We're on a boat!

It has been about 10 days since my last update, and I'm afraid that I have not yet made any progress on the slow grow painting challenge. Poor Dwarfs. Their time will come. In the meantime however, I have managed to complete the Marienburg Landship! In many ways I felt like I had already broken the back of it in my last post (or maybe broken my own back), but it is undeniably more colourful now.

One Empire Landship, complete with a 18x10cm base that a friend made for me on an FDM printer. It probably could have been a little smaller, but this feels appropriate for the size of the model.

Going slowly and another Slow Grow

True to my previous declaration, my hobby time for the last couple of weeks has basically been dedicated to painting up my Empire Landship. The fact that it's been that long, and that it's not finished, and that I haven't even really been skimping on time spent on it, is a testament to how much work this has been. It's a very big model...

Still a work in progress, but the worst parts of it are done now. Just detailing and crew to do.

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.

A Different State of MInd

Well it's been over a month since my last post, but let's face it - there have been much longer gaps recently. This is practically frequent posting. And what's more, I actually seem to have rebuilt some hobby momentum. In my previous post I had painted 7 Teutogen Guard, and it was the first real painting I had done in months. Well since then, I have painted another 7 Teutogen Guard. I was going to do more (there are 11 more that already have a bit of paint on them), but I got sidetracked. Here is what my unit now looks like with all the painted stuff together...

49 Teutogen Guard, counting the obligatory unit filler. Most of these guys were painted long ago and need a clean up. Maybe they'll get it at some point. For now they can just rely on my poor, lazy photography taken with them sitting in my lap.

As I say, I got sidetracked. I was starting to feel the grind of painting the same things, and rather than risk pushing and burning out again, I looked around for something to inspire me. This resulted in me going off on a tangent and started painting Empire models for a new province - Talabecland! They have snazzy red and yellow uniforms, and in my mind it's one of the classic colour combinations you'd see in multi-state armies. Before this post I had literally no Empire models with this colour scheme, but now I have... some. More than none, but far from an army.

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.

A Tale of Two Taverns: The Other Part 1

Of course, there's two sides to this story. On the one hand you have that festering turd of an establishment called the Brass Farthing, but on the other you have the Fleecy Half Pint. In Averland it is, but not far from the border with Mootland. It's a fine place, although the roof is a little low on account of the customers bein' a bit short. But that just makes it all the more cosy, and the company is cheerful as you could hope for. And the ale... The ale is to die for. Though nobody ever finds the bodies...

We've been a little slow getting organised with the photos, but Noakes also completed his painting target for the month. Here we have the crowd from the Fleecy Half Pint, along with what personal details I was able to glean from Noakes' fevered ramblings...

20 painted halflings, all of them from the Warlords of Erehwon range. 

A Tale of Two Taverns: Part 1 Done

Now there's this tavern down in Stirland, called the Brass Farthing. Pretty dodgy place, it is. Not like our fine establishment here... Anyway, the place ain't much to look at, although they say the owner, some Dwarf fella, has more money than Sigmar... But yeah, the place ain't flash, but they say the ale they serve there is somethin' else. It's so good, it's almost unnatural!

A month has passed since my initial post in the series, and I'm pleased to report that I managed to paint everything I was originally hoping to. This is a novel feeling - it's been a long time since I really felt like I managed to paint anything to much of a schedule.

Anyway, behold the patrons of the Brass Farthing, one of the most questionable taverns in Stirland...

40 of the most questionable soldiers you're ever likely to meet in the field. The first time I've really painted any Free Company, and I'm kind of sick of them. Too many colour decisions.