A fitful start for the year...

First post of the year, and true to the uncertain environment of the times, I'm not sure what direction I'm heading, ha, ha.  My work life has been unrelenting, so I've made little progress on the painting/modeling front.  In spare moments, I've been preparing some odds & ends across various goals, so here are some of them lined up, finally ready for priming.

Top - l. to r.:  3 Dirz Halbediers for Confrontation; Convict Gunslinger from Malifaux, a future gift for my pal, Owen; two treasure tokens for Frostgrave; and 2 pre-Bones (i.e. metal-cast) Reaper lanternfish goons
Bottom - l. to r.:  2 characters from the Scythe boardgame expansion; 6 treasure tokens for Frostgrave

These pieces are all deflashed; gap-filled; underbased with metal plates/washers; and overbased with Milliput or green stuff.

The green stuff on the treasure tokens are pressed with a texture stamp by Happy Seppuko.  It's the first time I've used that technique.  It turned out pretty well, but with more and more pre-cast resin bases on the market than ever, I'm tempted to just use store-bought scenic bases instead of going through the extra steps of making my own.  Still, I wanted to try the process, just to test it out.  And to get some kind of return on my investment in the Happy Seppuko Kickstarter!

You'll note a preponderance of stuff for Frostgrave.  That's not too surprising, when most of my posts in the last couple of months have featured Frostgrave games with the local group!  As a matter of fact, the lanternfish dudes were destined to be Thugs in my Frostgrave warband.  But Frostgrave warbands advance so quickly that I started using only 1 Thug after just the first game.  And I have 3 Malifaux Silurids that fit the role nicely.  So the Reaper dudes will probably go on the back burner until Carnevale comes back on the scene.

I have another Dirz model in the hopper, Razheem the Insane.  I was going to focus on a high-end paint-job for him, to enter in an on-line, friendly competition on one of the Confrontation Facebook groups.  But no one has mentioned the contest in 2 months, so I'm thinking it probably fizzled.  Which may put Razheem on the back burner, too.

I plan to be at Adepticon this year, after a 2-year hiatus.  Normally, that would mean I would be concentrating on a project or two for Crystal Brush.  I'm not feeling the motivation, though.  One reason is that the standard is so high, I need to ensure that my plinth/base is as compelling as the figure(s), and I'm just not feeling the drive to produce an engaging base.  After chatting about my malaise with folks on my weekly Hobby Hangout, I also realized that probably the main reason I'm feeling lukewarm towards Crystal Brush is that my day-job just has me too burned out, and I don't want to put the pressure on myself to compete.  Who knows, I may eventually feel motivated enough to put together a fun project and enter it just to be able to share something new with my painter friends.