New Year Post & Advent Miniature Wrapup

Happy New Year! I've just had a week off work and I always end up losing my hobby routine in those situations so I never wrapped up the Advent painting challenge. 

We failed in our task of painting 24 minis over 24 days unfortunately. Some of the minis took longer than expected, but also we had less hobby time than we expected. In this new pandemic-filled world we found ourselves with all kinds of strange new social conventions, such as constantly being on Skype to friends and family - not to mention the usual work stresses that come with working from home. It's very easy to accidentally work late when you don't have a commute. 

We did manage to finish a fair few of the Advent miniatures - my favourite of which being Geralt of Rivia. An OOP Artel W Miniature that's been sitting around in my to-do list for a few years. Laura and I will be starting a Witcher themed Frostgrave campaign soon so he'll be making an appearance in various missions I'm sure. 

Without further ado, here's the rest of the miniatures we managed to paint during the build up to Christmas: 

 Day 5

Geralt of Rivia - Tom

Day 6

Box of fish - Laura

Day 7

Archery Target - Tom

Day 8

Brigand - Laura

Day 9

Cryopod - Tom

Day 10

Sack of potatoes - Laura

Day 11

Training dummy - Tom

Day 12

Elf archer - Laura

Day 13

Adventurer with lantern - Tom

Day 14

Box of vegetables - Laura

Day 15

Merchant - Tom

And here's where we slacked and failed to finish the rest. We started on a couple of them (and I got most of them primed) but we didn't manage to complete any more. I did get distracted by other projects which was a bit foolish, but we still ended up with a decent selection of painted models in the end so I'm happy.

You might notice there's actually more than 24 models in these final pictures. That's because some of the advent boxes contained more than one model, just to make it harder on ourselves - I guess we were too ambitious!

The other projects I got distracted by included making a modular 2x2 foot sci-fi terrain board for sci-fi skirmish games. I'm still in the process of painting it, and am going for an abandoned martian industrial facility theme. Hopefully it should suit 40k, Star Wars (think Kessel) and Infinity.

I used some bits I was gifted from my friend Rick (who has an excellent blog, check it out here: https://thegrumpygnome.home.blog ) as well as some other bits I've gathered over the years. The hills are made from XPS foam and modelling compound (plaster mixed with cloth fibre).

I also printed a large spaceship for Star Wars gaming, and have been painting up a smaller one (also for Star Wars gaming). The smaller one is clearly inspired by the Razor Crest from the Mandalorian, but I wanted to give it a different look while retaining the lived-in Star Wars feel.

Imperial Cutter

Imperial Cutter interior

Bounty Hunter ship

I tried out salt weathering for the first time

I also gave the engines a bit of a dirty soot covered effect

The weathering is more effective in certain places, 

but the irregularity should make it more realistic hopefully.

Advent Miniature Painting - Days 2, 3 & 4

Day 2 - Stocks 

Laura got the stocks for Day 2. This model is from the Dungeons & Lasers Legacy Extras pack from their recent kickstarter. It's a nice hard plastic and has a good amount of detail on it.

She used Army Painter Brush-On Primer (grey) for the primer, but regretted it shortly afterwards. Perhaps the bottle's gone a bit old or needs remixing or something, but it was really sticky and uneven and made the rest of the painting awkward for her.

She managed to come out on top though and gave it some nice details like rusty bolts on the supports. 

Day 3 - Notice Board

I got to paint this cool notice board from Oathsworn Miniatures (of Burrows & Badgers fame) for day 3.

I primed it with my airbrush and used a mixture of P3, Citadel Contrast and Citadel Layer paints to do the wood. I haven't bothered with the ground much as I'll probably mount it onto a terrain piece at some point.

I tried my hand at small detail work with the notices, but my 1mm high handwriting is even worse than my regular sized handwriting so it just came out as squiggles.

Day 4 - Dryad

Laura got a Wood Elf Dryad by Games Workshop for her second model. Lots of painting wood so far!

Once again the brush on primer was tried but it did the same thing so she washed it off and it was given an airbrush prime instead. She did a mixture of highlighting and drybrush work for the bark, and the leaves were Citadel Loren Forest, which contrasted well with the wood.

Advent Miniature Painting - Day 1

Christmas is looming once again, and Laura and I decided that rather than the usual chocolate fest, we'd try to appreciate some of the things we have on our run up to the 25th. Of all the things we appreciate (good friends, a nice home, comfortable living standards) there is of course one thing which tops them all: hordes of miniatures!

Seeing as we suffer from the classic wargamer affliction of wanting to buy new miniatures before the old ones are painted, we decided to 'gift' each other unpainted miniatures from our collections, with the goal being to paint it up that day as a mini project. So we used Laura's old wooden advent calendar, which has handy compartments that are just the right size for a miniature, and decided that we would alternate days to give us enough time to paint them.

I'm doing the odd days, so I got the first one:

A comfy looking leather armchair from Mantic's Terrain Crate series! We got the kickstarter a few years ago and they've mostly been sitting around unpainted since, so it's nice to have an excuse to paint one of these. The PVC they use isn't the best to work with, but it looks good when painted up. I washed all the Mantic pieces shortly after they arrived, and I'd recommend doing the same if you ever paint them up - they don't take acrylic paint very well without a wash. A spray can or airbrush primer is a good idea too.

It was a nice and easy first miniature to paint. I cheated a bit too and used Contrast paints so this was a very quick paintjob, but it looks the part and that's what is important. I also gave it a varnish with Citadel's Munitorum Varnish, as I've noticed the Contrast paints have a habit of peeling/chipping easily.

Laura's up next for day 2, stay tuned!