Duelling Paintbrushes: Spearmen done

It has taken me a week, but I have now finished with the 15 Spearmen I was painting for Duelling Paintbrushes. In something of a recurring theme with my painting, the unit is not really "finished" per se - there are details like teeth that I should really be picking out, and the banner should have a design on it. But given that time is tight and I may well replace the banner with a less cumbersome one later anyway, I think they've received all the attention they're going to for a while.

15 painted Spearmen. They were a lot faster than those stupid Cold One Knights.

Warhammer World Series update

It's now just over 3 weeks until the Warhammer World Series, and preparations have been moving along pretty slowly. Despite a great many people expressing boundless enthusiasm for the event, we still only have 17 paid players as I write this. This won't even cover the cost of the hall, so it makes it hard to make other plans.

As an added incentive to get people to pay up, I will be increasing the cost of entry from $40 to $50 on November 1st. Anyone who wants to sign up after that will be paying a premium rate for making my life harder than it has to be...

We're still only part-way through writing up lists and matching them up, but hopefully in the next couple of days I will be in a position to publish some of the pairings so that people can have a look-see. Watch this space...

Duelling Paintbrushes: Emergency paint salvage

Last night I was painting away on the unit of 15 Dark Elf Spearmen for Duelling Paintbrushes when there was something of a mishap with my old pot of Bleached Bone paint. I took the lid off, and found that all of the paint that had been residing in the lid had remained sitting on the pot itself. Somehow it had come cleanly away from the plastic lid and formed a dome-shaped semi-rigid container of old paint. This wouldn't have been a real issue, except that it had also taken a fair amount of liquid paint with it. This meant a waste of usable paint, which is something I abhor. So, it was time to take some emergency steps to reduce the waste.

Eh, what? Don't think I've seen this before. At least, not for a while.

Duelling Paintbrushes: Cold Ones done

We're nearly two thirds of the way through October, but I finally have a unit to show for the time I've spent painting. I'm calling the Cold One Knights done, even though there are really details I would ideally have liked to touch up. The fact of the matter is that I'm sick of this unit. In my last post I declared they were almost finished, then I managed to waste 2 or 3 hours just painting the black details - mainly cleaning up things that had been painted over. I got the grumps and am now willing to call them done as-is.

10 Cold One Knights, more or less finished.

Duelling Paintbrushes: Effort <> Results

Well, we are nearly halfway through October. So my 1000 points of Dark Elves should be half-finished by now, right? No, not really. I'm still working on my first unit. As I suspected, Cold One Knights are slow to paint. At least this time, my lack of progress is not for lack of effort. I think last week I probably spent somewhere between 15-20 hours on these guys, and they're still only mostly there.

I am a little torn over how I feel about all this time I've spent. I am pleased to have focused this much after my previous lack of application. It's far more time than I would normally spend painting in a given week, even when I'm motivated to work on something, so it means Duelling Paintbrushes is having an impact. But it's frustrating that I don't have much to show for it.

Part of my problem is that I tackled these models in the wrong manner. As is my usual approach, I completely assembled them and glued the sand onto their bases before I commenced undercoating and painting. Then the first things I painted were the bases and the armour. I mean, they're heavily armoured cavalry. Armour is a major component, right? This approach has served me well enough for all those Empire Knights I've painted. Unfortunately in this case, it was a big mistake. 

My batch of 10 Cold One Knights, who are still only mostly painted.

Duelling Paintbrushes: Failure to launch?

We are now more than a week into October, and the Duelling Paintbrushes challenge that goes with it. Unfortunately, my progress has been very limited. I have been stymied by a number of things. One of those things is the timing of the new Dark Elf release, which feels like it has stalled my enthusiasm and momentum as I wait for confirmation of what I should really be painting. The new book is now out, although I am still waiting for my copy to arrive. From a brief flick through it at the club on Saturday, I don't think the changes will have a major impact on what I'm painting. But that is yet to be properly confirmed. 

Secondly, my motivation in general for painting Dark Elves is still not at a level equal to where it might have been for some other armies. I intended to write about this, but I haven't even managed to get around to that yet. 

Finally, I have allowed myself to be distracted by other things when I could have been making time to paint. Hopefully I will be more disciplined over the next few weeks - I will have to be if I want to get anywhere close to my goals for the challenge.

I did manage to sit still long enough to paint up the Sorceress, however I kind of messed about with the colour scheme of the swirling magical energy on the model, and it never got close to what I had in mind. In other words, I really need to go back and re-do it. Whether I get around to that during October will depend on how I go with the other models I need to paint.

I like this model, but all the swirling energy is confusing to paint. Especially when you're silly and start trying to mix colours. The stuff winding around her body is confusing, too. It is painted like a vine on the GW example, but that felt wrong to me, so I thought I'd make it part of the magic.

Duelling Paintbrushes: Getting Started

Right, so we're already well into the second day of October, and thus far I have achieved absolutely nothing for Duelling Paintbrushes. This is slightly symptomatic of my time as a whole recently, where it seems to be challenging to make the time to paint, blog, or do anything else hobby-related. I will have to make more of an effort if I want to avoid total embarrassment in the painting challenge.

The Dark Elf book comes out in a few days, and hopefully I will be able to firm up my plans for the army required for Warhammer World Series once I have had a look at it. In the meantime I am somewhat in limbo. I have gathered together a basic collection of models. I think they should all be in the final list, and even if some of them end up not being required, I'll still want them done in the long run. So, here is what I plan to paint:

A pile of unpainted evil Elves. The BSB is just a stand-in for an as-yet unassembled model, and if I use Malus Darkblade as the Highborn, he'd best find a lizard to ride. The Witch Elves lurking in the background will probably elude my paintbrush for now...