New Year's Hobby Resolutions & Goals for 2017
I just posted my look back at my work from 2016, but what's ahead for 2017? I wrote up some resolutions and goals for 2016 and thought it's probably a good thing to do the same for the upcoming year.
Class of 2016
With the year coming to a close, it's fun to look both look back and take stock of the year's work and also to look ahead to the upcoming year and make some plans and some goals. I'll take care of the latter in another post, but will start here by casting my eye back over my work from 2016.
Green Arrow, Rey and BB-8
My two most recent pieces are a bit different than what I usually paint for a couple of reasons. The first is the subject matter: both the Green Arrow by Knight Models and Rey & BB-8 are pretty well recognized characters. The minis I usually paint would only really be recognizable to others who play that particular game or who paint miniatures and may have seen certain sculpts before. The other big difference for me is that these are the first miniatures I've begun painting with the use of an airbrush. Both of these differences presented some unique challenges for me.
Old Man's Warband
There were a lot of things that first attracted me to the game Bushido, and a lot of things that keep me playing. However, if I had to say the one thing that really jumped out at me, it was the minis in the Silvermoon Syndicate. Unlike a lot of other games where every combatant is a muscle clad superman or warrior woman, the Silvermoon starter included the big "buto", Manu and haughty Harukichi clutching not a weapon of any sort, but a bowl of rice! These were not the comic book physiques that were at the core of every other game I'd looked at. These miniatures had real character and it made me instantly want to learn more.
Florence and the Machine Wings
One of my favorite things about this hobby is the constant ability to learn something new. As a child, that's taken for granted as you're always encountering new facts, figures and concepts both in school and in the world in general. Sometimes, as a "grown-up" (if that's a term that can apply to someone who still plays with "toy soldiers"!) there's not always the opportunity to learn something new. In this hobby, however, there are myriad avenues to teach yourself something new and feel like you're able to constantly learn. With this miniature, a steampunk version of Florence Nightingale, I set myself a few challenges.
The Maghariba Guard
The Maghariba Guard is one of those "miniatures" (quotes required due to the size of the thing!) that I'd lusted after as soon as I saw the first concept art back in August of 2014. Not only would it be a T.A.G. I'd be able to pick up for my Haqqislam army, but it was vicious and very unique looking. Fast forward to this year and as soon as I saw it available to pre-order I jumped at the chance.
Another Catch-up Post
It's time for me to add another catch-up post about some of the miniatures I've recently posted in the gallery. Some of these are new... some not so much. Here we go...
Sumothay: the Magpie
The magpie has a reputation as being a thieving bird, collecting shiny objects to adorn his nest. Neither is he reputed to be particularly nice, attacking the nests of other defenseless birds. As it turns out, while the Magpie is indeed a savage predator and will eat the eggs and young of songbirds, his reputation as a thief is less deserved and apparently springs from a 19th century French play. Nevertheless, while painting Sumothay, it still seemed a particularly apt nickname for this grizzled mercenary, decked out in a variety of bits of armor plucked from remains of numerous battles.
Tengu Posted in the Gallery
While I've painted these over the past few months and they've showed up in a few "action shots" from games here an on my twitter feed, I've now taken some gallery photos of my current Tengu warband and posted them in the gallery.
Bushido Tournament Recap
This past Saturday, our growing community of local Bushido players headed down to Atomic Empire for our first tournament: Shunki Kōreisai Kyōsō, described as a "rivalry on the day when feudal samurai would venerate past emperors at shrines around the time of the Vernal Equinox." Warbands were to be 50 rice and the scenarios were Keii, The Messenger and "Shingon" an excellent custom made scenario by our Tournament Organizer, Karl-Christian (FatherKnowsBest on the forums). A few local players were unfortunately unable to make it, but with 6 of us in attendance, we were able to enjoy a great day of quality Bushido rivalries.
Mini Cooper
Sorry to disappoint the diminutive car enthusiast (enthusiast of diminutive cars?) but this post is not about the automobiles. Instead, I thought I'd write a little about...
Tablewar Mini Case Review
While work, sickness, life, etc. have conspired to keep me away from the painting table for much of the year so far, I did have the opportunity to travel down to meet a friend for a fun weekend of family, food, fun, board games... and a nice healthy dose of Bushido. We met up in South Carolina, which meant packing up my little metal men for the long car trip. This was the perfect opportunity to put my new Tablewar Mini Case to the test.
2015 in Review
Before the year quite comes to a close, I'd thought it'd be time well spent to take a look back at my hobbying and gaming for the past 12 months...
Steampunk Ariel
There are some paint jobs that whip by in just a few days. And then, there are some like my Steampunk Ariel by Guild of Harmony that can take months! In Ariel's case, it wasn't so much the painting that took me so long, but the creation of her base.
Catching up
The autumn is really a wonderful time for settling in in the evenings, hunkering down and getting a good lot of hobbying done. Unfortunately, that's quite the opposite of what my past couple of months have looked like! Between work, a family trip to Disney World and what seems to have just felt like a hectic existence, my painting time has fallen off a bit... my blogging even more. So, it's high time for a bit of of a catch up post.
The Painting Cork, Redux
As I wrote in an earlier post, like many others, I generally prefer to mount, pin, or otherwise affix my minis to a cork when painting. My first small improvement to this was to glue a washer to the bottom for added stability. With my newest round of miniatures (my new Tengu warband for Bushido... soon to be blogged about) I found I needed to do a bit more...
Fitiaumua and Old Zo
Favorites of the Month, June/July 2015
As mentioned in my post about Fiti's Tattoos, the summer has flown by so far without many posts made here, so for this "Favorites" post, I'm catching up on two months of links.
Fitiaumua's Tattoos
It's been a little while since I've been able to post. Summer vacation and trips have kept me from making a ton of painting progress and (obviously) I've done even less here on my blog. However, after a busy July, I'm back into the swing of things now and thought I'd post a little in-progress work with some freehand tattoos for Fitiaumua.
Silvermoon Trade Syndicate Starter
It took too long, but I finally got the whole gang to sit together for a group shot. I've had a lot of fun painting the Silvermoon Trade Syndicate starter set and am looking forward to getting some paint on Fitiaumua and Old Zo so they can join the crew.
Favorites of the Month, May 2015
I'm going to have to work a bit harder in future months to get these out a bit earlier in the month... if I wait to long then I'm already collecting favorites for the next month! Anyway, here are my favorites from May...
Kum Biker and Senpu
Creating Cobblestone Bases
Recently I have a few people ask me about the cobblestone bases on my small (but growing!) Bushido warband. As I was just to the point of basing Senpu, I thought I'd take some photos and lay out what my process of creating and painting these bases.
Favorites of the Month, April 2015
In a move that is unabashedly stolen borrowed from Volomir's Blog I thought it would be fun to collect my favorite links and articles from each month into a blog post. These aren't necessarily "don't miss" but are links that I found to be inspiring paint jobs, sculpts or just something interesting and worth checking out.
Shooting the Bull
This past Saturday my local game store, Atomic Empire, hosted the largest Infinity tournament I've had the pleasure of competing in: Shooting the Bull, a Dire States event. Not only was this the biggest infinity tournament I've played in but it was also the first with the 3rd edition rules. I've played a few N3 games, but they've mostly all been simple annihilation matches. I was greatly looking forward to testing my my Haqqislam troops in these new scenarios while enjoying the great company of our local meta here in Durham NC and meeting more folks who were traveling to attend.
The Painting Cork
I'm always impressed at the skill of some miniature painters who are able to paint a mini that's fully glued on the base. Angel Giraldez, in particular comes to mind... and with the amazing level of quality he's able to achieve, basing a mini before painting is clearly a workable approach for some painters. But for me, I need a bit more flexibility to get my brush in tight areas and so have always mounted my minis on a cork while painting.
The Sunlight Crit
Like a lot of people, most of my daylight hours are taken up with work, family and other various activities that occur at a scale larger than 28 - 54mm. As a result my painting occurs almost exclusively at night under a daylight bulb. While a daylight bulb is a great source of light for painting (and something I use even on those occasions I am able to paint before sundown), it still can't quite compare with real daylight.