Motivation is for chumps

We're nearly halfway through October now, and this means we're also nearly halfway through the latest iteration of Duelling Paintbrushes. So what have I done? Almost nothing.

Why? I have no motivation.

Hobby motivation is a strange and fickle beast. It can't always be predicted, and it can't necessarily be manufactured out of nothing.

Another duel on the horizon

My hobby life seems to revolve around a series of annual events. The trip to Canberra for Cancon and the large game around the end of the year come to mind. Amongst these regular traditions is the challenge that is known as Duelling Paintbrushes. This has been going on in various forms since 2011 (the year I started this blog). Anyway, it's back again. Or rather, it will be in October.

Duelling Paintbrushes: Mission failed

Well, it's now November, which means Duelling Paintbrushes is over. And, as predicted in my previous post, I have failed to achieve my original target. It comes as no surprise, but unfortunately I didn't even really get very close. By the end of October, I had painted a Sorceress, 10 Cold One Knights, and 15 Spearmen. I had built commenced painting of the two mounted characters I needed to do, but they were nowhere near finished - and I had only just managed to complete the assembly and undercoat the 12 Crossbowmen. Not exactly covering myself with glory, there. Oh well.

Those mounted characters only got started very late in the process. I didn't really have the right models on hand. I knew I had a Malus Darkblade model kicking about (minus the old goofy cow-like Cold One he came with), so I figured he would do the job of a lord character. But I hadn't really worked out how I was going to make a BSB. When it came to the crunch, I ended up using a Cold One Knight's legs, a Corsair's torso, arms and head, and some extra spiky head-pieces from one of the Knights. The sea dragon cloak took some chopping and green-stuffing to get it to sit OK over the saddle, but it worked fine in the end.

Malus has traded in his ancient (and rather terrible) Cold One for a newer model.

My converted BSB. I was pretty happy with the pose, in the end.

I couldn't find a more exciting weapon for him, so he just stuck with a normal Corsair sword.

Sea dragon cloaks are not made to sit on Cold Ones. A bit of chopping and covering my handiwork with green stuff and the problem was solved.

By the end of the month, these guys had a couple of base colours on them and nothing else to speak of. They were probably about 10% painted. Not really inspiring, and certainly not usable. However, last night (November 1st - otherwise known as the day after the challenge was over) was painting night and I was determined to improve the situation. I was up until after 1 am (trying to multi-task between painting and constructing army lists for Warhammer World Series), but I'm calling these guys finished now.

My Dreadlord and BSB, ready for battle. They both have different coloured mounts from my regular Cold One Knights, to help them stand out.

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.

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...

Take me to your toaster

Many years ago I saw a Gary Larson cartoon with an alien carrying an English-Martian dictionary, saying "Greetings, Earthling. Take me to your toaster". Apparently the internet never noticed this particular cartoon, so I can't include it here. So I guess you will have to take my word for it. Guess you had to be there, eh (if it's not on the internet, did it ever really happen?)...

Aaaanyway, I have painted a couple of Dark Elf bolt throwers. As October has not yet begun, these will not count towards Duelling Paintbrushes. But I wanted them done and I've been sitting on them for so long that it felt like they were due. The bolt throwers are of the old 4th edition "toaster" variety, due to their being shaped a bit like 2 bits of toast having popped out, side-by-side. I always preferred these models to the newer version, although you'll notice that I've used the more recent crew, as the original ones were the old Marauder miniatures (and for all that Marauder Dwarfs are the best things ever, they never seemed to get the hang of Elves and they all look a bit goofy with big, bulbous noses). 

Relatively new crew manning antique bolt throwers.

The 7th army

When my painted Empire reached a playable size (well over 2 years ago now - in fact, not that long before I started this blog), they became my 6th painted army. They had been preceded by High Elves, Wood Elves, Orcs and Goblins, Dwarfs, and Ogres. As anyone who has been following this blog can attest, I then made a point of focusing on painting Empire, building them up to an excessive size.

Through all of this, there have been two other armies sitting in cupboards, waiting for their time in the sun. Those armies are Bretonnians and Dark Elves, and they have been waiting their turn for years. Both have had the odd model painted now and again, but I've never gotten around to sitting down and painting up a proper force of either.

Well, it seems like that is about to change. Apparently deciding that it was about that time of the year again, Owen the Hippo appeared, brandishing paintbrushes with wild abandon and challenging all and sundry to another round of Duelling Paintbrushes. This time it was decided that the challenge would take place in October, and the 1000 points that each participant painted would be required as part of one of the 1500 point armies being used for the Warhammer World Series in mid-November.

I had a few options that I could focus on for the challenge, however the main contenders were to flesh out my Empire Ogres to a fully autonomous 1500 point Ogre Kingdoms army, or to finally get around to working on one of those long-shelved (although never really forgotten) armies. When Nick Gentile (of The Dwellers Below) expressed interest in painting up a High Elf force for the challenge, it seemed logical to pair them off against an army of their arch enemies, the Dark Elves. We then set about plotting a pair of well-matched armies for the occasion.

About halfway through the process it occurred to us that the rumour mill was strongly suggesting that the next army to be updated for Warhammer Fantasy was the Dark Elves, and that this major overhaul was meant to be occurring in early October. In other words, all our careful list planning was about to become meaningless. It sounds like nearly all the models are being updated as well. The timing was less than ideal. Not to be deterred, I decided that the chances are good that a relatively similar list can be planned out when the new army book is available, and I would just work with the existing list in the meantime.

In terms of what I have to work with right now, here is my mighty Dark Elf army as it currently stands:

All my painted Dark Elves. About half of which are assassins...

Duelling Paintbrushes 2 - the violent finale

When we commenced Duelling Paintbrushes last month, it was suggested that at the end, participants would bring their painted 1000 point armies along and use them against each other in a game. This idea was not abandoned, and on the weekend we got the chance to follow through on that plan. Thus was born Duelcon, which would consist of a round-robin event between Owen (of Terrain for Hippos), Drew (of Back in Drew's Day) and me - the only people that successfully painted at least 1000 points of Warhammer Fantasy during the challenge.

Owen got a little carried away and even devised a player pack of sorts for our little event, which you can see here (spoiler alert: it also contains the results). Note that the points limit was increased to 1150 points at Drew's request, because true to form he only read half of the original Duelling Paintbrushes terms and it didn't occur to him at the time that he might want magic items and the like for when he played with the finished 1000 point force.

Epic contest that this promised to be, we figured we would take some photos. I'm not going to go into a proper battle report for the games, but I'll let you know what was going on in the captions.

Here are the final lists:

Me: Empire Stirland

• Wizard Lord (Level 4, Lore of Fire) with Talisman of Preservation, Dispel Scroll
• Warrior Priest with Great Weapon, Armour of Meteoric Iron
• Captain with Great Weapon, Full Plate Armour, Dragonhelm, Obsidian Trinket
• 41 Halberdiers with Standard, Musician (the Champion got sucked off to act as a Captain to help fill out the extra 150 points)
• 16 Crossbowmen with Standard
• 5 Pistoliers with Champion with Repeater Pistol
• Great Cannon

Drew: Orcs and Goblins (who fancy themselves as Wood Elves)

• Goblin Great Shaman (Level 3) with Dispel Scroll
• Black Orc BSB on Boar with Shield
• 30 Orc Arrer Boyz with Standard, Musician
• 20 Night Goblin Archers with Full Command, 3 Fanatics, Nets
• 6 Trolls
• Giant

Owen: Skaven of Clan Skitterclaw

• Warlord on Great Pox Rat with Talisman of Preservation, Weeping Blade
• Warlock Engineer (Level 1)
• 25 Clanrats with Spears, Shields, Full Command, Warpfire Thrower
• 25 Clanrats with Shields, Full Command, Poisoned Wind Mortar
• 20 Stormvermin with Shields, Full Command
• 3 Rat Ogres with 1 Packmaster
• Doomwheel

Game 1: Empire vs Orcs and Goblins

Game 1 deployment. The Pistoliers used Vanguard to move past the forest before the game commenced

Duelling Paintbrushes 2 - finished!

Well, it's the morning of Friday the 30th November, and I'm already at work. I get on a plane to Canberra this afternoon, so that means I am officially out of time for Duelling Paintbrushes 2. But that's OK, because I am finished! And I was successful! Well, sort of...

My success here is only partial. I did manage to paint a legal 1000 point Empire army in a month, which was my original stated intention. However, the finished product is not the same as the one I announced at the beginning. I realised pretty early on that my original target was overly ambitious, and there was no way I was ever going to get it done. I kept painting however, and about a week ago I decided that I could still hit the 1000 point mark if I just reshuffled my target a bit. So out went a couple of characters and 20 Free Company, and in came a Great Cannon and a couple of magic items.

My completed 1000pt Stirland force. Excuse the poor picture; I was in a hurry this morning

My 1000 point legal force is as follows:

• Wizard Lord (Level 3) with Talisman of Endurance, Warrior Bane (oh yeah, baby! The weakest of magic weapons for the fighter least deserving to get one)...
• Warrior Priest with great weapon, Armour of Meteoric Iron
• 42 Halberdiers with full command
• 16 Crossbowmen with standard bearer
• 5 Pistoliers with musician, outrider with repeater pistol
• Great Cannon

TOTAL: 996 points

Duelling Paintbrushes II - Pistoliers done! (4th update)

The final week of Duelling Paintbrushes II continues, and last night I had the rare opportunity to spend about 5 hours straight at the painting table as my wife was at work and our son was with his grandmother. I sat down at 6pm, and apart from a couple of breaks for food, I painted solidly through to 11:30 at night. And what do I have to show for it? 5 completed Pistoliers.

I took a couple of progress shots, but they're not terribly interesting. I just thought I might track things and pay attention to how long it actually took me to paint them. 

6pm: 5 Pistoliers, unpainted except for the bases (which I sneakily did last thing the previous night)

8:30pm. By this point I probably wasted half an hour eating, so this is about 2 hours of work. The horses and their leather components are painted, the metal bits are painted and washed, and I've done the green basecoat

Duelling Paintbrushes II - 3rd update

November is rapidly disappearing; we are now into the final week of Duelling Paintbrushes II. My updates have been few and far between this time around, however I have still been trying to make steady progress so that I would at least have something to report. And that's what this is - a progress report!

It's been more than a week since my last progress update, but it's taken me that long to reach the target I set out then. I have completed the final wave of 16 Stirland Halberdiers. This means I now have 42 in the unit. It's not enough for an effective unit in a proper battle, however with a decent unit filler the regiment will be a good, solid size.

The final 16 Halberdiers rank up for the camera

All 42 Halberdiers, somewhat tediously ranked up together. These current plastics really don't line up all that well, especially when most of them were assembled by a previous owner...

Duelling Paintbrushes II - 2nd update

After my rather poor start to the painting challenge this month, I now have some momentum up. Not enough that I'm likely to actually achieve my original target, but I might now get to the point where I am not too embarrassed...

After finishing the 16 Crossbowmen during the week (Tuesday night, I think), I then started to tackle the Halberdier horde. My first batch was only 10 models, and I managed to get them done by the end of Thursday. I then decided that I'd much rather finish the unit in 2 more batches rather than 3, so on Friday I started to paint 16 more of them. Late last night (Sunday), I declared them finished.

26 Halberdiers. A bit of static grass will brighten their bases a bit, but I'll do that at the end of the challenge.

Duelling Paintbrushes II - 1st update

This will be a bit of an experiment, as my computer is currently busy doing other things, so I'm posting from my phone. Bear with me...

Well, my start to Duelling Paintbrushes has not been everything I might have hoped. After setting myself a very steep target, I shot out of the gate and got 16 Crossbowmen mostly painted within a couple of days. Then I stalled. There were things on, and I didn't find any time to sit down at the painting table. Then Halo 4 came out on the 6th. I really should have factored that into my plans. Oh well. Anyway, that lost me a few evenings.

I'm actually away on holiday for a few days at the moment, and I am only now getting any real progress made. And we're already halfway through November. I am quietly admitting to myself that there is now no way that I am going to achieve my ambitious target. Nevertheless I shall soldier on and try to put a serious dent in the tally.

I'm reasonably happy with how the first unit has come out. They're also effectively my test models for the yellow and green Stirland scheme. The approach was fairly simple - the yellow with Iyanden Darksun, washed with Devlan Mud, then highlighted with Golden Yellow. Yes, I am still living in the past, using the old paints (or their Vallejo equivalents). The green is a similar approach - Dark Angel Green, Devlan Mud and a Snot Green highlight. None of it is fancy, but it will do the trick.

The next target is the large Halberdier unit. I've decided to do them 10 at a time, and the first batch is underway. Only 32 more to go... Sigh.

Duelling Paintbrushes 2: It begins

Today is the 1st of November, which means it's the first day of the second edition of Duelling Paintbrushes. I've been a bit lax in the lead-up to this, so I'm still yet to commit to my plans. Well, time to rectify this. Here is what I plan to paint in the next month:

• General of the Empire on foot
• Warrior Priest on foot
• Battle Wizard on foot
• Witch Hunter on foot
• 42 Halberdiers
• 20 Free Company
• 16 Crossbowmen
• 5 Pistoliers

Axemaster and beyond

This coming weekend sees me involved in yet another tournament. Axemaster will most likely be the last event on the local calendar. This is probably a good thing, as I'm about ready for a break. I always make resolutions to step back and attend fewer tournaments, then end up getting caught up in the social aspect of things when lots of other people are going.

Axemaster will also be the final tournament to be included in the rankings system for this year, along with Castle Assault which is running at the same time up in New South Wales. The push to make Masters will be extremely tight this time - it looks like there are at least 8 players at Axemaster who could make the cut if they finish on the podium. 8 into 3 doesn't fit, so this could be a very competitive event.

Duelling Paintbrushes: All done!

Well, today is Day 13 - the final day of the painting challenge. And I'm finished! 

My full quota, ready to go.

The final 7 Kossars are complete.

A close-up of the first 4.

And the remaining 3.

All 35 guys ranked up together.

18 of the models have bows in hand.

The remaining 17 have their axes out.

All laid out in the separate units.

I realised after I took all these pictures that I hadn't added static grass to the bases of the models, but that is really a finishing touch, and one that I often do in bulk. I'll get to it in the end.

 

So I made it in the end. Ultimately I paced myself reasonably well. I was worried early on, when I spent 8 hours painting in one day and made little progress. However, once I shifted my approach to smaller batches of models, things felt like they were moving along. I will have to bear this in mind for the future.

What else have I learned? Well, challenging a speed painter to a painting challenge is a sure path to humiliation. Not that I'm really sorry about that - I'm glad to see the Chaos production line in full swing.

Would I do it again? Probably. I will not be accused of learning from my mistakes - especially not ones that result in my models getting painted.