Grey Horde: February 2018

Bought: 0
Sold: 14 Dark Eldar Kabalites
Painted: 10 Word Bearers, 6 Vending Machines, 1 Sportscaster, 1 Space Wolf, 3 Norsemen
Total: -35

That's right. A big, fat zero at the top for things I bought!

Not as productive as I wanted, but still a decent month. A little more cleared from the Cupboard of Doom, and a few more projects progressed well. Selling off another unit of 40k 3rd edition "why on earth did I buy this?" was good, but ... finally wrapping up projects? A warm glow of happiness. That's my Norsemen, my Sportscasters and a terrain project all finished up.

Norsemen Expeditionary Force

And here we are with the finished warband.

It was definitely worth revisiting the first two I painted a while back to add a touch of blue cloth for a unified feel across the group. Tweaking the weapon colouring to echo a darker blue turned out well too. Adding the bases to make them look out of place has added warmer but neutral colours and tones that contrast the textural browns of the clothing.

This was hard work, and I can't count how many times skin for the barbarian was repainted, or how much time I threw away trying to get the eyes looking correct, let alone consistent and in a direction. But, in the end they've ended up better than I thought they were going to. Trying to paint a whole set of super-detailed Hasslefree figures was giving myself a bit of a hospital pass, but it's done and I can breathe a sigh of relief.

Bolverk the Bold

Another one with tricky eyes. It took a few attempts to get something that didn't look like he was wearing clown facepaint, or actually had eyes where they should be.

We'll settle for the current look of mild panic, or a grimace.

TradKarl

I'll start by saying that miniatures from Red Box are a curious beast. They're great sculpts, but they're terrifying from the amateur painter's perspective. So much fine detail crammed in and I literally can't do it all justice. Pretty sure I've said it before, but honestly ... it could be a disclaimer on the front of every one of their models.

So here's TradKarl. I had disgruntled Brendon Glesson in mind when painting this. The coat and furs are muted as I wanted the focus to be the beard and the tunic.

Red Box: Howling Gorvhogguth

Phew. This was a hard model.

Usually I start researching a figure by looking how others have painted it, to understand the details and ensure I don't miss anything. I couldn't find a single painted version of this online.

From my old school mentality that any fantasy squad needs a musician, this guy was a required pick for my Norse warband, and it's a real surprise there's no versions of him out there. The face is a troublesome element, and I repainted it several times before hitting the "eh, it'll do" stage.

2018 Goals

Not big on resolutions, but setting targets for the year is just dandy.

General

Quality

I want to lift the standards of my individual figure painting to the next level, again. The goal is still better use of colour theory, smoother layering and glazing and even improving simple accuracy on the basics. At most I will attend two painting courses in 2018 - one's already booked with Banshee (https://www.instagram.com/alfonso_giraldes_banshee/) and we'll see what the second will be.

Speed

Still hitting the #90MMC challenge. Can I produce a full figure in 90 minutes of painting? Combined with the pursuit of quality, I want to push my tabletop standard up and up.

Focus

Starting projects and seeing them through to completion, rather than adding more to-do piles onto the workbench. I want need projects ticked off the WIP list.

Armies on Parade

I plan to build a comically complex board for AoP this year for my Space Wolves. All the major parts are already ordered and it will hopefully be a labour of love through the first nine months of this year. Maybe.

Miniatures

Ironskull's Boyz [4]

My Shadespire faction of choice, and they're on the workbench at the moment. These will be the first goal to complete for this year. Despite making things more complicated by painting them all in non-metallic.

Hasslefree Miniatures [8]

Paint everything I picked up at Salute in 2016, including the Red Box Games figures - Bolverk the Bold, Howling Gorvhogguth, TradKarl plus Weird West Boudi, Harby, Rogue Drax, Blanche and Mystic Warrior Jen. These need to be completed before my Hasslefree Kickstarter goodies arrive.

Heresy Miniatures [4]

Finish everything I picked up at Salute in 2016. Brother Bude and the Ghoul King are the only ones left, but then I did find a couple of older demon dogs that need painting up as well ...

Warhammer 40,000 Space Wolves [41]

Paint up the whole Ironclaw Strike Force and wrap the rest of the Dark Imperium box at the same time. What have I done?

Guild Ball Morticians [3]

Complete the Season 1 & 2 roster with Vileswarm and Veteran Graves. So close to completion, I can taste it.

Guild Ball Fishermen [5]

Complete the Season 1 & 2 roster with alternate Shark, Corsair, Sakana, Jac and Tentacles.

Willy Miniatures [1]

Sportscasters. I finished the Ogre (let's call him Bob) last year and have the Vampire (who is definitely not Jim Johnson from Blood Bowl) and then that completes my homebrew Guild Ball NPC collection.

This sets my initial goals at 66 figures. I'm going to double down and aim to get these finished in the first six months of the year. Ouch. But if we don't set goals to stretch ourselves, how will we grow?

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.

Red Box: Hostrom Hammersmite

More free time, and more Red Box! This time it's Hostrom Hammersmite.

I wanted to develop a theme through my little set of figures where each of them is quite muted but has a a different colour on fabrics. So the previous one, Ullr, was blue and this is red ... so something different next. My hope is that when they're all in the same group it will look quite nice - but let's see how that goes.

Only a few on the Red Box pile to go now. Which is just as well, as my brain can't handle this detail for too long - something simpler required next!

Red Box: Ullr the Red

Still working through the Salute 2016 backlog and finishing up my Nordic-themed purchases from the super lovely Hasslefree - they were selling the Red Box Games range of Norsemen.

Detail on these feels a little beyond me at times. The faces are so intricate and I'm just not there yet for picking out all the features, which is occasionally frustrating - but we got there. This is another without a basing theme as I'm not sure where I want these to go yet.