Getting a good start on the month

 

March went pretty well, all told, with five models painted. I decided to start off April by finishing off this Otherworld Miniatures Pack-bearer I've been faffing over since last year. I got the backpack glued on, tided up the bits of the paint job the glue had damage, and got his base sorted out.

My current front light is a bit yellow for my preference. Still not got the photo rig exactly how I want it, so more tinkering is needed!

The big plan for this "quarter" (April - June) is to get any Combined Army I've owned more than a year painted up and table ready, and get all the Infinity models I got back from my assembly people based up and paint ready as the "next batch".

I could have been a little more ambitious with this, but I realised that with Empire, the LRP I play, starting up again, I'm going to have slightly fewer weekends available. I also want to spend a bit more time clearing out the tat lying around my flat and making it more pleasant to live in, which will also take time.

I also had a small Reaper order turn up that I decided to assemble straight away rather than having it go away into a box. Reaper was selling a model to fundraise for UNICEF to help in Ukraine, and I added a handful of other models into the basket to make the postage worthwhile.

I'm not a fan of the integrated bases the models come with, and they're too thick to hide by gluing to another base and then building up the basing material, so I decided to take them off while catching up on Critical Role.

While using my clippers to get the worst of the material off, I discovered that the Siocast that Reaper are using for the Bones USA figures has a tendency of shattering. Fortunately, it breaks very cleanly and is super easy to glue back together again.

Here's the little nightingale back together again. But every single model I've tried to trim the base off has had this happen - and twice I've lost a little detail from feet that wasn't recoverable. I don't think I can complain too badly, though. I'm definitely using the miniatures in a way that's "not intended", but it's certainly something to bear in mind for other hobbyists with a fondness for conversions or similar.

So, I've got the nightingale bard all assembled and ready to paint.

I've also sorted the Bugbear Fighter and Gnoll Ravager done too. The Gnoll Pirate is following on behind as he wasn't quite finished assembly when I did this batch of undercoating.

I'm aware I've been getting more assembly and painting done this week, and it's a trend I'd like to reverse - I've got tons of models assembled and ready for paint already. Part of the issue is around space and time - I can do a lot of my assembly work while doing something else, while the painting is something I need to concentrate on.

Also, for Life Reasons, the hobby desk was a little hard to access this week so I took some assembly through to my office desk instead. Having the hobby space easy to access is clearly something that helps significantly, so it's something to bear in mind going forward.

This Oathsworn Miniatures Magic User is about 30% done now, and shouldn't be much effort to finish. I went with brighter colours for her clothes than I typically do for D&D miniatures. My logic was that wizardry is quite an expensive thing to study, so you're likely to see a number of adventurers who might be from richer backgrounds taking up wizardry than other classes.

I also started blocking in some colours on the Noctifer Spitfire. There's a whole bunch to get done so I'll start painting a few more at once, at least with blocking the colours in.

After thinking about it, I've requested a cancellation for the Goonhammer Open in May. Looking at the infection numbers in the UK, I'm really not comfortable in getting on public transport for a long while, or staying inside with a crowd of people for two days. Right now, I'm not even comfortable going out for a game in person for four or five hours for a learning game inside. Back to gaming on Tabletop Simulator it is!

Over the weekend, I did think about blitzing through some scatter terrain in the near future. However, looking at my available space, I realised I need to get the Infinity models I'm assembling finished up and away before I'd have the space to put the scatter terrain. Remembering to finish a thing and put it away before starting a new thing so I don't get cluttered and overwhelmed is a good step, and I wanted to celebrate avoiding the heffalump trap I could have fallen into!