Some actual progress

I'm pleased to say that I have some actual progress to report for once, rather than another set of flimsy excuses as to why nothing is done!

I have completed assembling an empire battle wizard for Sim to paint. He's now undercoated and passed over to her.

I've also got all of the painting done on my conscripts! For proof, see here:

I'm holding off on doing their bases until I've finished sorting out the preparation for my next painting, as I don't like taking basing stuff with me to Darksphere - I think it's too messy.

My next project is the Collodi boxed set for Malifaux, so I can start playing that. The Marionettes are prepped and undercoated. I plan on starting on the Wicked Dolls shortly...

Here are the Marionettes. You may notice I've done a black undercoat with some oddness with a white spray. I'm trying something called "Xenithal" painting, specifically with the undercoat - which meant doing a white spray from directly above the miniature. You may notice the second miniature from the left is still mostly black - that's because he was blu-tacked on at a slight angle leaning forwards - so his back is a lot whiter than the front. I'm going to leave that be and see how that affects the paint job - I can always fix it later.

I am being reminded how much I've been spoiled by Games Workshop in terms of miniature assembly and prep. Collodi's arms / hands are a screaming nightmare of awful, which isn't helped by the fact that this is the first time I've pinned anything ever (and boy, does he need it). Two of the Marionettes are dancing at odd angles on one leg and the flimsy leg they are standing on bends incredibly easily!

I'm also having a huge amount of indecision around the crew basing. I mean, they can stay on their 30mm round bases they came on for a while, but I wanted to experiment with something a little special, and I'm having some indecision between two contenders. I'm going to think on it, but here's the challengers;

Black Cat Bases

Secret Weapon Miniatures

The Black Cat bases are inserts for the existing bases, and made out of metal. I really like the planks of wood thing they have going on.

Secret Weapon miniatures' bases are all resin, and have a base lip to allow you to fill them up with swampy water effect once you've added your miniatures.

The price is comparable for the two, but I'm really stuck as to which ones to go for...