Its not easy not being green Part 2–Slaanesh Takes Hold and the Excuses Spew Forth

Ok so the God of Pleasure has taken a firm hold and has prevented me from getting any painting done. I’d love to be able to produce photos of massed ranks of Cult followers, all neatly painted and smelling of varnish but unfortunately I can’t. And it’s all because I’ve been having too much fun!

Poker league nights at the pub got changed to a Monday, which coincided with the night I set aside for painting. I now play football (round ball, hooligan version) twice a week, Thursdays and Sundays, which is surprisingly enjoyable considering it’s technically classed as exercise. Friday nights are still pub/snooker night and Saturday is dedicated to my son. So that leaves Tuesday and Wednesday. And unfortunately I fear my missus will leave me soon if we don’t spend some ‘quality time’ together (her words not mine!).

I have also had to battle with the elements, spend time sunning myself on holiday and at various golf events and do my share of wedding organisation (apparently in the modern era of marriage the bloke has to plan, organise and pay for stuff as well!). The first of these ‘normal life’ interruptions nearly ended in disaster. During this year’s monsoon season my cellar flooded. The cellar also doubles as my painting dungeon. I nearly had a Corsair Sailing Fleet. If I’d arrived home half an hour later they would have been trying to evade Pershore.

But seriously, I exaggerate slightly. I have got my quota of 9 witch elves painted to a gaming standard but not finished to a level of detail I am happy with. It is also the second lot I have painted. The first lot came out looking like they had contracted a disease belonging to Michael Jackson. The skin tones were blotchy and uneven and I was not happy. The hair looked worse than Buzz after a trip to Dave the Night-time Hairdresser and his patio salon. And the lipstick effect I was going for looked more like they had gone down on each other at the wrong time of the month. So I stripped them down and started again. The second attempt is OK and hopefully I will improve with practice.

(Photos to follow as I’m typing this at work at the mo as my laptop is knackered. I also have a problem at home in that every time I log onto the Internet Slaanesh intervenes and has me surfing and looking at porn. (I wonder if that’s why my laptop is bust…..))

Next months target? And what will I be painting?

Well to be honest my next deadline might as well be the end of September and I’m not too sure on prices (as the online store is barred at work) so we’ll have a wild stab in the dark (“which is, incidentally, what you’ll be getting if you don’t start being a bit more helpful” Ah I like Blackadder, where did I leave that DVD? No, no, no I must paint not watch DVD’s)

Where was I? Ah yes, this month I will mostly be painting:

Command group for Witch elves/Devoted of Slaanesh
5 Dark riders

£25 for this month and I still have £4 left from before so with £29 I should be OK, if only Slaanesh would get off my back……..

And in the black corner…..

No plan survives contact with the enemy.
The Dark Elves were moving along until a couple of games with an Empire Volley Gun and the whole force was reviewed.
The Executioners are finished, less the standard which will be painted when all other standards are created. The Unit of 15 Spearmen is finished, but now will be bolstered to 20. 2 of the 5 shades are complete and the other 3 are almost finished. 3 Dark Riders complete with 2 more in the pipeline.
This months aim is to finish my Assassin, Dark Riders and the Shades and remodel the remaining 3 Cold One Knights.
Once they are complete then I will move onto the units of Crossbows and Dark Reapers.
That pretty much completes 1500 points and it is time to start thinking big!!!

Where did I put my axe…..

After a month of painting warriors(and making lots of mistakes) I decided that I would do something a bit more fun and so I purchased the following items:

1 Grudge Thrower (£18)
1 Dragon Slayer (£7)
(£25 in total)

I may have cheated a little bit this month, but as I did not start off with a first month of spending £50 I decided to splash out and buy Snorri (from Gotrek and Felix) to use as my Dragon Slayer. This may have cost me about £10 to buy but I thought that I would list it as a normal Dragon Slayer for purposes of pricing up this month’s toys.

Painting the Dragon Slayer was relatively easy to paint. As far as my painting goes I think that I did quite a good job in painting it, especially as my colour scheme was already sorted (green trousers, flesh coloured flesh and a ginger beard – sorted). I put a few hours into painting this little feller, although you probably wouldn’t be able to tell from looking at it. The dent made in my sofa that day would have shown how much time I put into it.

The Grudge Thrower – This model is a must for army, especially if I am as accurate with it as I am with my Tomb Kings’ Screaming Skull Catapult. This model did not take me long to paint at all, thanks to my ability to dry brush and ink models in almost no time at all (which I found out I could after I painted a Land Raider with a fine detail paintbrush one morning a few years ago). Putting the model together turned out to be a nightmare. I tried following the instructions on the back of the box unsuccessfully as the main component is pictured upside down on the instructions. This didn’t turn out to be big problem seen as it only goes together one way. The problems arose when I found out that nearly every piece needed to put together at the same time, meaning I needed about eight pairs of hands to build the thing. In the end it must have taken me the best part of an hour to put the stone thrower together (and to super glue my tongue to it in the process) but it was worth it in the end when I saw the finished product standing proud on my painting station next to the crew.

WHERE DO I BEGIN?

Well I’ve finally managed to finish my first month’s models. As I’m starting Dwarfs for the first time I thought that a good place to start would be with the following:

16 Dwarf Warriors (£18)
1 Dwarf Thane (£7)
(£25 in total)

Where would any well respected Dwarf Throng be without any units of Warriors making up the core part, with a Thane leading the troops into battle? This seemed like an easy choice for my first purchase, and so I went out and bought the models. Assembling the models didn’t take too long to do and I thought I was on a roll when I saw them put together and I didn’t suspect any speed bumps to slow me down at that point. So, I undercoated my models (black of course), filled my water pot and picked up my trusty paintbrush for the first time in two years. I went to open up my first pot of paint to put a base colour on my first warrior and then realized that I had no idea what my colour scheme was going to be. Not a great start to my return to painting, I know. I went work at choosing a colour scheme, looking in books, catalogues and on the internet and then tried various schemes on a test model. Two weeks later I had successfully decided on a colour scheme and got to work painting my warriors, rank by rank, and finally, in the first week of July I managed to finish painting all of the models that a purchased in June. As I am still four warriors short for my first unit I will not put up any photos until the unit is completely finished.

As choosing a colour scheme had put me somewhat behind I thought it was best that my next purchase did not include as many models, allowing me to get back on track. As painting whole units bores me, I decided to make July’s purchase include things that will motivate me to keep going. This led to me buying the following:

1 Grudge Thrower (£18)
1 Dragon Slayer (£7)
(£25 in total)

Hopefully I will be able to get these done before the end of July and get a head start on August’s purchase.