Project snapshot

So here's a view of the projects that are currently at the top of the heap.  Bear in mind, my "top projects" are an amorphous set, reprioritized on a weekly basis!  I reshuffle them based on the direction that my gaming group is going, the events I have planned, the competitions I attempt, etc.

To wit, here are photos of the Orc & Goblin army I've been working on since the beginning of the year, but which have been interrupted repeatedly by other projects shouldering their way above them.

Spearmen and basic warriors.

Spearmen and archers.

More of the rabble, mixed with some Dark Elf items I inherited from my buddy, Oko.

A cyclops and an ogre (by Reaper), waiting to be cleaned.

A goblin wolf rider, needed to complete a unit of 5, alongside one of the four that I painted sometime around 2007.  I want to duplicate the color scheme of the wolf, I think.

Goblin spider riders!  Yuk!  I hate spiders.  I wasn't going to give this unit any priority, until I saw someone design a "unit filler" with the spider riders crawling all over a house.  I thought that was an awesome idea, plus I want to push myself in the direction of embellishing my armies with more unit fillers as mini-dioramas and practice more conversions.  Here, the spiders are crawling over ruined statuary.

Here's a classic Games Workshop troll to add to the army.  I originally planned to knock this guy out quickly, but I discovered that I really enjoyed painting him.  This is about a couple hours of work, basically just "sketching" out color and value.  I decided to use him for an experiment -- to try going to town on the colors, in the vein of the classic fantasy illustrators:  Frazetta, Boris, Suydam, and their proteges, like Bisley.  I'm going to put together a presentation of this project for the NCMSS club.

It's not all about the miniatures.  Here's terrain that I've been working on for probably a year or so -- walls and fences.  Not that it's hard -- it just keeps falling off the immediate To Do list.  So far, I only have base coats.

Warhammer 40K has entered the mix again, with the release of 6th Edition.  I didn't expect to play 40K again, but Games Workshop killed some of the sacred cows in 40K, much like they did for Warhammer Fantasy -- mainly, they now allow premeasuring.  I still have plenty of complaints about these antiquated 25+ year-old rules systems, but I can tolerate them enough now to benefit from having a large player community out there.

Anyway, here's a Tau Broadside with twin-linked Railguns.  I don't like the blocky style of the Tau battlesuits, but I figure I should build at least one so that I have a reference for my proxies.

Now this is what draws me to play 40K!  Gnarloc riders.  Yeah, baby.  The Kroot rock.

And again, this hobby requires terrain.  Here are some barricades, pipelines, and a bridge, all primed and ready for weathering.

Yup, it's more than just the pretty figures.  Here's how I prefer to transport them -- on magnetized trays.  It's a lot more work than just throwing them in foam carriers, but I have a hang-up about the foam -- I think it will rub off the paint-jobs.  I'm just paranoid, I know.  But another advantage of magnetizing, especially for Warhammer Fantasy, is that I can significantly reduce my set-up and pack-up time.

These metal plates are marked for cutting with shears.

And finally, some of the NOVA Open guys are organizing a Blood Bowl league for this fall.  So I dug out my starter teams for Orcs and Humans, to motivate me to finish painting them.  I finally decided on the color scheme for the Humans.  I wanted something different than the standard blue-and-gold.  I'm going with a wine color.  They'll be called the Burgundian Grape-Stompers.  Those fouls are gonna hurt!