The Butterfly's Tally 2018

As I said last week, this will be a post to take a look back at 2018 and make some resolutions for this coming year. In between, I'll show what I got done in this first week of January

Pict 556: Tally 2018 - Tyranids

The Year in Review

Pict 557: Tally 2018 - Iron Hills

Pict 558: Tally 2018 - Hunter Orcs

First I want to look at my resolutions for 2018 again: I wanted to paint more Tyranids (check, but there are still some in a box...), Iron Hills Dwarves (check), Hunter Orcs (check even though it took pretty much the whole year), the Balin's Tomb Diorama (check) and the White Council in Dol Guldur Diorama (check), as well as a Shire force for Battle Companies (nope, but I did Arnor instead).

Pict 559: Tally 2018 - The White Council

Pict 560: Tally 2018 - Balin's Tomb

As you can see in the panel on the right, in the end I painted 232 models versus the 238 I bought. With that I added slightly to the pile of shame but I also managed to sell/give away quite a few. I didn't keep a tally on how far along the painting process any of these miniatures were, but I managed to get rid of 192 miniatures and thus reduced my pile considerably!

Pict 561: Tally 2018 - Arnor

With 45 posts over the year, I missed a few more weeks than the year before. Sometimes I just didn't have the time to paint during the week; others I missed because I was out of town and hadn't prepared a post. Still, I'm happy with the 45 posts as it is!

Pict 562: Tally 2018 - Illithid Raiding Party

Pict 563: Tally 2018 - Twilight Ringwraiths

Other than that here are some of my favourite projects of this year. Looking back through my posts, I really liked the Illithid Raiding Party, the Twilight Ringwraiths, Zuggtmoy and of course the add-on to my mounted Rohan army to make it ready for the new edition of the game.

Pict 564: Tally 2018 - Zuggtmoy

Pict 565: Tally 2018 - Rohan Army Additions

This Week's Painting

Pict 566: Rangers of the North (WIP)

This week however I only managed to get a bit further along with the Rangers of the North. Now the base colours are all down and the washes are dry. With only the highlighting left to do, I hope to have them done next week. I also added in two miniatures of Aragorn in similar clothes. And since I plan on using him with the others, I also changed his usual scheme and gave one of them the black livery my other Arnorians have.

Plans for the Future

Lastly I want to make a few plans for this year and write up my new year's resolutions for 2019. I want to continue with the Middle-Earth miniatures and right now, I'm most excited about the new miniatures I showed before priming a few weeks back. One thing I'm really missing however is an evil army from the Lord of the Rings era. To remedy that I collected Easterlings and Khandish Warriors. Beyond that, I feel that I painted very little for other systems other than the Middle-Earth SBG and I want to change that by doing the Haqqislam and more heroes and monsters for D&D. Both should challenge me the former because it's clean Sci-Fi and the latter by being very divers. And lastly there are those Ruins of Osgiliath still waiting in a box unser my table...

Pict 567: Haqqislam, Khand, Rhûn, Rivendell (WIP)

So, all in all here are my resolutions: I will paint an all mounted Rivendell army with dismounts, an army of evil men from Rhûn and Khand, at least 20 miniatures for D&D, my set of Osgiliath-Ruins and my Haqqislam army for Infinity. At the end of the year I want to have bought less miniatures than I painted and I will also attempt to paint a total of 365. We'll see if I can make it this year!
As for the blog itself: Since I missed some weeks, esspecially towards the end of the year, I'll change my posting shedule to every other week. Other than that I plan to go ahead as before with pictures of my painted miniatures and of the ones that stand unfinished on my table.

Getting back on the horse

I had a bit of a dry spell of painting since I had pretty little time to hobby. I missed last weeks posting because I hadn't done any painting nor modelling that week. But this week I tried to get back onto the hobby horse and started by finishing my conversion of Narzug mounted on a Fell Warg.

Pict 434: Narzug

Pict 435: Narzug (mounted)

Pict 436: Narzug (mounted)

I converted this Orc hero last year to be a part of an evil all-hero army but I didn't finish the painting before the tournament I built the list for. And as it so often is, after the event I just didn't get to him because I got distracted by new and shiny projects. Thus it feels even better to having finished Narzug.

Pict 437: Hunter Orcs (WIP)

After getting to Narzug, I got a taste for Hunter Orcs. I have some thirty Orcs lying about that up until now had a similar fate to Narzug. I'm not taking on all of them at once but have limited myself to a first batch of twelve. Right now I have painted in the eyes and I have started on the highlighting. I'll try and give them all differing warpaint - let's see how that goes...

Goblintown - Progress with the gaming board

This week(end) I continued building and paiting my new Goblintown board. Other than that, I also finished the crates I first showed in april!

Pict 291: Goblintown Scenery

Pict 292: The Goblin King's Throne

Pict 293: Goblintown Baseboard

As I wrote in the opening sentences, I did make progress with the Goblintown. For the staps fixing the throne to the rock, I used elastic bands and strengthend them with superglue. After they set I smoothed out the transitions with some greenstuff (more on that later!). Once I finished the building part of all the pieces, I started the painting - right now the rockfaces are mostly black, I only put down some brown streaks. As you can see, the ground is a splotchy brown tone. I quite enjoy the variety but I think it needs some darker tones.
Other than the moveable pieces, I also decided to build a baseboard for the pieces. For storage purposes I'll be using two 2'x4' boards and the picture you see above is one of them. It's got a thin layer of  plaster and the same brown treatment as the moveable

Pict 294: Crates

And here are the crates I originally bought for the game Schicksalspfade, but now they are going to populate the Goblintown. After a base of Steel Legion Drab and a light drybrush, I only used differently coloured washes to achive some variation with the wood.

Pict 295: Narzug (mounted) WIP

Pict 296: Narzug (mounted) WIP

And lastly here's a WIP of a conventional miniature: I chopped up a Narzug and stuck him on a Fellwarg. After some filling and resculpting fur with greenstuf, I already started blocking in the colours and putting on a wash.

All the Hunter Orc Heroes (Tournament Army)

During the evenings this week, I continued the painting of the Hunter Orc Heroes. And with Yazneg and Bolg done, I finished all heroes of the army!

Pict 195: Hunter Orc Heroes

This first picutre shows all the Hunter Orc heroes I painted over the last weeks. I had to get the finished because I played them in a tournament on this sunday. They made for quite a funny all hero army with lots of might to throw around. Since we were going to play four scenarios that heavily depended on strong heroes, I was fancying my chances.
Sadly, I didn't even get to play the army. Since I never got to pick and choose whether I wanted to use my evil or my good army. I'll be looking forward to getting them on the table in the future!

Pict 196: Yazneg mounted

Pict 197: Yazneg mounted

Pict 198: Yazneg

Pict 199: Yazneg

The first miniature I painted this week was Yazneg of whom I showed a WIP last week. I really like the scuplt of the orc and the warg, but this particular one had quite a few air bubbles, esspecially on the underside of his bone-carapace. Those were not to big of a problem however - other than the bubbles that had formed on the paws Yazneg is using as gloves. Some of the claws on there were missing all together. I tried and fixed this with a little green stuff and the paint job and I'm pleased with the way the mini came together.

Pict 200: Bolg mounted

Pict 201: Bolg mounted

Pict 202: Bolg

Pict 203: Bolg

The only hero I was missing for the tournament was Bolg on his warg. The models are not my favourites (the warg is to long and its snout is to big), but the profile is really quite good in the game. Nevertheless I'd like to see an alternate sculpt by Forge World, but there is only slim hope for that. Also: looking at the pictures now, I'm not that satisfied with his blind eye. I might just make it a little smaller and put in some more shadow around it to differentiate it some more from the sorrounding skin.

Next up will be more Hunter Orcs - I'm planning to use them in the German Championship at the end of July. Other than that there's still the Keeper of the Dungeons who will fit with my Dol Guldur theme.
But I  will be distracted because this week also saw the arrival of the Dark Imperium box...

Hunter Orc Heroes for the Hobbit SBG

This week I started work on my Hunter Orc Army for the Hobbit SBG. Since I finished the Iron Hills Dwarves I figured I could allow me to get started on this new project.

Pict 174: Hunter Orc Heroes

Pict 175: Narzug

Pict 176: Narzug

I started with Narzug, because I wanted to see how the whiteish war paint would look on him. I feared it would look to much like a Isengard Uruk-Hai, but with the stripes down his torso, I think it look all right. The bases are themed after Dol Guldur, because I really love scene in wich the White Council attacks Sauron and the Ringwraiths and I once I get them I want them to be able to mix and match with Azog's Hunters and Azog's Legion.

Pict 177: Fimbul

Pict 178: Fimbul

Pict 179: Fimbul on Fell Warg

Pict 180: Fimbul on Fell Warg

Pict 181: Fimbul on Fell Warg

The other Orc I painted this week is Fimbul. I really enjoyed painting the bone-like harness and his blade. The skin is lighter to the one I painted on Narzug - I mixed Steel Legion Drab into the Doombull Brown I used on Narzug. I really like painting the Heroes of a force because I can take my time mixing different tones. Depending on the time I have for normal Hunter Orcs, I might do so with them too, but usually the army has to be done for a specific date like a tournament...

Next will be the remaining Hunter Orc heroes Yazneg, Bolg and of course Azog. But we'll see what distracts me during the coming week.