Go with the flow

...or, This Week at the Painting Table

I posted a teaser shot of the creature from the Tentacles and Eyeballs earlier this week. I've had the time to complete a few other things.




Facing down the alien eyeworm is a Reaper Chronoscope figure. He's one of the random figures I've picked up from my FLGS (Days of Knights in Newark, Delaware) while waiting for the great Reaper Bones package to arrive. He looked like he'd be quick to paint, and was. I pushed through in a continuous operation. It's not a great paint job, but I want to force myself to use at least a few bright colors. My mental pallette is strongly influenced by painting Dark Ages figures, and I have to remind myself that high tech dyes exist from the late 19th century on ...

Speaking of the Dark Ages, one of the happy side effects of moving is that I have opened and looked through every box I have squirreled away. I'm still hoping to discuss the Dark Ages in a dedicated post, but, meanwhile, I ran across this old Foundry Norman casualty, already glued to the base and just awaiting scenic treatment. I think that I had hoped to find a kneeling crossbowman to place, using the dead knight for cover, but I haven't, so I just added some brush. He's a rather inconvenient figure, given my preference for mounting things on round bases...he required a pretty large washer to avoid overhang, and that left a lot of ground to do.




With him out of the way, it looks like I have a total of 82 remaining figures, a mix of new Eureka, old Foundry, new Foundry, Gripping Beast and Old Glory. Viking-based games are a great opportunity to collect lots of different poses...

I also found a small batch of Prince August fantasy figures I'd cast, probably two summers back. Some years ago I picked up the majority of the older Prince August fantasy molds in a clearance sale, with the notion that I'd need them if I ever wanted to expand my original fantasy armies, which are all in small 25mm. For the past couple of summers, I have been working with them, trying to get everything properly vented and casting reliably.

Here is a female magician from mold #657. I also did this as a drill, working on color blending and speed. I had some problems with the Reaper skin tone paint, which probably needed a touch of thinning. In any case, here is a close up of the front and back, which is (happily) closer than you would see her on the table.







I've been painting enough highly detailed figures that doing an older, simpler figure required a little mental adjustment. I am thinking about using the Prince August molds for some armies for Dux Bellorum. If I do that I'll want to stick to a simple paint style in the interest of getting the figures on the table within a reasonable amount of time.

So, four figures, four projects...at least it's progress of a sort, and I hope that someday it will add up to something. I think, though, that it's better to just go with the flow than to try to force myself to paint something that isn't interesting right now.

We hope to finish the move this weekend; I am hoping to get back to actually playing some games soon.