Bring on the trumpets!

It's a painted miniature!!

Orc Shaman

It may have taken twice as long as planned for half the output, but I finished something for the first time in about 6 months. Go me!

It took so long because of a couple of work trips and a weekend away, but towards the end of the painting I found myself really enjoying the process. Hopefully that bodes well for future projects.

In other news looks like some new paints are on the way from GW. 145 of them to be precise. I'm a huge fan of citadel paints, so I cant wait to get my hands on some of the new ones and give them a try.

The Trading Post is Open

I have shamelessly stolen the idea for a trade section of my blog from Gaj over at Warhammer for Adults. You can find a link to it at the top of the page, or click here.

If you have any of the models on there that you are willing to part with feel free to leave a comment or drop me a line at skarsnikandoldlead_at_sky_dot_com

If you would like to attach terms to the trade involving me painting certain amounts of models before you will send me new toys, feel free. I need all the help I can get!

The scale of the problem....

My girlfriend and I had a few days away in Edinburgh over the weekend, so I got zero painting done, but when I got back there was a big pile of minis waiting for me. I thought I'd take a picture to illustrate what I'm up against with my addiction.

What I bought this week:

Lots!

What I painted this week:

Nothing!

That's right, bought 39, painted 0. I bought more than usual this week as I was filling in some gaps in my LotR and WFB Empire collections, but 20 figures a week from ebay and the like isn't out of the ordinary.

I guess I'll just have to start painting faster!!

Ooooh, Toys!

Finally some pics of toys! I'm afraid that those of you who were here just for the messy desk pictures will have to get your kicks elsewhere from now on.

I decided I would do a couple of minis a week to begin with (easing myself in gently and all that). One will be started from scratch, and the other will be finishing off one of the many half painted minis that are sitting on my shelf. Once I'm back into the swing of things I'll start to be a bit more focused with my painting, and may even start working towards a painted army.

So here are week one's candidates:

The White Dwarf

Orc Shaman

The orc shaman has been kicking around my painting table as a throwback to when I experimented with brown undercoat. I hated painting over it and so never got it finished. But now is that time.

As for The White Dwarf, I picked up the White Dwarf Personalities box a while ago, but was missing Livingstone the 'ed Hitter. Well this week I finally got one on ebay, so I'm starting to paint the boxed set in celebration! Expect to seem more of his friends over the coming weeks.

Ready For Action

One clean and tidy painting area. I got some very quizzical looks from my girlfriend as she's never seen me tidy the 'geek room' before.

Clean, tidy and ready for action.

 So step one is done. Now I have to stop procrastinating and decide what to paint.

Stay tuned for some vintage Citadel loveliness!

Ordo Ab Chao

Order from chaos. (Although if you speak Latin and know otherwise, please tell me!)

One of the reasons I find painting so hard may well be the state of my painting area. To say it looks like a bomb went off is probably being too kind. Judge for yourself:

The real realm of chaos.

As you can imagine, trying to work amongst that lot is a complete nightmare. So my first task on my road to painting nirvana is to clean up my painting area. This will consist of:

• Sort out my paints. I have a real mish-mash of paints from all sorts of manufacturers, most of which have never been used. I'll start with a single range (GW) and only add paints to that if I need them in the future.
• Clear away all of the half finished projects. Start with a clean slate.
• Get rid of all the junk. Only keep what is essential to my painting.

I'll post again in a couple of days once its done so you can see the difference. Then it will be time for some painting!

It must be love....

I love them....I love every single last one of them.

Toy soldiers that is.

I can't get enough of lead (and resin and plastic) soldiers. Old ones and new ones. Beautiful ones and ugly ones. Fantasy ones, sci-fi ones and historical ones. I just cant stop collecting them.

The problem is I never paint them. Buying them is easy, cataloguing  them is theraputic, but then I stick them in boxes in the loft. I want to paint them. I plan to paint them. The problem comes when I have to sit down and break out the paint brushes. Suddenly everything else seems so much more appealing. TV, computer games, reading, washing up, it's all more important than getting started on my latest painting project.

So inspired by some of my favourite wargaming blogs (I'll post more about those later), I've decided that my own blog is what will motivate me to actually get some models finished.

It may be a lifelong journey, or this may be the one and only post, but I hope you will join me for the ride.