And that's not all

Thursday was my last day off work which probably means it will be my last chance to do a big block of painting for a while. On Sunday I ordered some Reaper miniatures (from Spirit Games) which arrived on Tuesday. I held off working on them until I had the night goblins done as they were needed for a game of Warhammer on Wednesday whilst the Reaper minis were for our weekly D&D game on Thursday.

So this is what I managed to finish on Thursday - and apart from Hasslefree's Shimmer all these were unpainted when I picked up my paintbrushes on Thursday morning. It was a hectic day but I got all of them finished in time for the game.

And I found the camera at last so these pictures will be a bit better.

Firstly we have a bunch of character for our current Dark Sun 4e campaign along with a couple of others I had to hand.



And also some kids from Hasslefree for when I play RPGs with the girls.


Aren't they cute. Next up will probably be the Arachnarok.

And the rest

A frantic evening of painting followed by an afternoon of basing and as promised I have some more photos.

Firstly a couple of trolls. I started these many years ago but it took until last night to actually get round to finishing them.

Secondly the main event. Night goblins fahsands of 'em ... well 83 anyway but it felt like thousands whilst painting them.

I have now painted every last night goblin I own and I may never need to paint another night goblin trooper ever again ... unless I paint 8 more and then I can field two hordes of 40 for KoW but for now they are finally all done. On to painting something a bit more colourful maybe.

About time too

Life has been a bit too hectic for some time and eventually my movement disorder became so bad that the doctor signed me off work for two weeks. When I finally got full control of my limbs back I took this golden opportunity to chill out and get on with some of the painting I've not been able to do for ages.

As you will be able to see from the pictures below it has turned out to be a pretty productive time. Sorry about the picture quality, my camera is (still) missing (again) so I took these with my phone.

First up are a couple of minis I finished a while back but hadn't got round to posting. That's a Black Tree Design stone troll and a citadel goblin bolt thrower (which I lost for about 10 years!) both have been waiting for a very long time in the painting queue.



Next up we have some Mantic Elf Scouts. I bought these when Mantic were selling the individual sprues earlier in the year so that I could make up a second unit of 10 with the ones I got as free samples ages ago.



And finally (for today) we have the reinforcements for my orc units to bring them up to 30 models each. The extra rank should be handy for WHFB and it makes then the right size for Kings of War too. These were bought earlier this year.



And that's not all ... but you'll have to wait until tomorrow at least to see the rest as I have a few last things to finish off.

A hard day's night

Right, that's another 9 night Goblin grunts finished and a shaman as well. The unit is starting to look like a decent size.

On with the next batch.

Something of the night

Here's a quick peek at what I'm working on right now.



These are some night goblins I bought on ebay last year. When this unit is complete it will be really, really big. I've made a decision that there's no point putting too much effort into every model so I'm trying to crank them out as fast as I can.

Yes I'm still here!

Its not been a very productive few months I'm afraid. Work and health issues have prevented me from getting much done. I can sum up my progress by saying I have painted up a handful for night goblins, assembles and primed an arachnarok spider and tidied up the high elf army with the shield transfers.

Here are some shots of how the high elves look now.





More shots here:-

http://s266.photobucket.com/albums/ii278/Maccwar/High%20Elves/

Flying the nest.

Well that's it, the last of the elves in the current bunch are done and its time to start on something new (or old).

Here's the High Elf griffon I've been working on over the past week or so.







And also joining him on the pile of finished stuff are a couple of RPG minis from Heresy and Hasslefree respectively.


Next up? Nasty little goblinses!

Keeping score

And here's something I've been working on for a while - wound markers for Kings of War. I've combined the casualties from the elf sprues with some bits from EM4 miniatures.



The different coloured rings are worth different amounts. White rings are one wound, yellow are worth 5 wounds and red rings are ten wounds.



And here's a quick shot of them in use.



You can get the rings, posts and bases from em4 miniatures.

The reserves have arrived

And the final* batch of spear elves finally hits the painted pile. Celebrations all round! Its taken a long time to get these finished as my PNKD has been playing up badly for a while.



*final until I start work on the stack I bought in the Hobbycraft sale that is.

Shielded from view

One thing I've not been so happy with about the scheme I've chosen for my elves is the little design I've been painting on the shields. I originally wanted to do a star but I couldn't find something that i could reproduce consistently so I settled with the cross and lines. Recently I've not been able to even do that properly (not sure if its the fault of the brush or the hands that hold it) so I finally made the decision to ditch the freehand symbol and use a transfer instead. I managed to find a design I liked at Veni Vidi Vici and bought three sheets of it scaled for 10mm shields. The transfers themselves are top notch and very easy to use. I like the result and I now plan to go back and use these for the whole army. Here are some comparison pictures:-




Oh and I've got a new camera and a photo tent, hopefully that'll mean better pictures from now on.

Footslogging

Well February didn't turn out so well either. Until this weekend I had only managed to snatch a bit of painting time here and there largely due to mobility issues. This weekend, thankfully, I managed to get a bit of free time when all my limbs were working properly and managed to make up for lost time.

The end result is 17 miniatures ready for basing as well as a load of wound markers and a further 5 minis almost done. In fact once I have those 5 minis done and the HE griffon then I will have managed to complete the first of this year's objectives.

I've made a tentative start towards the second project of the year as well. I washed a batch of night goblins ready for priming but sadly the weather decided not to play ball so they remain in their natural grey plastic for now.

Lets hope things perk up so I can get some more painting done soon.

Do not pass go, do not collect £200

Things are not going to plan and painting has come to a full stop. I've not lifted a paintbrush since the 17th, mainly because my right arm not working properly for most of the last 10 days or so.

Maybe February will be better, I certainly hope so anyway.

The eBay auction netted me £16 which will probably go on hobby stuff at some point but I'm not sure quite what as yet.

And there goes the duck

Well I had been doing well at not buying miniatures so far this year, well up until last Sunday anyway. I got a heads up about a sale on the Mantic ranges at Hobbycraft over in Stockport with boxes about 75% off.

Well that's just a red rag to a bull isn't it? So £14 later I'm the proud owner of another 80 Mantic elves. Not so good for the pledge really and just as I was almost about to finish painting every elf in the army too. I've decided to keep them in the boxes for now and maybe flog them on ebay later in the year if things don't go well.

Also on ebay at the moment is the Storm Raven I painted up for my Blood Angels last year. With the official model out shortly I decided it was time to try and flog the proxy model. If I get back what I paid for it I'll be happy but I'm not necessarily expecting to get that much.

Painting wise things haven't gone well as my movement disorder has been playing up. Hopefully it'll calm down enough for me to get some work done.

Lets get this party started

And here he is, Runt - the last member of the Thursday night D&D Party.



The mini is an Armoured Big Boris from Heresy Miniatures, a lovely piece and fun to paint.

On a roll

One more mini on the painted pile. I finished an armoured big boris from Heresy last night. I also have six more elves in progress and with no purchases things are looking good.

Do not feed the lions

Well here is the finished article. Eagle eyed viewers will spot that I've left off a lot of the decorative items that GW provide in the kit and swapped out the heads for some Mantic Palace Guard helmets.

One thing I realised when doing the final assembly is that the instructions which come with the kit appear to be wrong .. or I glues the yoke on at an odd angle. I ended up having to shave off parts of the reigns on the lions to get everything to fit on the base.

Anyway, here they are.


Now to get on with the remaining infantry.

What do you think of it so far?

Well, if things had gone according to plan I would have been heading off to a tournament in the morning with my newly painted HE chariots in my army case. So what went wrong? Well the chariots were painted in time but sadly something cropped up which ruled me out of the tournament.



Completed with hours to spare they look OK but you'll have to take my word for it until I can get a decent photo.

So far this year's pledge is going well - two chariots down and no purchases. The plan is to finish the High Elves and then to move on to something else.

The Scale of the Problem (2011 edition)

Carrying on the tradition I thought start the year with a look at what still remains in the lead pile.

28mm Scale Projects

Orcs and Goblins
System: Warhammer
Status: 300 or so figures painted, some more or so in the lead pile
Comments: Over 3000 points + options available for use. Bought more in 2010.

Bretonnians
System: Warhammer
Status: 18 knights started, about 100 more models unpainted. No progress in 2010.

Dwarfs
System: Warhammer
Status: 85% unpainted, about 100-150 models in total.
Comments: At least they're assembled. Should be 2500-3000 points easily when done. No progress in 2010.

High Elves
System: Warhammer
Status: 90% painted
Comments: Started project added during 2009. Lots bought and painted during 2010, only a few models left to go.

Blood Angels
System: Warhammer 40K
Status: Mostly finished.
Comments: Over 2500 points + options available for use. Lots of progress this year, but more models added to the unpainted pile too.

Space Hulk
System: Space Hulk
Status: About 2/3 finished. All of the Genestealers are completed, just the marines to go.
Comments: No progress in 2010.

SWAT teams and Criminals
System: Officer Down, about 40 models in total.
Status: 80% painted
Comments: The problem with this project is that it needs more scenery. No progress in 2010.

10/15mm Scale Projects

Aliens and Marines
System: Xenomorph
Status: In the post
Comment: A late 2007 purchase. About 40-60 models in total. No progress in 2010.

High Elves
System: HOTT
Status: Unpainted (48 points + options). No progress in 2010.

Undead
System: HOTT
Status: Unpainted. No progress in 2010.

Dark Elves
System: HOTT
Status: Unpainted (48 points + options). Bought January 2010 expanded December 2010 none of it painted.

Penguins
System: HOTT
Status: Unpainted (24 points + options). Bought and completed January 2010.

Mongols
System: DBA
Status: Unpainted. No progress in 2010.

Later Muslim Indian
System: DBA
Status: Unpainted. No progress in 2010.

Later Achmeneid Persian
System: DBA
Status: 30% Painted. No progress in 2010.

Summary - some progress but too many purchases.

2010's final efforts

Here are the elves I painted in such a hurry for the Autumn Showdown. I ended up fielding seaguard to make the minimum core points as I didn't have enough spear elves painted.



I've since fixed some of he painting errors shown off by that photo.

Next up we have some adventurers I painted up to represent 4 of the 5 members of the D&D party in my Thursday night campaign. From left to right we have Niamh (an ice wizard), Davven ( a monk), Leona (a thief) and Magnamous (a cleric).



And lastly we have some Ral Partha AD&D miniatures I got way back in 1994 with a starter set TSR put out called "First Quest". A mere 16 year wait in the painting queue - nothing unusual about that round here.

Happy New Year

Oh dear. From a pledge point of view 2010 was a FAIL.

Quite simply I focussed on new projects rather than clearing the decks and whilst I did paint a reasonable amount I bought more.

I still have some 2010 minis to photograph and then I'll try and crunch some numbers and work out how badly I failed.

Here's hoping 2011 turns out better.