Aenor Goblins Finished

 

I finally finished the goblins by Aenor Miniatures that have been stuck on my desk forever. I'm pretty pleased with how they came out, and a bit annoyed that the passage of time has meant I forgot a few bits of how I did them, which meant when bits needed fixing due to overpaint, I struggled to get the right colour match.

This does remind me that I really need to work on getting half done bits and pieces finished before I move house. Not just because half finished projects are harder to move and you're more likely to miss things, but the delightful feeling of Just Finishing Things is probably going to be needed for morale purposes in the run up to the move.

I still need to finish up the new Conquest Druids, but the new item for the paint table is this Dwarf from Otherworld Miniatures. She's going to serve duty as a Templar in my Frostgrave warband, so I need to get her painted up before my next game.

Work in Progress Wednesday: Aenor Miniatures Goblins

As well as the trolls I picked up during the Aenor Miniatures Kickstarter, I also ordered a whole ton of goblins. While Aenor do both metal and resin, I'd picked metal to go with the rest of my planned goblin army at the time. I've since seen sense and am offloading a lot of goblins, but some of them were just too characterful to go, so I've kept them as a little painting project.

Here's the brains of the outfit - a goblin wizard. He's definitely the brains because he has both a book, and a big fancy stick.

This adorable bell ringer was going to be a musician in my Oldhammer style goblin Age of Sigmar army, before I gave up on the idea. But I had to keep him. He looks so put upon. Unfortunately, the metal chain attaching the bell to the rest of the mini fell off as soon as you sneezed on it. The bell is now firmly pinned to the hand of the goblin, because life is too short.

Goblins are mean little beasts, and these three, I think, really sum up that aspect of them. Sword goblin really looks like he wants to be hiding behind some big orc or something, shaking his fist from behind the big guy. Crossbow goblin is one of the bigger goblins, and has both a fancy crossbow and much bigger armour. He's clearly some sort of bully who isn't afraid to beat up the smaller goblins. And bow goblin is a nasty little sneak who doesn't just want to shoot you from range, but in the back as well.

These two are clearly on guard duty. I think they remind me of some Fighting Fantasy illustrations of goblins, all long and thin, but also massively different creatures one to the next, like Froud's work. They are sad, and bored. And probably a little damp. It's dark and there's a dripping noise around them.

So, that's my little tribe of Aenor goblins. They're in the queue to get painted one day . . .

Review of the Year - 2018

So, how did 2018 go? Lets ignore the wider world, shall we? It is a silly place. My hobby year has broadly been dominated by Infinity and moving house. I've got a little painting done, but stuff I have painted myself amounts to an unspectacular 13 pieces of scenery. This might be the worst on record in on this blog.

Broadly, this has been down to an inaccessible paint table due to untidiness followed by the stresses of packing and moving. I managed to get three pieces of Reaper Bones scenery knocked out before the move, and getting just a tiny bit painted reminded me of the massive buzz that finishing a project had, and made me really keen to get more done in the New Year.

The slow progress of painting, and the process of packing stuff up into boxes made me realise just how much stuff I'm no longer engaged by is sculling about my flat. It's definitely time for a clear out.

I've updated my "On the Desk" page to cover my extended "year" up to the end of 2019. The goal is to paint twice as much as I buy, and establish a sensible measure for how much I can get painted in a year. Then, hopefully, 2020 can be about getting my unpainted models down to a year's worth of painting.

I got a bunch of goblins commission painted. I'm not going to be diving madly into the "Gloomspite Gitz" - for one thing, spiders are not popular around the flat! I still want to get a sensibly sized goblin army commission painted, because it is a thing I want to see in the world. We'll see how it goes next year.

Getting my Druze Bayram Security commission painted has been one of my best decisions of the year. I would have played my first fully painted Infinity game yesterday had I not accidentally left two painted models out of the case. It was a good feeling. Druze are a very hard force to get right in Infinity, and it's not a forgiving game, but I'm determine to stick them out for the reason of ITS Season X, which runs until August. I hope by then to have some of my Nomad figures painted, and the Druze commission painting expanded to include Ikari.

But the big thing for me next year is going to be settling in to my new home. From the blog's point of view, that should mean more painted figures as the hobby space is cleared and becomes easy to access and use. But a "plans for 2019" post is going to wait until later...

I hope both my readers have a Happy New Year.

Goblins!

Yet more miniatures painted by someone who isn't me! Here's my first batch of goblins by Brushchewer Inc. Once I've found the light box I'll take some better photographs.

This definitely proves my idea that a bundle of goblins from different miniatures from different manufacturers painted in a unified scheme really do look excellent as a motley horde of troublemakers.

I just need to have a serious think if I want to go through with an entire army of them given my current priorities.

I've just received notification that my copy of the Infinity book Third Offensive has arrived, complete with a complementary Libertos Freedom Fighter, so that's a twentieth model purchased, but 20 painted goblins is definitely starting to catch up!

Hopefully the weekend will allow me to get some painting done myself...

Models Painted: 30
Models Purchased: -20

WIP Goblins from Brushchewer

As all is still boxes here in the land of the Responsible One, I thought I’d share some work in progress pictures I got from Brushchewer Inc, who are painting an assortment of my goblins at the moment.

There’s a good selection in the batch - the idea has always been that the army is a motley assortment of different body shapes of goblin brought together by a single paint scheme. You can see some Northumbrian Tin Soldier Nightfolk, a figure from GoblinAid and one from Atlantis Miniatures. I don’t recall where the drummer is from - he’s almost certainly a Kev Adams sculpt, but I don’t recall if he’s Crooked Claw or someone else!

Still, it’s always good to see some progress on miniatures you’ve sent off elsewhere! I can’t wait to see them back in person when they’re finished.

Solving the painting problem

Photo by Aodhan

With time remaining a precious commodity, I've decided to engage the services of some commission painters to get some painted models on the table. First up is Aodhan, a fellow member of HATE. I've asked him to paint up the models I have picked up for Druze Bayram Security, for Infinity. I'm intending to use them for ITS Season 10, which starts after the Interplanetario tournament in August.

Photo by Aodhan

Aodhan and I have been talking about this colour scheme for a while as he finished up some previous commissions. Using a couple of his own models, he sketched in a rough idea of what the figures woudl look like as I am really bad at visualising things. I found this super useful to get an idea of what the models would look like when done.

Photo by Aodhan

Once the plan for the figure and the base were agreed, he's cracked on with the models, as in the first photo. Now, the 'sketching' isn't free - I'm paying him for his time! But it's a really useful thing you can sometimes do which really helps communicate between commissioner and artist.

Aodhan will have a few more batches of Druze to come once he's got through the batch he has now. I'm really looking forward to getting a fully painted force for Infinity onto the tabletop... Meanwhile, once the house move is done, I plan on starting to paint up my Nomads, but I suspect that is going to take me a while, even with a dedicated painting area.

Meanwhile, I've sent an assortment of goblins off to Brushchewer Inc, a painting service up in Scotland. I've realised that really, what I'm excited about with my massive goblin collection is the idea of the visual of the army, not necessarily painting it for myself!

So, with AoS 2E having released, I've asked Brushchewer to punch out a regiment of 20 assorted goblins to see how they do. If it goes well, I'll keep pushing them goblins until they're sick of them! My idea with this is to get a playable 2,000 point Age of Sigmar force painted up and start playing some games to learn it. I may not keep the goblins forever - I have an Order force in particular I have some ideas for - but they will exist in the world and I'll be happy about that, even if I end up selling them on to a new home after playing with them a while.

The new hobby area isn't quite there yet, but I'm pleased I've managed to come up with a way of getting some hobby progressing along!

Weekend progress - goblin wizard painted

So, alongside the fun and games of trying to paint a small Chaos army in five months, I knew that I needed to get a few quick paint jobs done in between, if only to maintain my own sanity, if not interest in the project. I know I have a bad habit of getting hung up on stuff if I spend too long on that and nothing else. So, along comes another goblin.

This is a GoblinAid sculpt by George Fairlamb. I originally painted the robes blue in the intention of painting stars on it in yellow, but the practice stars soon made it clear I didn't have the brush control to manage that. So, that turned into the star on the hat.

I have also updated my Goblin project page with the extra progress.

I also got a bit of miniature preparation done - nothing work photographing at the moment, though. I finally finished assembling and undercoating my Arco-flagellants for my Inquisition force. I also started on a Chaos Blacksmith for a painting challenge over at the Oldhammer Forum.

The model pictured, though, was my cleaning the resin on Tik Tok by Darkstar Miniatures, as a favour for my darling wife. It's a lovely sculpt, and made me definitely think about picking up one or two of their kits for painting. Perhaps as a reward for getting through the current Tale of Gamers project?

Goblins, Snorklings, month and and next month's plans...

So, I'm continuing with trying to get a model a week painted so there's something pretty for people to look at when they come to the blog. Or in this case, ugly. Here's some Snorklings, sculpted by Kev Adams. I got these with the Kev Adams self portrait sculpt I painted a while back that Foundry sold for GoblinAid.

I painted these up to check I was happy with my planned colour scheme for the goblins. Quite happy with that!

The main activity of the weekend was goblin assembly. I spent a bit of time trying to work out how this Goblin Spear Chukka went together before realising that the central piece of it was missing. I bought it cheap, sold as seen, due to a damaged blister. I'm going to have to be creative to sort this one out!

I was hoping to get about twenty or so goblins assembled this weekend. I've managedt complete these four shaman and a squiggly beast familiar. An internet gold star for anyone who can name the company / caster for all of these! (This does really show off the sort of thing I'm looking for with my goblins - a rag tag bunch of greenskins from many different suppliers!)

The plastic GW goblin shaman needs to stay in the pieces he's in for painting, as getting a paint brush into some of the nooks and crannies would be otherwise near impossible! There still needs to be a little work on the mould lines on the staff, but it is super fiddly, and I didn't want to rush it!

So, with the February project having been goblin assembly, I've not been hugely successful. They are at least organised, and I know how much effort assembling and painting them will be. For now, I'm going to keep a handful on the assembly desk as I move through other things, trying to get a few done a week until I've got a couple of units assembled up.

I've also put a little bit of fiction on my goblin project page. As units get assembled and / or painted, I'll get pictures and background put up there.

This is the March target. It does look like a lot when you pile it all together. Not all of it is purchases - due to being away at Christmas, we had a late family Christmas in February, so I have many presents! The idea is to get this lot all assembled in the course of the month.

It can be broadly broken down into:

• The Chaos models I wanted that went onto Last Chance to Buy
• An Age of Sigmar force using Bretonnian peasants as survivors of a lost kingdom of the mortal realms (because I was afraid they were going to become Last Chance to Buy)
• Skitarii (present)
• Arcane Ruins (present)
• Arco Flagellants (present)
• Arcworlde Boglin Bazaar

This is certainly an ambitious target. Some might say "brave". But I'm determined to start dealing with  models as they come in! Hopefully, I'll get a couple of speed paints in as palate cleansers as I slog through the mould line removal and gluing!

Wish me luck...

Shamelessly painting models for clicks

The problem with an assembly blitz / focus is that it turns out that lots of pictures of well cleaned up part assembled models really doesn't drive blog traffic. So, to shamelessly pander to what gets clicks, here's a Reaper Bones Medusa I painted up this weekend. It's just a basic paint job, but I had mostly bought her at Salute as a model to learn how to paint Bones on.

I also think she might be the first ever model that I bought at Salute that I've painted myself. That's probably bad, right? I should probably fix that.

I also got in some solid progress on Myth, who is my Tiefling Bard. He's a Heroforge 3D print. I want to get more detail done on him, and some of the base coats are quite rough. I'm also really not sure about the colour I've done on the gloves. Anyone got any ideas?
 

I've previously mentioned my . . . somewhat crowded 'painting table'. It's the dining room table, and half of it should belong to my beloved wife. This is not a source of harmony in my life. So, time to make a bit of a dent in it!

The mess, not the table. The landlord would get grumpy.

Those of you who remember my Goblin Accident at Salute last year will see some familiar suspects on the right of this shot. So... Lets get that sorted out.

 First, I cleared a space and put some stuff away so I actually had enough room to do some organising. I should probably do some more of that clearing and putting away thing in the future, too!

Then I grabbed some foam trays and started sorting the goblins out into sections. I now have a good idea of how many goblins I have, groups they can be sensibly assembled and painted in, and so on. The foam trays take up much less space than the piles of poorly piled up blister packs, so they can go away and take up far less space.

I didn't quite have enough bases, so I put in a small base order with Heresy Miniatures, who, it turns out, stock a good number of different types of bases as well as awesome models and stuff.

I'm feeling really good about my hobby progress this weekend. I've got a finished painted model, another model up to tabletop quality and ready for details and faffing about, and the Goblin Problem is now a Manageable Goblin Problem With a Plan.

It turns out that doing hobby stuff and getting successes in turn makes you feel more enthused, so you end up wanting to do more hobby. This feels like a good positive re-inforcement circle I should continue...