So after yesterday saying that I could probably get the Green Knight finished today if I cracked on… well I didn’t finish or crack on for that matter. My daughter asked if I would play Ark with her and we spent a long time doing it. We then played one night as Vampire as a family so in the end I decided I couldn’t be bothered to do anything.
I did however force myself to get the paint out and do something… voila.. a white horse, some white on a Sister of Battle and an arm glued on a Brettonian mounted squire…
Tonight after various shenanigans I managed to get some paint onto the Knight and entourage. This was mainly gold to be honest…
I feel like they are starting to come together now. Still always to go, but a good old way towards finishing. I reckon if I cracked on tomorrow I might even get them finished.
My mate came up with a deal today when we did a little video chat. If I paint up the rest of his GW stuff then he will give me his Aliens Gear, that seems a good deal for me as he has some stuff I cannot get anymore and also has an APC. Talking of his figures…
I also got some black added to the sister of Battle. I forgot that the gloves need to be white, but you know…
That highlight on the cloak needs sorting out… it looks great at six feet…honest!
We did have some snow today and as per normal the gritters came at around 11.30 this morning as we are category 3. The joke here is that the graveyards get done before us! Anyway so for all you Australian types and people in other warm places…. I give you Snow… sadly not a huge amount, but enough to make the place white…
Tonight I got a bit of work done on the Knight and entourage….
Still a long old way to go, but I am definitely getting there. I darkened down the metalwork, unfortunately I had to use Contrast paint and some medium to get it more like a wash than a paint and it seemed to work. I will work the highlights in when I next get onto him.
I found this a bit sad, when old arch enemies meet up and cannot settle their differences… it is a sad, sad world at times…
Sorry… couldn’t resist it! 😂
To make up for it here are a couple of friends getting ready for the snow rolling in…
We got about an inch of snow, the gritters were pre gritting at 14.00, by time we came back from the horse at 18.00 the snow had melted but had then refrozen and we were driving a sledge at times. Interestingly the took the 21.00 bus off for safety reasons which is fine, but did it at 20.50, meaning all those people who work shifts were stuck in town… sometimes you cannot make things up.
So I did some more work on the horse and also another redo of the Knight. They, and the shields, got another coat or two of Green. I also repainted the metalwork on the Knight using a darker metallic to allow me to highlight easier.
I survived the first day back at work, not sure whether it was the water over there for my tea breaks, but flippin heck I have had to leg it to the loo a fair bit today (not that you needed to know that). It would seem that I won’t be having any kids in my school until 1st February at the earliest.
So I have it a figure order in for four miniatures as I heard that Alternative Armies have a super rare one that I have been after for ages… that New Years resolution lasted a long time didn’t it!
The photos look like I haven’t achieved much this evening, I have in fact repainted all of the green on the horse barding as well as the Knight…
I decided to try and do some highlights by drybrushing white over the green and then doing a single layer of contrast…it looked total shite.
So I repainted it all in white again only to find that the White wasn’t taking the Contrast, so as you can see it and still shiny. After much swearing I then overturned a pot of opened Contrast. Luckily I had a big brush handy and saved about 90% of it.
I honestly don’t know what is going on with the Contrast, but I believe that the problem is the white I am using as it went fine over the spray paint and has only really been an issue over the brushed on stuff. Perhaps it is time for a new white.
The lime green bit near the saddle is actually the same paint colour as the bit to the left of it!
But the highlight of the early evening had to be trying to clear the header of the septic tank. Luckily I have no sense of smell. It took about an hour before we got it sorted. In the process I managed to badly twist my ankle… luckily I am back to work tomorrow so that should take my mind off things.
Shetland has now hit 84 cases, ten more today. All fallout from the original party.
The horse trappings are two tone, not that you can see in the image above, but it is a bit more apparent in the next one…
I also picked up the Flintloque stuff I said I would buy off my mate,
I think there are a mixture of the deserter army and dark elf guerrillas and line troops (oh and a werewolf). I will get these stripped and add them to my pile of shame.
Covid News is that we have another three new cases and that three of the original 70 are now in hospital and are poorly. It does seem though that we are slowing and that people were on the whole sensible. One of My wife’s colleagues has it and although feeling crap they seem to be okay. They got it whilst eating in one of the restaurants I mentioned a few posts ago. On the up side we are still in tier three as we locked down and are able to do so…But we will now be home schooling until Feb 1st at the earliest.
Well okay not anywhere near true, I managed loads today, just not Painting miniatures. I would have done some but I was out on the conservatory roof again (and will be on there again tomorrow). My fingers are aching so I decided to give them a rest. As some of you may remember, I had a drip in the roof and it went away, then decided to come back. So today in a fit of either pique or even keenness I got up there and ripped the roofing felt off above the leak to see what the heck was going on.
Once I managed to find the drip from the top I then traced it back up the roof. Sadly this meant I had to take more felt off. So in the end I had removed a third of it (luckily I had enough spare to cover what I took off.
Anyway regarding the Knight, after saying he wouldn’t be green, I am now swinging back the other way and am probably going to do him in shades of it. I kept coming up with ideas and to be honest the ideas looked a bit naff.
The feathers will be a darker green and the trappings brighter with a white bridle and silver of gold fleur de lys on it. This will speed up painting to be sure 😂.
And finally, once again I was in the wrong place at the wrong time!
Since writing I hadn’t done anything I thought I had better get my arse into gear and do something, not a lot, but some progress was made…
Interestingly enough the shield and painted knight were the colours he was in originally …. errr yuk! I seem to be missing my Brettonian shields so I have had to make do with one from my ancient bits box. I actually think it suits the foot sergeant.
The other thing I found was this….
Somewhere a young lady is missing a horse!
And finally, this made me laugh (or wince perhaps)…
Today I managed to get some work done on the knights and the Sisters. As it was bright I went into the conservatory and worked in there until the light started to fail.
Now as I have a lot of minis and a lot of paint I needed a system to get them from house to conservatory and back again… my good lady to the rescue…
A good while ago we bought this oven dish that didn’t fit the oven so, it is now my carting stuff about tin.
After dinner I managed to watch Coco a very moving tale about a small Mexican boy that wasn’t allowed music and at the same time I managed to get some more work done on the things started earlier.
I still haven’t decided on the colours of the actual knight yet. At this rate he Will end up being green just to get him finished! Hopefully I will come up with a colour scheme that I like. He was originally red and blue, but I don’t think that will work, or rather it didn’t last time!
So as a bit of a what have I been up to last year I will start by showing the first and last painted figures from last year.
These were the first painted in 2020. Other ones were finished after Jan 1st but were started between Christmas. Last completed miniature in 2020.
So having gone back through the posts and media then in 2020 I managed to paint (and complete) the following
6mm Armies: undead, Samurai, Sons of Set, Burmese, Lizardmen, Halflings. I also worked on reducing the 3D builds from 3DAlienWorlds to fit 6mm. It was tricky but I got there in the end.
A unit of monks for the Samurai army.
15mm: Sengoku Monster Hunter Set for my mate including a 3D printed village…
The Japanese Village using the fabulous 3DAlienworlds STL’s
I also started and finished my 15mm Samurai army to be used in either HOTT or DBM…
I also managed to paint some 28mm stuff, not too much to be honest. The printed Lord of the Rings stuff from ‘The Printing Goes Ever On’ took up most of the time along with the Ill gotten games minis and the Neolithic stuff I printed…
Now these are the things I finished and not the things I started and for whatever reason gave up on. Most of March and April was done with the Lizardmen which I very quickly fell out of love for.
I probably spent more time printing than painting this year, an exaggeration but it does feel like I printed more things than painted. still to work on are the roads I printed, my 15mm village and my Hexon tile and my meeple dungeons
The other thing I managed was a diorama, inspired as I was by Dave, Pat and Eric. I just needed a personal spark and it came funnily enough with the Neolithic gear I printed… I spent a good while looking at the various miniatures I had done and things swam into focus… not a human in sight…
Now this thing took a lot of my energy but I have kind of got the bug a bit and already have a couple more planned (at least)…
The first will be a wolf and pups outside a cave, the second is called He’s behind you! Now these are just simple mock ups. I want the wolf to be in a cave among the roots of a tree and the other to be in heavy vegetation.
So where do I see 2021 going… I am really going to try and curtail my purchasing of miniatures, this is two fold, one financial, I am trying not to spend on stuff that will never get done… the Lizardmen army being a case in point, bought, started and then lost all love and belief in the project.
Now I will likely waver, but with the amount of stuff I have to print and the amount of minis I still have to paint then it should keep me in miniatures for a really long while.
Off the top of my head….
On top of this lot, there are more 6mm Samurai coming from a Kickstarter as well as some dogmen for Flintloque I said I would buy from a mate. As I said this lot was off the top of my head. I was mooching for some bits and pieces and found three Gw boxes of miniatures under the bed. Chaos marauder infantry, Lizardmen temple guard and some empire gunners and swordsmen.
First up to paint will be my ‘Green Knight’ and entourage, they probably won’t be green…. just saying
And finally, in case nobody says it to you today or any other day….
Bogenwald 