2017 end of year post

It's that time of year again...

Tally

So, for the second time ever, thanks to my own continued dedication to reducing the Lead Mountain and my iron willpower I was able to end the year with the Tally in the positive hahaha not really I just bought Necromunda which sinks me back into the negative:

(daughter's plastic dinosaur making an appearance thanks to my wife)

Eh, my Mother-in-Law got me a GW voucher that covered most of it, knowing that I was hankering after it. I was tempted to hold out until the Tally resets with the New Year, but doing that would have set the 2018 Tally straight into the negative and also I wouldn't have it right now to look at. And smell.

47 vs 61 = -14

2017: -14 (47 painted)
2016: -287 (56 painted)

2015: -96 (59 painted)

2014: 0 (80 painted)

2013: -416 (25 painted)
2012: -103 (68 painted)
2011: -173 (122 painted)

Not the worst year - if not for Necromunda, it would have been the first year of actually ending up in the positive rather than just scraping to break even like 2014! Second worst for number of figures completed though, but considering I had an incident with a cleaver that left me unable to paint for a while I don't think that is too bad! Still nowhere near the levels of 2011 though - mid-20's me obviously had a lot more free time!

Posts

This is the 300th post on the blog, excitingly!

Total: 40, including this one. The exact same number as 2016, oddly. More than I thought it was, until I looked it up too!

Nothing in August or September. Probably something to do with an accident involving a meat cleaver. And The Witcher 3.

Throwing myself into getting my Spyrers ready in the last month or so produced a decent number of posts - I think for the first time in ages, there was actually content every other day for a week and a half, so hopefully I popped up in everyone's blogrolls!

Challenge

2017 Challenges:

• Finish 5 miniatures from my WIP drawer before starting anything new (5/5)
• Finish 10 miniatures from my WIP drawer before starting anything new (10/10)
• Finish 15 miniatures from my WIP drawer before starting anything new (16/15)
• Finish something years old
• Finish something SUPER old (as in, pre-blog old) x2
• Finish a piece of terrain x3 
• Empty out my stripping pot
• Paint something from the stripping pot
• Prep all of the monkeys in the monkey box
• Build a wargames board
• Paint all of the miniatures in a boxed game
• Open Star Wars Imperial Assault and paint all the miniatures from it
• Paint all the miniatures needed to replace the tokens in the Imperial Assault Core Game
•  Paint a complete box of miniatures (either a full regiment or starter)
•  Finish a complete skirmish force for a project (at least 16 miniatures, unless it's for a much smaller scale game like Batman)
• Repaint something (either a miniature that I have previously painted, or one that was received painted)

One that I crossed off now as I didn't twig at the time was the 'complete skirmish force' - my Spyrers are a legal, playable Necromunda gang! Well, under the original rules. Still counts.

Other than that... a mixed bag. As I'd imagined. Rather than aiming to cross everything off by the end of the year (although if I had I'd have been exceptionally smug), I used it more as a series of optional hoops to try and channel my attention through. Building a wargames board is still something I'd like to do, but not the sort of thing I could just make a start on as the whim took me; I managed to clear a number of miniatures from the queue that would otherwise still be languishing there; and the monkey box, oh the monkey box. I've tried, I promise you, but I think the thing I like least in our hobby might have to be whacking great integral bases. I've taken them out, spent some time filing and dremeling away excess material, not had fun, and put them back to come back to later. Eventually I'll have finished removing all of the integral bases and can paint me some monkeys. I'd hoped that it would be this year. It was not.



Projects (according to last year's end of year post)

Star Wars - 

I painted 4-Lom and Zuckuss! Maybe next year I should paint my Knight Models Boba Fett to complete the set of Bounty Hunters... 

Mostly inspired by Imperial Assault, I actually finished more miniatures for the Star Wars project than I'd normally expect (including painting a Rey for May the Fourth), but still no Rebel Troopers. I started pulling together the bits for my planned Death Trooper conversions (mentioned in last year's end of year post) but lacking accessory pieces that look right (as the pieces I'd originally considered using looked much to large when I started mocking up the conversions), they're still sat on my desk awaiting inspiration to strike...

ASOIAF -

4 Lannister crossbowmen and an undead reindeer. I actually built and converted a ton of wildlings while the most recent series was on, but as my stash of 25mm round bases has run dry, momentum stalled somewhat. When I do get round to ordering some more, who knows if I'll be drawn to do them, as there's a daunting amount of bare plastic now staring at me from my desk...

Zombies - 

As seems to be the case in recent years, zombies get painted during Zomtober and rarely ever else. I'm fine with that. I have many, many zombies, so any more that I paint are really just for my own amusement rather than trying to get enough to be able to play a game...


On the back burner:

Batman - Just the one, Two-Face. I need to go back to reading old Batman comics (or maybe free up some time to watch some of the animated movies) to get my hunger for Batman back up to get momentum on building some of the Batman miniatures in my Lead Mountain.
Fallout - The Fallout project saw a few miniatures and a couple of pieces of scenery finished in the early part of the year, then my interest wandered. And then I finished Fallout 4, so who knows when that interest will fall here again...
The Last of Us - I don't think this counts as a project any more, given how long I've been saying I'm going to build something and then failed to actually finish anything...
Path to Glory -
ROTPOTA -  I've spoken of the monkey box earlier. I did finish a very handsome gorilla though, so we're still on track for finishing this project in the year 2093...

Things that weren't in the plan, but got painted anyway because the plan is best described as a loose guideline:

Conan - no one says no to Conan.

Generic Fantasy - I'm always going to paint some random fantasy here and there. 

Necromunda - rather than rush out and buy the rerelease, I showed remarkable restraint and instead painted some bits that had been sat undercoated for years. That statement was true when I was working on the draft of this post. You now know that it is no longer the case. I showed some restraint. Less than I could have.

Inquisimunda - is cool. I'm not going to make this a main project, as I like being able to add bits here and there as I fancy rather than feeling like I need to complete a quota...

Brunel - it took this long for the first VSF project miniature to get painted and featured on the blog. Don't hold your breath for the next (although that's probably tempting fate, I'll be unavoidably drawn to reread the Doctor Grordbort graphic novels and then find myself converting some more martians...)

Rincewind - just because.

Monica - we're averaging about one member of the Nextwave squad a year, at this point. I should probably add this to the Challenge...

Projects for 2018:

Star Wars

I still love Star Wars. I still have many, many Star Wars miniatures to be getting on with painting. When this post goes live, I (barring unforseen mishaps) should have seen The Last Jedi the previous day. We'll see.

ASOIAF

As mentioned, I've plenty of Wildlings to paint! Plus, I always enjoy kitbashing miniatures for this project. I think maybe I need to clear all of the paints off of my desk and set up a space to tinker with building some miniatures, and see what comes out of that.

Zombies

I'll do Zomtober again this year. Crooked Dice have recently previewed some rather lovely looking modern survivors, which may end up coming home with me from Salute...

Necromunda

I'd like to say that I'm pledging to finish enough gangs to play, but we both know that there's no point me making any guarantees like that... As I cracked and picked up the new boxed game though, I've got at least two gangs to be getting on with, plus the urge to convert some hired guns from the old ruleset...

Back Burner

Batman - as mentioned earlier, I'll aim to get something added to this project over the next year...

Fallout - not dead, merely sleeping.

ROTPOTA - maybe next year is the year I finally finish prepping the apes. 

Conan - there are a couple more accomplices in the painting queue that would make a small warband for Song of Blades and Heroes based hack and slash action...

Who knows what else will end up getting done though - I'm currently considering going back and starting to watch Doctor Who again (as we previously gave up after a couple of episodes of Capaldi) to catch up in order to watch the new series, and if that happens I'll probably end up finishing the War Doctor that's been sat undercoated in the queue for a while now...

Next year's challenge:

• Finish something years old
• Finish something pre-blog old
• Finish a piece of terrain
• Paint something from the stripping pot
• Prep all of the monkeys in the monkey box
• Build a wargames board
• Paint all of the miniatures in a boxed game
• Open Star Wars Imperial Assault and paint all the miniatures from it
• Paint all the miniatures needed to replace the tokens in the Imperial Assault Core Game
•  Paint a complete box of miniatures (either a full regiment or starter)
•  Finish a complete skirmish force for a project (at least 16 miniatures, unless it's for a much smaller scale game like Batman)
• Repaint something (either a miniature that I have previously painted, or one that was received painted)
• Convert a miniature and show WIP pics
• Finish a member of the Nextwave team
• Average at least a miniature a week by the end of the year (so, paint 52 miniatures)
• End the year with the Tally in the positive!

Two (face) sleeps until Salute!

So, finished this guy:

A repainted Heroclix Two Face. I've always liked Two Face, whether it was as Harvey Dent in the Long Halloween, to his stint as champion of the people during No Man's Land, and even through his weird attempt to seduce Montoya back to heterosexuality by ruining her life (spoilers for 20 year old comics I guess). There may have been some dorky stories that focused on his obsession with the number two (generally Batman solves the crime by realizing that obviously Two Face is going to try and hit the museum during their display of large golden twos), but there have been a greater number of stories that delve into more interesting aspects of his character (and hey, stories where he's a psychopath deciding whether someone lives or dies with the flip of a coin are fun too!)

Things that are less fun than that though: painting pinstripes on a model where the detail is at times less than defined. Traditionally, the symbolism in Two Face's clothing is fairly heavy handed - dark side of the suit on the bad side, light on the unscarred side, but I flipped tradition, because I thought the pinstripe would look better as the lighter side! The scarred side of his face has come up a little dark in the pictures, but is a little redder in real life - I went for a red raw look, with a burnt and blackened layer over the top - kinda half Arkham City, half Dark Knight.



Tally:

9 vs -10 = +19

2017 Challenges:

• Finish 5 miniatures from my WIP drawer before starting anything new (5/5)
• Finish 10 miniatures from my WIP drawer before starting anything new (8/10)
• Finish 15 miniatures from my WIP drawer before starting anything new (8/15)
• Finish something years old
• Finish something SUPER old (as in, pre-blog old)
• Finish a piece of terrain x3 
• Empty out my stripping pot
• Paint something from the stripping pot
• Prep all of the monkeys in the monkey box
• Build a wargames board
• Paint all of the miniatures in a boxed game
• Open Star Wars Imperial Assault and paint all the miniatures from it
• Paint all the miniatures needed to replace the tokens in the Imperial Assault Core Game
•  Paint a complete box of miniatures (either a full regiment or starter)
•  Finish a complete skirmish force for a project (at least 16 miniatures, unless it's for a much smaller scale game like Batman)
• Repaint something (either a miniature that I have previously painted, or one that was received painted)

See you at Salute!

2016 end of year post

Ah, the annual end of year retrospective post, wherein I analyse loosely how little my yearly output matched the aims that I had set out the previous year, and then waffle on a bit, glad that the Tally resets to zero and I'm finally back in the black (also known as 'the most wonderful time of the year')

Tally

56 vs 343 = -287

2016: -287 (56 painted)

2015: -96 (59 painted)

2014: 0 (80 painted)

2013: -416 (25 painted)
2012: -103 (68 painted)
2011: -173 (122 painted)

Not my worst year, and not bad considering the Tally mostly took a hit when I came into possession of a very large box of warhammer all the way back in March. I'd actually been doing pretty well up until that point (although in the interest of full disclosure that's because I was saving all of my hobby pennies for the annual outing to Salute, but that admission paints me in less of a 'saintly paragon of self control' light). Once again Zomtober was a fairly weighty contributing factor to my painted models total, as I got a bit carried away and went somewhat over the one model a week target for the month...

Whilst writing this, I've discovered a mathematical error in the Tally as it appeared in my posts thus far, and so have adjusted the finished total accordingly! In my defence, I'd only missed one acquistion (the freebie on the first issue of the relaunched White Dwarf, which it seems I added to the Tally but forgot to keep on the total the post after...)

Posts

40 posts this year - apparently I was chattiest in 2014 when I managed to make 69...

Aside from posting nothing at all in June (having moved house at the start of the month, all of my paints and miniatures were boxed up until I got my hobby basement sorted!) it seems that I've actually managed to post semi-regularly this year - this feels fairly surprising, as now my daughter is getting older I seem to have less hobby time (gone are the days when she was basically a beautiful sleeping potato, these days I tend to find miniatures in her doll house or she wants to sit on my lap and paint too).

Starting an Instagram account for my painting seems to have helped with engaging with other hobbyists too, as I can post WIP pictures and things rather than having to have something finished to show as tends to be the case with my posts on here.


Projects (according to last year's end of year post)

Star Wars

Only one miniature finished for this project (the Talz Copilot), but a few bits half done.

Every time I go to prep the rebel miniatures I have to make an opposing force for the stormtroopers that I painted way back when, I end up browsing for more to fill in the gaps in my collection to make useable forces, and can't justify the cost to buy from the states- does anyone have any they want to trade so that I can kickstart this project and actually get something painted?

The same goes for Zuckuss - my lack thereof seems to have become a bigger mental stumbling block than it should, really, and I've vowed to myself that I won't paint my nice shiny (and now long Out of Print) Knight Models Boba Fett until I've painted 4-Lom and Zuckuss, to make a complete set of the Bounty Hunters from Empire...

ASOIAF

Only the Wights and Others that I painted for Zomtober were actually finished and posted up on the blog, but there have also been a few bits converted or half-painted behind the scenes over the year, so the project endures...

Batman

A couple of bits finished for this, but as ever in a disorganised fashion as things struck my fancy - I even actually finished the Bat himself this month! Still haven't started any of the expensive official Knight Models miniatures that I have though...

Zombies

Nothing modern finished this year, just the fantasy zombies for Zomtober. It's one of those projects that I can always add something to though (and have plenty of things assembled or undercoated, ready to go whenever it takes my fancy)

on the back burner:

The Last of Us - still haven't made any real progress on this, other than occasionally taking out the bits I had put aside, sighing, and then putting them away again (although my Joel and Ellie miniatures were pulled out as backups for this year's Zomtober, but ended up getting shelved in favour of the direction I ended up going) - with The Last of Us 2 being announced though, maybe that will swing my hobby focus back this way...

The Thing -I dug out my selection of gribbly bits from my bits box, then got distracted googling other people's conversions for gaming The Thing in 28mm, and got a bit disheartened because what I found other people had done was really good...

Path to Glory - The same story as ever - the entire warband is sat undercoated in the tray of WIP miniatures in the top of my hobby desk. When White Dwarf relaunched and had a free Khorne Champion on the front, I speculatively rolled up a warband for him, but it didn't spur me to actually build or paint anything...

Mass Effect -Still waiting on finding some suitable helmets for the Cerberus Assault Trooper conversions. Also, my friend that currently has access to a 3D printer is changing jobs soon, so it might become even less likely to happen...

ROTPOTA- I really need to get on with painting some monkeys. I have some lovely monkeys, but most of them have fairly hefty integral bases, and when it comes to choosing how to spend my limited hobby time some relaxing painting or kitbashing with Perry bits tends to win out over grinding off lumps of metal with a rotary tool...

Whilst Fallout wasn't specifically a listed project in last year's post (merely being alluded to) the number of completed miniatures increased four-fold, although admittedly that's because it was only a single miniature strong before this year started! 

Once again, still no Sanity Claws for Christmas. Mostly because I only ever really think about it at this time of year when it's way too late to get one in time for Christmas, and I'm too broke to get one anyway!

Projects for 2017:

Star Wars - I saw Rogue One last week. I really want to convert some Commandos. Or kitbash some fancy black Stormtroopers using Stormtrooper bodies and helmets from specialist Clone Troopers. And maybe buy Star Wars Imperial Assault. Seriously, anyone with old WOTC minis to trade, get in touch.

ASOIAF - I'm going to finish this project before GRRM finishes the book series, so no rush.

Japes aside, I still enjoy converting and painting miniatures for this project (plus, I have quite the stash of bits for it) - maybe I'll even work on some long-plannede conversions, as hinted at by my choice of image...

Zombies - I'm aiming to do Zomtober again this year. Although technically it was AE:WWII that got me back into the hobby way back when after my teenage hiatus, it was the zombie project that was my first real project, and so a main project it will likely always stay. I've probably painted more zombies than I'll realistically need over the last few years, but there's always something else I can add, whether it's more zombies from the various stashes of miniatures in my hobby drawers, or more survivors, that can be used interchangably with the majority of my other 'mildly post-apocalyptic' projects like The Last of Us or Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

On the back burner:

Batman - I'll still pick at the occasional model, but without worrying about what. I think in part I'm moving this project out of the spotlight to trick myself into getting something done, as that seems to be the case when I focus on something else...
Fallout - it would be a main project if I had more minis that I could use for it. Who knows though, maybe I'll actually properly read the Salute guide this year and find out if Brother Vinni is in attendance before he's sold out of all of his Nuclear Sandlot miniatures... Then again, I've actually had a chance to sink a few hours into Fallout 4 over the festive period, and been inspired to convert some miniatures that I have squirreled away, so you never know...
The Last of Us - as previously mentioned, it's a solid maybe. If I end up placing that order with CP models though...
Path to Glory - I should probably drop this off of the list, given how long it's beenon here (and how many unposted WIP pictures I have of the conversions), but part of me still wants to believe that I'll be able to turn my focus onto these and knock them out fairly quickly. More likely, however, is that I'd probably pull out the tray they're in and get distracted by the basecoated 3rd edition Human Blood Bowl team that's sat next to them...
ROTPOTA - hangs on by a thread, because really all I need to do is paint some apes!

So, place your bets on what actually gets painted next year!

Nananananananana Batman!

Way back when Knight models were first talking about doing a set of rules for gaming Batman on the tabletop, I had a Spanish-speaking friend translate the beta rules for me. They looked pretty interesting, and so around the time my daughter was born when they released the finished rule book I ordered one (also because by ordering when it was first released I got a Limited Edition Alfred miniature), and told myself that I'd paint up some proxies from my stash of Heroclix to try the rules out before investing in the boutique range of miniatures. Then I went to Salute and bought a ton of Knight Models miniatures in order to get a free Limited Edition Red Hood Joker, because that's the way the world works.

A short couple of years later, Pow! Here's that originally selected proxy Batman:

Wham! Including a shaky freehand Batman logo! I drew it in first with a soft pencil, because I am not good at freehand. I was briefly tempted to use the old school 'bat in a yellow oval that would literally paint a target onto the wearer's chest' but ended up going with a more modern black on grey.

It's not a bad sculpt for a Heroclix figure (which are generally fairly variable) - the musculature is nice, as is the drapery on the cape, although his eyes are a little squiff and took a couple of goes to get to a level I was happy with.

Zap! Bat-cape! I was originally planning on painting him with a black cape starkly edge-highlighted with a very dark blue, but got a bit carried away and ended up going for an overall dark blue cape, from a black basecoat up to Dark Reaper mixed with Caledor Blue (one of the good things about comic characters is that over the years there have been so many different costume variations that you're spoiled for choice when it comes to canon!)

[side note - I spent some time picking out the different bricks on his crumbling gargoyle base with various different coloured layers of paint and shades, and you can barely see it on the finished miniature]

Batman might hate guns, but he'll happily kick a mook while he's drawing a gun so that he shoots his own dick off it seems.

Finishing old tall dark and brooding brings the Tally to:

55 vs 342 = -287

Recently I've been thinking about making terrain a lot (in part due to infovore.tim posting stuff on instagram), but to do so I'd need to clear my hobby desk off of the hundreds of pots of paint currently cluttering it up, but if I did that I know I'd then end up wasting a bunch of time digging for the right paint to finish the half-finished miniatures also cluttering the desk up... I guess I need to set a line in the sand, choose the miniatures that I plan to finish in the next fortnight,and then clear the desk off to build terrain once they're done and dusted. However, realistically, I'd probably finish two of the miniatures, and then get an irresistable urge to start something else, and so the cycle continues...

Ragman

Another miniature finished, this time for the Batman project:

Ragman!

You know, Ragman:

No?

My road to Ragman is something of a convoluted one - I first saw this miniature way back in the misty days of the past in an issue of Inquest Gamer that had a full visual spoiler from the then brand new Heroclix set Collateral Damage (back in the day when physical media was still a thing that you could purchase) and, though it wasn't a character that I was familiar with, thought it was a pretty interesting and dynamic sculpt. Many, many years later, I ended up ordering one randomly whilst picking up some other bits and bobs from Blue Rat Games with the vague idea that maybe I could convert it into some sort of fantasy wraith.

Obviously, I stashed it and didn't get around to converting it.

For the last couple of years, I've been working my way through a backlist of Batman comics, in in-universe order, starting with Year One, and this year I hit some comics featuring Ragman. A guy with a murderous cloak of rags that makes him kill nazis (well, the Ragman from the era of comics that I've been reading, as opposed to the other that a quick google suggests also exist), although he struggles against it, that I already own an interesting miniature of? Consider me sold!

So, a-painting we did go!

This is a difficult miniature to photograph, given it's dynamic pose...

The angle where you can actually see the rags of DC's 'Tatterdemalian of Justice', each of which is the captured soul of an evildoer. Except for here, where it's just a random daub of paint, which was oddly therapeutic to do...

My original idea was to give the body a wash to grubby it up a little, but I ended up not doing this as I liked how bright some of the colours were in contrast to the rest of the model...

Tally

54 vs 342 = -288

I've dug a random assortment of half-finished bits and bobs out of the painting queue, so we may even see another post or two before the regular end of year post!

In other news, apparently this little corner of the internet hit over 100,000 page views at some point in the last fortnight - even if only 6 of them are real people that have found my stuff and liked what they saw, that's okay with me!

Anarky in the UK

I like Anarky, the anarchist sometime foe sometime ally of Batman that wears his influences very clearly on his crimson sleeve (I seem to recall that in his first or second appearance he is pictured having a copy of V for Vendetta in his room). I enjoyed the structure of his first appearance, where it is only revealed at the end of the story that it is actually the teenage Lonnie Machin under the costume rather than his father as you had otherwise assumed from the story (which Batman realises based on how he takes a punch, I seem to recall). So I decided to paint myself a model of him! As I've occasionally mentioned, I'm mostly reading 90's Batman comics these days, which introduced me to the character, and having a rummage round some old boxes of heroclix, it turned out I already owned a miniature of him!

Like most heroclix, he was a little flimsy though, so after removing him from his large base I started out by removing his bendy staff:

And took a donor pole from a Perry Miniatures sprue (from either a pike or a standard from the WOTR European mercenaries kit), rebuilding his electrified shock staff with the original knob on the end:

And then came base fun! At last year's Salute, I bought a number of resin bases to experiment with using with my official Knight Models Batman miniatures, but most of my rebased and repainted heroclix have been getting cork bases - not as fancy as the resin, but still a shade fancier than my usual sand and grit basing method.

Fun discovery: rather than trying to trace the inside area of the top of a lipped base, a pound coin turns out to be the right size to use as a template!

I cut the piece of cork in a jagged fashion (entirely ignoring my sketched guide line it seems) and then cut away some material from the bottom of one piece to make them different heights to add a little visual interest and make it look more like wrecked asphalt (as there seems to be something cataclysmic going on in Gotham every other month or so) - I'll add some road markings at the end of painting to drive this idea home (pun intended). This was all done several months ago, before Christmas I think...

Time passed, and I tended to carry Anarky around in my portable painting kit as something of a backup - he was base coated whilst waiting for other miniatures to dry, generally, until a week or so ago when I decided to get him finished!

Being mostly red, he was fairly straightforward to paint, although I did try to have several shades of red appear on different areas of the model by varying my highlights mix - his body is overall a darker red than his cape, for example.

I did briefly consider some of the alternate colour schemes for Anarky, when I was almost finished with him: like most comic characters, he's been drawn differently in various different appearances - in some his belt is yellow, others his holster is too; but at this point I was quite happy with how the different shades of red had come out so I decided to stick to my guns!

And after my comments on painting coats and capes in my earlier Elsa post, this cape was a delight to paint - if I were to do it again though, I'd probably try and make the application of the brighter tones broader, to make the whole cape look brighter overall, but I'm generally happy with how it turned out after adding a couple of brighter glazes to make it look more like I had envisioned!

Finishing Anarky takes the Tally to:

20 vs 360 = -340

But what to paint next? Elsa and Anarky were my two 'on-the-go' figures, so what should take their place? Clear some figures out of the project box, or give in to my post-Salute craving to convert some more miniatures for the Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire project?

Take my love, take my land, wait, wrong Firefly...

I like Batman's roster of villains - you've got the Joker, insanity personified; the scarecrow, the master of Fear; but then you've got guys like Garfield Lynns, a pyromaniac who gets taken under the wing of Killer Moth (chortle) and so pootles around with a pair of wings and a flamethrower. Chortling aside, he makes a few appearances that I've enjoyed in the Batman comics I'm currently reading (Knightfall era), including one where he gets a girlfriend, but she is disappointed to discover that his idea of the next step in their relationship is murdering her with fire whilst ranting about how he sees ladies dancing in the flames rather than anything more traditional. Also, my decision to pluck him out of the half-painted queue might have been affected by wanting to be able to post this screen-cap on here:

A mighty foe for the Batman indeed, foiled only by fire escapes (and yes, I am amused enough by comics panels that are amusing out out context to have a Pinterest board solely dedicated to them)

But anyway, blathering aside, here's what I've painted:

One of the nicest heroclix sculpts I've come across, if I recall correctly after his long bath in fairy power spray (that removed approximately 0% of the original paint job) he was actually four seraparate pieces that go together so seamlessly you'd barely notice.

Quite a limited colour palette (all the better to paint you quickly with my dear!), but a nice finish overall; I had a play with mixing some purple and blue glazes to make the nozzle of his flamethrower look somewhat heat-damaged, but I think I may have taken it a bit too far...

The smoke was surprisingly fun to paint, gradually lightening and smooshing colours around on it! 

Finishing him brings the Tally to:

2 vs 0 = +2

2015 in review - already?!

The annual year in review post already? Wow, that really flashed past... As per usual, I'll review my 'progress' on the projects I honestly thought I'd crack on with this year (the more pessimisticly minded might see these posts as a listing of my failures, but I'd like to think I'm a bit more optimistically pragmatic than that...)

Tally

59 vs 155 = -96

Not the worst year for final tally score or for number of painted figures (that honour stays with the year I got married and started a new job), but nowhere near the best either! I dread to think how bad the numbers would have been if I hadn't finished that zombie herd for the Zomtober big finish though! Who knew, having a baby eats into your hobby time :s

2015: -96 (59 painted)

2014: 0 (80 painted)

2013: -416 (25 painted)
2012: -103 (68 painted)
2011: -173 (122 painted)

Last years projects (according to the plans made in the end of year post):

ASOIAF

A flurry of activity at the start of the year saw me complete a small chunk of figures for this project, including a couple of characters that I'd had in progress for quite some time, but then my attention wandered somewhat and didn't return this way at all. 

With those figures completed, I've probably got enough to actually play a small skirmish game, once I finish cribbing together some rules (and assuming I don't start planning mass battle armies...)

Weirdly though, walking in to work this morning thinking about writing this post, I got myself quite enthused thinking about all the conversions and plans I had for this project, so who knows, once I finish some Batman figures and clear some space in the painting queue I might revisit this project!

The Last of Us

Having not bought the bits I wanted from Miniature Mojo (or the lovely fungus infected heads from CP Models) I've had pretty much zero impetus to paint the models I already have for this project. Onto the back burner it goes!

The Thing

Looks like when I said last year that this was a small scale project that I'd likely get distracted from, I wasn't wrong! Zero progress made, so probably onto the back burner for this one...

Star Wars

I only finished two figures for this project in the last year, which would normally be enough to relegate a project to the back burner, but come on, it's Star Wars, so it gets a pass. As soon as I stock up on some more 25mm round bases, I could put together some Rebels in order to have two skirmish size forces; however, there are a number of figures I'd quite like to bolster the variety of sculpts that I do currently own, but being pretty broke prevents me from stocking up and seems to give me project parslysis! One day I'll get Zuckuss though, in order to be able to complete my set of the Bounty Hunters... Plus I'll try and save some pennies to pick up a copy of Imperial Assault, as that comes with a plethora of tiny plastic space men...

Path To Glory

I still own the figures, but keep getting distracted from actually finishing them. Onto the back burner!

Mass Effect

Around the time my daughter was born, I acquired a copy of Sedition Wars from a disillusioned friend, and bought some Mantic Enforcers and Infinity figures to use for Cerberus conversions - I have been unable to source suitable helmets for these though, which has prevented me making any progress... I live in hope that one day I'll find someone has put CAD files up somewhere so that I can get a friend to sneakily 3D print some!

On the back burner:

ROTPOTA - one of those projects that I tend to look at and think 'well, it really wouldn't take much to get these done oh wait what's that shiny thing over there'

Nerdmarines - haven't been touched. 

Batman - I painted the Scarecrow! I've got a bunch of half-painted minis for this (as well as a box of unassembled Knight Models figures); one day, one day...

Everything else - the zombie project (the project that got me back into miniatures, and started this blog!) got some love this year, with an unusually active Zomtober - not bad for a project that was so far down my list of priorities that it didn't even get a heading on last year's plans! I've got enough of a backlog of zombie miniatures to keep me busy for years to come, so I don't think it will ever go away, and hopefully at the very least next year will see me complete Zomtober again!

Other than that, it was mostly odds and sods that caught my fancy that got painted, like a couple of Superheroes when the wife and I were watching the Marvel Cinematic Universe releases and the puppet guy from Fallout...

Next years projects:

Star Wars

I'll try and paint a squad or two of Rebels, as well as the rest of my Bounty Hunters if I can get a Zuckuss. In an ideal world, I'd find a Roron Corobb miniature going cheap so that I had all the bits needed to replay Palpatine's abduction from the Clone Wars animated series, but I should probably walk before I run!

Also, I've recently been reading the old D20 RPG rules and voraciously consuming PDFs of old issues of Star Wars Gamer, so in the back of my mind I'm considering running a Star Wars RPG, but we'll have to wait and see on that front...

ASOIAF

I always quite enjoy converting soldiers for this project, so here's to hoping that once the decks are a bit clearer next year I'll be able to do some more of that!

Batman

I hope to at least finish the half dozen half-painted figures that I currently have on the go, and then make a start on the Knight Models figures that I have. The chap that I was going to play this with has just moved to Germany though, so there's less impetus to actually finish anything...

Zombies

No big plans for this really, but at the very least I'll aim to complete another Zomtober!

on the back burner:

The Last of Us - unlikely to get any progress made unless I get to make orders with Miniature Mojo and CP Models, but you never know...

The Thing - who knows...

Path to Glory - hmm, it's been so long on the back burner that GW have actually updated the rules themselves...

Mass Effect - if I can find suitable helmets, I have more than enough models to make a skirmish scale force. Until then...

ROTPOTA - *shrugs* 

I've got Fallout 4 to play on the PS4 too, so that might see some attention turned towards that project...

And who knows, maybe next year will be the year that I get around to buying a Sanity Claws on eBay and painting him up for Christmas?