03 October 2010

Painting on the Horizon & Mystery No More

My painting desk has been collecting junk and unused for a while, as I've been busy with other things. I cleared off some of the paperwork that was on top, and unearthed the sub-mess beneath. Soon I should have time to get back to painting figures.



The first orders of business are finishing some commission figures. The dragon in the background has been almost done forever, I just can't seem to get more than 15 minutes at a time to wrap it up. That's number one. I've also got to wrap up my figure for the miniatures-swap at warhammer-empire.com. I'll be cutting it close to the Nov. 1 deadline. A little change from being one of the first ones done last year. Then I've got a small batch of commission figures started (just to the rear/left of those sprues in the foreground.)

After that, I hope to do some more painting for myself. I've got quite a backlog of projects. (In no particular order.)
  • Empire: Characters, State Troops, Knights, Artillery Crew, DoW
  • Skaven: Clanrats, Plague Monks, Doomwheel, Characters, Rat Ogres & Giant Rats
  • Medieval: Flemish Pike, Crossbow, Plançonnier, Artillery Crew, Medium Cav
  • Renaissance: Landsknecht Pike & Shot, Gendarmes
  • Romans: ...will never end... always more Romans.
  • Macedonian Successors: Boatloads o' pike. Still need to get cav & light troops, but want to paint some of what I've got before buying any new figures.
  • 15mm Musket era? Ever since playing Black Powder, I've had the itch to start... Again, I should probably paint down some of the waiting pile already in my possession.



I finished my "mystery sculpt," shown below. It's a bit glossy at the moment, and may stay that way. It's a cake topper for my upcoming (a week away!) wedding.

I paint/draw orange rabbits, my fiancé loves butterflies. On our invitations we had an image of a butterfly landing on a curious rabbit's nose, and she wanted something like that for the cake topper.



My artists' acrylics were a bit old. I undercoated each with a lighter shade (yellow under the orange and cerulean under the pthalo blue) and everything was fine. But the orange and pthalo both turned out very thick & chunky, leaving a lot of texture. I tried fixing this on the second coat, but only made it worse before going out and buying two new tubes of paint. A bit too late, though, so there's still a lot of texture. I really wanted a nice smooth finish.

This will probably be my last update as a single man. But the next one should have some actual miniatures and/or gaming stuff in it. Some people talk about their hobby time ending when they get married. I'm looking forward to having time for it once again once all the wedding work is done!

4 comments:

  1. Love the cake topper - really eye-catching and meaningful. Don't worry about the hobby stopping after marriage, I celebrated eighteen years of it yesterday and haven't really slowed down that much because of it. Best wishes for the big day.

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  2. I'll give you my congrats now.My wife and I just had our 20th this past June.

    Bruce

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  3. Thanks, guys.

    One of the things I appreciate about my soon-to-be-wife is that she's good with the gaming stuff. She has no personal interest in it, but doesn't mind my hobby. Prior to our meeting, she already had friends who were into gaming of various sorts (though more RPG & boardgaming people, I think.)

    In fact, she was the one who suggested I sculpt & paint the cake topper.

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  4. From what I've experienced,wives generally like for their husbands to have a hobby.They know that youre not out doing things you shouldnt ;). My wife,while she generally doesnt have any interest,hasnt ever complained,and I even have my own dedicated room where I can paint.

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