She’s finished. Here is the new centerpiece for my wife’s Age of Sigmar Army:
I’m still working on the rider (I made two of the spines detachable, so it works either way), but this dragon will be the main attraction for Daeva’s mixed Wanderers (wood-elves) and Sylvaneth (tree-folk) army. I’m pretty pleased with it, and it pulls together the cherry blossom themes of the army nicely.
I know there is a specific mini for the woodelf forest dragon (I have it), but this mini in this color scheme spoke to me. The other mini looks good in green, so I’ll tackle that someday as a stand-alone project.
On the writing side, I have completed a rough pass for act 3. By that, I mean I have finished the most egregious grammar and spelling mistakes. That was roughly 1000 edits on its own. A solid week of work, but I’m not done yet.
This act needs a net-new chapter and then a chapter-by-chapter fresh coat of paint. I think that will take most of June. Then it’s on to a final chapter-by-chapter polish, and then I’ll be done. So my novel will probably be finished sometime in August, maybe September at the latest. It’s a lot of work, but I’m on track for my goals this year.
That means I will need more to paint. It’s a good thing I have a dragon who needs an army to run. This is going to be a rather large project, so stay tuned!
When we left off with this latest batch of writing partners, we had a group of half-finished ghosts and skeletons but a completely finished writing project. Usually, I choose to stop painting at the end of a writing project, but these guys needed just a bit more work, as you can see below:
I wanted to finish them, but I knew they wouldn’t last for an entirely new project, short story, or otherwise. So I worked on my podcast instead!
My wife and I have been working hard on this project. We’ve been playing more games, collecting materials, writing blogs, and building up the website. It’s still a work in progress but take a look. Here is a link to our home page, https://heplayssheplays.ca/
Now back to the minis. Here they are in a “finished” state.
I’m trying to not let the perfect kill the good these days. While I’m working harder and harder on my editing, I also want to finish things. This last year has been my best year of writing. Beyond the hand full of pieces I had published, I think my overall standard is improving. I’m happy with all of my short stories and ecstatic about the progress with my novel. Part of that is taking my writing more seriously; the other is constantly setting and completing manageable goals like publishing at least one podcast a month or working on my rust effects.
I think these took longer than usual because there isn’t much of a consistent theme. I couldn’t apply any batch painting strategies beyond the most basic colors. This is also something we have found to be an issue with podcasting as well. Each recording has unique challenges. Maybe these will even out in time, but we have to apply very different strategies for more relaxed episodes like our first episode discussing our favorite video games or a more energetic episode like our Final Fantasy 8 Episode.
If these spooky ghosts are your thing, you should check out our spookier podcasts. You might like the Halloween Special or our extremely disrespectful breakdown of Supermassive Games (we love them, really). We primarily discuss RPGs, but I try to pepper in a bit of horror when Daeva allows it, haha!
The point I want to get across is to set realistic goals and stick to them. It really helps productivity. Also, if you like reading my blogs, you really should check out the podcast. It’s more a comedy show than an editorial or review podcast so give it a chance if you need something easy to unwind to.
In the next week or two, I want to build up the archival side of the website. These pages will make it easier to find content on particular topics and blogs and resources to pair with the podcast. I’ll make another post here when those resources are up.
Now, if none of this is your speed and you just want me to get back to writing and painting, you’re in luck. I’m currently working on a new short story and a really impressive writing partner. I’ll have a post of that up this week, but you all should be delighted with this one. Stay tuned.
As I discussed in my last post, I took a break from my book to write a new short story. It was a weird one and I wasn’t sure how it would turn out. Well, I finished! It’s also turned out quite well. What’s more surprising is that this project’s writing partners turned out pretty nicely in their own right.
This crew of rowdy wildmen were good company while constructing my story. The Underworld’s line is always a joy to paint. Even this group, which is just a bunch of marauders, is surprisingly detailed.
All the little scars and details really bring out the character in these minis. It’s like the small connective tissues of a story. A reference here, a flourish there. Scars showing old, aching wounds.
I’ve already found a contest to enter my new story in. It needs a bit more polish and I’d like to get a few more opinions on it before I can call it truly finished. But, it does mean I’ll be getting back to my book this weekend. That means picking a new writing partner. Act two of my book begins with a rather grisly revelation, I will need to consider that when making my decision.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m roughly one-third finished the current draft of my novel. It’s going surprisingly well, and the people doing the beta read have been giving me some great feedback. Part of this process has been working with a writing circle on fine-tuning my prose.
I’m not sure if I’ve brought this up before, but I took a break from prose prior to last year and was instead writing screenplays. Because of this, I’m a bit rusty when it comes to writing narration. It’s the natural side effect of focusing on dialogue for roughly 5 years.
Overall I’d say it’s going well. Each progressive chapter has fewer and fewer notes. I’ve been applying the comments as I go so the first 10 chapters are looking pretty polished.
As a reward to myself, I decided to take a break this week and work on a new short story. As usual, it’s a weird one. A strange combination of the occult stuff I tend to write and click-baiting, meme inducing, article titles. Because I suddenly had a new story on my hands, I proceeded to the next step. You know what it is.
I had to pick a writing partner. In this case, I wanted to work with the theme of the week and my new story’s themes. Teamwork, and the summoning of dark gods…
Meet Garrek’s Reavers:
I started painting these before I realized I was going to write a blog about them. So credit to the following eBay post for the unpainted picture: Garrek’s Reavers.
Garrek’s Reavers, are a Warband from Games Workshop’s Underworld’s line. As such, they are easy to construct, affordable, and very detailed. I like these warbands because they are varied but still have a theme to pull the set together. In the case of Garrek’s Reavers, they are a group of chaos marauders who worship the god of war Khorne. Not an exact match to my story, but the team angle is what hooked me this time.
I have already finished priming them and adding the first coat of all the main colors. I did this while I outlined my short story. My job today is to fill out all the detail in both my story and this Warband. If the story turns out well, I might enter into a contest. As for the minis, I’ll show you the results either way. I never claimed to be a professional painter!
I hope to have this done soon, so expect an update in the coming days!
I’ve finally finished editing the first act of my book. As expected, chapter 6 got the most work, but I honestly think this rough 100 pages is much better now. I’ll need to take a look at the second act and figure out where the problem chapters are so I can pick new writing partners.
However, let’s take a moment to look at the writing partners for the last section, the unusual suspects!
Here is what they looked like before:
And here is how they turned out:
They aren’t too bad, considering they each had their own challenges. Well, every one of them except the wizard.He was pretty easy to work with.
Working with a variety of minis from different companies at the same time really made certain features stand out.
For example, while this mini is big, I had to create most of the depth myself. It has a ton of flat areas with little texture.
He isn’t bad but some of the finer details are rough.
Meanwhile, shading and highlighting even a tiny games workshop mini was a breeze.
Imagine, this guy was supposed to be a decoration for another mini!
The dwarf turned out fine, and the less I can say about the halfling, the better. However, overall I’m happy with them. I got a chance to play around with contrast paints, and they were just right for keeping myself busy while I brainstormed.
For the next section, I’m not sure if I should do another set of minis or paint one large one. I enjoy variety, but focusing on one mini does significantly improve the final product. I’ll just have to start working on the next few chapters and see where my muse takes me!
I’m a big fan of tabletop gaming and, about three years ago, I passed that final nerd hurdle and began painting miniatures. At first I thought I would play wargames like Warhammer, but since I have played a full game twice in that time period, I have settled into the reality that I mostly just paint them. Now…I’m not very good. I think I have mastered what they call “tabletop standard.” That means my work is good enough to game with but won’t be winning any beauty competitions. I use them for RPGs and simply the joy of the hobby.
I have, however, found another use for them. I have found they make really great writing partners. No, don’t worry, I’m not crazy. I’m not saying they talk to me or anything… at least not yet.
What I find is that having one on the side of my desk to work on has really helped my productivity. I use them like fidget toys or desk curios. When I need to think over an idea I’m working on I paint. It is much better then other forms of abnegation or distraction like surfing the web. By the time I need to put the mini down to dry I have usually figured out what I’m going to write next. It’s a win-win. They help me write and by the time I’m done a project I usually have a fully painted mini.
The featured image today is a great example. I was commissioned to write the intro and outro scripts for a ghost hunting show (I’ll probably link to it at a later date) and I needed to get into the right mindset. So when I sat down to write the scripts I grabbed that mini. It’s from the Warhammer: Age of Sigmar line, in case you were wondering. As I wrote and rewrote those scripts again and again, trying to get the right balance of spookiness and daytime TV bounce, I slowly picked at the mini. It allowed me to keep my mind clear and working without getting distracted. By the end I had a script the producer was pleased with and a mini I love. Again, it’s a win-win.
This might not work for everyone. I get pretty zen when I paint and I don’t worry about perfection. It’s my side art. I know I’m not perfect so I don’t even strive for perfection. But if you’re a very talented painter or more of a perfectionist your mileage may vary.
For those who are interested, I’ll break down my selection process. I mentioned Warhammer but that isn’t the start and end of my painting. In fact, for this particular purpose, they often fall short. They don’t always fit for two reasons. One: big regiments of the similar minis; and two: they aren’t always generic enough.
Let me explain both issues:
The first is simple, I tend to paint one mini over the course of a project, a few if it is a long one. I try to match minis with my projects for the added thematic focus. I also work on a wide variety of subjects. This means I like variety more than repetition. This isn’t just a Warhammer issue, most war games have the same problem.
The second issue relates to my theme choices. Games Workshop (the makers of Warhammer, who I will refer to as GDubs from now on) make beautiful products but they are also heavily themed. This is usually a good thing – they have a rich lore they pull from with unique fantasy quirks. For example, if I were to write about dragons, one would think I could grab a GDubs dragon and go to town. Not necessarily. All of their dragons have riders. They have armor with custom heraldry on it. They have morphology that isn’t necessarily generic fantasy. The list could go on. Sometimes this is ok, or I can modify the mini to suite my purposes, but often it’s hard not to see a Warhammer dragon when I paint it. I want to see it as my own if it’s going to sit there, subtly influencing my own story.
How to I make my choices than? Well the short answer is: I buy too many minis. A better answer would be to say I (usually) buy individual minis, mainly heroes and monsters, and I (usually) buy figures that are not too heavily themed to what ever their game setting is. I break both of these rules all the time, but that just results in purchases that don’t end up becoming writing partners. I also purchase minis from a variety of sources, including the second hand market where I can sometimes find some real gems.
That is probably enough navel gazing about my miniature painting choices. I hope that wasn’t to long winded. I promise that the next time I bring this is up it will be to show you another fun mini connected to another fun project.
