Today I finished highlighting the last of the robes and started painting the flesh with goblin green. I only got half the models finished, but feel like I am keeping pace to hit my goal.
My goal is to have these 2 units completed by day 8 of the challenge. I feel like that is still doable, but it will take a bit of focus to hit the mark.
I'm not sure about switching them all to round bases. I've considered it, but haven't made a decision. What do you think? Leave them on square bases or switch them to round?
Day 2 of of the challenge is under my belt. I finished trimming the flash of the Night Goblins and touched up the paint I trimmed off with black.
Next, I dry-brushed all the the robes with London Grey. After that, I washed the robes with Nuln Oil to dull the color back down.
You can see the difference here between the model after it has been dry-brushed grey (on the left) and then with the wash applied (on the right).
With that finished, the next step will be to highlight the raised bits on the robes.
This is a pretty big batch of models (60 models). I normally do smaller batches, but these models are so similar I thought I would just do them as one batch. I might regret that later.
I finished up the models I set about to paint in the boot camp. I've added a unit of 12 spear armed moria goblins to my forces.
I finished them with some time to spare so I also worked on some bases for my ever growing Kings of War army and I even spent some time working on some spaceships.
I completed the boot camp and now I'm on to the full challenge.
For those that don't know, this is a 31 day challenge. Ideally, it should be consecutive days, but I'm not going to be able to keep up with that. Instead, I'm going to post 31 updates, but they won't be each day.
The updates are video updates. I've not done videos of my miniatures in the past, so it has been a bit of a learning process. I just got myself a microphone so hopefully the sound on the videos will be improving.
My plan is to finish a full goblin army for use with Kings of War. I have a couple of units done, but have many more to complete. For this update, I showed the scope of my goal. What I worked on today was cleaning mold lines off of a pile of night goblins.
I'm hoping the completed army will be about 2,000 points. It will include units from different lines of goblins: night goblins, moria goblins, misty mountain goblins, and gnoblars. I'm also including a giant and a unit of trolls.
I'll be able to use the models in this army for other games; Dragon Rampant and maybe Age of Sigmar.
First on the block will be a unit of night goblins. I spent today cleaning mold lines of the night goblins and got a little more than half of the models trimmed.
It seems that I've done a lot of Lord of the Rings models lately. And looking at what I've got painted and I have got a lot done.
I picked up some Minas Tirith soldiers from eBay and they were already painted. They were not painted very well, but they were cheap so I wasn't mad. I didn't want to start over so I thought I would try to "fix" the paint job and see how they looked
Below you can see how these looked when I started..
Most of the work in fixing these was just applying a better layer of silver on the armor. I did a little bit of work on the weapons and faces. Then I applied a wash to the whole model and then based them in my usual way. The results are below and I am happy with the results.
These aren't going to win a painting contest, but they will look good enough on the table. I now have 4 units of warriors of Minas Tirith for Dragon Rampant and I will also be using these as the basis of a Kings of War Army. They will probably be used alongside some Rohan models.
After painting my first batch of Goblin Town Goblins, I started working on some more. This time I decided to do a larger batch.
36 models this time. In retrospect that is probably more than I should have done in a single batch. It takes time to get this many done, but when you finish them it is a big addition to your army.
My last post about these guys gave the breakdown on how I painted these and you can find the details here.
I stuck with the same paint scheme and am happy with the look. When I put these in my Kings of War army, I will be using them as rabble. With these completed I now have 48 of these models painted and ready for battle.
Today I was able to paint the bases brown and drybrush them tan. I still need to add a clump of static grass, but that will be a quick task.
I'm happy with how these have turned out and these add another unit to my Dragon Rampant forces and half a unit for my Kings of War army.
Since these are finished and I still have time left in the boot camp, I am going to have to find something else to work on. I might start on the big project or I might start work on the Firestorm Armada Fleet I am painting for the Toys for Tots auction. I don't think I will get them done in the next 2 days of the boot camp, but I can get a good start on them.
Not quite as much progress as on Day 1, but I still got some stuff done.
Really the only things left to do are paint, drybrush, and flock the bases.
I've been thinking about the main challenge and what I plan to do. As I said, I will be working to flesh out a full Kings of War goblin army. I just need to decide what I want to include in the army and how big is should be.
Last year, I took part in the Tale of an Epic Gamer painting challenge. That challenge is focused on 6mm armies (primairly Epic 40K, but some others sneak in as well). The idea is to set a goal and to post your results from month to month to show what you have accomplished.
It was a great experience for me and taught me the importance of setting painting goals and pushed me to paint more than 15,000 points of models for NetEpic Armageddon. So far this year, I have not set any goals because for most of the year I have been working on a home remodel. Well, the big stuff is pretty much finished and now I need to get back to the goal setting.
While I have not set any goals, I have managed to get a fair number of models painted. I posted an update in January with a list of projects I planned to work on this year. Much of what I've painted lately has fit into those projects.
I came across some videos on YouTube of some people taking part in Warboss Tae's 2016 Painting Challenge. The videos were pretty good and showed people of different levels working on their projects.
The challenge offers different levels. The Adventurer; lets you paint what you can and post a video of your work at the end of the month (or periodically if you can). The Emperor, is a hard core commitment where you post a video of your project every day to show your progress as well as including a story that is tied to meeting your painting goals during the challenge. The middle ground levels are Lord Commander and Loremaster.
I think I'm going to try my hand at this and will kind of split the difference between the Adventurer and the Lord Commander. So, I'm committing to posting 31 videos of my projects and the progress that I make, but they won't be sequential days as I don't get a chance to paint every day.
The first step in the challenge is to go through a Boot Camp. This is a 5 day project and sets the pace for the bigger challenge. I've been working on painting up some models for Dragon Rampant and KoW games. These have been Lord of the Rings models; goblins and men of Minas Tirith. I've got a good force started for the goblins and have started on the Minas Tirith force.
Part of my existing Goblin force.
My goal for this 5 day boot camp will be to paint a unit of 12 goblins to add to my existing force. I will be painting a unit of Moria Goblins with Spears.
Not everyone is a fan of painting. I get that. I probably spend more time painting than playing, but I guess I'm special that way. Taking part in a challenge like this is a great way to motivate you to paint some of the pile of models you have for your hobby. Setting a goal focuses the mind and pushes us to achieve something. Set a goal that works for you. Don't set a goal that you know you can't achieve because that will kill your motivation. Also, don't be afraid to adjust your goal if you need to. If you haven't gotten as far as you planned, scale back. If you get everything done in 2 days, add more models to complete before your deadline.
Stay tuned to see how this challenge progresses. I have decided I will be finishing my Goblin Kings of War army for the full challenge. I've already got a few units done, but I am confident I will finish the whole thing by then end of this challenge. I will detail out exactly what I plan to get painted very soon.
Day 1 is in the bag and I made some very good progress. Let's see how these look at the end of the boot camp.
I'd love to hear how you keep motivated to paint your piles of lead and plastic. Do you set goals or do you have some other way to keep you focused?
I has been almost a year since I was last able to put together a game of Alpha Strike. I really enjoy the simplicity of the game and even though it has been a year, the rules came right back to us and a good time was had by all.
The scenario - Breakthrough.
A contingent of the 2nd Sword of Light has been cut off from it's main force. It must breakthrough the line of opposing mechs so it can reconnect. There is no place to retreat, so the Kurita forces will not be subject to the forced withdrawal rules. The Kurita force must move accross the battlefield and off the board edge on the opposite end of the table. All mechs are set up on within 8" of one short edge of the table.
The attacking force must stop the Dragons from reconnecting. Their objective is to destroy or disable as many mechs as they can. The attacking forces move onto the table from the opposite short edge on the first turn of the game.
Kurita Forces included 16 mechs divided into 4 lances all with skill 4.
The OpFor included 12 mechs divided into 3 lances all with skill 3.
Shame on me for not taking better notes (or any notes). Since I didn't get a chance to write up this review until now, I only have the pictures to remind me what happened, so the synopsis is going to be brief.
The Kurita forces started their advance knowing they would loose some of their numbers but also with the understanding that they must break through or all of them would die.
The terrain was fairly open and allowed for open shots as they advanced toward the attacking force. However, that also meant they could be targeted as well.
Several Mechs fell as the 2nd Sword of Light pushed forward, but they honored themselves by allowing their fellow warriors to continue on.
The attacking force, knowing the defenders had to come through them, didn't advance far and many opted to remain stationary to improve their targeting ability. There must have been a problem with the targeting computers, though, as it was very challenging for them to acquire locks on their targets and it seems that more shots missed than hit.
The first mechs of the 2nd Sword of Light reached the enemy line.
The left flank saw the most mechs break through the attackers line. All was not lost in this battle and these mechs could now reconnect with the main force of the Kurita battleline.
The attackers managed to get 50% of their mechs off the table. They could have done better, but these mechs will definitely make a difference in the coming engagements.
Moe the Great made a post on The Miniatures Page looking for volunteers to paint some models that will be auctioned off at the Fall In! convention to support Toys for Tots.
While I'm not the greatest painter out there, I thought I would throw my hat in the ring and offered to paint something for this event.
I contacted Moe and was given the option of a couple different options that I could paint; Firestorm Armada Fleet, Perry 28mm Mercenaries, 15mm sci-fi vehicles, etc. I told him to pick whatever and I would paint it.
He chose a box set of Firestorm Armada models and sent them to me to paint.
I've painted a couple of models from this line in the past, but they were from a different faction. I will do my best to paint these models up to a respectable level and will hopefully be good enough to draw some interest and some good dollars at the auction.
I plan to post my progress on my blog.
My next step will be to clean these up and to wash the models.
I've been looking around for some ideas on the paint scheme. If you have any ideas you can post links in the comments and I will take them under advisement.
