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Blargh, two and a half months of slow haul and procrastination, but they are finally done!

Just a quick post to show them with a couple of poor pics from my desk.
Will try to get better pictures as soon as possible!









Decided to go with a simple off white on the sails. I got stuck with them, and decided to stop overthinking it.
They could definitely do with some extra detail, but I'm so spent with these that they'll have to do

What I feared would happen happened: I sorta kinda lost my hobby motivation with these things, same as with the group of Eldar tanks back a few years ago.
When I was able to find an hour or two of free time to paint, I just could not get myself to grab a brush and do another edge highlight or green gem. Luckily the remote meetings were boring enough, so I could get some work done every now and then.

What also hurt my motivation, was the fact that I realized I'm missing a few crew members: two gunners and two "pilots".
I decided to finish them nevertheless and call 'em done for now. Might assemble and paint the missing crew members later or might not. These are not going to go to a show or anything similar, so it's not that important. The boats have some broken bits still anyway (some earlier, some during the painting process...).

Other than that, I'm quite happy with them. Especially as they are the first models I have mostly painted using the airbrush! Still lot to learn though.
And boy do I feel relieved!

Not sure what I'll paint next. Most likely some new Eldar finally. Will take a small while until I get all my motivation back though, especially with the summer just around the corner haha.
Will also try to catch up on all of your blogs. Been procrastinating there as well...

On a side note, the missus is walking again and the recovery seems to be going really well!

Thanks for looking!

Great news for the wife!

And great news for the armada! They turned out awesome and really look good all together like that. You have yourself quite an accomplishment there. Congrats! Take a break and recharge that mojo.

Good to hear the missus is back on her feet, keep up that physio!

The flotilla of boats really looks the business. I can imagine that many at the same time could get a bit tiresome, but getting them done is one heck of an achievement! Gets me keen to get my airbrush out again

Exalted Ezki.

Enough said.

CB

PS: Glad to hear the recovery is going well.

Thank you very much youwashock, gobert and cap!

No better pics yet.
I think I will have to take them at the game room when I have a chance to go there.
Currently it's hard to get a large photo setup up at home.

Meanwhile, I decided to quickly paint a couple of D&D townsfolk minis I had in my endless pile of shame.
Bought them quite a while back, but I wanted something simple to "clean my palette".

First a couple of WIP shots.
The two on the left in the first pic are from Wizkids, the one on the right is from Reaper Bones range if I remember correctly.





And finished.
Used my phone camera this time. Although being decent enough, it does not handle wide focus very well...






Did not finish the barmaiden though, as I seem have lost her other arm somewhere *looking at the puppy*. Well, most likely it flew somewhere while I was cleaning my desk.
Felt good getting something done in a short amount of time.
Maybe getting my mojo back is not that far away after all.

Took a visit to the garage to do some work on my Dodge and one of the Volvos, so I coated the boats with acrylic varnish.
I noticed that the thin coat of airbrushing has one downside: the large surfaces of the vehicles get scratched very easily and I already lost some paint on one of them. Luckily it was an easy fix.
Maybe the paint was a bit too thin or something.

While I'm not painting minis, I'm painting myself with black, red or green goo from the engine bay



Thanks for looking!

Lovely ladies. Hope you can find the missing arm. Have fun on that 1:1 scale project.

Very impressive figures- I can't believe the details on the dress patterns!

Good work on the ladies, I hope the case of the missing arm can be solved. If not, a 1 armed bar maiden will make an interesting npc for your games!

Congrats on getting the boats finished and good luck on finding some more motivation so we can see some new Eldar from you! Although the ladies are a good distraction, lovely color choices.

Phew, took me a while to get back and answer the comments.
Forum hiatus still going on, but on a positive note I've been hobbying quite a bit.

youwashock wrote:Lovely ladies. Hope you can find the missing arm. Have fun on that 1:1 scale project.

Thanks youwahosck! Changing the water pump is always "fun"!

Meer_Cat wrote:Very impressive figures- I can't believe the details on the dress patterns!

Thank you! Some of it is thanks to the sculpts.

gobert wrote:Good work on the ladies, I hope the case of the missing arm can be solved. If not, a 1 armed bar maiden will make an interesting npc for your games!

That's a good point! Still no arm, so maybe I have to fill the gap with green stuff or something.

Viterbi wrote:Congrats on getting the boats finished and good luck on finding some more motivation so we can see some new Eldar from you! Although the ladies are a good distraction, lovely color choices.

Thanks Viterbi! No new eldar yet, but hopefully soon enough.


So, still have not bought any of the new eldar. Surprisingly so.
I got bit by the D&D miniature / terrain bug a bit, and decided to focus on those for a moment. After almost solely on one army during the last year, I felt like I want to make quick projects and get stuff done in a decent amount of time. This way I can keep up my hobby motivation for now.

Will get back to 40k after some time though. Already ordered a box of the plastic kriegers from Kill Team.
I also sort of "accidentally" ordered a dozen of D&D minis from Etsy and from Fantasywelt. So some of them are 3D printed, some sculpted by various manufacturers.
Will take a pic when they arrive.

Meanwhile, I've been making use of the remote meetings and the calm evenings to craft some stuff for D&D.
I love working with balsa wood, and it's easy to get simple stuff done rather quickly.

It all started from this cart I suddenly decided to build during a meeting. Well almost, had to finish the wheels a bit later.


Then I decided to build a "market stand". Not sure where I'm going to use this, but seemed like a fun project.


It was also the first time I have used actual fabric on a terrain piece. As an actual fabric I mean.
I cut a piece from an old T-shirt, which I then dipped in a mix of grey craft paint, PVA glue and matte medium. The goal was to make it a bit sturdier and dirty looking.
Using a ruler as a stencil, I painted some green lines to it with a sponge. Not perfect, but good enough!



A while back, I ordered some terrain foliage from greenstuff world. I was not sure where I was going to use them, but a small flower bench seemed like a decent idea.


Aaand then I decided to build a few more tables: one larger and four small ones.
The smaller ones are the same size and height this time, measured with an actual ruler. Usually I just go with the gut feeling, but I wanted these to be the same scale.
Used a piece from the same white T-shirt, and dyed it red with Carroburg Crimson.


And today I had some quality time at the garage: great weather and fresh ocean air. Could have been worse.
Started working on floor boards, the goal being building a tavern as a photo backdrop or a battle map.


Thinking about building one or two walls, that will be magnetized to it. We'll see.

Did a bit of painting as well. Found these two goblin fellas at the local game store, and just had to grab 'em.



A bit of a messy update and I might have forgotten half of what I was supposed to write.
Anyway, thanks for looking!

Like I said, I'll be working with the D&D stuff for a while just get some variety to my collection.
Will get back to the space elves, kriegers and whatnot in due time.

Wow Ezki, that cart and market stall look amazing!

Love the cart and market stall!

Thanks for sharing

Thank you guys!

Finished another shack and a couple of flower benches and formed a small "market square".
Not sure if I have any actual use for these, but they were fun to make!

The stalls and friends look amazing! Especially for being totally scratch built, awesome job

Agreed. They have turned out awesome. The flower boxes are especially nice.

You’ve been busy! Cool little terrain pieces, they look like they should fit well with the earlier d&d stuff too.

The 2 little gobbos are great, loads of character. Is the left one holding a glass jar of some kind? Is it painted or a glass bead that you used? If the former, that’s some serious skill. If the latter, that’s a genius idea!

Some nice terrain builds there Ezki.

Cheers,

CB

Boss Salvage wrote:The stalls and friends look amazing! Especially for being totally scratch built, awesome job

Thank you Boss Salvage!

youwashock wrote:Agreed. They have turned out awesome. The flower boxes are especially nice.

Thanks! The flower boxes were really fun and easy to make, so I need to find excuses to make more!

gobert wrote:You’ve been busy! Cool little terrain pieces, they look like they should fit well with the earlier d&d stuff too.

The 2 little gobbos are great, loads of character. Is the left one holding a glass jar of some kind? Is it painted or a glass bead that you used? If the former, that’s some serious skill. If the latter, that’s a genius idea!

Thank you gobert!
Yeah the left one is holding a glass jar. It's bit of a combination of both: the model had a clear plastic bottle, but it was painted with few layers of orange ink and covered with gloss varnish to get the shine.

But I think glass beads would make awesome bottles though! I might actually try to make some to fill the shelves I built some time back.

Captain Brown wrote:Some nice terrain builds there Ezki.

Cheers,

CB

Thanks Captain!


Finally managed to snap a couple of better pictures from the Drukhari boats just before a game last night.
Been almost half a year since last game, so it was really fun to throw some dice again! Trying to get the biweekly games going on again.










Not the best of backgrounds with the shelves and chairs etc, but it's what I got at the moment


As a fun little side project, I took part on a little contest organized by two hobbyists (morose.miniatures & sanguine_reaper_85) on Instagram, called #thepotchallenge.
It all started from a pot of Nuln Oil, that was kitbashed to a knight by adding arms and legs. That sprouted an idea for a competition, where the participants would build a warrior, diorama or a piece of terrain using a citadel paint pot.

Eventually the challenge got quite huge, and even a small article was written about it: https://www.wargamer.com/warhammer-40k/paint-pot-challenge

Thought it was a fun concept, and I immediately started to brainstorm ideas.
The first thing that came to mind about a citadel pot, was of course all the washes that I have managed to knock over.
So that's what I decided to focus on.

I wanted to build a "robot like" paint pot in a falling position in a way, that some of the wash would be mid flight from the top.
Luckily I had some splash effects from greenstuff world that I had ordered quite a while back, but never used.

I did a couple of test batches mixing the splash effect with Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade. The first came out alright, but the latter looked quite horrible. Maybe it could pass as mud though.
Being happy with the Nuln oil test, I started building the actual splash.
I cut a few stripes from clear plastic (a blister pack) and glued them together. They were then covered with a mix of 3 parts splash gel, 1 part Nuln Oil. I did this in two layers.
To achieve a shiny look, the whole thing was covered with gloss varnish.

For the rest of the model, I used a bunch of Orky bits. The wheel being maybe the most interesting one, as it's from the old metallic Zzap Gun kit. Don't have all the parts anymore, so I could use it for this without feeling too bad about it.

And here's the final result:


A really fun project to design, build and paint! Definitely not something I would have ever known I'd be creating
Taking part on these kind of challenges is quite engaging and it's inspiring to see all the awesome pieces that the community produces.

Thanks for looking!

Edit: Added two more pictures as I forgot them before.

That's rad. Just rad.

Great shots of the flotilla, too!

The robo-pot spilling its contents is great! Lovely lens work and pot-bashing

All of your work on the boats has really paid off , the proper photos show them off well!

I actually laughed at the spilling robot, very fun!

That's great that you were able to get a game in Ezki. And I like your little spilling wash pot bot. It's a clever idea, and reminds me that I too have had too many spilled pots of wash.

Ezki,

It is a little ironic, that if there is a paint bottle I am going to knock over or juggle after opening the top, it is always Agrax Earthshade.

Cheers,

CB

That Agrax Bot is amazing and made my day That must've been lots of fun and every hobbyist can feel with this poor fella losing his shade.

youwashock wrote:That's rad. Just rad.

Great shots of the flotilla, too!

Thank you youwashock!

gobert wrote:The robo-pot spilling its contents is great! Lovely lens work and pot-bashing

All of your work on the boats has really paid off , the proper photos show them off well!

Thanks gobert!

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:I actually laughed at the spilling robot, very fun!

Thank you! Glad you like it

Syro_ wrote:That's great that you were able to get a game in Ezki. And I like your little spilling wash pot bot. It's a clever idea, and reminds me that I too have had too many spilled pots of wash.

Too many wash pots have shared the same fate

Captain Brown wrote:Ezki,

It is a little ironic, that if there is a paint bottle I am going to knock over or juggle after opening the top, it is always Agrax Earthshade.

Cheers,

CB

Haha, you got that right!

Viterbi wrote:That Agrax Bot is amazing and made my day That must've been lots of fun and every hobbyist can feel with this poor fella losing his shade.

I'm glad it made your day! It was so much to build and paint. Loved all the entries that were submitted to the contest.


I'm glad you guys liked the boats and the spilling pot.

Still been lazy on the writing side, but not on the painting side!
As I'm sitting in a car on my way to Norway with a few friends, I finally have a while to write a few words.

I still have not taken the jump to the new Eldar models.
After painting almost solely 40k models for years, I have really enjoyed the variation of painting fantasy minis for D&D.
Though I kind of miss painting the Eldar star pattern or completely rusty Ork vehicles haha.

First a few Reaper / Wizkidz miniatures I painted a while back.
The metallic guy with the lantern is from Reaper (not sure which series). I ordered him back when I was building the Mordheim warband.
The other two are from the Wizkidz Deep Cuts series.

Tried to paint these guys with a "one mini per night" pace. I almost managed to keep with the "schedule".
The goal was to practice getting minis quickly to a standard that is good enough for the table.

The funny thing is, that when I spend four times more hours on a single mini, the quality does not increase that much.

Anyway, here they are:








As a next project I decided to quickly go through the old Vampire Counts skeleton warriors that have been laying in my cabinet for years.
I've been using them in D&D games before, both as a DM and as a player. I finally thought that they need a new paint job instead of the wacky half finished one I did back in my early years.

I went with a simple color scheme: lot's of blacks and browns and simple techniques.

Using the same graveyard once again for the pictures.





I had about 20 of them, but painted only 15. The others were quite broken, and were left as spares and conversion material for future projects.

Finally I started painting a metallic female bard model from Dark Sword Miniatures.
For this one I'm trying to spend more time and practice on painting the skin.

All the base colors are pretty much done as well as some of the highlights. The skin needs more work etc.





Quite happy with the eyes so far. Tried adding a bit of blue in addition to the black pupils. The eyes in the sculpt are quite big and well defined, so it was possible to try and do so.
Took a few tries though haha.


The D&D minis that I ordered a while back arrived yesterday, but I did not get the chance to get a picture as they were packed quite well.
But I think I will paint some of them after I get the bard done.

Thanks for looking!

Great looking skeletons. Nice and rusty.
The Bard looks good, too. Those darn eyes can be tricky, for sure. Looking forward to seeing her finished.

Thank you DJJazzyJeff! The eyes are certainly tricky! Very hard to get them to look at the same direction


Been a couple of weeks again, but some progress has been made. The longer breaks seem to be the trend for me currently, but writing rarely is better than nothing I guess.

Like I said in the last post, I was on a roadtrip to Norway with a couple of friends.
The break from painting stretched a bit after that, as I was unfortunate enough to catch the good old 'rona from the trip.
A bit weird though, as we only hanged out in various fishing cabinets and in our car. Luckily it was not too bad in the end, but the first two days were quite harsh. I'm all better now though

While I was recovering, I did not have enough strength to focus on painting, so I decided to assemble the Krieg kill team.
Really amazing models and I love all the options in the kit!



When the new guard codex is released, I will be ready to jump into the bandwagon!

As promised, some pictures from the eight miniatures I ordered from Etsy. The photo quality is bad, but hopefully you can make some sense.





When the quarantine was over, I headed to Ikea and upgraded my light setup a bit.
I bought a second lamp and got new bulbs for both of them. I actually bought two different kind of bulbs: 4000K and 6500K. The latter has more neutral light, but in a dark apartment the contrast between the daylight bulb and the rest of the lighting can be hard for your eyes. I'll play around with them and see which works better.

Picture from a messy desk.


A definite improvement from the single 2700K bulb I've had for years. I still don't know how I managed to paint with that, or how am I not blind yet haha.

When I started feeling better, I was able to finish painting the bard miniature.





There are things I'm happy with, and things I don't like at all.
Firstly I should have cleaned and filed the model better. There's a lot of mess here and there as is the nature of metal models.
The color choice for the pants is also leaves a lot to be desired, but I decided to leave it as an example rather than repaint them.

Quite happy with the eyes though like I said in the last post. Sadly they are not very visible from this picture.
Also tried something new with the hair. Not the most realistic placement for the lighter parts, but I kind of like the idea.

Next up some more D&D minis from the ones I ordered.

Thank you for looking!

Lovely work on the bard. Looking forward to the lady with the scythe.

 youwashock wrote:
Looking forward to the lady with the scythe.

Same! And wonderful work on the bard, the light banding on her glossy hair is super good.

Exalted the bard- really nice work. A lot of emotion and energy captured in the shading and color tones of this piece.