Nearly two months ...

Blimey - time flies when you're having ... well, whatever it is I've been having.

I lost my painting mojo again - the stresses of homeschooling, trying to keep a house tidy with a puppy we can't walk, and a 6-year-old  7-year-old (he's had a birthday, you know) that just won't tidy up, and a depressed me haven't been good.

A combination of lack of motivation and lack of clear space to paint in has meant I've not got much done for some time.

Also, my eyes are getting worse (wow, this does sound like a 'woe is me' rant, doesn't it?) so I've bought myself one of those led lit magnifier things.  It's going to take me a while to get used to using it - so even though I've got back to painting a little, painting will be slower.

Fortunately for me, I decided to try my hand at some bigger figures before going back to the usual suspects, and I've managed to get at least some painting done.

As it's been six weeks since my last blog, it's unsurprising that I've had some new arrivals.  The Kickstarter for the Pirates of the Dread Seas has arrived from Dead Earth Games, giving me 12 new Pirates and ex-Pirates to paint up

I've also acquired a number of out-of-production Crooked Dice "Not-Doctor-Who" minis from someone who was selling off their collection, so they can be added to the pile of shame until the muse strikes me - but I have been wanting a lot of them for a while, they take the 'input' tally up to 36, and finally Mrs H and I shared a 'lockdown survival kit from Reaper, giving me another 4 to work on.

Finally, for our Bronze Wedding Anniversary, Mrs H got me a Bronze Dragon,  for  a total of 41 minis acquired in the last 6 weeks or so.

In return, I have managed a bit of painting, as I noted above - and here's what I've been up to...

Agramon with Burney Hand

Agramon, Duke of Hell, from Reaper - I'd used him as a tester for Contrast paints some time ago, but never got around to finishing him off, or all of his alternate limbs (and spare head)

He's like a Demonic Mr Ben, really.  Or Worzel Gummidge.
Or Kryten

He comes with a number of differing right hands, and two heads, making him quite a versatile beastie, if you don't glue all the bits in.

Dagon, Lord of the Deep

More Reaper - they have quite a few rather nice Great Old Ones.  Most of those that we have (including Shub-Niggurath, that I've pictured before) are in Mrs H's inbox.  But I did manage to nab Dagon for myself.  This was mostly done with Contrast paints, and has turned out rather well, I feel.  Hopefully once we get back to gaming in person he'll have a use in one of my RPGs

Mossbeard.  No actual beard of moss though.

Mossbeard the Treeman is HUGE!.  I also didn't use moss on his beard, but a fair amount of it elsewhere.  I didn't have a base big enough for him, so stole an old CD spool, and thickened it up with some air dtying clay.

Skeletal Dragon.  Does exactly what it says on the tin.

The Skeletal Dragon was wonderfully simple to paint, and looks nicely imposing on the table too.

Though Master H told me that "It's scary, but Shadow the Wizard (his RPG Sorceress) can kill it like the Giant Skeleton".  So I suppose it's not THAT imposing.

I'd wanted a Skeletal Dragon for a while, and when this came up in one of the Reaper Bones kickstarters I jumped on it, figuratively, and left it in a box for months, literally.  But it's done now, and I like it.

It was our Dragon Anniversary, Right?

My aforementioned Wedding Anniversary Present was from Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures. Pre-Undercoated, though if I get more of them, I shall remember to wash EVERYTHING, as the rocks on the base were a paint to paint, even with the pre-undercoatyness.  This was the first model I used my new magnifier thing on - and while it makes a great difference to the detail I can see on the figure, it really screwed with my head in terms of depth perception.  I just couldn't judge the distance from the brush to the figure well ... practice practice practice!

They call him Rand.

Rand, one of Reapers Chronoscope Heroes, was the next figure to get the magnifier treatment, and I Was getting a little more used to it by then.  I'm really liking the clear bases for Sci-Fi figures.  Can't see myself using them for Fantasy models, but they really set the Sci-Fi figures off nicely. I expect he will join the revolution against the following chaps.

Nothing Otherworldy about us ...

The Otherworldly Guard are another set from the excelled Crooked Dice Pulp Sci-Fi kickstarter, though now they're out into the general populace, so to speak.

Anyone who's seen a certain 1980's film can see the inspiration for them here, I chose to paint mine to match the 'secret police' General and Commander, but they lend themselves nicely to almost any raygun wielding soldier archetype whether Good, Evil, or in between.

As the big figures only count as one (thanks Gimli), I've only managed to complete 10 figures in the past 6 weeks.  I've definitely slipped ... but what I have done, I'm happy with, so that's good enough for me.

A little slide back on Painted vs. Acquired, even with the time since my last post, but I'm still ahead for the year, and only 21 more to go, and I'll have got one model painted for every day this year - which would be an achievement all of it's own!

Running Totals

Painted : 345

Acquired 138