A Reality Check, A Change in Tactics, and an Update on Brushes

Howdy all!

As I have little in the way of painted figures to show off, or games to talk about, I thought I would take the time to update you on whats going on in my head these days as well as touching back on my choice of new Brushes that I mentioned awhile ago.

As you know over the last month or so I've put a fair amount of time into getting many of my unpainted figures based and arranged into units.  I did this for a number of reasons..

1. It helped to clarify the condition of my collection and pointed out figures that were lacking/needed and ones that could be passed along to other lead heads.  AKA bringing some focus to my collecting...lord knows I need it!
2. It helped ensure that I had the right number of slotta bases for my figs....still need more!
3. It gave me units that could be arranged for battle rather quickly compared to rooting around in various boxes trying to find missing figures and then having to blue-tac them into bases and wasting valuable gaming time.
4. It got me thinking about how I'm going to store my figures in the future....the bag and shoebox system I have now is not a long term solution!
5. Having them built and based would also allow me to get around to priming and ultimately painting.

Of course....it also had the consequence of demonstrating just HOW MANY figures I need to paint to play the games I hope to carry out before I retire....and lets just say...its a SHIT load of figures (and I'm not done basing yet!)

So with the bald truth staring me in the face...and knowing my plodding painting speed...I have decided to try some new tactics for getting painted forces on the table.

1. Bulk Priming:  I've just used up an entire can of dark gray primer getting about 2/3s of my "Bretonian" army ready for painting....all in one afternoon...its going to take days to get the paint off my fingers!
2. Bulk Painting:  Following the advice of ZeroTwoThree on his blog Paint Machine I have decided to try painting a BUNCH of figures with similiar color schemes all at once...hence my work table now looking like this.
   

   

   As you can see...last night was "flesh night!"

   
   

3. Adjusting Expectations:  This is the tough one...I'm having to accept the fact that if I want to get usable painted forces on the table in a sane amount of time I'm going to have to cut a few corners.  I still want very nice looking units that display the wonderful character of the figures I chose to paint...but they may not all be showcase level paint jobs...finding the balance between speed and perfection is the challenge before me now. 

So what does this mean for the Blog?  Well I would hope that it means less posts about a figure here and there and more posts about completed units and wonderful games that I have had with them...that is assuming I don't pull my hair out and go completely nutters after painting the same color for days in a row...;-)

Anyway....I digress....Lets talk about Brushes!

As I mentioned in a previous post (Here) I recently changed brushes and gave the ones from Rosemary & Co. a try.  I replaced my much loved set of Windsor and Newton sable brushes with a wider selection of the R&Co's Sable/synthetic blend brushes....so whats the verdict after 5 months?  Its good!  I like them a lot and they have manged to hold their points fairly well...and as mentioned in the previous post their price is hard to beat!  If I have one complaint it would be that their bristles are too long...One of my favorite aspects of the W&N sables was their short bristle length...I find the ones from R&Co to be a bit bendy due to the extra length...but again the price makes these a worthwhile investment.  If you're married to the W&N (which I fully understand...they are AWESOME) then you might think about picking up some of these for painting metals or other tasks that are "beneath" your better brushes.

I'm not saying I'll use them forever...but with the amount of painting I hope to due this year I'm going to ride them out till the bitter end!

That's all for now...got to get back to "Flesh Highlight 1 night" ...sigh...pray for me in my hour of need...

Cheers,

Blue

December Brush Slave Entry...Something Different

Just another quick update from me today...life still has me by the short and curlies...though I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and hope to have more hobby time soon.

For the final monthly challenge over on CDO known as the Brush Slave League I opted to do something a little different.  Back in the 2011 during the Lead Painters League on LAF one of the themed rounds was "Africa" and I choose to paint a team of DAK soldiers.  In pulling this team together I purchased about 20 German infantry from Battle Honors Figures.  The unused figures have been languishing on my shelf sense then.  In an effort to move them along and make some money at the same time I agreed to paint up the rest for a Bloke on LAF who goes by the name of DD-Chris.  DD was kind enough to allow me to use some of the painted figures for the Brush Slave last month.  For 25mm figures they are well sculpted with decent detail.  There was a lot of flash to remove on some of them but still a very cost effective and good looking set of figures.

Here are the three I submitted for the contest.  A machine gun crew and an officer of the DAK.

Rommel's Ground Pounders

Next time I'll be back in more comfortable figure territory.

Cheers,

Blue

A Brief Update

So the holiday season got the better of me this year and I got little done in the way of hobby over the last month.  That said I thought I would keep my loyal readers (yes I'm talking about you...;) ) up to date on what I have been doing.

Since my last post I've been working on a couple of painting commissions...some of which I hope to share with you soon...some of which will have to wait awhile.  Other than that I got exactly NO painting done...sigh.  I did build a few more units...yes there are more!  This consisted of basing up much of my Chaos force....insert teaser pic

Marauder Thug Regiment with a couple of Citadel Thugs added to mix things up a bit.

More of that force to come in the future.

I also built a couple of mounted units...including this group of Oldworlder Knights (aka 4th ed. Brets)...

Mix of Knights of the Realm, Questing Knights, and Knights Errant.

....sooo....the to-be-painted pile grows to mind numbing porpotions...

...best not to think about it!

I did manage to squeeze in another 3e game with my crew from work.  This battle saw a mostly Empire army (including a few dwarfs and some halflings) facing off against a Chaos War Band that included Marauders, Dwarfs, Beastmen, and a Troll.  This game featured even less painted troops than the last battle and we were forced to rely on very basic scenery...some would call it primitive.  Anyway...it wasn't the most photogenic game but it was a lot of fun and we found out that my co-worker Paul has Magic Dice Hands!  particularly when rolling for missle troops...his empire archers and handgunners mowed down huge numbers of enemy troops in this battle despite a BS of 3.

Here is one embarrassing picture just o prove that it happened...

Sigh...so many unpainted figures and crappy terrain pieces...My Kingdom for more TIME!

So thats been the last month at Blue's house....I hope the next one allows me to make progress on a few of my lead piles and I'll be sure to share pictures with you if it does!

Cheers for now!

Blue