Day 730 - a 2nd year of paint-on-brush (Nick)

So yesterday marked 2 years of Carl & I trying to put 'paint on brush' every day, or in my case 'something' every day for the last year.

Real life has had quite an impact on both of us for differing reasons, however I have managed every day again apart from one or two when I genuinely forgot to the point that I'm not even sure if I actually did something or not!
Again Carl has been on and off the horse numerous times and neither of us have too much to show for it in 2022, however the efforts at end of last year mean that the last 12 months of doing 'something' every day have seen 50 finishes from me but should have been many more.

I intend to continue the mantra into a 3rd year without any immediate changes, just the hope I can push some of those projects over the finishing line for another bumper year end - I guess doing 'something', no matter how little, is still better than doing nothing at all though?

Age of Sigmar - Ogor Glutton (Nick)

Another 3 months on and to be honest this guy was done not long after the Savage Orruk of my last post, but I was holding back on the blog update as I intended to add rust effects.
A few experiments on spare weapons didn't achieve the result I was looking for so have decided to call him done for now as I like how he looks anyway, and I 'might' come back to add that rust en masse at a later date.

On a positive note, this 'is' the first of the Ogor Mawtribes destined for our Warhammer Age of Sigmar doubles tournament army as mentioned in the last post, sadly though we were unable to attend and neither army is at the stage it should be by now.

He is a straight out of the box Ogor Glutton model, or Ogre Kingdoms Bull for you old skool square base fans, updated for Age of Sigmar with a 40mm round base and the gutplate armour replaced with a round Chaos Marauder shield (as I had always intended for variation from the norm) which now added a nice tie-in with Carl's Slaves to Darkness chaos army - they have obviously been hanging around together (the Ogors probably attached as mercenaries), the chaos effects either rewards, payment or loot when they have turned on their paymasters!

Again this one was started with the brown zenithal prime I've previously used on my Orruks and Orks, although I had to redo a couple of times and mask off other areas with Airbrush Masking Putty as it seems a good, strong bone highlight is required for a smooth flesh tone - this also required a few attempts, pure Darkoath Flesh contrast paint pooled really badly however using Guilliman Flesh contrast paint to 'colourise' the primer and then Army Painter Flesh Wash to add depth achieved the result I was after.

The rest is Games Workshop's 'Contrast Paints' and my usual choices for gold and silver, metalwork aged with Basilicanum Grey contrast paint and Army Painter Strong Tone wash - the new Ratling Grime contrast paint would probably work really well here too.

So rather embarrassingly this is only the second finish of the year so far, however after some good hobby time at the weekend I'm looking at an end of year push like 2021 to get those numbers up!!

Age of Sigmar - Savage Orruk (Nick)

Wow, nearly into August and my first post and finished mini of the year - how embarrassing!

The year started so well, carrying on where 2021 left off and I should have had another 30+ War of the Roses figures finished in Jan/Feb for the Never Mind the Billhooks event in March, unfortunately I was unable to attend the event and so they never passed the finishing post.

Various projects have moved along in the meantime, but mainly building and prep work - the do 'something' every day mantra continues and I haven't missed a single day, but with little to show for it.

However here is the first to make it into the public domain and quite a surprise entry, not least for me, a Savage Orruk for Warhammer Age of Sigmar:

Carl and I have entered a doubles event at Warhammer World in August and while Carl continues with his old Slaves to Darkness Chaos project, I settled on Ogor Mawtribes which have been sat unbuilt in their box since they first came out some 18 years ago!! ...and just happened to be a 1000 points army in new money.

 - but hang on you say, this isn't an Ogor... well no, having stalled on the Ogors I got an itch to do some Bonesplitterz Savage Orruks and this is me actually scratching that itch.  Only a week in so far, let's see if they replace the Ogors this time around or are just a convenient diversion to avoid finishing what I should?

Again all the heavy lifting is done with Games Workshop's 'Contrast Paints' over the same brown zenithal prime as my 40k Ork Boy only this time I decided a lighter, brighter green was in order which is where the new Mantis Warriors Green contrast paint comes in followed by Army Painter's Green Wash to add depth and darken the overall shade slightly ...and to go with that a good excuse to use the psychedelic shade of Talassar Blue for the warpaint (I had considered orange or pink warpaint, but blue just seems right -  and sits much happier next to the green if there's a slight overlap, which would muddy the other colours).

So not the year of painting I had planned so far, and certainly not what I expected to be my first finished mini but hopefully the start of plenty more to come as there aren't many weeks now for both myself and Carl to finish our armies... wish us luck!

Blood Bowl Goblin Fan (Carl)

 

Another model off the Work in Progress pile/queue. In this instance a Blood Bowl Goblin fan from waaaaay back in the olden days.

I spent far too long considering repainting him to blend his skin tones but eventually decided to just call it done and move on.

His scarf has the motivational message to “Go for it!” Which was old Blood Bowl speak for inviting the dice gods to laugh at you. Nowadays the process of ‘going for’ an extra square is called a Dash, maybe this is a cunning ploy by the writers to avoid the gaze of the dice gods. But Nuffle sees all.

His base has a bit of sprue to represent beer cans and a random bit of card painted as stadium detritus thrown by the hooligans at the back.

I’ve got two more fans to join him as reroll counters to finish, hopefully getting this guy finished will spur me on to complete his comrades.

2022 painting start - mushroom men x4 (Carl)

What an impressive final run at the end of 2021 from Nick. While Nick blasted out a whopping load of completions in December I ended the year without getting any significant time under the painting light.

I managed to complete 34 in 2021 in total which wasn’t huge but it was more than the total of new minis I acquired in the year so still helping chip away at the mountain of unfinished stuff.

I aim to beat that 34 completions this year. After a quick whizz around my works in progress I have over 200 models either primed or part painted. If all I do is work away on works in progress I’ll be fine. But that’s unlikely! There will definitely be new projects starting from scratch. 

Anyway, before any new distractions slide in I’ve finished my first minis of 2022.

These are four mushroom men from Hasslefree Miniatures. I’ve had them for what feels like forever and have finally completed them.

The contact points for attaching the arms were a bit of a challenge but aside from that they’re lovely little characters. I’ll be using them in Open Combat.

 

Never Mind the Billhooks - Bowmen (Nick)

Following on rapidly from my last post I'm sneaking in 'another' twelve finishes before the New Year arrives, and more War of the Roses... I'm sensing a theme here, and maybe even the faint scent of a fully painted retinue on the horizon?

My first unit of bowmen (bows) for Never Mind the Billhooks (or Archers for Lion Rampant) this time, and again plastics from the Perry Miniatures and their Wars of the Roses Infantry set:

These follow exactly the same process as the previous Billmen and Men-at-Arms, although I forgot to mention that the off-white of the padded, cotton armour and sleeves/leggings is just the white primer with Army Painter Strong Tone ink pre-shading and it seems to work quite well!

Here for good measure are a couple of group shots showing the 'bows and bills' in a combined block together and how they will mostly form up on the WotR field of battle:

Well that's it from me this year, although plenty WIP projects ready for the hope of some early finishes in 2022 including plenty more War of the Roses amongst other things.

These 24 finishes now bring the total for 2021 up to 54 figures onto the 'done' pile and that elusive milestone, at least for me, of 1 figure painted per week with a couple of extras for good measure - quite an achievement for me personally and something I hope I can repeat or even better next year... one a day maybe - we'll see!

Never Mind the Billhooks - Billmen (Nick)

More War of the Roses from me to finish of the year with a flourish.

This time my first unit of twelve billmen (bills) for Never Mind the Billhooks (or Expert Yeomen for Lion Rampant), again plastic figures from Perry Miniatures.

Nothing much more to say that wasn't covered in my previous post on the Men-at-Arms really, except this now brings my yearly total to 42 finished and off the pile of shame:

These are actually built from the Mercenaries box rather than the more usual War of the Roses Infantry box, and are converted using the pikemen arms with cutdown pikes and the alternative polearms heads from the command sprue as suggested on the box as an option.
 - I really wanted to do at least one unit like this as a bit of variety from all the others that will be built using the proper billmen arms, however the 1mm joint is very fragile even with liquid poly cement which should fuse the two parts together!

So the New Year is rapidly approaching... but I might not be done just yet?