April 2019

No, this blog isn't dead, it's just resting for a bit...

Alas, my painting is still somewhat on hold while the lounge redecoration drags on. While most of the work is done, I've got a few jobs that need finishing (that, if truth be told, I'm prevaricating a bit on finishing) before I can get painting again.

The good news is that my computing/hobby corner looks like it should work out as planned once I can get hobbying again. I had to work from home a couple of weeks ago and so after clearing things off my temporary desk (aka our old dining table) and turning on the downlight it looks like it will be a good space (especially once I get a monitor in place to feed the TV through to)

April 2018

Contrary to my hopes, I'm on a complete hobby lull at the moment. I had hoped to get some painting done at work but I'm still trying to figure out what I can squeeze into my locker and the best way to fit hobby gear on my desk when I'm working on models, given that my desk is smaller than it used to be.

I can't get any hobby done at home as the lounge redecoration is dragging on too. While I'm now in a new annual leave year, I'm struggling to find tradespeople to come and quote for a couple of small jobs that would need doing before we get a plasterer in*. Consequently, all my hobby gear is stuck up in the roof as I can't risk leaving it somewhere in the lounge my youngest might get at it, and I can't keep going up and down to the roof every time I want to do hobby... That basically just leaves me looking enviously at the wife when she gets out her cross stitch or knitting and turns on one of the down lights we've had put in.

I've also been struggling a bit to get board games nights on the go lately. One of the guys has been busy sorting his stuff out for moving into a canal boat while for the last one I tried to organise, one of the guys came down ill while the other got stuck in traffic on his way back from holiday and couldn't make it. Hopefully this week's games night won't suffer the same fate.

*That isn't me not being able to find anyone on Google but rather having filled out contact forms on tradespeople's websites I'm not hearing anything back - no autoresponse to say thanks for contacting us, no polite email back saying they don't do that kind of job or are busy for the next few months, and most importantly, no contact to sort out times to come to the house to prepare a quote. 

October 2017

Without wanting to shock anyone, I seem to be picking up a bit of hobby enthusiasm of late.

As I had to go up into the roof the other day to sort out my backup server, which was non-responsive following a power cut, I took a couple of minutes to dig out my main box of Dragon Princes to see what still needed doing.

Having thought I'd got a third of the horses still to do I was pleasantly surprised to find that in actual fact the horses are mostly done - it's literally just a final highlight on the gold that needs doing on about two thirds of the horses. The main exception is the lighter third of my horses which turned out to be two short of the number I need. I actually had three horses assembled and with some cloth and metal base coated so I've brought two to work with me to bring up to standard. I think I may have actually used the wrong colour as their base flesh but that shouldn't matter overall.

While I was up there I also had the crazy idea of digging out dragon no.2. While dragon no.1 still has a fair bit needing to be done, as that one is assembled it's not one I can risk bringing to work so instead I've brought dragon no.2 as that one was not assembled but was basecoated. (I'm sure I've a third dragon somewhere as well, not counting the Black Dragon I bought the missus as a Christmas present a few years back, although I can't remember what condition that one is in).

Admittedly starting work on another dragon isn't really a priority but in terms of what I can actually be getting on with right now, bearing in mind I can't get anything done at home due to not having space in the lounge to have hobby stuff about, it's something I can actually get on with. Yes, I could be doing that final highlight on the Dragon Prince horses, but that can wait until these two additional horses are at that stage too.

I'm painting this dragon green, using a pot of Goblin Green I found as the base. (I think the missus was using this as the base for the Sea Dragon Cloaks on her Corsairs during her brief period of interest in the hobby - I found several greens in a tub and I don't recall ever painting anything green myself). So far I've given the dragon two coats of green and I'm debating whether it needs a third before I put a wash over it. I may put the base coat on the rest of the body while I'm deliberating on that and see how the finish of the green looks.

Looking at my Dragon Princes the other day has reminded me that I need to sort cavalry bases for most of them. Hopefully it won't be too difficult to source some.

September 2017

Having had enough of the other tasks on my to do list last week I decided, for a break, to take a quick look at the Dragon Princes that have been sat in my desk drawer for several months to see what stage they were up to, with a view to maybe getting a quick bit of painting done in the next week or two.

Unfortunately, other than a few spots of tidying up, I couldn't tell if there was actually anything needing to be done to bring them up to the standard I'm wanting to.

Theoretically that's good news as I may be closer to done with these than I thought but on the other hand, as I don't have any "finished" horses at with to compare them with I could take these home and then realise there's something quite important but not immediately obvious that needs doing.

Summer 2017

This is one of those times when no news isn't good news. 

Work on redecorating the lounge hasn't started yet as there's still a lot of stuff to sort out before we actually start doing the physical work.

Unfortunately that means for now my hobby stuff is still all in the roof (apart from the stuff in my games night box as I wouldn't be able to easily get that in the roof).

I've also not yet found the time to get back to lunchtime painting at work so I'm making no progress at all. And in future I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to get any lunchtime painting done as my office is moving to a new building at the end of November. We're not going to have set desks (we're only getting  8 desks for every 10 staff) or pedestal storage, just lockers, so at the moment I don't know if I'm going to have anywhere to store my paints and minis.

June 2017

I'm still on hobby hiatus unfortunately.

The re-decoration of the lounge is still essentially in the planning stage as neither I nor my wife have had an awful lot of time to try and clear stuff out so that we can even contemplate doing something like stripping the wallpaper off.

I've also had a holiday getting in the way, plus having to deal with the fallout of a car accident - some moron had stolen (as far as I'm aware since I've heard nothing more from the police since the incident) a Jaguar XF estate which they managed to crash into my parked car, shunting mine into my next door neighbour's car and taking out a lamppost too for good measure (well, dented it and knocked the light fitting off the top of it).  Both my and my neighbour's cars were write-offs so I've had the lovely experience (not) of trying to sort out a replacement car with not much money as I hadn't been planning on needing to replace my car for a few years yet.

I'm hoping that in a few weeks I'll have less going on and be able to get back to doing some lunchtime painting so I can try and finally finish off the Dragon Princes as I really want to get them sorted and then start work on my second dragon that's currently in bits (I'm hoping I've done enough with that in the past that I should be able to stick it back together again without any further work to aid that, which should in theory mean I can paint it as components at work and not have to worry about storing an assembled dragon model).

Maybe someday I'll find time to convert my command groups and assemble my kit-bashed White Lions.

March 2017

Sorry folks that things have gone a bit quiet again.  Unfortunately even my lunchtime painting has gotten sidelined for the moment while I juggle trying to assess a new photo editing program I may want to buy, try and make plans for a couple of photo trips I want to take while on holiday, and try and figure out exactly what needs doing when we (or, mostly, I should say, I) redecorate the lounge.

The good news on the hobby front is that it looks like I've located the missing spearmen I was looking for a couple of months ago.  They appear to have re-materialised on the lounge windowsill (which is definitely not somewhere I would have left them, so I suspect they had slipped off the dining table at some point and the missus must have found them and put them there).  I just need to find time now to stow them away in my conversions box (currently residing in the attic) so I can get them out reasonably quickly once the decorating is finished and start converting them into command figures.

At the moment I'm not quite sure when that will be, for the simple fact that I don't know when I'm going to be able to start decorating the lounge as it still needs clearing out.  I've made it clear to the wife that I'm not using my annual leave just to tidy up the mess the kids have left in there when I'm going to need that time to shift the things we'd normally keep in the lounge out of the way and then get the walls stripped before I can figure out where I want any new light and electric sockets to go. As I'm also wanting to future-proof the room as much as possible, I'm also trying to figure out if I can make space to put in a dedicated photo & video editing PC, as well as fitting in a photo printer, my current mono printer, flatbed and film scanners.  To be honest, I think I may be in for a bit of disappointment with what I will be able to squeeze in as it's not that big a room.

I've not managed to get any games of Warhammer in.  Unfortunately the last time I could have got down to the store the guys who I could have played weren't going to be able to make it or had stuff already arranged.  I have, however, been getting in near monthly board and card gaming nights with one of the guys I was at school with and a couple of the guys I started playing Warhammer with way back when (Nick the Orc and Empire Andy, who I think I may have mentioned on my old blog on the Heelanhammer forum, if anyone reading this remembers that).  This actually started off as something to do for my birthday last year but we've been trying to make it a monthly thing, although sometimes it's only been three rather than four of us.

The games we've played so far are Last Night on Earth, Pandemic, Forbidden Island, Monty Python Fluxx, and Exploding Kittens.  I think it's fair to say Pandemic has been the stand out hit between us and has become a staple of an evening, while Monty Python Fluxx wasn't quite Andy's cup of tea.  I actually bought Exploding Kittens for the most recent evening to be a between Pandemic games thing but we actually ended up playing it for the rest of the night. Admittedly it did take us about three games before we got the rules right - having played Games Workshop games for years you'd have thought that by now I'd be reading the rules of any new game three or four times before starting to play so things are pretty much right from the get go, but the actual minimal amount of rules for Kittens may have lulled me into a false sense of security.