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Yeah, 45-60 minutes first thing every day really makes a difference. I have a couple of ideas for themed projects I want to try in 2016 that should bring the numbers up quickly, as well. I'm either going to power through some of the Kickstarters I've never finished (like Sedition Wars or Paulson's Mecha Front), or else focus on one KoW army /Deadzone faction per month.

Sounds like a plan, and I'm looking forward to lurking and watching it develop

I'll get back to making similar plans when the little one is a bit bigger and more self-sustaining.

 GrimDork wrote:
Sounds like a plan, and I'm looking forward to lurking and watching it develop

I'll get back to making similar plans when the little one is a bit bigger and more self-sustaining.

Quoted for truth. Speaking of children, my six year-old may have had an epiphany yesterday. He wanted to play with the DS guys along with the MYTH heroes I painted last year, so we set up a big scrum. I overwhelmed him with little bugs, and then we talked about how rules work to differentiate heroes from thugs. I think we'll try DS after we get back from the US.

Hah cool. Mine is still too little for such discussions but I look forward to them should they arise.

 JoshInJapan wrote:

 GrimDork wrote:
Sounds like a plan, and I'm looking forward to lurking and watching it develop

I'll get back to making similar plans when the little one is a bit bigger and more self-sustaining.

Quoted for truth. Speaking of children, my six year-old may have had an epiphany yesterday. He wanted to play with the DS guys along with the MYTH heroes I painted last year, so we set up a big scrum. I overwhelmed him with little bugs, and then we talked about how rules work to differentiate heroes from thugs. I think we'll try DS after we get back from the US.

Staying out west I assume?

Valete,

JohnS

Yeah, we'll be in Oregon.

The DS heroes are looking good.

EDC

It appears that everyone is doing an introspective year-end post, so I guess I should do one as well. First, my model count for the year (as tracked in my signature) is:

383 models, 3 chariots, 3 sets of Mars Attacks buildings plus one set of accessories and also a tiny little shrine, a Casket of Souls, six bases of snot/orclings, a ramen stand, a skeletal dragon, and an undead war elephant, a very old dragon, two giants and also a river.

A little unwieldy, I admit, but reasonably accurate. That's a lot-- more than one man-sized model per day, even without the monsters and terrain-- so I feel reasonably satisfied.

That said, I don't really feel like I finished much of anything. The Mars Attacks! and MYTH starter boxes are done, but I don't have a full army of samurai, orcs, or goblins. I have more than enough minis to play Deadzone (if I ever actually get to play), but not really enough terrain for an interesting 2'x2' board. Worst of all, I am shocked at how many models I have acquired in the last two years. The yen was really strong against the dollar a couple of years ago, and I got stupid over kickstarter over that time as well. I still have three major KS rewards (MYTH Journeyman, DZ2 and Warpath) coming this year, and not place to put all of it. With my son about to enter elementary school, I'm a more than a little shocked at my spending, and I feel a need to rectify the situation. So, my modelling pledges for 2016:

1) Keep painting for 45-60minutes every morning, like I have been doing.
2) Finish off some as many projects as I can. These include Dreadfleet, Sedition Wars, Mecha Front and MYTH, as well as my ongoing projects from 2015.
3) No more Kickstarters. Any models I buy this year will be at retail, and in small enough batches that I can keep up with.
4) Comment more on the P&M blogs I follow.

To those (very few) of you who have read and commented on this blog: thank you. I wouldn't have gotten as far as I did without your feedback.

That's a pretty cool outcome, Josh. I just finished writing up my own year-end post, and it was an interesting exercise in introspection as I saw myself start off painting many units, and finish painting random models. I think you've done amazingly well - and any increase in painted miniatures is a good thing. I've certainly enjoyed following your blog here, so please do keep up your daily painting so I can continue to look at your toy soldiers!

Lot of stuff done, /impressed. Good luck avoiding kickstarters, they keep getting me though I'm starting to get over it.

 JoshInJapan wrote:
With only about 45 minutes a day for hobby work, I try to have several projects going at once. That way, I don't waste time waiting for washes to dry or whatever. I started this at the same time as the orcs I posted last week:




This is, of course, Mantic's Orc war drum. I picked it up in the pledge manager for KoW2. As usual, I went with my basecoat-wash technique, with a little more highlighting that usual on the drum itself. I like the model, but I'm not sure I need to get another one-- I can probably build at least two more using Mantic orcs along with musician bitz I have lying around from the GW orc sets I got to add variety to my Space Orks back when I still played 40K.

I'm counting this as three models in my running total for 2015.

Not usually a huge fan of Orks but I like these a lot.

I agree. I like the feral look to some of the mantic orcs, and your paintwork and colors are good.

Wow, lots of lovely stuff in the last few pages. I really like your Mantic Undead - the clean look on them has come off really nice.

I also like your Dungeon Saga heroes - the lighter, cleaner style shows them up at their best here, too. I was too rushed/lazy to do detailing as you've done here, but maybe you'll inspire me to go back to them

Looking forward to seeing what pops up this year - this blog always has something interesting to gawk at!

 JoshInJapan wrote:


Worst of all, I am shocked at how many models I have acquired in the last two years. The yen was really strong against the dollar a couple of years ago, and I got stupid over kickstarter over that time as well. I still have three major KS rewards (MYTH Journeyman, DZ2 and Warpath) coming this year, and not place to put all of it. With my son about to enter elementary school, I'm a more than a little shocked at my spending, and I feel a need to rectify the situation. So, my modelling pledges for 2016:

1) Keep painting for 45-60minutes every morning, like I have been doing.
2) Finish off some as many projects as I can. These include Dreadfleet, Sedition Wars, Mecha Front and MYTH, as well as my ongoing projects from 2015.
3) No more Kickstarters. Any models I buy this year will be at retail, and in small enough batches that I can keep up with.
4) Comment more on the P&M blogs I follow

I thought we'd agreed that you could send any extra models/armies you couldn't house to me? In that spirit, I'd like to suggest an additional modeling pledge for 2016:

5) Send any and all extra models to John

BTW, KoW has me excited about massed fantasy gaming again. I have a metric ton of Skaven that I'm planning on getting fieldable... I could really use you and Bruce going on a skiing trip!

Valete,

JohnS

War drum looks great! Keep up the good work!

Here are a couple of models that I started before going back to the US for the holidays. First up: Mortibris.



I decided to keep him in muted greys befitting a necromancer, with ivory-to-white for his skin. I wanted to stole to provided just a touch of color, and went with green because that's the color I used back when I was officiating weddings. Also, green is the color of evil magic in my mind (blue is good). I tried some OSL for the hole from which the skeleton is rising, to show that he is in the middle of reanimating it. Does it work?



And this is the banshee. I used the same technique as with the Dream Warriors, but without painting anything to appear physical. Banshees are 100% spectral,right?

Both of these models would probably have been better served by metal or resin. As it is, they'll look fine at arm's length, but won't win any awards. That said, it's been fun working on this set, and I expect to have a bunch more done by the end of the week.

Nice necromancer and banshee. I think the choice of colours is great for the necromancer, I agree that green is definitely the colour of 'evil' magic.

EDC

I like the limited palette on the necromancer. Kind of highlights the price he's paid for his powers. The OSL looks good. And yes, I would agree, green is the color of evil magic.

Valete,

JohnS

The OSL is effective at achieving the effect you were looking for.

Though obviously, Necromancy is a sort of purple colour, not green

It's nice to see a completely ghostly Banshee - will you go for the same effect on the ghost miniatures? I really like the DS ghosts - simple figures but they really are spooky.

Good job. Skele osl works well.

Yeah, nice work on the DS models - particularly the OSL. I always find it really tricky to do.

Thanks. Sometimes the OSL works, more often it doesn't. The secret seems to be "be sloppy," although there are probably better painters with much better techniques than mine.

Over the last week or so, I cranked out some more Dungeon Saga models. First up, skeletons:




There are four of each model, but I having given them all identical paint jobs, I didn't feel the need to photograph them all individually. I went with a simple basecoat-brush dip on them. In retrospect, they probably would have benefited from having more effort put into them, but I have so many skeletons (painted and unpainted) that I didn't feel it necessary. If I change my mind, I have plenty of Bones skeletons to replace them with. Next up, the zombie troll shaman:



This guy is also basecoat-brush dipped, but he has a lot more interesting details. The skin is AP Monster Brown, with wounds painted GW Wild Rider Red washed in my homemade crimson glaze. I made his clothes grey to sort of time him in visually with Mortibris. I get a kick out of the missing lower jaw with the tongue hanging out-- much like the grue scene in the American remake of The Grudge. Finally, here's a group shot:

Hadn't really seen the zombie trolls painted before. Very nice! The skellies look good. As you say, there's gonna be a lot of 'em. As long as they look good in masses, you're golden. And those'll fit the bill nicely!

Valete,

JohnS

Nice work on these, and especially the Shaman - who is the obvious standout from this lot. Mantic did a good job on all of these figures, though.

Great stuff, thanks for sharing

Great job on those mate.

Nice work! 4 skeletons instead of 3 makes for a much more impressive horde!

More Dungeon Saga models finished. First up, zombies.



Unlike the skeletons from last update, these guys were pretty twisty. The weird poses kind of remind me of Romero zombies, so I mostly left them the way they were. I did them the same way as the Mantic zombies I did over the summer, but instead of Army Painter urethane, I used a cheap water-based stain I got a the ￥100 yen store. Looking at them now, I probably should have cleaned them up a little more before the dip dried, but I have enough zombies that I opted not to bother.



More zombies, including one who is dancing toward his next meal. Not much else to add about these guys.



And finally, ghosts. I wasn't originally planning on doing OSL on these guys, but they were to boring without it.

And lastly, a group shot of this batch:

Cool. I really like the skeletons with ragged clothes, I think it makes them more threatening somehow...

EDC