No pics today

So, I haven't painted at all today - soccer game in the morning, then some errands, then off to lose a game at the FLGS, then a movie in the evening.  I will be posting an updated board tomorrow, and finally, a painted mini.  Yes, it's for an RPG, and I haven't played any RPGS in almost a year, but hey, it's an infinitesimal dent in the overall backlog.

Of course, I am going to be ordering some Malifaux stuff from the FLGS, to take advantage of the June promotion, and I am sure that July and August will be adding some more minis to my collection.  Add in the 10th anniversary Hordes box, 3Haley and the Femme, and I need to step up my painting game, and fast.

No board update this morning

I might take a pic of the board later today, but for various reasons, the board did not change much yesterday.  The bottleneck is kind of obvious - I can assemble and prime minis much faster than I can paint them.  So, while I put together a couple of things yesterday, I tried to spend my hobby time painting.  I'm not even painting minis for a wargame; I've been painting up a couple of Bones minis, even though I haven't played an RPG in years.

No matter.  Painting is painting, more or less, and it's making a dent in the enormous backlog of plastic and lead.  I am using that time to think about what I want to take to GenCon and play, as well as beyond.  Once I decide that, and once I decide on a scheme for the Wrath of Kings minis, then those will start moving from the "To Paint" section into "Painting in Progress" fairly quickly, although they will then hang there. 

Hopefully, tonight or tomorrow, my post will include at least one finished miniature.  I really need to get something done soon, just to help maintain momentum.

Two in a row!

Too soon to call this a habit though.  Maybe if I can be publicly shamed (or at least the threat of it exists), then I will actually continue to advance in my painting.  I have several projects for GenCon that I really need to start on, so some of these new ones are definitely going to stall out for a bit.  Still, a quick look at the board status this morning shows that I definitely got some stuff assembled and primed yesterday.

What's missing is whatever army I take to GenCon.  If I take CoC, they are mostly painted, and I can take a painted Cryx army with only a little work (mainly re-gluing a few models that have come apart), but I am not sure what I want to take at the moment.  I need to decide by the end of the weekend, so I can start getting some games in with them, and so that I can start painting them if they are something else.

The other PG and I are also talking with the store about what we want to see played locally.  WM/H, of course, but we are also wanting to have Firestorm Armada and Planetfall, plus probably Wrath of Kings, Kings of War, and Infinity.  I am also looking at adding some random Mad Max style game (possibly Warlands),  just as an occasional, let's crash some cars, kind of game.

I'm hoping to move at least a couple models into the base and seal category here in a day or so, and I really need to decide at the beginning of the day what I am going to build.  I could probably build (which includes trimming, pinning, etc)  3-5 models per day for the rest of the year, and still not catch up on everything.  But I hope to make a dent this summer, that's for certain.

Well, until my Wrath of Kings KS comes in.  And whatever I buy at GenCon.  And if I decide to paint my SDE and Rivet Wars models. . . .

New year starts whenever, right?

So, summer is here, kids are underfoot, and GenCon is fast approaching.   I'm going to start making an effort to update a lot more often, because that way I can document some progress.  And, to help limit what I am trying to do, and to visualize progress, I took a spare white board, and made a Kanban board.

I have more categories than "To Do," "In Progress," and "Done," however.  But, if I take daily (or near daily photos), then I should be able to actually track progress of some projects across the board, and, more importantly, I can attempt to limit what is actually on my plate at any given time.  If I don't do that, then I can easily wind up with a several dozen different projects at each stage, and that's just too much.  Now, at the moment, there are full KS boxes that are in the "To Build" category, and as I pull a few models out of each per day, they will slowly move into the primed category. 

In the meantime, at the start of the day today, this is what my board looked like:

I should at least be able to add a few more to the "Build in progress" or "to prime" categories today, and some of the ones waiting for priming will be moved onward to "To Paint"

The more, the better.  Later this month, I have some Warmahordes stuff coming, and I have at least one Kickstarter coming before the end of the year.  Plus, I buy stuff at GenCon, and I am still dumping stuff that I don't play for stuff that I hopefully will. I need to start working on this backlog of lead and plastic, before it buries me.

Slacking

Yes, I have been.  I need to write a longer post, but the short version is: have an airbrush, learning how to use it.  Experimenting with rubber molds and resin and mass produced terrain.  Losing some games, but not getting to play.  Trying to purge some of the stuff that I never use, mad at people who don't want to pay more than 30% of the MSRP price for new items on Bartertown, AdeptiCon was fun, looking forward to GenCon.

Now say all of that in one breath.

Choices, choices

I can paint, or I can blog.  For the most part, I have been painting, as has hopefully been evident by my lack of blogging.  I have generally been working on my models for at least 15 or 20 minutes each day, which sadly is not doing much better than treading water.  Especially since Sunday found me as the proud owner of two new TEPs for my Convergence forces, and my Bones II pledge arrived today.

I really, really want to open the Bones II and gaze upon the glory that is a box full of Bonesium.  I have promised myself that, in order to open them, the TEPs have to be done (well, everything but basing).  I'm painting them on the sprues, or at least the first one, which may or may not turn out to be a mistake.  The first is fairly far along, with the base metallics all done, and now I am working on the detail and secondary colors.  I actually hope to have it assembled, or mostly so, by tomorrow night.

I've cut at least a couple armies and games out of my painting queue for AdeptiCon.  I might still manage to paint up a chunk more of my FSA figs, and I will probably take my (small) painted fleet, but I'm not planning on finishing anything else for them.  I might do the same thing with my Relthoza, since the paint scheme for them is ridiculously easy. 

I'm planning on taking more than Convergence to AdeptiCon, but I might not be able to play with much of it, since it won't be finished.  We will see.  I still have a couple of weeks, and much of it is probably closer to being done than I realize.  Everything realistically needs to be painted no later than Sunday, March 15, since that gives me a couple days to finish basing everything and get it all packed.

Not much progress this week

Just a very busy week.  I had hoped to get more done, but twas not to be.  On the other hand, I got both units of plastic drudges together, except for one that was missing a part - not sure if I will greenstuff one, or request a replacement.  It's just part of the loincloth, so that shouldn't be that hard.

I took stuff to the FLGS last night, so I could get something done while my son played in Friday Night Magic.  He lost his games, but had fun, and I got some base colors on a bunch of models.  It was a good use of two hours, and I really need to make bringing the paints a staple of my Friday night kit, instead of just taking a book.

The list of models to finish isn't really shrinking, but more models are assembled, primed, base colors and so.  I'll probably follow my usual progression here - work, and work, and work, and nothing is actually finished.  And then, over the space of a couple days, forty or fifty models move from "still need detail and touch-up work" to "finished and sealed."  I'm a lot more optimistic about two of the factions, though my poor piggies may have to fall by the wayside this year.  (I may take them, especially if there is a strong rumor that the Meat Thresher will be there, but they may not hit the table if it is not there.)

Where does the time go?

Aaargh!  The last week went by far too quickly.  A lot of that time was spent prepping for a Miniature Wargaming Day at the local FLGS (BC Comix in Battle Creek.  Check them out on Facebook.)  We wound up having Warmachine, Hordes, Malifaux, Firestorm Armada, High Command, and Robotech Tactics all being demoed and played.  Since I was the only one with Robotech Tactics minis, I spent the last week assembling them. 

You may have heard that the minis are overly complicated, that the sprues aere messed up and sometimes make no sense, that the instructions aren't the greatest.  Some of this is true, some is exaggeration.  The Regult and the Glaug?  Not a problem.  The Spartan and Phalanx?  Not an issue.  The Veritech?  Frustration multiplied by pain and taken the power of exasperation.  I got almost everything assembled, but it wasn't fun.  Now back to assembling, priming and painting WM/H for AdeptiCon, with some Malifaux and FSA added to the mix.

Progress report

I'm not painting nearly as much as I would like  Part of that is life getting in the way, part of that is because I decided to help out the FLGS.  Today, they are having a 40k tourney.  It's apparently going to be kind of a big deal - they are hoping to have people coming from several hours away (though the foot of snow expected over the course of the day will probably lessen attendance some).  Anyway, the FLGS does not have nearly enough terrain for this.  They have the table space, they have table toppers (to get them to 4' x 6'), but the tables would have been pretty spare.

So, the store reached out to the local gaming club, which, ideally, would have said something like "You betcha!  We're not really using it that day, and we'd love to see lots of 40k games being played in the area, even if they aren't at our preferred store.  What time and format is the tourney, anyway, because we would love to play!"

That didn't happen.

So, I looked at what I had in the basement earlier this week, sent a quick message to the store telling them that I could probably scrounge up some terrain for them to use, and got to work.  This is the result:



(For scale purposes - the green area rug is 5' x 8')

The final tally is more impressive.  I managed another seven or eight linear feet of walls, maybe more.  I had a large box of hills that aren't pictured here.  There are pieces on the right that got cut out of the photo.

Now, I have been painting.  I got a couple of things finished - and I'll post pics in the next day or so.  But, I have also been working toward the next big thing for my FLGS.  They're doing a miniature gaming demo day.  So, we plan on running demos of Warmachine and Hordes, another local is going to run Malifaux demos, and we'll have space set up to demo and play Firestorm Armada, Relic Knights, and Robotech Tactics.  We'll also demo PP games like Zombies Keep Out and High Command.

So I have also been building Robotech figs.  And some Malifaux. And painting FSA stuff, in addition to WM models.  And, this afternoon, while the snow falls, I am going to be spending some quality time in the basement, assembling veritech fighters and battlepods, while watching a bad movie or two, and periodically going out to fight a losing battle against the white stuff falling from the sky.

Not catching up

I'm not managing to catch up all that much.  The models that I was painting a few days ago still aren't done, and I'm not much more along than I had been.  (Okay, a couple things are "done," but they aren't really important at the moment.)  And, I won't be finishing anything for the next day or two either.

See, one of the local FLGS is running a 40k event this weekend.  They don't have a whole lot of terrain.  I mean, they have some, but they are hoping for (and planning on) having something like 10 tables running.  They might have terrain for 3.  They are bringing in terrain from one of the other locations, but they may not have enough.  So, for the next day or two, I am going to be making a lot of terrain.  I'm hoping to even get some of it painted, although that might be a stretch. 

The side effect of this is that (1) some of the terrain can be used for WM/H, so I do benefit some from doing it.  And (2) I've been meaning to build and finish some of this stuff for quite some time, and it's a good incentive to get it done, so that it can eventually get out of the house and sold at a con. 

I am hoping to get at least a few minutes each day painting on my stuff.  And, the good news is that my main army is Convergence, so I can probably do a decent paint job in a quick time, if I really buckle down on it.  That's the plan for next week - and I need to get cracking, because we are planning for a huge demo day at the FLGS next month, so I want to get as much painted and ready (not just for WM, but also FSA, Robotech, Relic Knights, and so on) as possible.