Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

The joker is my favorite. And I'm not a Comics aficianado at all. Here's to a good 2016 in painting, and in life.

I echo the mention of your move from quantity to quality. I liked the fact that you bashed out lots of cool, random stuff. Made it interesting to see what caught your attention the past week. But now you've scaled it back, and upped the quality I start wondering what technique you've tried this past week and watch you handle learning curves. The Salamanders for example, watching you handle and learn the green recipe, then drop that pseudo-Vulkan on us... It really has been great to watch. And you still have variety, which is great. I mostly paint Marines. So when I look here and at my display case I keep asking myself if I've got tunnel vision for the marines... I've promised to look into BMG - I haven't forgotten! As for how many minis you've painted... 500odd is crazy! I've done aroun 80 infantry and 5 vehicles for the Fists, plus what ever I did on my WoC at the start of the year, but no more than 150 at a guess. Over triple that is insane. I'm kind of curious as to what is in your backlog..? (although a little afraid to ask if you painted 200 minis more than you bought).

Keep doing what you're doing, Para. I look forward to seeing what early next year holds for you!

Oh, and I dont think i've seen that BA before. It's amazing! A real dark ominous feel to it.

Z

Fantastic recap there Para. 500? Sweet fething mercy, that is some number!!! Really great work. Think the Joker is my favourite. You captured him perfectly. So much great stuff to pick from through. Great year and here's looking forward to another fantastic one in '16

My favorite of your years efforts must be the Batman figs. They are really cool models and great paintjobs. Who would have thought black can be painted so many different ways.

Thanks guys!

@Zambro: To be fair, the 150 you've painted are probably better looking than most of the 500 I've done! As far as the backlog goes, the majority of unpainted stuff I have is actually older stuff that I mostly bought before I really got into painting and am not likely to ever get around to. The LotR splurge at the start of the year cleared out a lot of it, now it's things like LotR stragglers, some Rhinos/Drop Pods that I really don't enjoy painting, more recently a couple dozen Sci-fi zombies of various kinds (which may find a use in the new year, I kind of feel a Mass Effect themed Deadzone set is in order and they'd make great Reaper troops...) and then things like 25mm historicals that I never really intended to paint. Most 'new' stuff I buy either gets painted pretty sharpish after buying it or will sit for quite a while. As far as the stuff I actually intend to paint in the forseeable future, I have:

- The rest of Betrayal At Calth
- The Court of Owls for BMG (1/4 done, don't think I photographed him though)
- The not-Logar from Kabuki (might do him as a post-exam project at the end of January)
- Samurai-themed Fantasy warband from Carlos, I put the minis together yesterday and I'm really looking forward to painting them up. Then they'll need an opposition force, but I don't have the minis for that yet.
- A few more odds and ends, one-off minis and bits that don't just fit anywhere else. A little 40k, a little fantasy, some LotR bits, I'm just waiting on the right inspiration.


@Januine and Red Harvest: I'm right on the verge of buying another Joker actually, this guy just came out last month and is just perfect as a more comic-booky version:

He may well be in the next lot I order, but first, I need to get the aforementioned villains bought and painted.

Do really want to get a batman and joker but can't find them over here. Just have to wait until I visit home again next year

You've been a busy boy eh? great to see all your work this year and see you corrupted with xwing as well as BMG!

Nice highlights reel! I need to check this plog more often, lots of cool stuff in here.

Nice work. Good to see what you've done this year. Looking forward to seeing where you get up to in the next one!

I would like to see the Court of Owls done to your usual quality please.

I obviously want to see the Samurai but court of owls would also be great.

You've churned out some great stuff this year, mate. I really like your X-wing and Batman stuff. Will be a pleasure to see more of it in the future.

I haven't had chance to check by in a while. Amazed at what I've seen. The X-Wing stuff is brilliant. Seeing your improvement over the 12 months is fascinating. I can't pick my favourite from the year because there are so many. Well done!!

Thanks everyone!

Final count for the year: 537! This squadron of TIE fighters snuck in in the last hours of 2015,

Vader's TIE Advanced:





A pair of TIE Fighters with veteran markings




A plain Black Squadron





And a TIE with some white markings, no idea if they mean anything but it looked cool and gave me a nice canvas for some weathering.




And the whole squadron:



With these guys, I went a little less heavy on the weathering as Imperial ships would generally have more access to frequent repair. The greys are all just a wash over the basic paintjob, so really it was just weathering and markings that had to be done here. They're nothing fancy, but I think they have a little more personality than the basic versions. That's all my first wave of X-wing painted up now, and I'm not really sure where to go next. I want a Y-wing for the Rebs, and an Interceptor and Bomber for the Imps to round out my collection of film ships, but at the same time, I think now would be a good time to grab a big base ship, the Falcon or Slave 1... And I also don't know whether I should get the BMG stuff first or go straight on with X-wing.... Time will tell, I guess!

@Carlos: I put the Samurai together yesterday, really nice minis, so they may get pushed to the front of the queue... Need to do methebest's Geckos before I get too far ahead of myself, though.

Thanks for reading, any thoughts welcome! Happy new year, folks!

I like the Ties. I think I like the rebel stuff a little more but all of it looks better than stock. The white-markings tie fighter definitely stands out which is cool.

Y wings are nails. You could always get a Scum starter slave 1 is great. Falcon is... Lovely to paint, dull to play. Ties, especially weathering, look great!

GrimDork wrote:I like the Ties. I think I like the rebel stuff a little more but all of it looks better than stock. The white-markings tie fighter definitely stands out which is cool.

Yeah, I totally agree that the Rebels just have a little more too them. The Imps will get some fancier stuff when I get some more ships, I plan to have a couple in Royal Guard colours and a TIE Phantom with a cloaking/decloaking effect at some point....

inmygravenimage wrote:Y wings are nails. You could always get a Scum starter slave 1 is great. Falcon is... Lovely to paint, dull to play. Ties, especially weathering, look great!

Bounty Hunters! We don't need that scum... yet.... I'll almost certainly get S&V eventually, but for the moment I want to just focus on the 2 'main' factions. I'll also be holding off on the new trilogy stuff until we get more than just X-wings and TIEs, as I don't really fancy mixing OT and TFA stuff.

That Tie squadron is awesome. 'Thankfully' I havent seen X-Wing over here so I can't buy depsite your temptations

537? Insanoman! Well done, Para! You've achieved a great combination of huge output as well as an ever-increasing quality. I can only wish that I could get my completed numbers that high!

Love the Tie fighters, great work Para! Yes, I would love to see you do some Y-Wings in the new year :-)

Thanks guys!

Looks like the plan's changed regarding purchases, I've been offered a deal on some X-wing stuff that's too good to pass up, so assuming all goes as planned I'll soon have a few new ships to work on (Y-wing, TIE Interceptor, Bomber and Phantom, and the Millennium Falcon!). With that assortment, I pretty much complete my collection of movie ships (apart from the Slave 1, which I'm saving until I get into Scum and Villainy, and the Lambda Shuttle which if I ever pick up, will be done more as a display piece as it doesn't particularly appeal to me in game), so once those are done it'll be full speed ahead on Batman... unless something new and shiny comes along to steal my attention once again!

Been thinking a bit on goals for the new year, and really, all I want to do is continue the trend I tried to establish at the back end of last year of quality over quantity. No 365-model target this time around, I think given my new approach and ongoing uni workload I'll be more than happy with 100-150 for the year, I reckon that's manageable.

Beyond that, I want to keep working on pushing my quality upwards, trying new techniques and heopfully branch out a little more. The X-wing stuff has been a wonderful change of pace, so I may look into more smaller-scale stuff at some point (especially if Spartan Games' 15mm Halo game comes out this summer as they hinted at... I passed on the space stuff, but give me Warthogs, Scorpions, Spartans and ODST and I'm in, in, in!). I also have a few manufacturers and smaller companies that are on my radar to check out at some point; Hasslefree, Red Box Games, Heresy Miniatures, Minion Miniatures, Anvil's newer stuff and probably others I've forgotten. I'm more open than I was this time last year to buying stuff just to paint, so I will almost certainly go back to the likes of Infinity and Malifaux to just buy the odd mini rather than building forces for games I won't play.

I'm also going to say that if anyone sees or knows any indie mini producers or companies that I might not have noticed that you think I might like to work on, do point them out to me! The more stuff I can work on, the better!

Have you checked out Tales of War Para? They have some interesting stuff there that might be fun to paint for painting sake. I just ordered their solid snake and grey fox miniatures.

Black hat games have some oriental wizards that might go well with the Samurai frostgrave force you are planning.

Brother Vinnie has some very nice stuff including his fallout range. You just have to ignore the sheer amount of models he makes with their breasts out in order to find the good stuff.

Finally have you seen the Aliens vs Predator box? While their are certainly issues with Prodos atm I would love to see how you would paint the Aliens, Predators and Marines.

AvP is definitely on the radar, for the inevitable home-made Alien vs Predator vs Batman crossover if nothing else! I'm just waiting for the KS controversy to end there, just so I can find out what will/won't be available in the end. I'm also kind of waiting to see if I can find a good deal on it; I'm not too fussed about things like the game itself, the infant Aliens and the Marines, more the adult Aliens and the awesome Preds, so the value for me isn't really there on the main box at full price.

Never come across Tales of War, just checked them out and while the reimagined fairytale stuff and such doesn't really appeal, the not-Striking Scorpion mini is pretty superb... Might have to put that one on the list! I think I looked at Vinni once before, is he the guy that does a really nice not-Commissar Gaunt? Not really a Fallout fan, but I shall take a look nonetheless.

Yeah Vinnie does the not Gaunt you are thinking of.

Yeah tales of war stuff is kinda hit and miss, that said even the fairytale stuff is competently sculpted despite not being the kind of thing I would buy. I like some of their stuff though. The solid snake and grey fox as I said earlier. I have a few of their spartans and the fantasy roman general from a wayland games sale years ago where they were about £3 each.

When you say not striking scorpion are you talking about this?

That's the one! Lovely, lovely model...

I'd probably never do it justice, Eldar have always been a little bit beyond me paint-wise for some reason... Still, might give it a go... Or we could all just badger Januine into buying and painting one, then marvel at the results...

I heard that!!!! Crikey - that not-striking scorpion exarch is beautiful. I want one now!!!! Always were one of my favourite aspects. Way to tempt me into breaking my #1 New Years resolution mere hours after I made it !!!!!

Mission accomplished!

In all seriousness, thanks for pointing that one out, Carlos... Once the next round of X-wing is done, I might well look into getting that...

I dunno Para, the Lambda has some interesting properties. There's an article or two about how you can use it (with fun names like Doomshuttle, Buzzsaw, and so on), which helped solidify my like of the thing. Definitely not for everyone though.

It's more the fact that as per Star Wars fluff, they're just not really combat ships; if the VIP you're transporting in it is near some Rebel Scum, something has already gone badly wrong! I'm sure they're fine as a gaming piece, I probably just wouldn't use it (if I there's one setting where I'll be strict about fluff, it's SW!)

Well that's fair enough. There's too much gamer in me to not use a useful ship for how it plays versus how it would be used via fluff, but I can understand the sentiment.