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.

Picking up a few Projects

This week I picked up a few projects I started this year and that still stood on my table. I finished the mounted Hunter Orcs, Alfrid and the Morannon Orc Captain and started to work on the Rangers of the North I primed this month.

Pict 548: Mounted Hunter Orcs

Pict 549: Mounted Hunter Orcs

I finally managed to paint all my Hunter Orcs. These ones and their mounts were rather quick to paint and I find myself wanting another box of them to round out the army. I'll see if can't find some the first week of the new year in one of the local stores.

Pict 550: Alfrid Lickspittle

Pict 551: Alfrid Lickspittle

Just like the Hunter Orcs, Alfrid was also only missing the highlights and thus was painted during one evening. I'm pretty happy how he turned out - The miniature really lends itself to do different things with all of the textures on the layers of cloth and leather. I'm only unhappy with the face - the eyes make him look sceptical...

Pict 552: Morannon Orc Captain

Pict 553: Morannon Orc Captain

Pict 554: Morannon Orc Captain

This one was a fun little minitature to paint. I really enjoyed doing the shading on the armour and of course the reds of the cloth. The severed head came out ok as well - it's gruesome enough but not to over the top.

Pict 555: Rangers of the North (WIP)

Lastly here's a picture of the next leg of my Rangers. I started doing the base colours and I hope to finish them this year so that I can add them to my tally. In the first post of the new year I'll add up all my painted models, take a look back and make some resolutions for 2019.

State of the Table: Many Metal Models

These last few weeks have been a bit slow paintingwise so that I can't show any finished miniatures. What I did instead was to put together the pieces for a few new projects that I want to tackle in the coming weeks.

Pict 547: New Projects

So as you can see, there is the first leg of my evil men army from Middle Earth: A host of Riders and Charioteers from Khand and a few easterling heroes. Other than that there are addtions to my Arnor, my Rangers of the North and some pieces for Rivendell.
The models are cleaned up and the basing is done. Right now I'm filling the smaller gaps with layers of Liquid Green Stuff and after that I'll get some putty to fill in the bigger ones. I hope to prime the models once the weather changes to a bit warmer and more arid, but sometimes you just have to wait a bit for the winter.

Again with the Orcses, eh Precios?

I did it! I managed to finish the remaining Hunter Orcs that I started in mid 2017 - so that's twelve more models added to the painting tally and a good step towards finishing my pledges from the the beginning of the year.

Pict 545: Hunter Orcs

Pict 546: Hunter Orcs

These Hunter Orcs now had to live in the plastic bag limbo of unfinished miniatures for far to long. To complete them I will only have to get a coat of varnish on these twentyfour of the last weeks. After that it's only the five Orcs riding Wargs to finish the Azog's Hunters I have around. To round out my Azog's Hunters I might get some more Hunter Orcs on Wargs and Wargs on their own but I'm very glad to close the chapter on the foot models!

Even more Orcs and some Converting for 30k

Sadly no progress with Alfrid but I managed to finish the six Hunter Orcs from last week. Other than that I went ahead with the rest of my Hunter Orcs on foot. I also managed to collect all the bits for a conversion I had in mind for some time.

Pict 540: Hunter Orcs

First up are the remaining six Hunter Orcs with the yellowish skin. Pretty much the same as last week - these don't have any aditional weapons, so no bows or quivers. Again, I tried for varied war paint but sooner or later I'll have to repeat the patterns.

Pict 541: Hunter Orcs (WIP)

And here is the rest of the Hunter Orcs on foot. I already did most of the work on the eyes do that the next step is the skin and then on to the highlights on the other surfaces.

Pict 542: Morannon Orc Captain (WIP)

I started this Morannon Orc Captain to get a bit of a break from the Orcs I'm painting right now. The over all darker colours are a bit of a respite. Usually I'm not to keen on miniatures carrying around heads but I'll see what I do with this one since I couldn't bring myself to cut it off.

Pict 543: Horus, Primarch of the Luna Wolves (Conversion)

Pict 544: Horus, Primarch of the Luna Wolves (Conversion)

And lastly here is the big guy himself - Horus, Primarch of the Luna Wolves and still untouched by chaos. I actually stipped the main body for some time now, but I knew I wanted him to use a Combibolter and a sword to show him at an early time of the crusade. The sword really had me thinking which bit to use and now that I bought a set of Legion Praetors pretty much for the swordhand up to the hilt, I finally had all the bits I needed and started to put him together. I might still go a little further on the right vambrace to make it even more similar to the original, but I'm pretty happy with the pose so far.

Hunter Orcs and Alfrid Lickspittle

Last Sunday I sadly didn't have anything to show, but this past week I got back into the swing of things and painted some Hunter Orcs as well as getting started on the coward Alfrid.

Pict 537: Hunter Orcs

Pict 538: Hunter Orcs

Somehow the end of the year is already looming and with that in mind I wanted to get some more work on the Hunter Orcs done since they were on my list of new year's resolutions. I'm happy enough with the highlighting so far - you could go even further but since I'll still have to do another 18 after these six, that's how far I'll go. I'm rater proud of the eyes and the different facepaint.

Pict 539: Alfrid Lickspittle (WIP)

I got this Warhammer World exclusive Alfrid Lickspittle through a competition that the guys over at the SBG fanzine ran - you had to count up all the instances that Alfrid hid himself in a picture in their fifth issue - and apparently I found the sneak most often!
The sculpt is great - so many different textures of cloth and of course so much character! I'm pretty happy with the layout of colours so far and I already started the highlighting. I'll have to do the face from scratch because right now Alfrid looks even creepier than I intend to!

Living Ghosts they were become, Terrible and Evil...

... And after his going they took Minas Ithil and dwelt there, and they filled it, and all the valley about, with decay: it seemed empty and it was not so, for a shapeless fear lived within the ruined walls. Nine Lords there were, and after the return of their Master, which they aided and prepared in secret, they grew strong again.

Faramir - The Two Towers, p. 905-906

Pict 533: The Nazgûl

Pict 534: The Nazgûl

Pict 535: The Witchking

Pict 536: The Witchking

I finished up the Nine this week. After last week, I pretty much 'only' had the highlighting of the black robes to do. The process was quite fun and quick since I could mix up a particular grey on the palette and go through with every miniature in turn before mixing in a bit more white and repeating. Lastly I deepened the shadows around the fingers and around holes and frays in the fabric with a black wash.



Up next I hope to get to some more Infinity miniatures, but there are so many amazing miniatures vying for my attention.