the blue on some of them. Perhaps keep all the cloaks the same but vary the rest of the clothing and armour. I also might use a duller green and keep this tone for my Fellowship of the Ring.

I also got to try out my friend’s Contrast Black Templar on a warrior but I forgot to take a photo. I liked the overall look though it will take practice if I want to use it on the shields as well.

I have been having real problems with this post for some reason but it looks like the problem has been Firefox related. Switched browsers and all seems to be okay now

Next bit of actual painting (or at least prep for it!) instead of just organising and the first box on the Hobby Bingo (Start a Battle Company). I hit up the Edinburgh chat to see if anyone is interested in having a Battle Companies campaign and got enough people in to make it worth while reading the book finally 🙂

My MESBG collection was inflated last year by a steal off eBay. I picked up 125 Gondor models for £40. There are 31 in a broken state that I’ll need to go back through at some point and see what can be repaired or what is getting put into the bits box. There are a couple of heroes, and 5 of metal rangers but the rest are basic warriors. Everything has some level of paint on it but I’d like to strip them all and start over. They seemed like an obvious pick for the new battle company – Osgiliath starts with two warriors with shield and spear, two with shield and sword and two rangers. I decided to strip some extras of each as well as some archers as they are a potential reinforcement.

It’s been a quiet week here because it’s been a hellish week in the real world. Stuff happened at work that sucks and I’m signed off for the next two weeks and under medical instruction to “do things that make me happy”.

Obviously the first choice was to stocktake my collection and start a spreadsheet 🤓

This is the vast majority of my collection. Everything has been gone through, sorted into “keep” (on the right) and “punt” (on the left) and I’ve taken note of what’s on sprue, assembled or painted. The numbers will get put into the spreadsheet tomorrow.

As expected, more than half is going. I was keen to see what remains and how likely it was I could paint it all in a year. I’m still not sure. There’s currently 449 minis to be painted. That includes 31 that need to be sorted to see if they can be saved or are only good for bits and 48 that may still move to the Punt It pile.

The Punt It pile is currently sitting at 705. Looking at it, I guess one of my biggest habits to try and change going forward is if going into a new game, don’t buy a full army, start small and build up.

Tomorrow’s post will be a little less about the grand plan and more about the next mini project and the first challenge in the MESBG Hobby Bingo.

A day late but it was too dark last night to take photos. Instead this post puts two days of hobby together.

Yesterday was a second coat for the base colours and washes and this morning was highlights and painting the base (plain because at the moment I have no plans for a rebel force).

Washes used were Reikland Fleshshade for the skin, Seraphim Sepia for the scan and nuln Oil for everything else. Then I highlighted up with the original colours (adding a little Pallid Wytch Flesh to the Coal Black after that highlight got lost in the first pass).

Additional paints:
Skin – GW Kislev flesh
Webbing, belt and jacket detailing – GW Death World Forest
Metal details – AP Gun Metal
Eyes – GW Pallid Wytch Flesh and Abaddon Black

I did change the scarf colour as once the Death World Forest was down for the webbing, they were too close in colour. To make it I mixed a little of the Kislev flesh into the original in a 50/50 ratio.

2020 is the year over decided to finally tackle my most hated body part to paint… Eyes. I usually do the cop out flesh tone/wash and done routine but you can’t get better at what you don’t practice so (within reason) every model this year in going to try and do eyes on. We’ll see in 12 months of there’s been any improvement!

On the whole, I’m happy with this one. I bought the model because I needed something from Legion for terrain scaling reference and Rogue One is my favourite of the new Star Wars. The plastic is better than the first core box that I bought at launch and then sold on months later and it was quite fun to paint. The head feels a little oversized but that’s probably because I’ve been sitting through all my MESBG models which are 28mm true scale.

I said yesterday that there be an addendum to the 4th goal of the pledge. Playing in a tournament isn’t something I’ve been particularly interested in in the past. I’m not a competitive player and having played against a couple of them in my brief 40k forays, it put me off. The point of the goal was that having a tournament would put a fire under me to paint more of my MESBG models. It still is part of the goals however…

Last year GW staffers took part in a challenge to get more of their MESBG hobby done and they released the Hobby Bingo document behind it. The community loved it and throughout the year it was cool to see people working on crossing off as many of the challenges as they could. I wasn’t in a headspace where I could take part but I kept a copy of the bingo square to do this year.

This week they announced that they are doing another for 2020 and it seems like a perfect time to jump on board with that version instead.

The post over at the Warhammer community can be found here.

You’ll see that one of the challenges is to go to an event so that covers number 4 of the hobby pledge!

The rest tie in nicely to my other pledge elements so I’m looking forward to taking part… It’s almost as though turning something into a game is a good motivator in our hobby 😂

I know this is another text entry with no hobby but tomorrow will be Jyn Erso part 2

My pledge from the Hobby Pledge thread starter in the forums by @lawnor

1. Paint it or Punt it – take a long hard look at my models and be honest about the chances of playing those games. Get rid of everything that is superfluous and create a spreadsheet of everything else to start painting. The end goal is a 100% painted collection but I’m not going to commit to that this year (or at least until I’ve taken inventory!)

2. Make terrain – over the last year my flat has become the base for our RPG games and I’d like to get enough terrain that it can be the same for our miniatures games. I really enjoy making terrain and I enjoy not having to leave my house

3. “Help” more people into the hobby. Last year I tried a group of friends on MESBG and they loved it but I didn’t follow through. This year I want to help get new players in to the hobby whether that’s by providing armies or teaching them how to paint their own. I’m very fortunate to have nerdy friends, it seems a shame not to corrupt them.

4. Get an army ready and the confidence to go to some tournaments for MESBG or Star Wars Legion.

5. Hobby for 30 minutes a day at least 25 days put of every month. That works out at 150 hours over the year minimum.

I’ve decided to rename this project to match the biggest of my hobby goals for the year – Paint it or Punt it.

I, like most people, have far more models than I’ll ever paint or ever play with. This year I want to slim down the collection to only things that are getting/going to get used and work towards 100% painted. I don’t like having so many things still on sprue or primed but nothing else. I want my collection to be something I enjoy not have stored in a cupboard in a cardboard box.

The first step of this is do to a full inventory of what I have. The second will be to have a hard look at what realistically is going to get used in the future. If it won’t, it goes (Punt it). If it will, it goes into the paint queue.

I’ve already started work on a new table for Star Wars Legion (Theed, Naboo) to go with an upcoming Legion Battle Companies Campaign were planning. I also have some MESBG terrain that I started on. Not sure what the balance will look like between painting models and terrain but in the first half of the year I’d liked to have this but if the pledge ticked off.

This one I’m confident of in theory but socialising is draining my energy badly at the moment.

This one we’ll come back to in tomorrow’s post about an addendum to the pledge.

The paint queue gets tackled by way of the original aim of this project – a little hobby every day. It’ll help work through the backlog and (I’m fairly sure) will help with the ongoing project of improving my noggin. Now every day might be a bit much so I’m starting out 2020 by going for 25 days out of the month. This gives me leeway without feeling guilty of I need a day or two off. I’ll still have a soft target of daily though.

Managed to get in 30 minutes before work this morning. Most of the base colours are first coat down. Primer was GW Corax White.

Skin – Bugman’s Glow (GW)

Undershirt – Stormvermin fur (GW)

Jacket and trousers – Coal Black (P3)

Scarf – Khaki (Vallejo)

Gloves, boots and weapon stocks – Abaddon Black (GW)

December turned out to be a tough month both at work and at home. My job, whilst not the cause of my mental health issues, strongly affects it in ways that can’t be mitigated. I’m looking for a new one but in the mean time I’ve been trying to do 30 minutes a day since between Christmas and New Year. Most of what I’ve done doesn’t merit a post yet (it will become a series of them in the future I think), I want to put some models back in the hobby time rotation.

The other project I’m working on is Star Wars Legion related but I haven’t gotten models yet. I’m splitting the new Clone Wars box with a friend in February but I wanted a model to help with scaling so I bought Jyn. At least that’s my excuse 😆

Today was a bad morning trying to get out of bed and in to work so I decided to put her together and get her primed to get an early win on the “sense of minor achievement” chart this morning. I’d didn’t help much, I’m still struggling to get through every hour but I managed this. Depending how I feel when I get in, I might pick out her colours and tomorrow aim to get some blocking in done.

I spent yesterday and today off work with this ear and throat infection so I decided to use the hobby time to start on a new challenge. I’m not sure yet if I’ll separate it out into a new project/forum thread but for now I’ll track it here.

In a recent tidy up I found my battered copy of the Games Workshop book on terrain making back when they were interested in teaching you how to make and not just selling you a better looking table. I decided I’m going to work through the book and complete things in order. This meant starting with some hedges, woods and a hill (or two). I’m also aiming to do it without buying anything new until after Christmas… or possibly before February 😂

The hedges are based on some leftover plasticard from a Kings of War multibasing project that never happened. I made them in six inch lengths. The body of the hedge is made with some sponge left over from a whiskey gift box which means they are a little uniform but it was an experiment. I thought I’d use some Hornby rough flock to break up the outline but hit a snag this morning… it isn’t colour fast 😭

After that rather messy hiccup, I rummaged through the flock box and combined a medium green with black tarmac to get a darker hedge colour – using Jarvis flocks! Thankfully I only had the one Hornby bag to try out.

This is the stage they are at this evening – Army Painter Grass Green flock for the ground cover. Once everything is dry I might go back and add in some clump flock to help with the outline (the hedge closest to the camera still has the remains of the Hornby crap on it and it definitely looks the best of the four) as well as a little highlight, dry brush the stones and then give it all a coat of watered down pva to strengthen them.

I’m off work tomorrow as well but I have an idea of the model I want to start on next so I’m digging it out tonight. I want to sit and hobby so I guess we can say so far so good for the project’s aim!

Time – didn’t track it but probably 90 minutes over the space of the day.

Today I started and finished this wonderful otter swordsman. I forgot to take photos on the journey but I did keep some notes.

Fabric – Army Painter Deep Blue and GW Yriel Yellow, wash GW Drakenhof Nightshade

Armour – AP Gun metal, wash GW Nuln Oil, highlight GW Runefang Steel

Sash and hat – Vallejo Cavalry Brown, wash GW Agrax Earthshade

Feathers – GW Stormvermin Fur, wash Agrax

Undershirt – Vallejo Khaki, wash Agrax

Straps and leathers – GW Steel Legion Drab, wash Agrax, highlight Khaki

Sword – AP gun metal, GW Warplock Bronze, Revell Leather Brown

Skin – Revell Leather Brown, wash Agrax, highlight Army Painter Fur brown

It was a pint her lovely model to paint. The main thing I’m fighting with is that since I last painted regularly I have had two beasts move in one of whom is a fiend and a threat to all paint brushes.

Not sure who is up next for tomorrow, the others I have primed aren’t appealing to me right now so I might have a rummage.

Having struggled with a sore throat all week, I woke up at 5am today to an ear infection. Out the window went my plans to go to a Model Railway Club’s Winter Open Day and instead a day of feeling sorry for myself on the couch ensued. Once the worst of the pity party was out of the way, I figured the least I could do is finish off my foxy friend.

Unfortunately the lighting is terrible but he is now done. I might take some better photos tomorrow but I’m largely happy with him. A couple of the highlights aren’t quite as fine as I would like but he is my first finished model in 9 months so I guess I can cut myself a little slack 😂

I picked Burrows and Badgers as the starting point of this project partly because I had a bunch of them primed and the bases textured but mainly because if I want to come back to loving this hobby, I should probably start with miniatures that I love.

Anyone who gets into B&B has this model – he perfectly shows off the character of the line! That swagger.

Day 1 – 50 minutes

I ran a little long on my time for today because once I got started I really wanted to get the first coat of block colours in.

Hat and trousers – Vallejo Cavalry Brown

Coat – Citadel Thunderhawk Blue and Army Painter Skeleton Bone

Waistcoat – Citadel Kabalite Green

Fur – Citadel Troll Slayer Orange

Pouch – Vallejo Khaki

Boots – Revell Leather Brown

Neckerchief – Citadel Yriel Yellow

Day Two – 40 minutes (got through this week’s episode of Criminal)

I couldn’t get my phone to properly upload yesterday so I’m combining two days in one post.

This morning I touched up colours that needed it, added the details for the nose, eyes, pistol and the white for the tail. Then it was on to washes. I use a mixture of Citadel Agrax Earthshade, Biel-tan Green, Reikland Fleshshade and Drakenhof Nightshade depending on the base colours. Also did a quick dry brush with the khaki on the base then a wash of Agrax.

I’m looking forward to highlights and finishing the base tomorrow morning. So far, so good.

I wrote this post a while ago and have been to 🐓💩 to make it public. I’m doing a little better right now and want to track this journey honestly though so here we go.

According to the OTT notifications, it has been 6 months and 3 weeks since I was on this site 😶

If I had being paying attention maybe I’d have realised something was going on but as is often the case, the mental health slip and slide starts gently and it isn’t until I was up Shit Creek that I noticed what was happening. I’ve withdrawn from things I love, socialising has become an insurmountable task, I’m sleeping all the time and most days are a struggle to get up and go to work in a job that I know I love but I don’t feel anything for right now. I’m taking the professional steps to address it but it is also about time to do some small things.

I’m one of those gamers who really prefers painting over playing most of the time. I love sitting down, putting on an audiobook or a podcast and disappearing into models. It blocks out the world which right now seems like a good thing. I haven’t put paint to a model since March 2019 because… well, because depression sucks the love out of everything.

Every morning I’m going to drag myself out of my bed, make a cup of tea and sit and do at least 30 minutes of hobby before I even contemplate the rest of the day. It’s not going to be easy but it is a small thing I can take control over.

I’m broken right now but I know that this hobby can help me.