Major Painting Burn Out

Ennui: a feeling of weariness and dissatisfaction; boredom.

Robert Cordrey wrote about it on his blog a few weeks ago. I've read other bloggers discussing similar issues. For me, I though way back in March that I'd have lots of time for projects, and dare I say it, actual gaming. It seems, however, that the situation has magnified what I have been feeling for a while regarding my hobby. I paint a lot of stuff, make terrain, but never actually play a game. This came to a head the last two weeks. I mentioned back in April and early May that I have been making a lot of progress and multitasking. Things were chugging along. But then, I got caught up in a painting contest on a Facebook groups page. I started working on my entry, a unit of fantasy heavy cavalry. The more I worked on it, the more burned out I got on it. I wanted to make it as high quality a paint job as I could. It seemed endless tedium. I wanted to shelf the whole thing and forget about it, but at the same time, I just wanted to finish the damn thing. Finally, I finished last night. I took some pictures and posted them on the group site that is having the contest. I don't pretend to a great miniature photographer and I really don't have to time nor the wherewithal to take great shots. When I looked at the pictures (see below), I thought, "I spent all this *bleepity-bleep* time working on these things but the pictures don't show most of the detail I put into them!!!"

So, here's some pictures I took of very recent miniatures that I painted. I think these are going to be the last ones I paint for awhile. For now on, I'm going to redirect my efforts to playing games, even if they are board games.

First, a couple of dwarves from Battle Valor Games:

He plans to enter the Gandalf the Gray cosplay contest.

Queen Keona; King Ivan's sister:

Queen Keona is a kitbash. Originally, she was a Battle Valor vampire general. She looked perfect from the photos, and it would be easy to swap shields. However, when I got her, the upper torso was fine and the horse she rode on was fine, but her waist, legs and feet left something to be desired. It was mainly her foot attire. It looked like she was wearing Inuit mucklucks. I've worn them. Great for sub-zero temperatures and snow, silly for riding into battle. Unfortunately, Battle Valor's riders have their lower halves sculpted directly onto to the stead. So, there was no way I could get rid of the legs and use the horse. Fortunately, the proportions and size matched fairly well with Essex 15s. Some poor knight in full plate mail gave his life....legs for the queen. I used one of the many Essex horses I have accumulated over the years. Threw on a standard heater shield and there you go.

A female elf fighter also from Battle Valor:

The objects of my scorn, Battle Valor evil heavy cavalry:

Finally, an impromptu battle scene that includes some Goth slingers from Essex along with the spider warrior that I painted a couple of weeks ago:

They are supposed to be Battle Valor's version of dark elves, but you really cannot tell except some of them have pointed ears if you look close enough. The spiders on the shield were done with Sharpies. The flag was done using Adobe Illustrator.

Its time to box these, like I do so many others, clean off my workbench, start gaming. 

1/300 Conversion in About 20 Minutes

Yesterday, I made an all out cleaning assault on my pigsty of a workbench. Despite about three hours of work, I didn't get really far, plus all the dust I kicked up made my allergies a nightmare. Under the piles of junk, I found a lone, primed, Saracen APC and a ZU-23-2 23 mm autocannon with two gunners on it. It might have a carriage for it, or it might go onto another vehicle. The APC is an old Skytrex model and the autocannon belongs to H&R. Inspiration struck! So... shaving off the MG turret, pulling out the pin vise and drilling out a hole for the gun, I now have a Saracen with a ZU-23-2 AA autocannon on top.

I think it took me all of 20 minutes to complete, including waiting for the paint to dry. The thing looks incredibly top heavy and kind of silly, but I've seen some jury-rigged technicals that looked a lot more ridiculous. One more weapon to add to the Federal Republic of Gambusia's arsenal.

Spider + Man

What little time I have in the evening, I've been multitasking like crazy. In addition to experimenting and/or building lots of scenery for 3mm (making cultivated fields has become my new nemesis/obsession), I have been trying to paint down the 15mm fantasy lead pile. Below is the latest fruit of my labors. I think I spent a total of about 8 hours on this one over several days.

He is a general from Battle Valor Games.