2022 painting round-up

Happy New Year, everyone!

Ever since I started tracking my painting a couple of years ago, I like to assemble it all at the end of the year for a review. For 2022, I painted 239 figures in total, down a bit from the last couple of years. The biggest contingents were two new DBA armies, who have previously been featured (Tlaxcalans, Undead), but my Proxian imagi-nations armies also saw considerable expansion (spurred on by several battles being fought over the course of the year.)

(There are a few absent from the picture - some chariot runners I painted for my dad as part of a rebasing scheme prior to a game at our local convention, a Leonardo tank painted for a club project, and a Scythian lancer borrowed to paint for a contest over at Benno's Forum.)

A few other highlights that I never got around to posting about on the blog:

Occiterran Red Hussars (from the Emhar Light Brigade set), painted up after the Occiterran defeat in April.

A proper Pharaoh for my Egyptians (from the Caesar set), painted up in time to lead the Egyptian army in my Battle of Djahy game at Barrage.

Camp followers for various DBA armies - Aztec and Tlaxcalan at left, Bronze Age at right.

A selection of Reaper Bones adventurers.

As for 2023, no big plans yet - I'll just have to see what the year brings as far as painting and gaming! My brother stopped by yesterday for a couple of rounds and DBA and HotT, so we are off to a good start...

Getting adventurous

This is the second half of my post-Mycenaean painting spree; as mentioned in my previous post I got some work done on my Proxian 19th-century Imagi-nations armies, but I also had some fantasy odds and ends that I wanted to work on. In particular, I thought it was time to re-visit the Caesar Adventurers set. I've painted a number of the figures over the years, but I still had a few tucked away. 

First up, I selected a trio to base together as a stereotypical D&D adventuring party, with a fighter, a magic-user, and a rogue. I expect the three of them will feature in Hordes of the Things games as a Hero unit. (The fighter's coat of arms is actually an allusion to a long-running D&D game I'm in, where our guild's symbol is a phoenix.)

I've also been plotting to add a few fantasy elements to my Bronze Age Egyptians, to allow them to play as a HotT army as well. One of the female magic-users from the Adventurers set looked like she could serve as a priestess; I gave her a couple of retainers from the old Atlantic Pharaoh's Court set. This unit will probably be either a Cleric or Magician as required.

As another HotT element for the Egyptians, I had a couple of crocodiles to serve as Water Lurkers. These are from HaT's "Jungle Adventures" re-issue of the Airfix Tarzan set.

This next one is bit of an oddball; some years ago I picked up several boxes of MiniArt Germanic Warriors at a convention flea market, thinking I would use them as Riders of Rohan. Well, I got as far as painting one stand of them, then kind of lost interest. I sold off the bulk of them to a friend of mine, but I still had another unit that had started prepping. Well, I finally got around to painting that unit, so perhaps now they'll see some action in a future game of N.U.R.D, or as a little mercenary contingent in a HotT campaign.

Moving over to the 28mm side of things, I also got a few more Reaper Bones figures painted. This one is a Psychic from their Pathfinder range. I actually painted a version of this figure in a speed-painting contest at Gen Con a couple of years ago and I liked it enough to get a plastic Bones version when it became available.

Finally, I painted up a gang of lizardfolk to match some I did a couple of years back. They might see action as primitives in Stargrave, or if we return to the Ghost Archipelago some day.

Next up, it will be the Bronze Age once more... perhaps for the last time! (Though I've said that before, haven't I?)

The little things that count - wrapping up 2020

Well, I don't know quite what I expected from 2020, but this wasn't it. I do feel quite fortunate to have come through the past year unscathed, and with my family and friends generally still in good health. And for all that this was a terrible year for other things, it was a great year for me getting painting done - at some point early in January I realized I had finished an average of one figure a day, and I decided to see how long I could keep up that pace. The answer turned out to be all year - I finished yesterday with 400 figures completed. This was the first year I have kept detailed logs, but I am sure this exceeds whatever my previous record was - and it may prove to be a high-water mark for some time to come! For the fun of it, I decided to lay out everything I painted this year, all at once:

The bulk of this is my six DBA armies, but there are a number of Reaper Bones figures and a few other odds and ends for other projects in there as well. A few of the miscellaneous miniatures that rounded out the year for me:

As mentioned at the end of my last post, these are old chariots I had painted some years ago, but rebased on 60x80mm bases for DBA, and with some new chariot runners added. The runners are a couple of spares left over from my Assyrians, and a couple of Robin Hood conversions. The bowmen are more Caesar Mitannian Mariyannu Chariot archers, dismounted to use as 4Bw in DBA. Between them, these will let my Syro-Canaanite army double as list I/19 Mitanni.

The other item mentioned as forthcoming in a previous post - a second piece of artillery for Elabrün. These are Waterloo 1815's Austrian Artillery set - and in this case, Elabrüner uniforms don't diverge too much from historical Austrians...

Moving to the Reaper Bones side - at some point back in August or so, I actually ran out of the 1-inch washers usually I use for basing 28mm figures, so I switched to working on ones which went on either larger or smaller bases. These ones are all on the small side: two kobolds, and two halflings. (Or possibly a gnome and a halfling.) Alas, the kobold's mace remains bent despite repeated attempts at straightening it in boiling water. 

Some other assorted Reaper critters: the packrat had been sitting around primed but unpainted for at least a couple of years, but I finally got around to it this past month. The normal rats went much quicker. One of the things I enjoy painting most is animals (hence my delight at getting to paint some camelry earlier this year), so it was fun to paint up a couple of animal companions as a wolverine and a bald eagle. And as a Marylander, of course I had to paint the dire crab up as a blue crab!

This final one is a bit of an oddball - it's an old Mage Knight figure, carved off its original Clix base, repainted, and rebased onto one of the empty bases that had previously held a chariot. I still have several of these, so I will be on the lookout for more flying creatures or other ways I can put them to good use. And now with a giant eagle to hand, I find myself thinking about how to stage the Battle of the Five Armies, from the end of The Hobbit...

So that's it for 2020! Of course, one of the other silver linings of the past year has been the revival of this blog. Thank you to everyone who has stopped by, and especially those who have taken the time to leave comments. Hopefully this year's posts will include a few more games, but if not, I expect I will at least post pictures of whatever I decide to pain next! Happy New Year, and best wishes for 2021!

Orctober in two scales

While casting about for something a little different to paint after finishing up my most recent DBA army, I was reminded that this month is Orctober! As it happens, I did have some orcs in need of painting. In fact - I had orcs in two different sizes! 

First up is a somewhat belated addition to my 20mm Orcish army for Hordes of the Things. It looks like the last time I painted any of these was about eight years ago, but they have seen plenty of action since then - most recently, as it happens, while on loan to my dad. At the time all that was available was Caesar's original set of orcs, but in the years since they have come out with a second set. My dad picked up a box of these a while back, and passed along to me a spare shaman, which spent some time rattling around my bits box. I finally plucked him out of there this month, and found a couple of leftover orcs to provide him a pair of bodyguards. In Hordes of the Things, he should work as a Magician or possibly a Cleric.

The other orcs are more of the Reaper Bones line, in 28mm (though these guys are probably a bit bigger than that, being pretty burly!) Reaper bills them as a Slayer, a Chopper, and a Sniper. I've been working on these much more recently, to be used either for D&D or some sort of fantasy skirmish. With these three, I should now have enough for an entire crew in Ghost Archipelago, should I so choose...

(Incidentally, you may note that my 20mm orcs are green, and my 28mm orcs are gray. Why is this? Well, green skin seemed like a natural enough choice back when I was painting my original 20mm orcs, but in years since I have come down on it a bit - orcs in Warhammer or World of Warcraft might be green, but it's a pretty unusual color for mammals in the real world. When it came time to paint some 28mm orcs, I decided I wanted something different - I wanted a color that was fairly neutral, while also avoiding real-world human skin tones. Hence, gray orcs.)

With these guys out of the way, and Orctober drawing to a close, it will be back to the Bronze Age soon. I have my eye on a sixth army, and I might be able to finish it before this year is out...

Having a fantastic time

With the pandemic still ongoing, it hasn't been a great year for gaming, but it has been a pretty good year for painting. I find it helpful to have a couple of projects to shift around between - this year, it's been my 20mm Bronze Age DBA armies, and adding to my collection of Reaper Miniatures' Bones range of fantasy figures, for use in D&D or various skirmish games. Here's what I've been up to since finishing off the Sea Peoples:

First up was this warg, which I painted more or less to resemble a gray wolf. This turns out to be somewhat less gray than I expected - or at least, there are some other shades mixed in there as well.

Next was this clerical-looking fellow, who ended up being a bit of a study in shades of brown. I also had some fun trying to paint the bottle at his waist to look like glass.

I went for a much brighter color palette with this "cultist leader" - I also tried my hand at some sort of twisty tattoo design on the side of her head, but I'm not entirely satisfied with how that came out.

I'd had this rogue or assassin sitting around half-painted for a little while - I had started off trying some object source lighting with her daggers to make it look like they were glowing, but wasn't pleased with how it looked, so I put her aside. Picking her up again, I was able to do a bit more with the effect, and I'm happier with where she ended up. Figuring out how the light should affect the colors of her clothing was interesting.

This flute-playing bard I did in a bit of a rush - at least, I think it's supposed to be a flute. There's also the possibility that she's gnawing on a baguette instead.

I added another three orcs to my growing warband. Unlike the previous batch, these three all required some amount of assembly, gluing various limbs in place before painting.

This gnomish warrior was another quick one - my dad and I decided to have a little speed-painting contest, so this one was done in an hour with a limited palette of paints. I thought the shape of her shield looked kind of like a face in profile, so I took that as a starting point.

On the more formidable side, I painted a pair of yetis. Doing the white fur was an interesting change of pace from the more usual brown or shades of gray; I tried working in some yellow tones in the underlayers, but I'm not sure they really came through in the final results.

And on the less formidable side, I painted half a dozen goblins. I actually painted another set of these guys last year, with pale blue skin, but I decided to change up the colors and do these ones in pale purple instead. (Different tribes? Who knows!) I do have one more set of six around somewhere; maybe they'll get painted green.

Next month it will probably be back to the Bronze Age - I have a few odds and ends to finish up there...

A fantastical interlude

As mentioned in my last post, after a couple months of pushing hard on the Bronze Age I was ready for a change of pace. Most of my (unchronicled) miniatures work in the past couple of years has been on Reaper Bones 28mm fantasy figures - some for a couple of Ghost Archipelago campaigns that were going on in our club, but also with the longterm goal of building up a pool of figures for D&D or other skirmish or roleplaying games. I still had several sitting around primed and ready to go, so I switched over to that for a while.

First up were some orcs - I've been doing these in a medium gray, as I wanted to avoid human flesh tones and also distinguish them from my 20mm orcs, who are green. I had three already, and I added three more this go-round - one with a spear, one with two swords, and one axe-wielding orc who appears to be left-handed.

Next up was Alahazra, Iconic Oracle, who could be either a D&D character or a Wave or Wind Warden for a future Ghost Archipelago campaign.

After that, I finally took care of a Cave Bear that had been languishing on my desk for a while. This ended up being pretty quick once I finally buckled down to paint it - almost all dry-brushing.

Finally, I painted up a Bones version of Aletheia Edair, Duelist, which I guess must have come from the most recent Kickstarter. It looked to me like she was wearing a slashed doublet under her armor, so I decided to go with a colorful, vaguely Renaissance theme.

Having had a nice break, it'll be back to my fourth Bronze Age DBA army - the infamous and enigmatic Sea Peoples...

Derro Trio

The notion of gathering a team to explore the slowly-thawing ruins of a once-great city seems a little on the nose today, given the blizzard that's currently hitting the East Coast. None the less, here are the latest additions to my growing band of adventurers--a trio of rather grumpy-looking dwarves.

(OK, technically they're listed as "derro," which in D&D are some demented subspecies of dwarves, but I did not bother to look this up before painting them, and thus they lack the distinctive coloration of derro. So--dwarves.)

First, we have just a regular Derro, apparently one of a set of three, though I didn't end up with either of the other two. I had a bit of fun doing his hat. He doesn't seem particularly heavily armed or armored (just some sort of hook/club thing and some rope) so I'm thinking he'll be a rogue or thief.

This guy is the Derro Leader, a little more heavily armed than the first. He's kind of asymmetrical; his left arm has some sort of padded protection and a thick leather glove, while his right arm is bare except for an oddly-shaped buckler. In Frostgrave terms, he'll probably end up as a Thug.

And here we have the Derro Mage. His pendant strongly suggested an eye, so that's how I painted it. Between that, and his demon belt-buckle, his Frostgrave role may be a Summoner.

And here are the three of them together! The Derro Leader's scale armor is a little more apparent from this angle. All in all, I had fun with these guys--as Bones go, they didn't have too much extraneous detail, and their somewhat exaggerated features give them some character. I ended up playing around with some unusual color choices as well, especially with the first two.

I have some more Bones in my queue, but I think I'm ready for a change of pace--my next goal will be to get some officers and flags painted for my 19th-century imagi-nations...

Librarian and Barbarian

Finished two more of my stock of Reaper Bones in the last week or so. The first was "77089: Halbarand, Cleric" who initially caught my eye due to the book that he has chained to himself. (Or perhaps that has chained itself to him?) In any case, I ended up using the book as a theme of sorts, styling his cloak after a leather book cover, his surcoat some pages with writing, and his breastplate decorated a bit like an illuminated text. I'm thinking he may see action as a Sigilist in Frostgrave...

The second was "77199: Thund Bloodwrack, Barbarian". I'm not sure why I originally picked this one out--possibly with the notion of using him in the D&D campaign I'm playing in at the moment. He's a rather odd-looking fellow with a tiny head and a huge sword--not exactly my usual style. (And his wide-legged stance required an oversized base.) I decided to go with a similarly over-the-top paint scheme...

Yes, I painted him red. It seemed like a reasonable idea at the time. And rather than making his fur cloak the usual wolf/bearskin, I decided to try for something a little more... exotic. The shading and stripes on the tiger skin were probably the most interesting part of this guy. I'm actually pretty pleased with how he came out--painted, he seems a little more a character and less a caricature.

Next in the queue will either be some short unsavory fellows, or possibly a return to Elabrün...