Getting back in the groove
I am back after a long hiatus with another post about my painting progress. My last post showed off a flurry of painting activity, after which I got stuck into painting up my Escher gang that's been sat around for years. That was back in May. I had almost got it finished, just needing a few touch ups and final highlights to complete them. And then I lost my painting mojo...
At the end of May, I headed down south for the UK Games Expo and a subsequent holiday in beautiful Wiltshire, during which I visited a whole range of prehistoric sites including Durrington Walls, Danebury and Stonehenge. It was all in all very enjoyable, and I brought home with me a range of games, miniatures and accessories to add to the slopes of Lead Mountain, eager to get stuff to the painting table once again, especially as I had in mind the idea to start a Mordheim campaign and bought a load of pirate orcs and gobbos from Black Scorpion for it. Plus, I'd picked up Dropfleet commander, Hairfoot Jousting, scenery, mats, Kill/Sample/Process, and also a bunch of Infinity stuff when I got back. Lots to be going on with. Probably too much, as always. I almost certainly set myself up for some decision paralysis with such a crazy haul. As I write this, I notice a panels sprue for the Dropfleet Bioficers sat on my desk that still needs clipping out and gluing onto the miniatures...
When I got back home, though, and got stuck back into work, I found myself overwhelmed. Work didn't help, providing a lot of stress trying to get stuff done that hadn't been covered while I was away, but there was also a mountain of stuff taking up my office. And that paralysis kicked in hard. I decided that I need to clear my tiny office out and make it more manageable, getting all these boxes of miniatures off my floor. To some extent, I achieved that, but it forced me to spend several months building boxes of miniatures, magnetising bases, buying storage and getting them all squared away on my garage shelving. Which also quickly revealed that I'd pretty much maxed out the available storage I had in there... Whoops.
But I had no time for painting. Nor any time to really prep for any of the big gaming ideas I had, like Mordheim etc. I was purely focused on getting stuff built, stored and out of the way so I could claim some semblance of order in my workspace. I mean, it's still a mess in here, with half started/part finished projects lying around, and a whole heap of RPG books sat on the floor waiting to be put on eBay and sold (my RPG shelves have also hit maximum capacity now too). But it's left no time at all for painting, not did I have a direction to guide me.
That's changed over the last month. After getting all my Infinity models built (and realising that there are some nuances to starting playing Infinity that led me to buying some stuff that doesn't work well together), I finally plucked up the courage to head down to my local wargaming group where I know there were some Infinity players. And I arranged to get a demo game, so I sat down and painted up the JSA half of the operation Sandtrap boxed set, as I knew these were the faction I wanted to stick with. After that, I've been going down to the club weekly and slowly escalating my force. Starting to play Infinity has given me some direction, and that has allowed me gain a measure of focus that I can apply to my painting. Plus, painting to obtain a fully painted list each week has allowed me to pick up new models and paint up just what I need to in order to have a fully painted list. Plus, painting with these goals in mind has forced me not to be too precious about how well my minis are painted, but to have them done to a standard I am happy with that's good enough for the tabletop.
Also, these are metal minis, and metal minis do tend to chip—I've already had to touch up some after I nearly dropped by storage box in the club venue's car park...
I've also discovered that some of the members have also started playing Moonstone recently, a game that I love and for which I try and paint the minis to a high standard. That has given me the incentive to dig out my Moonstone minis and paint up Sir Hogswash. I'm really happy with how it turned out, and it allowed me to practice my non-metallic metals and try applying texture in the form of the fur on his boar for the first time.
And, with the return of the painting mojo, I picked up where I left off with my Escher gang and managed to bust out the last of it in a frenzied weekend session. I'm pretty happy with them—painted to a tabletop standard and in some of the brightest neon colours I could find (thanks Pro Acryl Rogue Hobbies set!). Hopefully, this run will continue, especially as we're starting an Infinity Escalation League next week and I have a couple more minis to paint up over the coming weekend for the list I'm planning on taking. And if I managed a game of Moonstone once a month then I can see myself getting some more of those gorgeous minis on the table. Maybe I'll even see my way to paint The Beast from Fenris Games before too long, and the wonderful Vermiis lich lord on zombie dragon that I picked up from Ian at the recent PeachCon at the start of August.
The climb continues...