The Final Push – Lawnor approaches 100% painted

Models remaining:
Batch: 0, Normal: 2, Luxury: 7, Modular: 0, Bits Box: 26, Terrain sets: 12, To Ship: 86+

I didn’t get an update in last week.  I had a 4 day weekend, but spent 3 days of it away with friends.  I did sort of finish 24 models, but the varnish dried too glossy and I didn’t have time for another matt coat so I couldn’t call them done and post them.

Anyway, I spent my weekday evenings building stuff so I could prime it all when I got the airbrush out to varnish.  I have now painted the last of the Kingdom Death models in my house, and the Stargrave Troopers 20 man box.  Here’s what got finished:

Models remaining:
Batch: 20, Normal: 6, Luxury: 7, Modular: 0, Bits Box: 26, Terrain sets: 12, To Ship: 86+

I also got some painting done last week.  I’d have posted this yesterday with the rest, but I forgot to take some of these pics.  I finished my Lantern Armour models early in the week and then got to work on the leather kits.

I finished the leather armoured guys on Saturday, but they’re not done yet as they need varnishing.  I’ve noticed my matt varnish has gone frosty on the black rims of my recent models.  It’s an old pot so that means it’s time for a fresh bottle.  Let’s hope a top up coat on the frosties helps them out.  I’ll postpone putting the pigment on the base until I’m ready to seal it in with the varnish too.

My plan for the rest of the weekend was to play Kingdom Death, but 2 games in, I ran in to an ambiguous rule I wanted to use and it took me until Monday evening to get clarification on it, so I threw myself in to painting up my Stargrave Troopers.  I’m doing quick and dirty techniques as they’re all basically identical grunts.  They’re coming together nicely and I hope to have them finished soon.

Models remaining:
Batch: 20, Normal: 10, Luxury: 7, Modular: 0, Bits Box: 26, Terrain sets: 12, To Ship: 86+

I’ve been ignoring terrain, as it’s something I usually only build and paint when it’s needed on a table, and I’ve not had an immediate use for any of this stuff yet.  it is all potentially useful though.

And that’s everything I hadn’t already accounted for.  Well, almost.  I do still have a stash of random parts, some base decorations, and a selection of Asset Drop Tutorial Tiles, but none of that is really a model or a thing to paint by itself.

Models remaining:
Batch: 20, Normal: 10, Luxury: 7, Modular: 0, Bits Box: 26, Terrain sets: 0, To Ship: 86+

With the end so close in sight, I went through my bits boxes over the weekend to catalogue what’s there that’s worth thinking of a model, what I want to keep, and what I want to sell or give away.  There’s not much here.  Some of it I might try to sell on eBay, but the rest I’ll probably end up giving away, probably through the discord swap channel.  If there’s anything here you’re super keen on, maybe it fills a hole in a force you’ve been trying to finish for years, speak up.

Spare random minis, top left to bottom right: Genestealer, Cryx Satyxis Blood Witch, Skink with flute??, Skaven, Resin Abbadon the Despoiler 2019 body, Elf

I do have a tyranid force, but no Genestealer.  A single model is of no use so he sits in my bits box until more turn up.  I don’t like playing 40k, so that may never happen.

The Satyxis was a spare from a unit I built.  She needs a horn, and 9 friends.  Free to whoever wants her, or she lives in my bits box forever.

Is this skink anything, or a grunt from a large unit?  Is that a flute, or a weapon with its head broken off?  No use to me.  I can’t even think of an obvious D&D parallel he could be painted up as.

Random Skaven, or not?  Useless to me.

I’ve had this Abbadon body for ages and he feels like a huge waste.  I know it’s only 1 part of 6ish, but it feels like most of the model and I’d like to see him rebuilt.  If you have the other parts and want the body you can have him.  Likewise if you have the parts and don’t care, I’d be grateful for the donation.  I’ve no use for him.  It just feels like a waste.

The (high?) elf is a grunt with a broken sword.  He came with a supply of mostly 40k spare bits, but the blade may be amongst them, or perhaps a replacement?  Not sure.  He’s junk right now.  I might fix him up and put him on a round base, and he’ll be ok for D&D or Frostgrave or something.  I’ve considered mounting him on a bottle top and painting him up as a ruined bronze statue.

Update 14/9/22: He’s a High Elf of Lothern Sea Guard Champion.  The Skink is just a grunt and thats a blowdart pipe, not a flute.  The skaven is a Skaven Clanrat Drummer Command

I figure I can get a Painboy proxy or two out of these, and do something with the other guy?  I’m open to ideas for him.  I do have the TWD starter set, but not the rules that came with these minis.  I might paint them up and add them to the box for the day I give it a go solo, but if anyone needs them I’m open to posting them out.

Models remaining:
Batch: 20, Normal: 10, Luxury: 7, Modular: 0, To Ship: 86+

Kingdom Death finally announced the preorders for the reprints of all the playable expansions.  The price had gone up more than I had hoped, but I’m hooked and FOMO took full effect and I went all in.  I don’t need to eat until next year, right?  It’s hard to say exactly, but I think that’s another 53 models on preorder, due to arrive November-ish, Poots time.  So that’s possibly any time 2023, maybe 2024 perhaps?  I’ve also got Aeon Trespass due to arrive December-ish.  That’s a lot of high quality models demanding my attention, so my new goal is to finish off all the non-luxury models in my house before either arrives.  That should be more than doable, while still giving me time to play more KDM. It would be good to have this campaign done by then.  I’ve Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion awaiting a playthrough before I start adding new KDM content.

I’ve just finished Lantern year 12 of my second time around the time loop of my first 30 year campaign.  That’s 42 years in, so that’s 42 play throughs, plus some special showdowns, and a handful of resets while learning new fights.  My records tell me that’s about 49 playthroughs, averaging 2.5 hours.  At £5.00 an hour, I’ve got £612.50 worth of entertainment out of KDM and have currently spent £1,200 on it and most of the content hasn’t even arrived yet.  It’s stupidly expensive, but it is definitely earning its keep.  That’s ignoring painting time, and time spent thinking about it, doing research, and making plans, too.

A slightly more short term plan is to have the 8 KDM survivors and 20 Stargrave models on my desk finished before my next week off, in October.  Then that week is mine to focus on painting the house, playing KDM, and starting work on 2 3D printed monsters.  Unless ebay gets generous and friendly, or OTT gives me a prize…

Anyway, this is a hobby log and you want to see some minis.  This week I focused on the Phoenix armour kits.

My next focus is the Lantern Armour kits and I’m most of the way through them.  My hope is to get them ready to varnish tonight after work.  I’m I’m very quick, I might even get the varnishing done.  Then I want to clear the Leather Armour kits off my desk and then KDM is done, until more turns up in November.  Perhaps?

I had the airbrush out already and I’ve decided on a scheme for the Stargrave guys so I base coated them.  The first few stages are all washes that’ll likely take a short time to apply and a long time to dry, so I’m getting those done while I work on my KDM guys.  I’m two out of the three starting washes in so far.  After that, its a drybrush and then green is done and that should feel like the bulk of the model done.

I’ve no idea why, but Chrome has taken to showing all these pics are really small when I load them up separately, but they load big in other browsers, and match the master file when I download them again.  Odd.

Models remaining:
Batch: 20, Normal: 14, Luxury: 7, Modular: 0, To Ship: 33+

I’ve had the last week off.  I planned on getting lots of painting done.  Mostly my walls, but I was determined to get some hobby done and some KDM played and I succeeded on both fronts.  I have removed the KDM masks display base from the count as it’s pointless.  It’s too small to hang on a wall and doesn’t work when flat.  It’s dumb and I’m calling the masks spare parts now, as they really are intended as modular parts, and not a display mini.

My first job was to build and prime all the modular kits which were the last 16 KDM armour sets, and a 20 man box of Stargrave Troopers, which I spent some time working out what I might want access to, and how to build it.  The sprues didn’t really have the parts to build hackers, medics, etc but I used my bits box to do what I can and now I have 20 varied but uniformed troops built, based, and primed ready for painting.  I forgot to take a pic though, so that’ll have to wait.

Then I finished off painting the Loka Fire set Orcs.  The got airbrushed  varnished, and I primed all the new builds while I was already set up.

Next up, I focused on the KDM Screaming Armour sprue as I currently have 2 sets in the game so they’re needed on the table.

My next mission is the Phoenix armour sets.  I’ve almost got my first set in the game so I’ll need them soon.  Then it’ll be the lantern armour.  I want to finish off all the KDM models soon.  Two days ago they said preorders for something will go live at the end of the month and its the end of the month.  The first wave of expansions are also due to arrive in distribution hubs ready for direct order very soon.  I’d love to have all I own done before more turns up.  That’s be a first for me, I suspect.

Models remaining:
Batch: 0, Normal: 6, Luxury: 7, Modular: 37, To Ship: 33+

My focus for this week was to finish off the 8 KDM minis I’d started last week.  Turns out I’d done the bulk of the work, and what was left was straightforward and just flowed.  I had them finished just after lunch on Saturday, and then sat down with the airbrush to varnish them, and then prime and base coat the next project.

I manged to pick up a copy of Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion on ebay for a good price, with the MDF organisers in it recently.  I painted up those 4 minis next.  I thought it might take a while but I had all 4 done in a little over a day somehow.  I’ve painted a lot of the core box minis and I’d have to say the JotL guys are a definite step up in quality.  They were much better to work with.  The one exception was the Demolisher.  He feels like a guy who was designed at a much larger size and lost a lot of detail in the downsizing.  He’s a lot of stuff in his belt in the art, but all I could se on the mini was lumps.  Still, this isn’t a game about plastic.  He’s keeping the costs down and focusing on the game and I appreciate that.

My copy is used.  Does anyone know what needs to be rest?  Just the characters or are there event decks and shops etc that I need to sort through?  Google isn’t helping answer this and I’m not yet ready to sit down and read through the rules.  I want to finish my KDM campaign before I start this.

With them done, I got back to the last models on my desk who have been there for quite a while now: The orcs from my Loka Fire set.  I don’t care about these guys.  They may one day see use in D&D or something.  They’re a basic design and I don’t care about them so they’re coming together really quickly, which is nice.  I expect to have them ready for varnishing by the weekend.  Then it’s time to build the rest of the KDM armour kits.  I also have next week off so I might end up losing myself in KDM and getting very little hobby done.  Any advice for facing the Gold Smoke Knight?

Models remaining:
Batch: 0, Normal: 14, Luxury: 7, Modular: 37, To Ship: 33+

I managed to resist playing KDM this weekend for the first time since I started playing.  My painting mojo was in full force and I made good progress.  My goal was to get the Gloomhaven minis done, and ideally Ronnie too.  I kept getting distracted by the KDM minis though.  Painting the lion fur is best done as airbrushing and a few washes.  It’s good after work painting.  It fits the time slot well, and the washes can take all night to dry.  As such I focused on them across the week, and didn’t really start on my target minis until Saturday.  Even then, I decided to paint their flesh next as I was going to have that paint out for the Diviner anyway.  Then I thought I may as well do the bone as that involves a couple of slow drying washes and I needed to go cook some chilli.  Once I’d finished my target minis I went back to them and started painting the cloth, hide, and leathers.  There’s a lot more work to be done.

Next up was Gloomhaven’s Aesther Nightshroud.  In the artwork he is ethereal; half in darkness, half made of purple and mint green glow.  I don’t know how to do that.  I started at the artwork for a while and came up with a plan.  I knew there was a good chance of it looking rubbish, but these minis are pretty basic and I don’t really care about them or have high expectations for them.  They’re fine for what they are, but they are not a painters dream.  It turned out that some of the detail my plan was based around wasn’t included on the model.

My thinking was lightly zenithal prime, 2-3 tone drybrush, wash, drybrush, repeat as needed.  It didn’t exactly work, but I’ve seen worse and it sort of matches the art if you squint hard.  He’s holding fire in his hand apparently.  I couldn’t find enough detail there to really work with, but I did what I could.  its done and table ready now, and that’s all that matters.

We’re not far of starting the expansion soon so I offered to get the expansion min The Diviner painted before we got there.  She was much more fun to work with.  She looks good, and a higher detail resin print of her at a slightly larger size (She feels more 25mm, than 28-32mm) could be a joy to work with and yield some really pretty results in the right hands.  She has what looks like a crab hanging off her bum, but I can’t work out why.  I’ve assumed its knots or a bow made of her dress so I’ve left it that colour.

Ronnie came in a goody bag a few years ago and I’ve been ignoring him ever since.  He took about a day.  He’s fine, if slightly softer in some detail than I’d like.  Still, that gave me an excuse to cut corners and rush him.  Painting him was an odd experience.  Despite him being washed and primed, some areas of him seemed to repel paint, and some colours more than others.  I’ve no idea why.  Persistence won out easily enough though.