2023 Hobby Log

So I have some photos of trying to do the sculpting over where the saddle was on the original model and two of the painting process… I lost the attention span for doing more photos.

Making the scales to cover the two sections was an interesting little hour. I didn’t have the time for super detailed work and had to remind myself throughout that this was not a model for me or my long term collection. It is for a library display. I used Milliput rolled out into a thin sheet and then a couple of sculpting tools to make individual scales. I didn’t have time to let it fully cure before priming and painting so just had to be careful when running the drybrush over it.

The painting for this one was pretty straight forward. Ultimately this model will live in the library for a week, maybe more, but it will get wrecked. That’s the reality of little hands running wild about the library. Plenty of drybrushing and a little bit of detailing and it was done in around three hours – the base colours took 90 minutes alone!

1. primed black
2. wing membrane base colour was Vallejo Red Black, several thin layers as the coverage is poor
3. body base colour was GW Khorne Red
4. first layer of drybrushing was Mephiston Red
5. second layer was Evil Sun Scarlet
6. final and very light touch of Wild Rider Red
7. at this point I decided I wanted to warm it up a little so went over with a thinned down layer of Vallejo Red Orange on the very tips of the scales.
8. horns, claws and the spikes at the elbows got three different colours put on them because it was getting late and my brain wasn’t focusing. Eventually I went with Black Legion with some highlights in Skavenblight Dinge
9. the wings stayed mostly the base colour but I did do some tiny lines to mimic healed tears or scratches in the membrane by mixing a little white into the Red Black

Here we are with the final display. Copies of the original Tolkien art and plenty of books by and about the man himself. Our printer conked out before I could finish printing out signage and I don’t have time to handwrite stuff but it’ll do.

It is mainly a display for adults to borrow from but the kids love touching it. They keep running their fingers over the pile of gold (glitter is already getting everywhere.. my colleagues are going to love me for this one). Every one of them also tries to take the models off the board (they are pinned but I don’t think they are kid-proof).

This was a typical me project – spontaneously imagined, time was not my friend and largely unnecessary. I could have spent the time working on something for one of the many, many other bloody projects that I want to finish this year. However, it has been a really fun distraction – I regret nothing… well, almost nothing.

There is a part of me that knows how to be a good painter. She just gets ignored for inexplicable reasons. Case in point, yesterday I had to do a big chunk of work on the Drop Pod for the Space Ducks project. The deadline is this week as the take launch event is this time next week at Warhammer World.

It’s a vehicle and it’s yellow. Clearly when doing a wash the best option was to panel line it. I even had that conversation with myself earlier in the day. As I sat down last night to watch some old XLBS episodes though, I forgot. I just the Agrax all over that thing, didn’t even thin it.

What a plonker.

I didn’t take photos because I was so angry at myself. Instead I got up this morning and took advantage of not starting work until lunch. I masked off the bits that were fine and re-primed the whole thing with the Colour Forge sunset yellow.

A couple of hours later, and some quick Sponge weathering, and it’s done. Well, it’s done enough.

Can’t say I’m overly happy with it but it looks roughly like it’s meant to and the Space Ducks will be able to put it into service.

I’ll be buying a ticket or two for the raffle so who knows, it might come back to me in the future! I’ll post the link when the raffle goes live, it’s raising money for a good cause and one that is particularly close to my heart after the past week.

I’ve been off social media for most of the past month so I’ve been pretty bad at advertising the raffle for Space Ducks. It is an excellent cause, raising money for Campaign against Living Miserably and UK survivors of bereavement by suicide.

The prizes are:

1st prize 4000pts+ Space Marines on the theme of rubber ducks

2nd place prize Leviathan Space Marine half painted by Patrick of the Painting Phase

3rd place 4 fire teams painted by 15 hobbyists

4th place art pieces and commission by @grim_dork_comic

The raffle ends in 48 hours and has already raised enough for 62 Calm Calls and a peer support group at UKsobs funded for a year. If you can contribute, tickets are only £3 each and can be found here:

https://raffall.com/345636/enter-raffle-to-win-space-ducks-warhammer-40k-hosted-by-space-ducks-charity-army-project

On the 3rd of November I was coming to OTT for my usual early morning browse. I hadn’t signed in yet so got extra banner adverts including this one:

It’s not often I click on a banner ad but this one was too much not to. Within five minutes I had signed up to the Warp Miniatures Patreon, waiting patiently (mostly) for the email link to the models, and promptly throwing out all my hobby plans for the weekend. By the time the files arrived on Saturday morning, I had already cracked open a new bottle of resin and run a calibration test.

Now the sensible thing to do would have been to load up a print bed with one of every model, print it at my best setting and just pain those. Rarely when it comes to hobby do I take the sensible road though so instead I made a bed full of each troop type (spear, bow, club and frogs) plus an extra bed of heroes and some extra infantry to mount on the frogs.

Being impatient and still slightly trying to fool myself that this was a minor distraction and definitely not a new project, I set each to print with a bigger layer height than I have for other minis I’ve printed (0.05mm instead of 0.02 or 0.03). In some places this is really obvious, in others less so but overall I’m happy enough with them.

As this is definitely not a new project, I just grabbed some 2mm thick 20x20mm mdf bases from my stash and some of the plastic Kings of War regiment/horde trays to put them of for easier handling. A quick prime with the end of a can of black from Colour Forge and I got started on base colours for my unit of archers.

• Robes – Vallejo Prussian blue
• Hat – Citadel Mephiston Red
• Skin – Citadel Kislev flesh
• Beards and arrow flights – Citadel White Scar

Because I was working up from a black prime, a couple of coats were needed but the minis are pretty small so no one colour took too long to apply. Tomorrow morning I’ll try and get the last colour and a wash down before I head out to work.

Even with a couple of late shifts at work this week, I managed to chip away at these wee lads.

Which is just as well because they’ve multiplied…

After all that big talk about finishing off the Nightstalkers and the Skelliebobs, November ended up being another shitter of a month with another bereavement. Finding the energy to do anything other than the basics to make it to work was largely impossible. I took it easy as I could but mostly I just played video games and watched cartoons. Like the adult I am.

At the start of the year I laid out three goals for myself:

1. After last year’s pathetic two games played, play more games is the first goal. I have two local clubs (each of which has one to two sessions a week) and a small group of gaming friends, there’s really no excuse to not get something to the table.
2. Paint complete armies/forces to get them on the table, not just for the fun of painting them. I realised last year that only one project was a complete force for a game. I have several half armies, lettuce try and finish some. I also have a few smaller warbands for games that could fairly easily get painted up and played with.
3. Finish painting the terrain that is hiding in the cupboard. I get bored really easily when it comes to painting terrain but it really does make a difference when it comes to Goal #1

Goal 1

I managed to get in a lot more games this year, well into double digits. I played with new people and picked up new games. Some got left along the way, others have taken hold.

Goal 2

This is a mixed bag. I did paint complete forces for the games that I got into but also was very scattered with what I painted. That’s just something I need to accept about myself I think; when my brain is all over the place, my painting will be too.

Models painted as of 25/12/23:

28mm – 248

15mm and below – 355

Terrain – 30 pieces

Total – 633

That’s a really good number for me.

Goal 3

I’m pretty happy with how this one went. I got some of the stuff in the stash painted up and some scratch built islands for Kings of War Armada. Still have other table projects in the stash to paint up.

Rather than focus on the remains of the projects here, I’m going to try over the Christmas week to get a wee head start on a 2024 project. I’ll come back to these ones but there are two big projects on the horizon that need work right now.

• First up will be a new army for Kings of War as part of a slow grow with Woodstock and some people who play at a different club to us.
• Second is Sons of Horus for Legions Imperialis. There are a good number of people in the area picking the game up (though it looks like half of us still haven’t had our pre-orders through this time).
• The third slot was going to be a Dungeonalia project but I don’t think I’ll be bothering with it. Instead I think I’ll be dusting off something else instead.