Sorry, totally fell behind on keeping this place up to date, term started back and I've been buried under a landslide of work. So, what've I been painting for the last 3 months?
Lord of the Rings
I kicked off September with a journey to middle earth as I returned to Games Workshops LOTR Strategy Battle Game. Everything was repaints of my old models, inspired by Amazon's Rings of Power debut. Fortunately my enthusiasm for painting lasted longer than my enthusiasm for the show, which waned with each passing episode.
Towards the end of the month I returned to middle earth, this time tackling the original fellowship and one of my all time favourite miniatures, Boromir, who I think turned out to be quite splendid.
Marvel United
Determined to finish the Horsemen of the Apocalypse expansion I knuckled down and after 18 more hours work I was finally done. I still want to take some location appropriate photos but here they are rampaging through the woods of Lothlorien.
Overall I'm pleased with them but I am struggling to find the time required to start and finish a Marvel United mini. Which is why I took so long to get to my next one, but I finally returned to MU in October with the Brood Queen.
Gameplay wise the Brood Queen has a spawn point that moves around, typically represented by a cube, but instead I went with this 3D print from Papsikels
I returned one last time to Marvel United in November with Stryfe. Here I'm trying a new look to my NMM silver with more blue reflections.
Super Dungeon Explore
In my quest to paint at least one of each of the spawn points we returned to Super Dungeon Explore in September to cross off most of Clan Yamazaru. I still need to go back and complete the oni but they usually take 5-6 hours and I am struggling to find the time. I really like that neon pink hair though on the Kunoichi.
ISS Vanguard
In October ISS Vanguard finally arrived which ended up occupying a large amount of my painting time for the month as I worked my way through the core set getting it ready for our first play.
I had heard a lot of talk about the quality of Awaken Realms miniatures so I have to say I felt let down by them overall. While they look cool from a distance, they are too busy for my taste.
As well as the crew I also painted up the Vanguard itself and the default lander, the Space Ranger.
Dungeons & Lasers
Intermixed with the Vanguard were some smaller simpler minis for nights when I had less time to paint. When I first saw the Townsfolk minis from Archon I was intrigued, I thought they would make good background characters for my fantasy settings, or as objectives in board games, but I was super surprised at just how good these look.
These are hard plastics on sprues but they are still super detailed and full of character and there are only a handful of repeats in a box of around 60 models. And although I bought them to be background I really think they can steal the show all by themselves.
Imperial Assault
It feels like every time I declare Imperial Assault finished someone buys me new minis. But this time it really is done. I've now painted every single model ever released for the game, there's nothing left to buy! This is the last one, the Alliance Smuggler, who definitely has a little something of a Harrison Ford look about him.
Zombicide
Closing out the month of November I return to Zombicide. Initially I was looking for a quick, easy mini to paint on nights where I only have an hour or so, but that quickly spiralled into me painting one of each of the VIP (Very Infected People) sculpts because I was enjoying them so much!
There were a lot of details in here that I really enjoyed. I like the sculpts, in particular the Hot Dog and Santa sculpts but they are all great, but I also like a couple of the little details, like the leopard print on the pimp's coat or the ripped nirvana tee on the punk.
And as I painted one of the VIPs to resemble Trinity from the Matrix I really had no choice but to paint up Neo for the reunion.
Admittedly he doesn't look a lot like Keanu but hopefully you can still see what I was going for here with the survivor Hudson.
And that's it, 3 months down, one to go. I'm absolutely going to miss most of my painting targets for the year, including the total where I'm going to fall short of the promised 300.
September Total -17
October Total - 15
November Total - 20
Running Total - 270
Until next time, have fun painting,
The Duke