Here’s a little old/new paint job comparison. It’s not night and day, but I can see the benefit of experience!
From left to right, the Infiltrators are July 2023, May 2020, July 2023; Chaplains are July 2020, July 2023.
I put in a couple sleepless nights getting the three new models ready for a 40k game. It was great to get back to painting Blood Angels!
The biggest changes are attempting proper edge highlighting, pin washes rather than all-over washes on armor, and being sparing with the final highlights. My brush control isn’t where I’d like it to be yet, but it has improved.
Thinking about how these will look in play, older paint jobs mixed with newer ones, reminded me of something I wanted to get up here on Yore for posterity.
A few years back I saw a post on Twitter that has quietly become one of my miniature-painting hobby touchstones. (I wish I’d taken a screenshot!)
It was a photo of thousands of points of 40k models from the same faction, some of which were quite clearly painted differently than the rest.
The poster noted that those were his older models, and that instead of being frustrated they didn’t match he looked at it like this: It’d be sad if they didn’t look any different, because that would mean he’d never made any progress as a painter.
I love that.
Out now: The Unlucky Isles
The Unlucky Isles [affiliate link], the first system-neutral guidebook for my Godsbarrow fantasy campaign setting, is now on DriveThruRPG.
I like maxims and I like self-reflection. This post combines the two: a little look at some of the maxims that have served me well over the past three years of painting, and some reflection on them — especially in light of actually getting to play.
Any progress is progress
Since I got properly into miniature painting in 2020, I’ve done something to make forward progress on miniatures every single day. Sometimes I’ll go months where I’m literally scraping one tiny piece of mold line just to check that box, but those periods are banking the fire so that it doesn’t go out entirely. This isn’t my only hobby, and when something else is bringing me more joy I do that instead.
But it all adds up. Never stopping means always moving forward, sometimes in tiny increments and sometimes in fevered painting frenzies, and eventually painted forces and terrain start to emerge and multiply.
John C. Maxwell had it 100% right: “Little progress is better than no progress at all.”
I need the prospect of play for motivation
My motivation to paint isn’t solely dependent on playing — I painted for three years before playing my first game with models I’d painted — but it’s a huge factor. I enjoy painting for its own sake; the act itself is fun. But knowing that I’ll be able to play a game with all the stuff I’m painting is the X factor that keeps me coming back to the painting table.
Every time I’ve had a game on my calendar, I’ve kicked into painting overdrive. I spent hours before my first Kill Team game wrapping up the combat gauges and barriers, and then did the same thing again before my second game — a 6.5-hour push to finish a piece of terrain.
It’s almost comical how much “I get to use this stuff!” motivates me.
Paint for arm’s length
I’ve always said that I paint my minis for viewing at arm’s length. That doesn’t mean I phone it in: It takes me five hours to take the average model from sprue to varnished and ready to play. That number likely sounds appallingly low to some painters and appallingly high to others, but it’s the right number for me.
I do get closer than arm’s length to all my minis during play, of course. There’s real joy in getting an eyeball right up behind a tiny head to see what’s in the unit’s line of sight! But much of the game is played at arm’s length.
I also use a magnifier when I paint — though as infrequently as possible. Under good magnification, every miniature I paint needs hours more work than I can give it if I ever want to finish. But if I don’t magnify, I can better balance doing my best and actually finishing stuff.
Write everything down
I’ve been writing painting notes and color guides since 2020, and it’s paid off so many times. Just this past week I finished a terrain piece I’d started in, like, 2021. I could tell where I’d left off and knew how to finish it in a way that was consistent with my existing pieces because I’d written it all down.
I get a lot of mileage out of color guides other folks share, so I also like sharing mine in a format that I hope is easy to follow.
It has to get to the table
So many of my creative endeavors owe a debt to Voltaire: “Perfect is the enemy of good.”
I try to do my best work on every model, but also balance that with eventually finishing the fucking thing. I paint partly to paint and partly to play, so I want my stuff to get to the table…which it can’t if I take a million hours on every model and lose all my motivation to keep going.
Spray terrain, but not figures
I’ve been burned by spray varnish a few times over the years, so when I started painting in 2020 I committed myself to avoiding rattle cans. I brush on my primer (Vallejo matte white) and sealant (Vallejo matte), even though it takes longer, because I have complete control, zero dependence on the weather outside, and a 0% chance of having the temperature or humidity ruin a model.
The exception is terrain, which I spray with Citadel’s primer/base coat rattle cans. Here in Seattle the weather’s only good for spraying minis about 1/3 of the year, so I tend to spray a raft of terrain in the summer and then stash it for future use.
I also made an exception for an army which it seemed silly not to spray: Custodes, which I base-coated gold in one 2,000-point batch. Which leads me to…
Don’t paint in large batches
I told myself not to do this early on, and I’ve only broken this rule once — to my detriment. I have a 2,000-point Custodes army which is 100% based in gold, and has its gold shaded, with a handful of figures further along than that…and it’s largely sat just like that for more than 18 months. Every time I get them out, I feel exhausted at the prospect of working on them.
My usual process is to base coat the whole model, which narrows down from “paint it all” to “paint what’s still white” as I progress, and then to touch up the base coat before shading. Having batch-painted my Custodes torpedoed both of those stages: I hate looking at a solid gold model and hunting for the stuff to paint over, and I hate painting base coats next to shaded work.
Five models is a good number for me to be working on simultaneously at any given stage of the process, or ten at the most. Like right now on my painting mat I’ve got three Tyranid Warriors at the wash stage, five Grey Knights that need priming, and four crates I just varnished. When I want to work on minis, I have three manageable batches from which to choose.
Try not to be hard on myself
I’m notoriously hard on myself about my paint jobs. I have to make a conscious effort not to be, especially as I gain experience and my detail work improves.
But actually playing with my painted minis has made it significantly easier not to sweat it. During the four games I’ve played with my models to date (BattleTech, 40k, Kill Team x2), not once have I been disappointed with my work or thought, “Man, I wish I’d painted that better.”
I’m not thinking about the imperfections, I’m just having a blast playing a game with my opponent and enjoying a table full of painted stuff.
The Rule of Cool still rules
When I assemble a mini, the Rule of Cool prevails — from wargear choices to pose, I do whatever I think is cool. I do look at the rules and let them inform some of my choices, and I’ve noticed an uptick in that after actually playing (which makes sense), but Rule of Cool usually trumps optimal loadouts.
Similarly, I often like big, sprawling, dramatic poses…which are a real detriment in Kill Team, for example, because they make the model easier to see from more angles. But in play? I’ve never once thought, “I wish I’d made that dude more boring so he’d be harder to shoot.”
The same goes for wargear choices. For example: Both of my Tactical Marine fire team leader choices for Kill Team have a pistol and a melee weapon, and after two games I kind of wish at least one of them had a Bolter instead. But I’d rather just paint up a third leader than fret about my Rule of Cool-driven choices.
Painted models are worth the effort
This is Miniature Painting 101, but it wasn’t obvious to me until I actually played. Almost all of my wargaming until this year has been played with unpainted minis or cardboard tokens/models, plus the occasional game with factory prepainted models.
When everything on the table is painted, my mind is there. I immerse myself and try to live the battle no mater whether stuff is painted or not, but it’s much easier, and unlocks a higher level of immersion, when everything is painted. And I’d take any player’s best efforts over any factory prepaint; the personal investment also makes a difference.
That investment is key for me, too. I feel invested in my army — the one I sweated over for an average of five hours per model, trying to push my skills and stay motivated — in a way that’s unlike my investment in any other style of game.
That’s all I can think of for now. Happy painting!
July 14, 2023 update: I forgot one, naturally — and it’s a biggie. I gave it its own post, but TL;DR it boils down to your old and new paint jobs not matching up being a good thing.
Out now: The Unlucky Isles
The Unlucky Isles [affiliate link], the first system-neutral guidebook for my Godsbarrow fantasy campaign setting, is now on DriveThruRPG.
For the past thirty years or so I’ve been fascinated by the concept of “everything” and how difficult it is to define.
The concept of “nothing” gets all the attention. It scares us more. By comparison, it feels easier to define — it’s both more poetic and more directly relevant to our lives.
This is the definition I’ve come up with for “everything.” I’ve honed it over the years, but the current version has been stable for at least a decade. I don’t think I can improve on it, although I’ll keep trying.
Every possible and impossible past, present, and future position of every possible and impossible particle.
A working definition of “everything,” by me
It’s as concise as I can make it. Daydreaming about what it means, and why it works, has occupied many a car ride, long walk, and wait in line for me.
I hope you find it handy.
Out now: The Unlucky Isles
The Unlucky Isles [affiliate link], the first system-neutral guidebook for my Godsbarrow fantasy campaign setting, is now on DriveThruRPG.
I’m sort of mapping Godsbarrow the least efficient way possible . . . but stitching together my big map is proof that, for me, the dumb way that creates extra work in the future is the key to my success.
Why not start by mapping the continents?
I see gorgeous continent-level maps all the time on r/Wonderdraft. And it makes sense: Look how many things in the map below I will need to fix in order to turn X regional maps (the “tiles”) into a unified pan-regional map that spans a large chunk of Godsbarrow, none of which I’d have to fix if I’d started with a larger canvas.
Future Martin is not going to thank Past Martin for the extra work required to correct every boundary on this map
Hell, even if I’d stayed at the regional scale (rather than continent scale) but started with a six-tile blank map in Wonderdraft, filled it with ocean texture, and then added landmasses one region at a time, I’d wind up with a finished map that had none of the technical issues present in the map I currently have. But I know me: That blank space would have overwhelmed me, made this feel like work, and probably torpedoed the whole venture.
Every boundary, every thing I develop, is a constraint. Starting with continents establishes a whole bunch of boundaries right off the bat. Starting without even thinking about continents leaves all that stuff where it belongs, for now: nonexistent or purely notional.
Why? Three reasons.
Because WWN says so
Worlds Without Number [paid link] advocates strongly for not building stuff you don’t need, and I agree. More than three decades of gaming, including several abortive attempts at creating campaign settings which began, full of excitement, with me creating world maps, has taught me that I virtually never need to know about continents at the gaming table.
Is it nice to know what the Forgotten Realms looks like at a world map level? Absolutely. And maybe in a published setting with the scope of the Realms, I’d expect that. (Here, as a WIP on a blog, I absolutely don’t expect that.)
But in actual play, have I ever needed to know what the continents look like, or what the whole of Faerûn looks like? Nope. Not even once.
Which flows into…
Conversation of time and creative energy
I’m one guy, doing this for fun, not getting paid for it, with a finite amount of free time and creative energy, and spending those resources worldbuilding means I have less time and energy to spend on other things — including the more gameable aspects of worldbuilding.
If I spend a bunch of time and creative energy on a world map of Godsbarrow that I don’t even need, I might burn out. Even if I don’t burn out, I will have spent those resources making something I don’t actually need and placing constraints on my future worldbuilding.
Which flows into…
Because whimsical, improvisational worldbuilding is more fun for me
I’m not here to police anyone’s “lonely fun.” I upvote those gorgeous continent maps on r/Wonderdraft, and I love that folks are making cool shit even — especially — if it’s not how I might have made it. As my wife often says, with genuine affection, “You do you, Boo-Boo.“
But personally I find it much more freeing, and more fun, to develop a Godsbarrow region without any real idea what’s next door. When I step back for a minute, as I did when stitching together that large map above, I see a developing setting that I never would have come up with this way if I’d sketched out all the coastlines for the large map at once.
Toriyama Akira and the art of improvisational creation
This connects nicely to having just finished watching Dragon Ball and started Dragon Ball Z. I was curious how much of Z Toriyama Akira had planned when he was working on Dragon Ball, and apparently the answer is “none of it, or at least not much of it, especially early on.” He was just doing what interested him, following his heart and seeing where it led him, and the end product — Dragon Ball — is full of whimsy and surprises and strange turns it likely never would have been full of if he’d mapped it out from the beginning.
Circling back to Godsbarrow, if I’d written up the Unlucky Isles knowing that a slug-god-kaiju was crushing mountains to the west (in Kurthunar) and the region to the south was locked in perpetual winter and populated by, among others, courtly werewolves and mushroom pirates, I would have written it differently. For one thing, I’d have had to hold a lot more ideas in my head while writing it. For another, I’d have worried about conceptually mapping out all of the nations’ relationships with places further away, which likely would have made me lose interest.
If I synthesize all of my regional write-ups into a unified document, will I need to add and tweak some things? You bet. Just like my stitched-up map, what came later would necessarily prompt a gentle rearrangement of what came before.
But as a price to pay for capturing the original raw spirit of Godsbarrow, channeling that into the Unlucky Isles, stoking the fires of creation and diving in while they burned brightly, and creating something that I still want to continue developing eight months later, that is a vanishingly small price indeed.
TL;DR: Start small. Which is, like, the oldest RPG worldbuilding advice ever. This post explains why I started small, and why, eight months after starting work on Godsbarrow, I still love this approach despite the imperfections it introduces into the process and the WIP version of Godsbarrow.
See also: Yore
A lot of what I’ve said here also goes for Yore itself. This blog will be celebrating its 10th anniversary later this year, on August 28th.
I’ve been blogging since 2005, and Yore is my third RPG blog. I ran Treasure Tables (still archived on Gnome Stew) from 2005-2007, and ran and contributed to Gnome Stew from 2008-2016. I may have my math off a bit, but I believe I wrote 871 posts on TT and 453 on GS.
So not only does my post count here — 463 as of this one — exceed my count on the Stew, even prior to the actual 10th anniversary I’ve already posted on Yore for longer than either of my previous blogs. Yore is the one where I just do whatever I want to do, whenever I want to do it, whether or not that’s an efficient way to build an audience (it’s not), get pageviews (it’s not), create a brand (it’s not), make money (it’s not), or stay relevant in the RPG hobby as a whole (it’s not).
In other words, philosophically Yore is pretty similar to Godsbarrow. I loved blogging on Treasure Tables and Gnome Stew, and look back fondly on those years. But part of the reason I’m still blogging here, nearly 10 years on (and well past the heyday of blogs’ relevance in the hobby), is because here is the place I just do my thing. Or don’t do it. Or shift gears and do new things.
I know folks out there have gotten good mileage out of stuff I’ve posted here, and that brings me joy. I hope it continues to be the case. In the meantime, I’ll just keep puttering away and doing my thing.
Back when I got into minis in earnest this past February, I considered magnetization and boring out gun barrels, both of which share the same tool: a pin vise or hand drill. Given the outlay of cash and time to get an army rolling, and my long history of false starts and aborted attempts at getting into this hobby, adding another step (time) that required more tools (money) seemed like a bad idea — and one that might kill my momentum.
I’ve carefully guarded and maintained that momentum for eight months now, and occasionally considered magnetization and barrel-drilling but decided that the time wasn’t right. I also reasoned that if I encountered a need for a different bit of wargear on a unit in the future, since I’m building an army for the pleasure of it, buying that unit again and assembling it a new way wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Enter Moonkrumpa
But as I got my Deathskulls Ork army, Moonkrumpa’s Megalootas, off the ground, I stumbled across the rules for Moonkrumpa’s two special pieces of wargear, the Tellyport Blasta and the Kustom Force Field. With no clear date when I’ll actually be able to play 40k, I’ve held off on reading the rules; they’ll just fade away before I get a chance to play. And I make my choices almost entirely based on the Rule of Cool, so that’s worked out fine so far.
Somehow, though (probably by browsing DakkaDakka), I’ve picked up enough to understand that the KFF is probably a much better choice, mechanically, than the Blasta — despite the Blasta looking cooler. And these two parts both have a flat bottom and sit atop a single flat surface, making them perfect candidates for magnetization.
Further, this isn’t just a random unit in my Ork army — this is my first 40k character with a backstory, and he’s the leader of my entire Waaagh!. I’m invested in playing with Moonkrumpa in a way that I’m not invested in playing with Blood Angel X or Ork Y.
I’d also previously set aside my Contemptor Dread, whose weapon arm uses a ball joint that must be glued into place (rather than a peg, like the refrigerator Dreads, which allows for easy arm-swapping), to consider whether it’s worth delving into drilling and magnets for him. I have no plans to buy a second Contemptor (it’s kind of a bland kit), and in any case they can be expensive and difficult to track down.
So that gives me two units that both have what looks to be a single fairly simple spot on each that could benefit from magnetization — one of which is My Guy, to boot.
I’ll probably bore out a spare Bolter to see how that looks, and if it looks good I’ll have a minor existential crisis and then break down and drill every mini I’ve already painted…or maybe I’ll skip that, and just drill going forwards. We shall see!
Out now: The Unlucky Isles
The Unlucky Isles [affiliate link], the first system-neutral guidebook for my Godsbarrow fantasy campaign setting, is now on DriveThruRPG.
On November 20, 2020, I finished my first-ever 2,000-point Warhammer 40k army. I waited until this morning to take pictures of it, and even now I still can’t quite believe I finished it.
My first 40k army, 2,000 points of Blood Angels
I’ve dabbled in miniature-painting since I was a kid, and generally didn’t enjoy it (I saw it as a means to an end, which was the wrong philosophical approach), but until this year I wouldn’t have considered myself a miniature painter. When I finished painting my Space Hulk set, something I’ve wanted to since I was about 10 years old, that was a watershed moment.
I rolled right into painting this army — something else I’ve wanted to do since I was a little kid, and always thought was out of reach for a variety of reasons — and have kept that streak up ever since. From the day I assembled my first Blood Angel, Sergeant Karios, to the day I varnished Squad Caedes, this 2,000-point army took me 255 days to complete (March 10-November 20).
Along the way, I became a miniature painter. Not, I want to emphasize, an amazing miniature painter. But I’m proud of my work on these little dudes, and more importantly I’m enjoying this hobby as a hobby in its own right. From a mindfulness perspective, this is the right approach to painting.
My full army — everything I painted from March 10-November 20, 2,210 points with WYSIWYG wargear (9th Edition)
What else happened along the way? I assembled, primed, and partially painted another ~700 points of Blood Angels. I started a Deathskulls Ork army, Moonkrumpa’s Megalootas. And I listened to a 10 awesome 40k audiobooks (which I love to do while I paint).
I started with two by Guy Haley, both narrated by Gareth Armstrong, that seemed thematically appropriate: Dante and The Devastation of Baal. Then I listened to eight more by Dan Abnett, all narrated by Toby Longworth: First and Only, Xenos, Hereticus, The Magos, Ghostmaker, Necropolis, Honour Guard, and Brothers of the Snake, plus most of Ravenor (which is still underway).
My Blood Angels force deployed on the plains of Armageddon
Because I built my initial army list under 8th Edition rules, things changed when 9th Edition came out. I dropped 10 fully painted minis from my force, and added a squad of five — so I’ve actually finished 2,210 points of Blood Angels, not just the 2,000 in my list.
As a rough, conservative ballpark, it takes me five hours to finish a single Marine-sized model — that’s from gray plastic on the sprue to varnished and ready for play. Some take an hour or two longer; the small ones take less time; the tanks and Dreads take a lot longer. But that translates to a minimum of 290 hours of hobby work. Six hours a mini is probably a more accurate estimate, and that’s 348 hours of work.
It has been an absolute blast.
Out now: The Unlucky Isles
The Unlucky Isles [affiliate link], the first system-neutral guidebook for my Godsbarrow fantasy campaign setting, is now on DriveThruRPG.
Ever since I decided on Blood Angels for my 40k army, back in February/March of this year, I’ve had the vague notion that it might be fun to have a second army on a back burner of my brain. I’ve kept the flame on that back burner quite low, if you will; I know how easy it can be to kill my own momentum.
But I’m one squad away from 2,000 points of Blood Angels, with another 700 points assembled and in various stages of priming/basing/painting, and as of November 8th my hobby streak stands at 260 days. My careful, flexible approach to building and maintaining my momentum has been successful for months now, and I think it’s resilient enough to handle a second force.
The siren song of Kill Team
I’ve been curious about Kill Team since February of this year, and like the idea of painting small numbers of one or more factions to use in that game. That seems like a good way to back into a second army for 40k, too.
And ditto with terrain, as while my plan remains to play primarily at my local shop (post-pandemic, of course), on a longer timeline — and with two armies, so I can loop in friends who might like 40k but don’t want to paint — I can see building up a stash that includes terrain and one or more play mats at home. Starting with a small Kill Team board worth of infrastructure sounds like a solid baby step.
Waaagh!
Bringing me full circle on this noodling was remembering how close I came to picking Orks back when I got into 40k. Adeptus Custodes came close as well, and the new Necron stuff looks so amazing that it’s prompted me to look into their lore — which is amazing. And, of course, Indomitus coming with a basic Necron kill team (all Warriors, kind of boring) and the solid foundation of a Necron army gives them their own appeal.
But right now the Orks are really calling my name.
Several months of painting clean, polished, bling-covered, aesthetics-first Blood Angels makes the idea of doing up some proper dirty, weathered Boyz sound like a fun palate-cleanser. I’ve enjoyed experimenting with weathering on my bases; applying those skills to a whole force seems like it’d be enjoyable. Same with their skin, which is quite different than Space Marine armor; learning to paint that well sounds like fun.
Similarly, I’ve enjoyed assembling a bits box and using it to convert minis, create scenery for bases, and build out my Marines in different ways. The notion of painting an entire army that thrives on stealing and converting other factions’ crap is pure catnip.
Ditto the amount of variety, messiness, and character of the Orks: starting my own Waaagh!, creating characters rather than following lore, theming my force, creating tribes, and on and on. I love working on Blood Angels, following their lore and force organization and whatnot; that was a conscious choice (I could have created my own chapter, etc.), and it’s enjoyable. But a contrast sounds fun, too.
And while Orks do have faces, something I’ve studiously avoiding painting, 1) they’re not human and are free to look cartoonish, and 2) their eyes can be a solid color, without pupils. That second one is a biggie, as eyes intimidate the crap out of me; bad ones can ruin the whole mini.
Plus it hit me that it could be fun to give them hive world-themed bases, flat with no texture paint but lots of details, which would match many Kill Team boards (with their buildings and ruins) and be a change from my “plains of Armageddon” bases on my Blood Angels.
So now I’m reading about Orks, diving into the various clans and their lore and color schemes, and looking at how big a commitment an Ork kill team would be — and how fun the KT-eligible units would be to paint.
Deathskulls?
I’m instinctually drawn to Evil Sunz, who love going fast and fielding converted vehicles, but I don’t want to paint a second army red. I also love the color scheme of the Bad Moons, since most of the Ork bits I’ve weathered have been yellow and it turns out great, but their lore is a bit less appealing.
Which has me considering Deathskulls, the looters who love converting stuff and have blue as their dominant color.[1] It’s my understanding that a Waaagh! can loop in multiple clans, too, so perhaps I could splash in some Bad Moons and Evil Sunz as well; I’m not positive how that works rules-wise.
That would give me blue to contrast with red, vehicles to contrast with assault troops, Ork skin to contrast with armor plating, and a force that makes sense as opposition for my Blood Angels (for hosting battles at home where I provide both sides). The logic tracks.
I also often have bad luck with die rolls, so Deathskulls are fun there as well: I like the idea of Orks painted in their lucky color having bad luck with dice. The conversion possibilities seem endless, too — like this Reddit poster who is outfitting his Deathskulls in looted Space Marine armor. Or sneaky Orks in barrels. I could do a squad of Kommandos that are all stuck inside Imperial crates and barrels; the crates could be half-open, wrapped around each Ork. That stuff is a hoot, and sounds like so much fun to work on.
You never really own a gun in the 41st Millennium – you merely look after it for a bit until an Ork takes it from your cooling corpse. No Ork clan demonstrates this shamelessly larcenous quality better than the Deathskulls – avaricious, superstitious Orks who’ll steal anything that isn’t nailed down… after which they’ll steal everything that is nailed down. Including the nails.
Clan Fokus: Deathskulls
Plus Squigs. I love Squigs.
Right now I’m just in the noodling stage, but I’m also at the point where the culmination of months of gentle noodling has given me a lot of tools with which to firm up my ideas.
[1]: Based on this Warhammer TV video, for a color recipe I think I’d try Macragge Blue > Agrax Earthshade wash, possibly as a pin wash > Chronus Blue drybrush > weathering. Lots of ways to do that weathering, but Duncan’s sponged-on Rhinox Hide followed by dots of Leadbelcher looks quite nice.
Out now: The Unlucky Isles
The Unlucky Isles [affiliate link], the first system-neutral guidebook for my Godsbarrow fantasy campaign setting, is now on DriveThruRPG.
When I started painting my Blood Angels army, my goal was to have 2,000 points done by the end of summer so that I could start playing at my local shop. Over the summer it became clear that the pandemic was going to make that impossible, and by August I was pretty sure that “sometime in 2021, maybe” was a reasonable target for actually playing 9th Edition 40k for the first time.
Losing that goal was a bit of a motivation-killer. But I still had my main goal: paint my first 2,000-point army, sometime I’ve wanted to do for 30 years. That one remains a powerful motivator.
But given that I’ve spent most of the past three decades not being a miniature painter (except sporadically, and generally only as a means to an end), I want to make sure “paint just for the fun of it” is a viable goal. And on its own, I think it needs a little something to make it work. Because while it does feel liberating, as I look at the 11 partially painted models that remain to paint for my first army, to think about painting whatever the heck I want after that, I know me; I need a concrete goal.
Squads Zahariel (left) and Barakiel (right), so close!
So what could that goal be? One idea that occurred to me this morning was finishing out the 2nd Company. I’ve always notionally considered myself to be painting a 2nd Company army, despite really painting a strike force composed of elements of the 1st, 2nd, and 10th Companies (not to mention the Reclusiam, etc.).
I have seven squads unassigned in the 2nd, and doing them as a mix of old-school and Primaris Marines, plus their dedicated transports and my planned kitbash of Captain Aphael, should provide a pleasing mix of units to paint for the next several months.
In terms of other possible goals, “Paint units that give me new options” makes some sense — but it’s a bit fuzzy since I haven’t played yet and don’t know what new options will actually appeal to me, rules-wise. And it’s pretty close to just painting by Rule of Cool, which is fine but not a terribly concrete goal.
“Paint Blood Angels-y units” might be a good refinement on that one: deep strike squads, close combat figures, and the HQ units to support them. But I know if I go that route I’ll be wistfully eyeing the Stormhawk, Razorback, Devastators, and other kits under my desk which don’t quite fit that brief but are going to be a blast to paint.
At the moment, “finish the 2nd Company” is the best goal I’ve come up with. I’ll see if any others shake loose.
Out now: The Unlucky Isles
The Unlucky Isles [affiliate link], the first system-neutral guidebook for my Godsbarrow fantasy campaign setting, is now on DriveThruRPG.
After buying the 3rd Edition of Space Hulk back in 2009, it took me about three years to finish painting my Genestealers — about 2/3 of the minis in the box.
That was in 2012.
Today, in the year of our glorious Emperor 2020, I finished Brother Scipio, Blood Angels Terminator, and “throne boy,” a nameless fallen Space Marine found aboard a space hulk in one of the missions.
The eye of the Emperor is upon you
It only took me 11 years to reach this point . . .Let me get some action from the back section
Since I’ve put these two in the lightbox at every stage of production (base coat and wash in one post, dry brush in another, sealant in this one), let’s do a quick 4×4 gallery showing them side-by-side.
1. base coat
2. wash
3. drybrush
4. sealant
As always in my (limited) experience, the starkest difference is between base coat and wash. I wish I’d started doing washes years ago, instead of being too gun-shy to try them.
But it’s drybrushing that brings a mini to life for me. The difference between wash-only and wash plus drybrush isn’t huge at first glance (and some of that is likely down to my inexperience as a painter!), but it’s the step that makes the mini feel most real.
The overhead LEDs in my lightbox make the matt varnish (sealant) pop more than it does in person. A small price to pay for minis I can play with worry-free.
Onwards! I have 11 Terminators left in my Space Hulk set. It will not take me 11 more years to finish painting them. If I keep up this pace — roughly 2 minis a week, without feeling like I’m grinding them out or stepping on my other hobbies — I could have the rest done in about five weeks. Although the temptation to put in a marathon painting session is strong . . .
Musings on joy
More importantly, painting these miniatures brought me joy. Painting them, not just having them fully painted. There was joy in finishing them too, absolutely (and I’m so glad I stopped painting them assembly line-style), but my head was in the game as far as enjoying the painting as the hobby as much as the rest of the hobby around it.
That plus reading a piece in White Dwarf #451 about Phil Kelly, who has been collecting and painting the same Waaagh! of Orks for many years, across multiple editions of 40K, with models he’s inherited, kitbashes, new and old sculpts — just keeping going, loving the hobby for itself, riding out the vagaries of different editions because the Waaaghh! is the fun part — has got me thinking about trying out 40K again.
But not necessarily in my usual mode (buy game, learn rules, paint minis, find opponents). Rather in the mode of: pick a faction that speaks to me, buy a box, enjoy the painting, and maybe try playing down at the local shop sometime in 2021 — or not, and just keep building an army for the fun of it.
This r/Warhammer40k thread overflowing with positivity towards a 40k newbie and painting novice, is full of folks saying basically that: choose a faction you think is cool and form a bond with your minis. That’s where my head is at.
Out now: The Unlucky Isles
The Unlucky Isles [affiliate link], the first system-neutral guidebook for my Godsbarrow fantasy campaign setting, is now on DriveThruRPG.
Recently I’ve been thinking about this Paul Bowles quote, which I first saw on Brandon Lee‘s gravestone, in relation to gaming:
“Because we don’t know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.”
I don’t know about you, but my stack of “bucket list” gaming items — campaigns, megadungeons, settings, systems — is probably past the point of being feasible in my lifetime.
Some things on the list, like playing a MechWarrior campaign where we use BattleTech for the ‘Mech fights, I’ve been dragging around for years (roughly 25 years, for that one). Others are fresh, but I can feel them sinking comfortably into the warm, cozy blanket of wishful game-pondering.
If I turned myself to clearing the whole list, with a purpose and a fire in my eyes, and excluded all gaming that wasn’t bent to that purpose, maaaaybe I could get through it all . . . but I’d have fewer friends, and no lovely serendipitous gaming opportunities, and no con sessions, and so on. It’s in no way worth the cost.
So with 30-40 years of productive gaming time ahead of me — if I’m lucky, and stay fortunate, and don’t develop Alzheimers, and on and on — how do I chip away at the list? Do I chip away at the list? Do I even make a formal list?
I don’t know. I’m not maudlin about it, exactly, but it is a sobering thought. Only twenty more moonrises, and all that.
Out now: The Unlucky Isles
The Unlucky Isles [affiliate link], the first system-neutral guidebook for my Godsbarrow fantasy campaign setting, is now on DriveThruRPG.
Out now: The Unlucky Isles
