GW Manchester Battle of the Brush - August - Big Models

Following on from July's Battle of the Brush [or 'Tale of our Warlords', as it's also known], August's category was Squads. I entered my [still wet] Ravenwing Dark Shroud - a model in the category completed in that month! My goal is just to achieve the 12 entries over the course of the year and as you can see the standard is exceptional each month so the competitive aspect will be tough, hence why I'm just along for the ride.

I've had a number of technical issues, hence why it has taken so long to get these pics sorted. Hopefully that's all fixed now and the winner for August was this fantastic Renegade Knight

2nd was this Repulsor tank.

3rd was yours truly with my Land Speeder Dark Shroud. I must admit to being honoured but a little 'unmoved' by the accolade. As much as I anticipate the reveal of the awards each month it would be disingenuous after my assertion I'm only in it to take part and then jump for joy when I win something. It's difficult to reconcile, I hope I'm explaining it enough, emotionally there's a lot of baggage. Anyway, the Slaaneshi Greater Daemon got the most inspiring award.

I'd taken these pics on another occasion because I was so impressed.

The creative use of sprue on the base was also a nice touch, and if you check out the new terrain elements for Warhammer Underworld's - Beastgrave you will see a definite similarity!

Other entries included this Invictus suit.

A couple of Deff Dreads.

Kastellan Robots and their 'handler'.

Venerable Dread and Abbaddon.

Another Venerable Dread and Mortarion.

Greater Daemon of Khorne.

Shadowsword.

With LOTS of weathering.

Magnus [who did a number of things wrong].

Giant [Mangler?] Squig?

Greater Daemon of Nurgle and the Night Haunt gibbet guy.

Arch-Lord Discordant.

And another pic of my own entry.

Once again I was compelled to take pictures of the store armies. I may well have taken the same pics previously but never mind enjoy once more Ork Speed Freeeks

And the crazy insane, Chaos Necron Tau conversions, which I have more pics next time.

Red Planet BASE! - If in doubt - BASE!

An update of some WiPs, it should be a small mid-week post but access problems to the standalone laptop means this is the only post I have to share 😔 With the Ravenwing Dark Shroud done and my recent review of 'what's on my palette' I just needed to 'flashback' these pics of how I got here. The Dark Shroud out of the way it just made sense to get some basing complete too so I had options going forward. As you can see the Redemptor Dread, Abberrants, Iconward, Rippers, Devgaunts, HIve Guard, lone Tyranid Warrior and even started the Geneestealer Familiars.

Various highlights later.

The Redemptor Dreadnought getting ready for Dreadtober. I know, I know you're supposed to make and build it wholly in the month but I know my speed and even getting to this stage it'll be a challenge for me to get it all done only in October...

One of the key drivers for this was the Ferron Fire Firs, which I've already covered but it's important to reiterate that tagging on another set of similar processes to existing task means you're adjusting your mindset only a little and the outcomes far outweigh the extra effort needed.

I have to be careful now though as I'm eager to move along with so many of these things but in reality I should be preparing for winter. With difficulties to prime models the more that's ready to go the better and the using up my 'stores' could be problematic... Luckily my project planning should keep that from happening. In the mean time I get a Great Big Galactic Big Build Basing Stamp of Approval! I probably deserve more than one for this, but it's difficult to decide, do I get 1 for 40 trees, 1 for the lone Tyranid Warrior and 1 for the two Hive Guard? So best just award the 1 and move on.

Whats on my palette?

Bless me readers for I have sinned, it's been over 6 months since my last confession! I've had quite lot of structure to what I've been doing so it didn't really require an overview to keep track.

But with the new hobby season I Feel like I've got a lot on my plate, but not stuffed with things I don't like - a huge buffet of delectable treats that I want to sample and gorge on until my plate is empty! So where am I at? Having just completed my two sets of Ferron Fire Firs and then varnishing the original set I already feel like I'm off to a great start, even though their potential use is thoroughly limited. Now I'm still using my Trello list which is a little odd as covers most of my To Do List but has extras/missing elements. However, it's nice to have a variety of tools to keep track of what's what, this is another one afterall! I'm even considering deploying Post-It notes in the mancave of each job and creating a tactile physical representation of what is being done/completed.

Anyway I had shared a Guardian article about how to tackle your To Do List, with the primary rule being doing attempt more than 3 jobs at a time as any more can be overwhelming. However, I'm currently in a position where my painting project amount to six items:

1. Genestealer Abberants
2. Genestealer Iconward
3. Genestealer familiars
4. Blood Bowl Humans
5. Callidus Assassin
6. Extra Knight weapons

There's a disparity in the amount of work in each of these and some are almost complete but I just can't/won't push that final furlong with them. But reconciling the issue of just 3 asks is based on shared elements. The Aberrants had some grey areas to do, so I slipped in some quartering of the Blood Bowl Humans. I hate doing that job but once again I'm using the crest of my current positive hobby mojo to motivate me to get these bits done. Any time I feel it's tedious I just stop and go on to something else. 

This has all made me think quite hard about the variety of rules and tips I've lived by to keep hobby momentum. I really think I need to formalise them to help. I think they could be like a set of commandments [but more like guidelines] but then the more I think it feels like a process diagram with if/and/or states because there are no hard and fast rules to keeping busy. From my experience sticking to just one approach is one of the hardest ways to maintain your hobby. But, there are loads of people ho would swear blind that a systematic strict way of working is what gets them results - so you see no single solution to this varied hobby.

Now on top of that painting list I've also sculpted, yes the Tyranid Void Shield Generator has had some DAS clay added to it. I had been putting it off, for over 3 years now, purely because I wanted to video how to do some of the tendon bits. I finally did a clip and I desperately want this complete , so there's quite a competition for my limited hobby time.

What I have realised is that by attempting so many jobs simultaneously I'm actually making inroads into my Big Build from last season, when in reality it would be best to have those to do over Winter - I really need to build more now, which I suppose makes the VSG a good fit. But I also have the remaining GW Manchester painting challenges to do, as well as Dreadtober and that means there will be a lot of chopping and changing in these priorities. Whether that kills momentum n some of these tasks has yet to be seen but I hope not.

One other key observation I've made is setting a task for the evening and completing it is a real buzz. If you really want that hobby high then that's a definite tactic, for instance I set myself the tasks of  matt varnishing some of my Ferron Fire Firs, painting the bone elements on my Abberrants and some small colours elsewhere. To set that goal, go out and achieve it felt so great. Progress is always a key motivator and sometimes the tasks we set are a little difficult to perceive in isolation on a model, but when presented as a task and that task is ticked off at the end of the session it becomes immaterial what it was, just that it is complete. Once again it's mind games and tricks to keep going when you might start to lose confidence, hence why I switched in the Post-Its. I could have easily used a tick-list but by mixing things up it feels fresh and organised in a different way.