The Halflings cannot be stopped

My progress on the halflings has rolled on inexorably. Or maybe it's that I've made progress on halflings who roll on inexorably. In terms of actual time spent on some of these guys, how can something so short take so long? It's a riddle indeed.

I find the Duncan Shadow halflings quite straightforward to paint, and I like that their snappy uniforms are so crisply defined. It basically forces me to paint the puff and slash in separate colours, which is why I elected to put them alongside the MOM greatswords, who are much the same. Of course, finding them straightforward and them taking little time seem to be two unrelated things for me. And I still find that I struggle with some of their faces, particularly the female ones. Painting faces is often one of the most rewarding parts of the model, because it is sometimes really clear where the highlights should go, and it draws the model together. I didn't always find that here, and it's discouraging. But they'll be perfectly usable as a regiment on the tabletop. Looking at them individually (or with a camera) is always a little less forgiving.

20 Duncan Shadow halfling archers, up to my usual sort of tabletop standard. I had already shared 10 of these. The other 10 were done in a reverse colour scheme to try to break up the fact that there's only 6 different models there.

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.

So, where to now?

This is just a bit of a general hobby update. I don't post as many of these as I used to, even when I am actually getting some hobby work done. I'll see if I can get more into the habit again.

First, a bit of catching up to do. My mad sprint to try to get ready for Cancon was only modestly successful. As you might have seen in the tournament photos, both the flying wolves and the halflings got to the point where they were usable, but not finished. The halflings in particular didn't really get close, but were hiding in amongst finished ones, which helped to distract from my shame.

I haven't taken any really decent specific shots of either the wolves or the halflings in their incomplete state, but this will give some idea...

Not the best shot, but there is some very black hair in there, and a severe lack of detail if you look at them up close.

The wolfybirbs actually got nearly finished. More finished than in this pic actually, given the bases were finished. This was to show a friend where I got to on the wings, which in the end were about the only incomplete detail. I had to call it given I was out of time, and decided unfinished wings were something I could get away with.