Milestones are Important

Yes, I know My Sculpting Skills are Bad

A few months ago, an alcoholic friend celebrated five years of being clean.  I knew him when he was at his worst, and while we don't see each other all that often, I've tried to be supportive of him with his struggles against his demons.

As part of that, I modified and painted a mini for him.  Playing off the idea of "clean" I took Privateer Press' "Blighted Bather" model and did some modifications.  I filed off all the blight, to turn her into just a slightly-angular-looking human.  Originally she was holding a beer stein, which really didn't seem appropriate, so I drilled through it and had her holding a banner instead.  I made a base texture using a GreenStuffWorld rolling pin.

Unfortunately, I was a little rushed to get it done (story of a lot of my painting, lately), and didn't take a good photo.  The best I have is this:

Isn't the Rubber-Shredder Adorable?

The banner reads "5 Years Clean" and the base says "August 2019."

Around the time I painted it, another friend told me that he would be celebrating 15 years of being sober in October.  I figured that was even more worthy of celebration.

I had the idea for the modification almost immediately, but then I kind of went into a painting funk.  By the time I got around to working on it, once again, I didn't have a lot of time to get things done.  Or maybe that is just an excuse I'm telling myself.

For this, I started with another Privateer Press model, an alternative sculpt for Ashlynn D'Elyse.  I bought some plastic bottles meant for doll houses (because, you know, teaching young children that a house needs beer is good parenting) and used my extremely limited sculpting skills to put a cartoon-y face on the bottle.

She originally had her left foot on some stone stairs, but I wanted her stepping on the bottle, so I removed them.  Unfortunately, in doing so I ended up cutting off her left foot.  I sculpted a replacement, but it is *really* shoddy.  Fortunately, that isn't a focal point of the model.  I then had to add some cork to raise her up enough to make the pose natural.

I think the model originally had an energy-backpack or something, but somewhere along the line I misplaced the part.  I filled in the divot with some more putty.  Again, it doesn't look very good if you look closely, but it is good enough to pass from a distance.

There are some other problems with the model; there are some pretty huge glue blobs, if nothing else.  However, I actually am really proud of how far I managed to take my highlights on the flag and cloak.  They show up well from a distance, which is something that I always struggle with.

 The banner reads "October 2019"

 The base reads "15 Years of Triumph Over the Bottle."

Ignore the space between her shoulder blades.  Please.

Warcry Iron Golems

A Long-Delayed Project Reaches Completion

For me, one of the most exciting releases this year has been Games Workshop's "Warcry."  It is a fast-paced skirmish game, with well-designed terrain and accompanying rules, and a lot of great models.

I very quickly painted up the terrain that came in the core set (more on that in another blog post, possibly).  Then I started on some of the chaotic beasts (sort of npcs or obstacles in the game) and I burned out a bit.  I had what I thought was a great idea for a color scheme, but it just wasn't coming together as well as I pictured it in my mind.

So, I put them to the side, and started on the Iron Golems, which I thought would be straightforward to get done.  Unfortunately, pretty much the same thing happened.  They weren't looking terrible, but they didn't live up to my vision of how they would turn out.  Combined with a general lack of time, and a commitment to hiking every weekend, I pretty much stopped painting for awhile.  I'd pick up a brush every once in awhile, and I did some more terrain, but I just couldn't motivate myself to push forward and finish this project.

A few things happened this week that got me out of my funk.  One of the painters that I follow closely made a video about "what to do when you fail."  Basically, he said to finish it up and move on; even if it isn't as good as you'd like, you still have a useful game piece that is a lot better than an unpainted mini.  I knew this, of course, but it helped to hear that even a competition-winning painter has his failures.

Then, there were two opportunities to get some painting done.  A local game store had a painting night, and while I was the only person that showed up, I still accomplished a bit.  A couple days later, I did a painting lesson for a friend, and got some more done.  I was really close to completion at that point, so I grabbed an evening this week to wrap them up.

All in all, I'm reasonably happy with them in the end.  The highlights don't show up as well as I'd like, and there are some places where I cut corners just to get them done, but I think the overall impact is still there.  I'm pleased that I came up with a decent original color scheme, since usually I follow the studio scheme pretty closely.

At any rate, I'm sure anyone here really wants to see the pictures, so here you go...

Signifier:  This model could be built in this version, or as a "prefector."  Everyone else I know built the prefector, so I had to be different.

Armator:  One of the things I like about this warband is that the members are of different races.  This is just a random dwarf that joined up.

Drillmaster:  This guy was a little bit of a pain to paint, since the chain was flexible enough to bounce away from the paintbrush.

Dominar:  The leader of the group.

Ogor Breacher:  Another off-race model, this was my test to decide on the color scheme.

Iron Legionaries:  There were some weapon choices here, but it doesn't make much difference.  I like the blending I did on the shield, but it doesn't show up well here.

Iron Legionary with Bolas:  Another choice, this could have been built instead with two hammers.  I thought the bolas looked cooler.