The Final Push – Lawnor approaches 100% painted

I got the final Golden Button of 2022!  That’s 3 for this project so far.  Thanks for the praise, guys!

Week 52 Golden Buttons 2022

XLBS Chat about it timestamp 50.50 ish

In response to Gerry’s comments on the XLBS: These numbers are what’s left in my collection, not just what’s left for KDM.  It’s everything from every system until I’m out of unpainted models.  The end is in sight.  Please send life saving prize models before I run out! (Or whatever Justin is throwing in the bin!)

Here’s my previous 2 buttons for this project:

December 2020: for my Aeternus Continuum for Warcaster

July 2021: For my Great unclean one proxy / Lord of Decay by Titanforge

Some suggestions for any OTT Staffers who look here:

Could you put the link on your posts to the specific entry on a project it applies to for the longer or more varied projects like mine, please.  Those links to just the project can quickly become outdated.

Could you please include links to your GB articles and the relevant weekenders on your Golden Button annual summary pages.  I think this would be helpful to anyone looking there.  It’s easy to lose that content otherwise.

How about putting the year on the button, as well as the month?

Models remaining:
Batch: 0, Normal: 84, Luxury: 7, Modular: 0, Bits Box: 3, Terrain sets: 9, To Ship: ATO Wave 2, KDM GCE+COD

EDIT 10/1/2023: In response to Gerry’s comments on the XLBS: These numbers are what’s left in my collection, not just what’s left for KDM.  It’s everything from every system until I’m out of unpainted models.  

The Christmas break has just happened and I’ve had almost two weeks to sit at home and paint.  Unfortunately it’s been cold enough to really mess with drying times so I didn’t get as much done as I’d have liked.  I did spend that time wisely and complete my solo playthrough of the Gloomhaven JotL campaign.  There are still 6 more missions left for me to play that I did not unlock.  Once that’s done I think I’m going to try ATO next, as there’s talk of another KS this year for some Expandalones.  I want to know if I want to throw more money at this before that happens.  Otherwise I might have waited for Wave 2 before starting.

I’ve had the four survivors from the White Gigalion box, the 4 survivors from the Lion Knight box, a Twilight Knight and a White Speaker on my desk.  I have delayed painting the Gigalion survivor in Gorm armour until I paint the Gorm, as I wanted to do him at the same time, once I’ve worked out how I’m painting the Gorm.  I also had some ATO models primed and ready to start.  Work has begun on the ATO minis, but there’s nothing finished yet.  I’m painting all 7 Prelude minis at the same time so I don’t think anything will be done until they are all done.

I had that Gorm armour guy sat on my desk and I wanted him done so I went off to look for Gorm colour schemes and I found the video here. It has techniques I hadn’t tried before that were going to force me to do new things and learn stuff and hopefully improve and push myself.  I got eager to try it, so I built and painted the Gorm, and did the armour of the missing Gigalion survivor at the same time.  I’m still working on him though.

I didn’t have the exact paints used in that video, so here’s the ones I did use:

Body
VMA 72.735 Dead Flesh
GW Athonian Camoshade
VMC Game Ink 720.86 Red
Warcolours Violet 4 Translucent (Thinned down further)
Warcolours Pink 1 mixed with Pink 3 for the mouth base and highlights
GW Carroburg Crimson

Orb
Base Greenstuffworld Fluor Pigment 2366 Yellow
Shade Greenstuffworld Fluor Pigment 2364 Green Lime
Highlight with base with some added P3 Morrow White

Eyes
Undercoat P3 Thamar Black
Base P3 Trollblood Highlight, leaving an outer rim of black visible
Mix in more and more P3 Morrow White, painting smaller and smaller areas, until it’s just pure white.

Just a quick update.  I’ll show off my holiday hobby in a few days.

I keep a master spreadsheet to track all things Hobby.  One of the things it does is tracks what I’ve gained and what I’ve painted within each year, to help make sure my pile of shame is shrinking and not growing.  Here’s my in/out tray for 2022.

The left 3 columns track what naked plastic arrived in my collection.  If it’s green it has been painted.  If it’s orange, it’s currently being worked on.  The right 3 columns show what has been painted and shows how much more there is to do to beat the incoming models.  Once it goes green, I’ve broken even.

I’ve done 260 models this year.  Not bad, but that’s below average for me.  Mind you, my focus has shifted to trying to play more solo games instead.  The painting is better if it’s for a reason.

The table for 2023 is already in place and already has 3 kickstarter payouts on it (KDM & ATO), which may or may not ship this year.  I need to get back to work so I don’t fall behind if they do all arive.

Models remaining:
Batch: 0, Normal: 94, Luxury: 7, Modular: 0, Bits Box: 3, Terrain sets: 9, To Ship: ATO Wave 2, KDM GCE+COD

I’ve been focussing on the Lion Knight next.  He’s technically one model, but he’s clearly worth 4 so doing him got the most plastic off my desk and leaves me with just 10 standard size characters to paint.  I was really happy with the trousers, but the cloak didn’t work out as well as I’d have hoped.

Gold Armour

Base: VMA 71066 Gold
Pinwash: GW Agrax Earthshade
Highlight 1: VMC 71.067 Bright Brass
Highlight 2: Darkstar Fine Gold

Dark Blue Trousers

Base: SC53 Cantabric Blue with a touch of P3 Thamar Black
Pinwash/targeted wash/glaze: GW Nuln Oil
Highlight 1: Cantabric Blue
Highlight 2: Cantabric Blue with some P3 Frostbite

Purple Cloak

Base: Reaper 9023 Royal Purple
Shade: Reaper 9022 Nightshade Purple with a touch of Royal Purple
Highlight 1: Royal Purple mixed with Reaper 9024 Amethyst Purple
Highlight 2: Amethyst Purple

The attendants sashes were shaded with GW Druchii Violet wash and highlighted as above as best as I can with a brush that should have been thrown out.  I’ve gone Vegan and I’ve yet to use a synthetic brush that doesn’t get hook tip quickly so I’m trying to make my sable brushes last as long as I can.  The Knights front sash was drybrushed with GW Genestealer Purple.  I tried this on the attendants but drybrushing would have made too big a mess.

I’m not a huge fan of this piece.  It’s a nice idea and others have done better work than me, for sure.  The attendants are a little annoying.  Due to their poses and the sloped base made of faces it’s really hard to line everyone up so every hand, foot, and bum that’s clearly supporting weight is actually touching the ground.  This could have done with being designed with clear connection points.  otherwise, it’s an interesting piece.

While working on him, I also painted the trousers for my Twilight Knight at the same time.  Same colour so why not.  I also got some prep work done on some Aeon Trespass minis.

For those not in the UK, I thought you might like to see the current state of things.  It’s the coldest it’s been in a very long time with temperatures solidly below 0C, sometimes dropping down to -8C in my area, but much lower in other parts.  This may be normal for this time of year, but due to corporate greed many of us are too scared to turn on the heating, at least as much as we would have this time last year.  Here’s what I look like at my painting desk.  I’m wearing 3 layers of clothing, with a fleece on over that, and a dressing gown over that.  I’ve got on jeans, 2 pairs of socks and my slippers, and a blanket wrapped around me for extra warmth and I’m wearing gloves, all to paint in my bed room!  It took a few hours for the heating to make a dent in the cold and during the week I was rarely home and out of my bed (Which has a duvet and 2 blankets on it) long enough for it to be cost effective to heat the place.  Every day the cycle to work has left me afraid my fingers were going to snap off if I touched anything.  It’s been bad, and it didn’t have to be.  The cold would be manageable if the cost of gas wasn’t extortionate right now.  If no one has died from the cold in their own home over the past week I’ll be very surprised.  I hope someone gets charged with corporate manslaughter, both at the fuel companies, and in the government who allowed this situation.

Anyway, rant over.  This is a hobby site, not a politics site.  The cold slowed me down, but I never let it stop me.  The temperature started to rise yesterday so it promises to be merely cold, and not freezing during the Christmas break.  I hope to get lots done, but I likely won’t update this until after my break is over.

Models remaining:
Batch: 0, Normal: 95, Luxury: 7, Modular: 0, Bits Box: 3, Terrain sets: 9, To Ship: ATO Wave 2, KDM GCE+COD

Work progresses on the three Lion based KDM expansions.  I’ve finished all work on the two actual lions and thrown myself in to all the people that came in those boxes.  I’ve embraced the “Growing human-like hands” elements of the lions this time around.  I used Green Stuff Worlds blood effect here.  Not because I think it’s better or worse than GW’s, but because it comes in a dropper bottle.  This let me pour it on the model and let it run where it should, hopefully giving a more natural effect than if I’d brushed it on.

With the lions done, I went back to work on the people.  I’ve finished the flesh and hair on them all, and begun work on the Lion Knights armour and his attendants book.  With all that done, the rest should come together well, with one exception.

I live in the UK and as I wasn’t born in to money I can’t really afford to run the heating this winter like I used to, due to corporate greed trying to hide behind the war.  As such my house is always cold.  The only room that’s not as cold (not warm either!) is my bedroom/studio.  This means I really don’t want to leave the room to go play solo games in the usual, now freezing, room.  I’ve found a workaround.  One of my 2×4 tabletopper gaming boards fits on and under my bed and Gloomhaven JoTL fits on it.  I was able to get in two more games without risk of frostbite, which would at least be thematic if I was playing Frosthaven instead.  I’ve only got 5 more missions available to me in the campaign, but 13 left in the box.

The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed that my MTG total has gone back up over 100.  Aeon Trespass: Odyssey arrived this week.  I believe that’s given me 32 more models, with 12 plug and play parts for 6 of them.  You can climb some models in game so this lets you swap out a random tentacle or something and put a platform there instead so your Titan can actually stand on the monster.

I want to start work on this soon so I have the option to play the tutorial painted just as soon as JoTL is finished.  I want to clear the minis off my desk first though.  I’ve set up a project just for ATO over HERE, but it doesn’t contain much right now.  Once work begins I’ll populate it with more.

Models remaining:
Batch: 0, Normal: 65, Luxury: 7, Modular: 0, Bits Box: 3, Terrain sets: 9, To Ship: ATO Waves 1+2, KDM GCE+COD

I’ve got nothing finished this week, but it’s been a week of ground work.  I’ve got 3 KDM expansions built, based and primed.  I’ve airbrushed on the flesh on the mostly flesh models, and I’ve finished the White Lion fur (Recipe) on all the models that have it.  The two lions were awkward.  They were best painted separately from their bases so I could airbrush both separately and get to the hard to reach places easier, but they were both too big and awkwardly shaped to readily take being pinned to a bottle top while I worked on them.  This meant I had to focus on their bases (Recipe) this weekend so I could get them glued on to them as soon as I could.  Their bases are mostly finished now.  They’ll get a few tufts added and be rubbed all over with pigment powders seconds before I varnish them, which should give them more depth and realism.

I hope to got the two lions finished this weekend and then I can relax into the humanoids.  I have run in to a problem though.  I’ve somehow run down to less than 10ml of airbrush thinner without noticing!  I don’t understand how this has happened.  I’m usually on the ball and ordering a replacement long before I get to this stage.  I was afraid I would run out before laying down all these base tones and I’m not sure I’ve enough left to varnish everything.  I need to get an order in ASAP and hope delivery times don’t put a damper on my Christmas hobby time.

My copy of ATO claims to be in transit from Poland, through Belgium and arriving this week.

I found this on my paint rack.  It came in an Asset Drop box.  It’s a special kind of colour shift paint.  Its not a paint itself, but you add it to another metallic paint to give it a purple shift.  I’ve never used it before and I’m not sure what Asset Drop box it came in.  Has anyone used any of these Spectrum additive paints and can comment on how well they work and if this purple would be the peak/top/highlight colour or the underside/shade colour?  or will it just give everything a slight but even purple sheen?

Models remaining:
Batch: 0, Normal: 65, Luxury: 7, Modular: 0, Bits Box: 3, Terrain sets: 9, To Ship: ATO Waves 1+2, KDM GCE+COD

My Kingdom Death order arrived this week!  Expansions of Death is all the original round of 12 playable game expansions.  None of the hobby only sets.  I also picked up the White Gigalion which is also playable.  It’s a standalone mission, but once it’s done you can add the White Gigalion to any other game.

This is 13 expansions and cost me about £925.  That’s a stupid amount to spend on one box of board games, but it breaks down to £71 per expansion, which is expensive, but bearable.  I believe they contain 53 models, but I’m not 100% sure on that.  That makes it £17.45 per model on average, and some of those models are huge and if GW sold their version, you’d be looking at over £100 on the shelf.  This game is expensive, but if you do the maths, you do get value for money.

Black Friday happened and they opened up the backer kit for new players.  I was able to order the Gamblers Chest and Campaigns of Death.  I wanted to order all the Wave 4 content too, but I couldn’t do that without emptying my savings account, which didn’t seem wise, given the collapsing economy.

Before I can start on my new toys I needed to clear my desk.  I buckled down and got Stuffed Fables finished by Saturday evening and then set to work building all the Lion related boxes.  I’ve three of the thirteen boxes built, and that’s 11 models, although the Lion Knight feels like three more as he’s got three ladies sat on his base.  I stayed up late on Sunday to get them all primed too.  Everything was taking forever to dry this weekend.  I assume the cold weather is to blame.

Here’s my finished Stuffed Fables minis.  They were always a rush job.  I didn’t wan to spend longer painting them than they’ll spend on the table.  I haven’t read the rules yet so I don’t know what anyone is called yet so I can’t label the pics.

Tonight I start working on KDM bases, or perhaps airbrush some colour on to the lions.  I’ve done some light googling on what KDM campaign to play next.  it appears that People of the Stars (Dragon) does not like it when you add any other expansions to it.  I’d be curious to hear opinions on this.  Does that include the Tree or the Gigalion?  The tree seems to integrate differently to other expansions, and the Gigalion seems to add to the White Lion rather than replace anything.

Does People of the Sun (Sunstalker) have any expansions to avoid including?  It sounds more inclusive and open.  I think I’ll go Stars/Dragon first as I only need to get one box of minis table ready before I can start.

There’s a handful of extra minis in these boxes, like the Lonely Lady and the Dragon King’s People of the Stars minis that I have no idea what they are for.  Do they have in game purposes, or are some of these decorative?  Can I give the Lonely Lady a weapon and call her an unarmoured survivor?  Are there any other models like this?

I got my address confirmation email Aeon Trespass Odyssey late last week.  They’re saying UK shipping is happening this week.  Wave 1 was originally supposed to be 27 models, but I’m really not sure where we ended up by the end of the KS.  My Pile of Shame is definitely on the rise.

For the past few months I’ve been trying to get at least one model finished each week.  I have failed at that this week, but I’m giving myself a pass.  Stuffed Fables turned up a few hours short of a week ago and contains 23 models.  Most of it is a few minutes work away from being ready to varnish.  The rest should only take a few hours.  One more day free and the whole box will be varnished and table ready.

There are 7 missions in the box, and a free print and play one on the website.  The box says it takes 1-2 hours to play a mission.  That’s a max of 16 hours table time.  It didn’t seem sensible spending 2+ times that painting it up so I’ve been using quick methods and trying out new quick ideas that have had some successes and not got the best results in some cases.  The guys with holes in their chests and the green gorilla were primed and then glazed with 1-3 coats of washes and inks only.  The art has them in faded pastel colours.  I don’t have the right paints for that, at least without spending forever on them, so I though I’d try glazing only and let the zenithal undercoat fade the colours for me.  It looks fine enough for most of the little guys, but their purple heads and the gorilla can look blotchy.  It’s good enough for this project though, especially when you factor in that a 5 and 3 year old will hopefully get their hands on this and get them all sticky and chipped.

I was also able to get in another game of Gloomhaven: JotL. That’s 12 missions out of the 25 in the box. I hope to have it finished before the new year. I may abandon that plan when KDM or ATO arrive.

While typing that I’ve just had notice that my KDM expansions will be delivered tomorrow.  Yay!  I need to get these guys done this weekend so I can start work on the good stuff.