Last of the Oathsworn Dwarves and Endsong

 

I finished up the last of the Oathsworn Dwarves. She's ended up a little pale skinned, but I reckon it still works for her. It is just a tabletop quality paint job, but getting the last few bits and pieces finished up was a really good feeling.

Meanwhile, "Endsong", the latest Infinity book, has arrived. Infinity books these days are just background books, updating the lore and future history of the setting. They're paired with new miniature releases and new free rules released online. The pre-order bundle this time around included Maximus and a Caskuda, an Exrah and a Bakunin HVT. I'll be selling off Maximus as none of my factions use him, but the rest will be seeing service with my Combined Army or Nomads...

Let there be (painting) light!

The replacement part for the broken hobby room light turned up quicker than expected, and I managed to be productive! First up is this Dwarf Shieldmaiden from Oathsworn Miniatures, though I believe she's now out of production.

I'd started painting her with Contrast, but decided to finish her up with normal acrylic highlights. I suspect I could go in and spend another hour on tweaking her a little more, but she's fine for RPG purposes, so I'm calling her done.

I deliberately went with brighter highlights than I'm used to, sometimes blending, sometimes not depending on the materials I was highlighting. This is all stuff I'm doing more of following the Roman Lappat beginner's course, which has really changed how I think about painting.

The cloak was a particular problem as the Contrast hadn't done a great job there. I got it OK in the end, but I think I'd definitely start it differently in future.

Then I realised that the battery for the flexible light I use for front lighting photos had also started to die, possibly just to mess with me. I ended up having to charge it and retake the photo of these Reaper Bones wolves for D&D as the first ones were way too dark...

I've got one last Oathsworn dwarf to finish, and have been getting a few more O-12 models ready for paint too. I'm also starting to get paint on these Mutant Marshes scatter terrain pieces for creepy horror games.

A fresh start and a dwarf berserker

 

With most of the clutter from the flat now safely stowed in a storage unit, I managed to settle down and finish up another one of the dwarves I have from Oathsworn Miniatures. This one is clearly intended to be a Troll Slayer type character from the Warhammer setting.

I ended up sticking with the bright orange hair as I was having deep indecision about an alternative hair colour, but he's otherwise pretty generically painted so he can easily be used as some kind of berserker or barbarian in D&D and similar.

Oathsworn Miniatures Dwarf Rune Lord

 

I managed to finish up this dwarf by Oathsworn Miniatures. I believe he's out of production now. It's just a tabletop quality paint job, and I'm spotting a couple of bits I'm tempted to go back and fix looking at the photos I took now. But I'm going to count him as finished and done and move on to the next figures...

End of February Hobby Review

 

While I kept on plugging through fixing the Mantic scatter terrain and painting the Oathsworn dwarfs I have, I quickly knocked out this Fenris Games urn I got sent as a freebie with another order. It wasn't exactly hard to paint, but I just needed something to be done for the sake of my ongoing enthusiasm.

The monster nest from Oathsworn Miniatures was what made me realise that finishing stuff was what was giving me enthusiasm to keep painting while I slogged through a bigger project. I keep learning and forgetting this over and over, but maybe one day it will stick...

The only other thing I got finished this month were these two crow "dolls" from Statuesque Miniatures. As February last year was when I managed to finish a bunch of Shasvastii paint jobs for Smackdown, my twelve month rolling total for projects is now flashing as "overcommitted". With a massive Dungeons & Lasers Kickstarter arriving, I'm definitely not able to justify starting a new project that involves buying things any time soon.

I'm getting this "Miko the Vampire Hunter" by Bad Squiddo Games painted up as my current "stop myself losing all interest in painting from plugging through a bunch of scatter terrain" (which is now 12 out of 16 done, so nearly there!).

To stop my painting numbers "getting worse" I could do with getting three little things painted, along with one "project" item. Ideally, I'd like to get the last of this batch of Terrain Crate finished. If I can get a little more project stuff done, it would be good to get the Militia Urbanmech done. I do still have the Horus Heresy test paints to do, but trying to do two big painting projects at once has proven roundly miserable. I'll get back to the Heresy models when the Terrain Crate is done.

I'm not really planning the "little things" beyond grabbing a nearby model I fancy and getting it painted. The Oathsworn dwarfs will continue to get paint every time I sit down at the desk, but four miniatures at once are too much for "quick wins".

Actually.

I've literally just gone and broken the dwarfs down into four separate little things. If something isn't working for you, change it! I'll try and get one or two of them finished, and maybe something new, and that should keep me on track painting wise this month.

What I'm working on and what got finished - Halfling Rogue and Infinity Defiance Supply Crates

I've got a bit of a deadline at the moment to getthe hobby room tidied so some relatives can use it as a guest room. For a while, this meant that I ended up feeling guilty about painting when I wasn't up for doing tidying, which was a daft thing for my brain to do, because doing something fun with a break means my brain ends up happier.

So I took a deliberate short break to do a little bit of painting, and I had some productive results! First up is this Heroines in Sensible Shoes Halfling Rogue by Oathsworn Miniatures. (You may have trouble reaching their website as it was shut for maintenance for a few days, so I've linked to their Facebook Page.)

I'd ended up with a particularly strong spray zenithal on the model from the side the torch was on, so I decided to play with that a little. Most of the model was painted with contrast paints over the zenithal. I added a little detailing with Kislev Flesh on the face because it was too dark and looked a little weird. As a pure experiment, I drybrushed some light blue and light orange on the sides of the grey base to match the torch, and I think it's ended up turning out really nice. It's a very very lazy "Object Source Lighting" but I think it works and looks nice from a tabletop standard point of view.

 

I also threw some quick contrast over the crates for Defiance that I'll likely also use for crates in Infinity for a while until I get something a that's not limited edition that I'm terrified of losing. I feel like I should have drybrushed up the orange panels a little more with white before adding the orange as they're a little dark, but also, life is too short so I'm not going back to them.

With the things that have been on my desk for ages all finished, what's on my desk now? I'm finishing up some Warlord Games Orcs, which are getting a pretty basic paint job due to them winning the award for Worst Models I've Dealt With All Year. Next up for painting are a couple of Horus Heresy characters to decide if I hate painting Alpha Legion or not, and a Frameworks Mind Flayer and Intellect Devourer, which once painted will get a bit of a review that's been a few months in the making.

I've taken advantage of a couple of online D&D games I'm playing in to start "assembling" the Battletech Game of Armored Combat boxed set and my Urbanmechs. By which I mean "removing the mould lines". Once that's done and I've added basing paste, their getting undercoated will be a bit weather dependent now, but having them ready to go will be great.

The pace over the next couple of weeks may get a little slower as I hit the crunch for making the hobby room an inhabitable not-death-trap, but hopefully a few bits and bobs will make it onto the blog. I am definitely looking forward to it being done, because then I'll be in a much better place with my hobby space from that point onwards...

A handful of D&D figures

 

To get back into painting post LARP season, I decided to knock out some quick tabletop paint jobs on some of my fantasy figures for D&D and skirmish games, some of which may have been hanging around for quite a while...

First up we have this Liche from Heresy Miniatures. He's a nice simple sculpt, with a couple of alternative heads to let you make a warlock or an apprentice mage. For the main robe, I used the new "Stormfiend" Contrast paint. Without watering it down, it turned out to be quite blotchy, so I used a couple of GW Air paints to add some highlights. I found that they didn't blend well, leaving tide marks as I tried to feather the paint into a blend. I eventually got a paint job I was happy with, but it took a bit more faffing than I'd have liked.

Next up was Enrieth, Harefolk Rogue, a Reaper Bones USA model. I'd based her with Zandri Dust, then gave her an Agrax Earthshade wash followed by a white drybrush. I then "coloured her in" with contrast paints. This worked very well and I had very few problems at all. She was an absolute joy to paint without too much detail to have to pick out.

Finally I painted the human cleric from Oathsworn Miniatures "Heroines in Sensible Shoes" line. The hair has come out a little glossy, but I think that will be fine once she gets some varnish on. This was another contrast paint job, with a little bit of highlighting on the face. I've not quite got the hang of non white skin tones just yet, but I'll definitely be keeping on practicing.

The contrast orange wasn't quite light enough for the torch, so I drybrushed it with Kindleflame then used yellow contrast, which turned out really nicely. I also added a few dings and scratches to the shield with a metallic paint, though I think I needed a brush with a better point to make it work.

I reckon with another half hour you could really step her up to a really nice paint job, but I'm happy enough with what I've got here to leave it as is.

This was a good weekend's work, and I'm cheerful about my progress. I've got a few more models painted and ready to use. If I can keep this pace up over the winter, I'll have a whole bunch of models finished.