I'm not dead

So contrary to the indications from the complete lack of life here on the blog, I have not died. Life continues here, with our existence largely being defined with us popping in and out of lockdown, and going for extended periods without being able to meet up with anyone or play games. It's not really great for my motivation. 

Further to that, just as I felt like I was building some real momentum in my painting by working through all those militia, I went and made a mistake by trying to tackle painting a blood bowl team for a friend. I was not enjoying painting the models, but tried to force my way through anyway, and ended up with a complete lack of desire to pick up a paintbrush. It was silly. It happened ages ago now, and I really haven't done anything worth mentioning since then. It's a bit of a cautionary tale. I have had some success in the past with grinding through something I didn't want to paint and feeling the relief of coming out the other side, but realistically this time I didn't get close to seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe I overestimated how much momentum I really had.

Whilst I sat in the hobby doldrums and licked my wounds, I have managed to make some progress in adding to my painting backlog - that's right, I am making the problem worse and actually going backwards. The 3D printer continues to churn away in bursts of productivity, trying in vain to keep up with all the fancy stuff people keep producing on Patreon and Kickstarter. It doesn't help that I end up wasting a bit of time and energy trying to ensure that what I'm printing will end up in a scale that's compatible with my existing models. It's a bit of a challenge when the files are coming from dozen or more different designers, and sometimes aren't even internally consistent...

That middle shelf is full of models printed from different manufacturers, sometimes at different scales, lined up with randomly selected Warhammer models. Sometimes scale is surprisingly difficult to work out.

I also dug into my piles of models that have been ignored pretty much since the moment they arrived. In particular some piles of resin models that arrived as part of opportunistic purchases or as a result of kickstarters. So a whole ton of stuff got a nice soapy bath to try to ensure they'd take paint properly, and a lot of it even got assembled and based, ready for undercoat.

A little bit of washy-washy for some MOM and Norba Empire models.

In the last little while I have managed to get some actual painting done. I'm trying very hard to work up some momentum without feeling like I'm forcing things and risking another burnout. I was a little inspired to finally try adding to my Teutogen Guard. One of the things I had been printing recently was some likely stand-ins from Last Sword miniatures, and I had also released some Norba miniatures from the snaplock baggies that had imprisoned them for years...

Obviously not the best photo, but it will do for now. The 5 guys on the left are Norba. The 2 on the right are Last Sword prints. The other 2 are my control group of actual Teutogen Guard that I grabbed off the shelf, having painted them over 10 years ago.

This is kind of what they looked several days ago.

Painting the Last Sword and Norba guys together was interesting. The Last Sword guys have smoother detail, and none of the imperfections you tend to get from resin moulds. The Norba guys have very sharp features - lots of jagged edges etc. This actually makes them more like the GW guys, but sometimes there are imperfections (bubbles, blobs from damaged moulds etc) that can make things challenging. One of the guys is particularly ugly due to a blob over his eye. Wasn't much I could do about it, but I doubt he'll ever make it into the front rank. Poor guy.

Overall I think the models are going to work pretty well together, which is good because I have 30 of the Norba guys, and... infinite Last Sword guys. 3D printers do weird things to your planning. Anyway, it all adds up to heaps of models. I'll keep working on these guys for as long as I feel like it, then I might flit over to something else I've managed to get ready. Need to try to nurse that momentum. Might even work on this abomination...

This is a halfling hanging out of a steam tank, throwing up the horns with both hands. So metal...

Either way, here's hoping it won't be so long before my next update.