2017 Goals - Half Year Review

Approaching the half year mark already, so it feels fair to look back at my Painting Backlog Goals and my progress against that to-date.

Infamy [3] - No progress.

Colony 87 [9] - Completed all 9.

Hasslefree Miniatures [12] - Completed 4.

Heresy Miniatures [3] - Completed 1.

Warhammer 40,000 Space Wolves [28] - Wolves in progress. First 62 bases completed.

Warhammer 40,000 Death Guard [16] - One test model done, but will pause this as I plan to swap to Word Bearers instead later in the year.

Guild Ball Morticians [3] - Completed 1.

Guild Ball Fishermen [5] - No progress.

Willy Miniatures [1] - No progress.

So a lot still to do from the original list - but with the above progress and other pieces, that's 41 models done so far. I feel the Colony 87 were the real highlight in the first six months.

Interesting to see on my painting desk how easily distracted I am. In between inventing work for myself with the mass wolf painting, there's a lot of undercoated pieces which aren't listed above - that have somehow, magically made it to my desk. For someone who considers themselves reasonably focused for work, it's interesting how I've let that slide when it comes to hobby ... so greater discpline is required.

Onward to greater heights for the second half of the year!

Something a little different

I want to share a piece of work by another painter, and explain of why.

Neil Hollis (aka neilpaints) is a very accomplished painter and serial trophy winner as you can see from his Golden Demon collection. In addition to this he's also co-host on the 30k  Horus Heresy podcast, The Imperial Truth. In recent episodes Neil mentioned he would be putting up a model up on eBay to raise money for Evelina London Children's Hospital, a cause close to his heart.

As a sucker for good causes, excellent painting and having a reference piece for a colour scheme on my own traitor marines, I threw a bid in and was fortunate enough to win the figure. Here's how it looks.

As you'd expect, photos don't really do it justice. Neil was kind enough to drop it off in person and stop in for a chat, which was a real surprise and treat - always a pleasure to talk hobby with like-minded people in person. It's little things like this which get the mojo going!

So please consider making a donation to Evelina London Children's Hospital. You can also visit Neil's recently launched blog over here to follow his painting adventures.

Warhammer 40k: Fenrisian Wolves pt.1

Another day, another wolf - and this is the first from my test batch of new bases for my Space Wolves in 8th edition.

Seeing the greys against the base is a big moment. I'm delighted that the colour choices have worked out here! Especially as I'm now 62 bases into the project and hadn't done a test run. With hindsight, trying a single base and a model first would probably have been the smarter idea ... right?

Blood Rage: Fenrir

As part of the soon-to-conclude wolf project, I completed Fenrir from Blood Rage. Easily the largest wolf of the set, this is a lovely sculpt and packed with menace.

After over-committing to a proper basing scheme with the original Zombicide: Black Plague bases, an error on my part, these will all be plain black. Which is just as well, because there's about another 100 to finish up. Not to mention the other tabletop games in the queue ...

Played around with a lot of greys just to let the blue glow pop out. Hopefully that comes across in the photos.

Warhammer 40k: Sector Imperialis bases

Prepping for the new, and rather excellent looking Primaris Space Marines, I've started building out a new basing scheme and finished the first set of 58x 32mm bases! Phew.

If you're interested in repeating the scheme:

• Basecoated with Gunmetal Metal, Brassy Brass, Beasty Brown and Martian Earth on the four main areas
• Metals shaded with Army Painter Dark Wash
• Brassy Brass then corroded with Nihilakh Oxide
• Drybrushing Orange Fire over Martian Earth, and Plague Brown over Beasty Brown
• Higlights picked out with Chainmail Silver over Gunmetal Metal and Bright Bronze over Brassy Brass

If you were wondering where the missing two bases from the set of 60 have gone, they were prototypes for refining the scheme and you can find them on my Inquisitor and Daemonhunter.

Just another 20x 40mm, 40x 25mm and a few 50mm and 60mm bases and ... well, anyway ... there's few to do before it's all done. Why so many? I'm keen to get them finished up while the scheme's familiar to me - and frankly it's too warm to do detailed work on individual figures.

Warhammer 40k: Ordo Malleus Daemonhunter

With 8th edition here, there's a fresh sense of urgency about clearing the desk of the in-progress models, so here's my 90-minute paintjob for June - a Daemonhunterof the Ordo Malleus.

It's only now I realise how much I dislike the pose on the model. The Inquisitor figure from a while back is far superior, and benefits from not having the ridiculous leaning forward. At some point I should learn how to convert models, or at least how to cut the back out of knees.

Guild Ball Morticians: Scalpel

Life delays have taken a toll but hopefully it's back to normal now. All is well, just no time to sit down and photograph anything. And indeed, no desk until the other week.

Couple of quick paintjobs done in the last month to keep the momentum going - so it's still moving forward, albeit slowly. Here's Scalpel from my Guild Ball Morticians coming in around 90 minutes.

She felt very utilitarian, so everything is shades of brown and leather. "Brown and leather" may be the name of my first glam metal album.