I’m all over the place at the moment. I’m expecting a baby, trying to change jobs and living somewhere weird. It’s all going on. Actually for the last three years it feels like it’s all been going on, all the time. Non stop. My head hurts.
That’s where hobby time comes in. I’ve got loads of hobbies; Golf (haven’t touched a club for two years as I live a ten hour flight away from my playing partner (my father) and he becomes progressively more frail. Cycling (haven’t got on a bike for 18 months and, while that might change with a change of country / new job, a new baby is going to mean 5+ hour bike rides won’t be a thing). The clarinet (I live in an apartment and work long hours so I might get an hour a month).
Actually they’re clearly not hobbies at all, they’re things I know how to do or have done a lot of previously. Actually the more I think about it, the more I realise I have two hobbies: Playstation (esp. Sports games) and Painting miniatures. Now that’s fine, they are genuinely the two that fit my lifestyle now and I’m sure others will come and go but I need to let the others go now rather than being frustrated that I don’t do them enough (which is where I’m at now).
Where does painting miniatures fit into all of this? Well I started this blog as motivation to get armies / warbands finished that would incentivise me to go to tournaments and play more games. This has happened once with my 40K GT participation but the travelling is not really an option logistically or with the new family. So this hobby is increasingly becoming about painting miniatures to as high a standard as I can for the joy of painting as a pastime itself.
To that end, what’s on my painting table right now?
The Knight.
This is a funny little project for my twin boys’ birthday. I’m going to build and paint the skeleton of the knight and the boys will paint the armour plates. They have really picked up on my modelling hobby and enjoy painting so this will need to get knocked out before I go back to the UK (not sure when that’s going to be).
The Grey Knights.
If you’ve seen my NightVault warband (here) you’ll know that one of the things that needs some attention is my NMM steel. I bought these GK to make a Kill Team with and to learn NMM steel. Actually, given how long NMM takes to complete I’m actually going to go a different way with these and try a technique I’ve never used before – TMM. There are still force weapons on most of these guys which I can have fun with and I’m hoping that this will be an opportunity to knock a small project over in a short space of time. I’m alternating quick (40K army) and long (Gold NMM NightVault warband) projects and find it’s a good way to keep motivated. I think these will be the next cab off the rank – maybe with a little painting tutorial.
The Challenger Tank.
Now things are getting left field. My birthday present from the boys. Given how little I actually play games I’m starting to realise that painting what I like is perfectly permissible. I have always had a little fancy for historicals (I’ve done some railway modelling before) so I’m looking forward to this. I think this will be the last thing to get painted out of this lot but I’m looking forward to trying some realistic weathering. I’ll be using lots of tutorials to make the most of this kit.
The weird little model.
This is also new. I’m entering a painting competition. It’s just a little online comp run by a games manufacturer and the model is mandated as this one (it’s from their Purgatory game). The model is pretty cool and I have a long time to complete this (entries due on June 30th) so I’ll hopefully knock the GKs out quickly and spend a solid three months acing this. Again, I’ll dedicate some serious blog time to this project so I hope it’s interesting.
Anyway, paint what you want I guess!