Tale of 4 Gamers – Epic Fail

Well, November is basically over and I’ve thrown in the towel for my portion of the Tale of 4 Gamers.  I know there are a lot of reasons why I didn’t fully engage in this project (real life certainly had a way of intervening) but in reality, I did have the time that I could have completed my monthly commitments.  After working on new Dwarf models for 5-6 hours over the extended Thanksgiving Holiday, I realized that I’m just not enjoying painting these models.  I went out on a limb to try and learn to paint using a NMM approach.  My results thus far are a mixed bag.  Some of the models look okay but others look downright awful.  I was working on some Khazad Guard this weekend… these models are absolutely amazing sculpts and I just couldn’t make them look good.  It really put a damper on my hobby spirits and I just pushed the tray of models to the side.

Currently, I’ve got about 2/3 of the models for the army painted in various stages from almost finished to 1-3 base colors put down.  However, I honestly think the next step is to dunk them in Simple Green and start over.  I think the traditional Metallic techniques would do them much better.  I could probably paint over the NMM parts but it might be easier to start with a “clean slate”.  However, having already spent the time on these that I have, I don’t have the motivation to “repaint” them.

So where do I stand?  I’m looking to focus on a different army for GitD (and Adepticon after that).  I’m going to start with armies that are already partially painted I think.  I’ll pick and chose my projects over the next few weeks and try to get my mojo back.

As far as T04G goes, I think I’m going to just fade away… I don’t like to be a quitter but the whole point of the T04G was to be inspired to work towards an objective and right now, the project I have feels like a chore.

 

Bilbo’s Birthday Bash 2011

Bilbo’s Birthday Bash, the  3rd Anniversary celebration of Bilbo’s Eleventy-first birthday has come and gone.  What a great weekend of Lord of the Rings Gaming.  Despite some life-related set-backs earlier in the week, my friends, the LOTR playing community really stepped up and did a great job of making for a memorable event.

I need to thank a lot of people who helped me out with this event.

• Kyle, Chris, Jeremy, and Chris for all the help with making terrain!
• Kyle and Frank for helping me get the terrain and Chris, Chris, Josh, and Jeff for also helping setting up the event!
• Chris from Miniature Painting Authority for being a title sponsor to the event!
• Tim for being a great host at the Chicago Battle Bunker
• Dan and Chris for their tremendous help in providing prize support.
• Joe from Battlefront Miniatures for helping provide the awesome custom made Gale Force 9 turn counters!

and of course, I have to thank all of the great players from all over the country that came out to support the event.

Here’s a few images from the weekend but be sure to check out the full coverage of the tournament up on the event website. 

Tale of 4 Gamers – October Update

Well, here we are in the middle of October and it seems as if I’ve already completely abandoned the Tale of 4 Gamers within the first 6 weeks!  I’m happy to report that is not entirely true.  I did miss out of my September painting commitment, sort of…  Here’s a shot of my monthly commitment and all of them would pass the three-color minimum at least.  However, I obviously hold myself to a higher standard than that.

With this army, I’m trying to learn to do Non-Metallic Metal painting.  Not entirely sure how I’m doing but at first glance I think the models look okay.  Learning this new technique has definitely slowed me down quite a bit.  Add on top of that a very busy non-hobby family schedule and I came up short this month.

So what did I get finished… I’d say that 5 of the dwarves are 90% done.  I just have some highlighting and shading to do on the non-metallic parts.  I really spent a lot of time working on the metallic armor and weapons but don’t have much more than a basecoat on the other parts of the models:

I also did some work on the other five models.  The armor is done on the Bow-armed dwarves.  The Dwarf Warrior with the chainmail needs some work still – I’m trying to figure out how to paint NMM chainmail.  I also started painting Floi’s armor and I just wasn’t happy with how it came out so I might have to start over on him.

So that wraps up September’s commitment… or lack of commitment.  I’ll give myself +3 points in the painting requirement as they are “modlels completed late”.
Now, its mid-October I guess I should lay out this months commitment.  I’m going to small in model count this month and hopefully still have a fighting chance to finish up.  I hurt myself already since I haven’t started and its October 14th.  I’ve been traveling a lot this month for work and I’ve got this little Lord of the Rings tournament I need to finish planning:  http://bilbosbirthdaybash.wordpress.com.  So we’ll see how much I can get accomplished!

Here’s the commitment:

• King’s Champion
• 1x Iron Guard

That’s 150 points and only 4 models!

Wish me luck.

To4G – Month 1 Commitment

Time to start off the September painting commitment.  I wanted to start off with a LOME legal army, even though we aren’t going to start playing games until both Month 1 and 2 are complete.  So my commitment is:

Floi Stonehand

5x Dwarf Warriors with Hand Weapons and Shields

3x Dwarf Warrios with Bows

1x Dwarf Warrior with 2-handed Axe

Here’s a picture of my “unpainted” models:

As you can see, some of the models have been primed black and even have some red paint on them.  I’m going to re-prime these with white and start from scratch.  I’m probably going to go with a blue and golden color theme I think.  Haven’t really decided yet for sure though. I’ve got a nice mix of metal and plastic models here for month one.  One of the things I’m going to try to do is make sure every model is uniquely posed.  This means as the months go on, I’m going to have to do some conversion as well.  However, for month 1 so I can get my feet wet, just painting stock models!