The Brush and Boltgun “Hobby Guilt” Season
Here at the Brush and Boltgun we have decided that November and December will be our “Hobby Guilt” months. “What does that mean?” I hear you ask. Well, rather than starting a new challenge, we thought it would be a good idea to make some progress on all of those half finished hobby projects that are littered around our workspaces, and get as many as possible finished before Father Christmas brings any new toys for us.
We all have multiple projects on the go at any one time. I’m sure you do too. Come on now, don’t lie! So here’s a challenge where we will be working on those. You may see varied results. These posts may just become a series of pictures of half-painted models. Who knows? Keep checking back to see what happens!
I didn’t actually take any pictures of what I’ve got lying around, quite simply because I was too embarrassed. But here’s a handy list:
- Half painted characters from Betrayal at Calth
- Basecoated Iron Hands (10x Tactical, 5x heavy, Land Raider Proteus, Sicaran, 5x Gorgon Terminators, 5x Cataphractii Terminators, 10x Immortals, Rapier Laser Destroyer, Contemptor Dreadnought)
- 10x Basecoated Imperial Fist Veterans
- 10x Basecoated Imperial Fist Tacticals
- Basecoated Imperial Fist Leviathan
- Basecoated Imperial Fist Storm Eagle
- Fulminators Primaris Reiver Test Model
- Basecoated Custodes (5x Sentinal Guard, 5x Custodian Guard, 5x Sagittarum)
- Basecoated Grey Knights Character
- Basecoated Age of Sigmar starter set Stormcast Eternals
- Unpainted:
- Custodes Caladius Grav-Tank
- Custodes Telemon Dreadnought
- Custodes Galatus Dreadnought
- Burning of Prospero Characters
- Iron Hands Malcador
- Probably a whole bunch of other stuff that I’ve forgotten…
Adam:
I think every hobbyist has a nice amount of unpainted models, perhaps stretching to half built armies and maybe even entire projects bought and not yet started.
I think part of this is that hobbyists are generally quite an enthusiastic lot. We all get very excited about new releases or discussing our next army with friends. These friends are usually just as enthusiastic and tell you that you should definitely do it. Unfortunately after that point, there is generally an “ah” moment.
I have had various projects stalled due to different types of “ah” moment. Some armies are a faff to put together (gluing the guns into bolt action miniatures hands, anyone?), some armies require disgusting amounts of conversion work, some you just don’t get the feel for as they are progressing and some turn out to just be really, really bad armies on the tabletop.
Sometimes, these armies end up sold or sitting in your loft for years. When the Brush and Boltgun guys started discussing “Hobby Guilt” it made me think about my stalled projects. Currently my backlog looks like this:
- WW2 German themed Warhammer 40k Orks: stalled because each one takes about 10 minutes of greenstuff work and all have shootas converted to look like MP40s. About half of a 1500pt army done.
- 30k Night Lords: Around 2500pts all made, basecoated and first stage highlighted. Stalled through lack of enthusiasm and need to paint lightning.
- Dead Man’s Hand Indian Warband: only 9 models, basecoated in parts. Stalled because we hardly ever play this system. When we do I already have US Cavalry finished to use.
- Samurai Warbands for Ronin (Osprey Samurai Rules): started. Stalled because painting samurai armour is very different to anything I have painted before. And freehand Mons (clan badges) are a pain.
- Pirates! French and English Blood and Plunder crews: half way through. Stalled because I have been trying to paint each model as an individual. I often pick these up, do a few colours and then put them back in the box. I have no clue where to start with their ships. We don’t talk about the ships…
I imagine the above list is depressingly familiar to most gamers!
So which of these to choose to complete for hobby guilt month? The Orks would take more than a month to complete, the same with the Night Lords. The Pirates are probably a bit close to being done: I will probably get them to a decent gaming standard by Christmas at any rate.
In a contest between the Samurai and the Indians, it had to be the Samurai, as this opens up gaming a whole new system. The Indians, as I said above, are a spare army for their system.
Also, the “ah” moment for the samurai is covered. With the advent of Warlord Games’ Samurai game, Test of Honour, Wargames Illustrated ran a “painting Samurai” article which looks like it will have a wealth of information for me to use and finally finish them. Also, they were a Christmas present from last year… it feels right that they should be finished in time for a game this Christmas!
So, decision made! Now let’s see how I actually get on with them… I might actually need to read the rules…
Rob:
Part of me looks at Adam’s list and thinks ‘Oh come on, he’s got to have more than that, surely.’, and I expect that there’s more, but these are the most pressing ones. With that in mind, I’ll be looking into the armies I have in various stages, and choosing one that is feasible to complete.
My list of unfinished miniatures is something like this;
- Black Legion/Red Corsairs – All undercoated, some base-coated to some extent.
- Grey Knights – All base coated and shaded, need to be finished and detailed.
- Sons of Horus – That’s right, there’s another 12 and the last parts of a tank to do.
- Frostgrave – I love it, and have lots of part completed stuff for it
- Scenery – I’ve picked up a lot over the past few years, and painted some up to an excellent standard, the rest ranges from base coated to bare plastic.
There is more, but there’s no point putting the whole list up, these are just the ones that give me that pang of ‘oh my’ every time I see them.
Personally, I think the Grey Knight will be the easiest ones to paint up, as they’re fairly sparse in colours, and it is mainly the detailing that brings them together. I have a lot of them part painted, with only a few base coated, and I’m going to start working on those, probably jumping onto something else after each squad.
The full force is shown above, and you can see that there’s not a whole lot left to do, so, best foot forward, I’ll get cracking on some of these
Dave:
Everyone has a project that they just can’t get round to finishing in their hobby cupboards (I happen to have several), but for me the one that has dragged on for the longest has to be my Norman warband for Studio tomahawk’s excellent medieval skirmish game: Saga
It may surprise you to know that here at B&B we don’t just play 30/40K; of all the historical games that I play (and there are several) Saga is probably my favourite – it’s certainly the one that I’ve played the most.
“But Dave, if you love it so much, why haven’t you finished your army?”
I hear you cry.
Well, it’s fairly simple, I don’t like painting horses. You would have thought that I’d learn from past mistakes, (I have a huge, bare plastic Bretonnian army sitting in a case for exactly that reason), but the Normans just seemed so cool, they were the overall ‘winners’ of the dark ages, and besides, their horses don’t have tabards and as many fiddly reins and stuff, so it couldn’t possibly be annoying to paint them, right?
WRONG.
I have tried to get them finished multiple times, and I just get stuck when it comes to the mounted models, and to be quite honest, it’s just getting embarrassing playing against fully painted armies with my half-basecoated warband now, so this seems like the perfect time to do it!
There are quite a few models in my force, around 50 or so, so I’m going to have my work cut out, but I will be painting these to a tabletop standard, rather than going all out like I did for the Blood Bowl challenge, so hopefully I’m not biting off more than I can chew; I’m hoping using my airbrush a bit more creatively will help get through them with maximum efficiency!
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