2017 Goals - End of Year Review

Well that year drifted by quickly, didn't it? The progress in the last six months from the original list written up at the beginning of 2017 hasn't been a pretty read for progress I'm afraid. But let's look at progress across the year.

The Bad

• Infamy [3] - No progress.
• Guild Ball Fishermen [5] - No progress.

Whoops. These just dropped down the list when new projects present themselves. I'd sorely love to wrap up the Guild Ball figures just to tick another one off the list.

The Inbetween

• Hasslefree Miniatures [12] - Completed 4.
• Heresy Miniatures [1] - Completed 2.
• Warhammer 40,000 Space Wolves [28] - Completed 9.
• Warhammer 40,000 Death Guard [16] - One test model done, but will pause this as I plan to swap to Word Bearers.
• Shadespire [4] - Started.
• Guild Ball Morticians [3] - Completed 1.
• Willy Miniatures [1] - Started the vampire, but not finished.

Hit and miss here. Some forward steps made but then a few steps back. Space Wolves were complicated by buying the Dark Imperium box set and Shadespire, so they've taken precedence. I did manage to complete the Inceptors, Ancient and five Wolves from the original box.

The Good

• Colony 87 - Completed all 9.
• Blood Rage - Completed 1 wolf.
• Conan - Completed 10 wolves.
• Zombicide: Black Plague - Completed 22 wolves.
• Terrain - 6 pieces from Crooked Dice, 3 containers from TTcombat, 3 armoured containers, 9 barrels, 12 crates from Games Workshop, and a few other odds and ends.
• Human Interface - Completed 3 characters.
• Arcworlde - Completed 1 Ork.
• The Walking Dead - Completed 1 zombie.

 A few really small projects were completed at the last minute (Human Interface, Arcworlde & The Walking Dead) which was nice to clear off the backlog. Small projects hanging around start to irk after a while, so these quick wins please me.

The Summary
The total number of distinct things completed, not including tiddlers like crates and barrels, is over 100. Which is honestly about 40-50 better than I thought it would be, despite my optimistic goals at the beginning of the year.

I'll think on what I want from 2018 before posting goals. Some quick ones come to mind, but let's make it a challenging one again too.

Human Interface: Black Stone Commando

Third and last of the Human Interface: Nakamura Tower figures - and probably the one that grew on me the most while painting. I picked it because it was a big unsubtle chunk of robot, but when I started painting, a lot of unexpected detail jumped out.

I love all the cables, so tried to offer a little variety in colour to show power flowing through them. Nice way to finish up the mini-project and glad I had the chance to paint them.

For size comparison, here's the three painted up compared to a regular Space Marine.

And the three just on their own.

So that's it! Another small mini-project concluded, so on to the next figure sat on the painting desk - a Mantic Zombie picked up free at Salute earlier this year. It's a bit of a sprint now trying to meet a few of my 2017 goals, with just over four weeks left in the painting year.

Human Interface: Markus Hoffman (Nakamura)

This is, apparently, Markus Hoffman from Human Interface: Nakamura Tower. I couldn't tell you much more about him other than that - as I don't know the backstory to the game.

The boxart for this has the arms painted as sleeves, but I opted for making it look like arms with wiring and little spots of metal peeking out - as though he's become one with the machine.

I played around with striping on clothing again, and it wasn't a disaster. Still forcing myself to thin paints beyond what feels comfortable and I'm seeing the benefit of that and patience.

Human Interface: Cyborg Hunter (Mercenary)

This week I was working through a few models from a lovely looking Kickstarter from 2015, Human Interface: Nakamura Tower (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1803723298/human-interface-nakamura-tower) and while I failed to back it, a friend of mine did.

The figures are quite detailed and put me in mind of the Infinity range. This was reinforced when seeing the second Kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1803723298/human-interface-be-a-better-human/description) with models painted by Angel Giraldez - whose work on the Infinity range is formidable.

When it arrived he was kind enough to let me paint up a couple of figures for him. I picked a couple at random that looked interesting and it appears they're from different factions - or at least different enough to be painted as such.

I realised on Wednesday that I was seeing him this weekend and really needed them finished and off the workbench. So a very quick paintjob across the three was required to get things moving!

This is probably my least favourite from the three, but still a nice model.

Fun to paint, but glad I didn't back the project - the thought of painting a whole box of figures at this detail level would terrify me.