Race to the Finish Line 2021

It seems like I've got more painting in the past few weeks than all the rest of the second half of 2021. I'm continuing to enjoy painting figures for a Five Parsecs From Home campaign starting early in 2022. I've even started organizing the progress here. Take a look at the menu at the top of the page for the Five Parsecs painting progress and my crew's page. Both are works in progress.

My holiday progress consists of...

Weird little Spaven mutant/familiar.

Gangers from Grenadier and Bad Squiddo.

And another from Grenadier, plus the fourth Reaper (Bones) worm.

Two more worms painted & join in for a family photo.

Apparently I missed one more figure, another from Grenadier.

I've also painted a few fantasy figures. Like this old Ral Partha hydra that I received as a Christmas gift four years ago and finally painted!

Also a couple of minions for the envoy of Death I painted earlier this year. Suitable Deadcember fare, I suppose.

 

Father Trollsmas

 

I've been waiting all year to paint this for the yule holiday. Last of my unpainted Satyr Art Studio trolls. Unless he sculpts more. Or I can get my hands on the two from Apocalypse Miniatures.

Father Trollsmas, give us the fungi
We'll beat you up if you make us annoyed
Father Trollsmas, give us the fungi
Don't mess around with those silly toys

I tried some new snow material on the base. Looks like I need to brush some of it off the figure itself.

Squad Challenge, Deadcember Pt. 1, and OWAC5 Intro

After the mid-year slack, I'm back. It seems.

 

 

For as long as I've been participating in the Old World Army Challenge (since the second one) I have also participated in a smaller challenge at the end of the year. I'm not sure of the origin. A warm-up for the January start of the OWAC? Something to keep our skills honed in the "off season"? A chance to fill in a small gap from the challenge army? Paint a small group that isn't large enough to fit the full army challenge? Not sure. I suppose I could just ask.

At any rate, the Squad Challenge is a challenge to get a squad/regiment/team of 10 figures painted in two months. Last year I painted dwarfs. I don't even remember if I completed the challenge. The year before it was half-orcs since it coincided with Orctober. This year I painted a group of sci-fi "supporting characters" in hope of further building my pool of figures for some Five Parsecs and/or other gaming. (Hopefully soon.)

These are my ten challenge figures, plus two wurms that got added along the way.

Four miscellaneous characters, three bots, two spaven, and on Fimm-In-Spaaaaace. And the space wurms.

Additionally, I painted two super simple/fast groups of antagonists. Spiders From Mars (cheap and easy until I get some actual alien "bugs") and Astro-Zombies. The former want to break up the band, while the latter want to exterminate the whole human race. ;)

A good bit of progress after a few slow months!

 

Overlapping the Squad Challenge is Deadcember -- The Most Wonderful Time of the Year. The Astro-Zombies sort of fit that theme. 

 

On to the deadicated Deadcember painting, however, I painted these wraiths that I had intended to work on last December. They're Reaper Bones figures with most of the bendy-weapons replaced.

 

I also just painted my first test figure for a potential sidequest project I've been thinking about -- Althammer skirmishes in the New World. If I can muster the patience to assemble the remaining five skeletons from Warlord, I will paint those and the big bad guy (figure from Lucid Eye.)

Looking forward to 2022, I will once again be participating in the Old World Army Challenge! For OWAV5 I will be painting.... more undead! My Introduction Post is up on the site, with more details and photos.

Spoiler: I painted the Overlord Offering for Iannick. :)

Five Parsecs from Gaming

It appears to have been a while since I've updated. That's due to the lack of painting or gaming since the beginning of July. 2021 has not been kind.

First, a bit of catching up. Early in July I posted my wrap-up for the 2021 Old World Army Challenge. I've never had difficulty finishing a painting challenge until this year. In fact, I skipped everything other than the OWAC. (No "Big April", "Month of Marsh", or "Orctober" for me.) But at least I'm happy with the end result of OWAC 2021!

https://oldworldarmychallenge.blogspot.com/2021/07/zerotwentythrees-post-owac4-eldar.html

Recently (last two weeks or so) I've squeezed out some time at the painting desk again. Thank FSM. I needed it. Painting is my anti-stress, my meditation. And I needed it.

I've been continuing with the sci-fi theme, participating in the "squad challenge" that the OWAC group does as an off-season warm up or something like that. Essentially, it's painting 10 figures with a common theme over 2 months. I'm continuing with sci-fi, painting some more "supporting characters" for a hopeful solo campaign of Five Parsecs From Home. More on that later.

So the painting...

First 3 of the 10 figure challenge. Nulltron, washed up egotistical robot overlord; Slem, time and space displaced fianna Fimir turned galactic fringe bounty hunter; and Jaz, just Jaz.

David Rattenborough, famed Spaven naturalist & mutalogical engineer, with his field assistant, Gleek. Seen here with a vox caster, no doubt presenting the findings of his latest expedition.

99% done painting. Still need inspiration to hit for something entertaining to paint on the scroll.

Not sure if she's summoning them up from below ground or about to get eaten. Pic could be telling either story.

Stalking the crystal fields.

Small terrain piece kitbashed from various bits of trash.

Mostly I work. This year we had an official OK for costumes on the Friday before Halloween, we decorated like we never have before, and our last hour of the work day was "trick or treat."  So this was my casual Friday look. Unfortunately I didn't have any video meetings. "Yes, behold the wraith who designs your retail stores!"

RoboKali

Forgot to post this. At some point I painted this robo-Kali that I got from eBay. Not sure of the origin/manufacturer. Plastic figure. Quick paint. Eldar included for scale comparison.

June Old World Army Challenge Entry (Eldar)

Last month of the Old World Army Challenge. Wrap up post will be coming soon, with pics of the whole pirate force together. But here's the June entry (which I barely managed to finish on time.)

April Old World Army Challenge (more Eldar)

 It seems like I'm bad at keeping up with re-posting my OWAC entries here.

Click/top to enlarge.

More pics, words, background here: http://oldworldarmychallenge.blogspot.com/2021/05/zerotwentythrees-april-eldar-pirates.html

And all of The Good Stuff here: http://oldworldarmychallenge.blogspot.com/

Catching Up

 Stuff! In the mail! Someone's got a new ride coming soon. Spinner from Scotia-Grendel. That mold line at the back is going to be a bear to remove, but other than that I like the model quite a bit and may get a another. I think I've got a role for them in the background/setting I've been developing in my head and scattered notes.... and occasionally slip out into some entries here and at the OWAC site.

 

 

 

More stuff! In the mail! Peasants, Kickstarter reward from Midlam Miniatures.

Converted a couple of new Spaven. Famed Spaven mutologist, David Rattenborough (and assistant), leading a field expedition, reporting on newly discovered alien fauna.

 

 

Last week my family and I managed a brief get-away. A spring break in Hocking Hills. My daughter took this first photo, and said it is called "Cave Man." On the topic of caves, the second photo is of the "lower falls" on the Old Man's Cave trail. Cave Man... Old Man's Cave. I'm not sure I appreciate this association. ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

March OWAC Eldar

I almost forgot to post my March entry for the OWAC!

Basic pics of the 10 Eldar pirates below. More info at my OWAC entry: http://oldworldarmychallenge.blogspot.com/2021/04/zerotwentythrees-march-eldar-pirates.html

 

 

 

Life and Death, pt. 2

I finished the second half of my "Life and Death" duo. The concept was a priest serving each cause. As it turned out, a liche and a healer.

This started as an excuse to paint the liche. So I had to look for a suitable counterpart and found this healer from Reaper. I obviously inverted some of the major colors black/white and crimson/turquoise. But I stuck with gold baubles & accessories and matched the liche's red orb with a similar feature in the healer's staff. In hindsight, I'm wondering if I should repaint the brown "wrap" on her staff turquoise, both to add some more color and to mimic the red on the sword grip.

The healer is hard to photograph, the colors get washed out. I'm very happy with the way this pair turned out. I'm contemplating whether they each need followers or minions. I've already got plenty of generic undead. Maybe a sidekick/henchman? What to do for the healer? I do have the old Citadel Life and Death Elementals for them each to summon as well.

Comments Disabled Due to Spam

I've disabled comments on this site. At least for now. I've been getting hit daily by spammers and don't have the energy/time to keep up with deleting their bullshit.

 

Martian and Snail

John Cartorc found himself a Martian friend.

 

 

I previously made some iron shell terrain. But this Eldar has stumbled across a live ferro-snail!

Current mood:

Life and Death, pt. 1

 I'm working on a new "Life and Death” themed pair of figures and finished the first one. Guess which one this is?

Worms and HOrcs in spaaaace!

 Me: Half way through March and I've almost finished half my OWAC goals for the month. I can do this! I just need to stay on track, make sure to finish the first squad over the weekend!

Also Me: Those Eldar really want to watch a space-half-orc battle with a space-purple worm. They'd like that. I'd better get on that right away!

Also: New terrain for the photo background (and hopefully small skirmish games coming soon).

 

Reaper half-orc converted with some old GW bits. Not sure who manufactured the worm, it came from my friend Rich's collection. It's a soft vinyl figure and looks like it was torn from some other base. I'm guessing from some sort of collectible or "Clix" game figure? Some quick and sloppy paint & a thick coat of gloss varnish and I think it looks good! I have a few more to paint up, I think I'll follow the same technique.

Sci-Fi Board

 I started working on a new photo board and some small scatter terrain for my Space Elves and other sci-fi junk. Still working on some background stuff for pics.

I recently read about a species of snail that forms a shell of iron, and thought it would be a cool idea to scale that up and use some discarded alien mega-snail shells as terrain.

February OWAC4 Entry

My February entry in the Old World Army Challenge is up! Go there for all the words and pictures. I'll just post a teaser below...

http://oldworldarmychallenge.blogspot.com/2021/02/zerotwentythrees-february-eldar-pirates.html

Sci-Fi Mix

A little bit of recent painting...

I've recruited two chaos champions as sci-fi ne'er-do-wells. Mssrs. Scum & Villainy. Nothing stopping me from using them for fantasy gaming either, but they do both have firearms and I've based them to match the recent sci-fi/Alt Trader stuff.

 

 

 Eye, Robot. Quick scratch built light hoverbot.

 

Fourth color test figure. I like this. Maybe a bit more towards the brighter end of the gradient, a little less area of dark end showing. For the most part I think I'm going to stick with the green, blue and purple for the infantry. I don't think the yellow fits in, even without the purple present.

I'm working on a couple more space adventurers. Here's one...

Small Mix

Randomly painting a handful of figures lately. Familiar themes, but following my whims...

Not sure where the guy on the right is from, but figured he would make a good sci-fi civilian. The figure on the left (from Reaper, I believe) was painted years ago at a speed painting contest at Historicon. I figured he could also be drafted into service as a sci-fi civilian, so I finished his base to match the others.

A pair of skeletons from Northstar. I got a pack of these to see if they would fit well with other oldschool metal skeletons...

...so here they are with recently painted figures from Citadel, Marauder, and Grenadier. Thoughts?

More stuff just starting to get paint on my painting desk (along with four more of the Northstar skeletons)... another Eldar color test, a couple of old Citadel chaos champions to use as sci-fi ne'er-do-wells, and the life/death duo I recently bought on a whim.

I increasingly find myself learning to enjoy cooking. In particular, spending time outdoors grilling & eating on the back patio helped get me through the Covid isolation for a long time. Now that winter is hear, I'm still experimenting with cooking a lot of new dishes, but not spending time outdoors. Feeling a little cabin fever setting in already.

But last weekend I was making white chili for the first time and wanted to roast some poblano peppers over actual fire. I decided 35°F is good grilling weather (and it was!) so I fired up the grill and went at it. Our dog also misses spending time with us outdoors -- and grilling too, since she usually got some scraps! No peppers for her, but she did come outside and run around the yard (in her pajamas) with me like a couple of fools. I think she misses the warm weather as much as I do.

We've currently got some snow on the ground, but just a couple of inches. However temperatures will be dipping down to single digit numbers this coming week. So I'm glad to have had a brief moment outside with my dog and grill.