A quiet month on the hobby table

It's been a quiet month hobby wise folks. In fact, nothing much to report I'm afraid. One of the reasons for this is due to the return of my chronic migraines. With a job that involves staring at a computer screen all day, when a migraine hits, it's difficult to then squint at a tiny toy soldier or look at another computer screen whilst writing about them.

Avoiding screens has meant an opportunity to catch up some reading (bear with me this is going somewhere). I've recently completed my second hand collection of these graphic novels.

Which reminded me of these conversions I did back in my youth for for my Warhammer Chaos army. The contents of my glass cabinets are currently being dusted and packed away for a move and so I took the opportunity to photograph these for the blog.

When I think about it, these models are around 22 years old. I have come to the conclusion in those 22 years my painting quality has actually got worse. I'm sure I'm not the only person that suffers from what I call the "painters shakes" a non recognised condition where older crafters can't hold a model to paint it without getting involuntary shakes. I would never try sculpting green stuff on a helmet like that these days. I always thought with time would come better skill, but sadly it hasn't. I think partly I have learnt shortcuts when painting squads and regiments, so my models look good "en masse" but the individuals now don't look as good. Maybe I should slow down a bit for my characters and take some inspiration from some of my older paint jobs. Us wargamers are always talking about getting through our lead mountains and painting our models. Maybe sometimes I should just slow down a bit and just enjoy painting like I did in my youth.

I have also finished a few other random items off my painting table. Firstly a Reaper half Orc I bought for my Youngest to use in Heroquest:

My son especially loves the fact that he is already carrying a chest on his back for putting treasure in. (It's all about the gold.)

I've started painting up some of the Grenadier models I spoke about in a previous post. These two chaps were a joy to paint, they may be older sculpts but they hold up to modern standards.

Finally, this hefty lump of lead of a chap. I tried something on the bases which I'm not sure of, I might repaint. The rest, I'm happy with.

I posted a pic of this on Facebook, but for those of you that didn't see it, I painted one of the free Black Seas sprues of a Frigate from Wargames Illustrated. 

I haven't done the rigging, because to be honest, I'm not stealing thread from Mrs B. I'm sure she would probably help me out if I asked, but I'm pleased with it as it is and I bet if I started messing with thread and superglue there is a chance I could make a mess of it. There is always a risk with paper and superglue as I have often found out when dealing with printing flags. It is all too easy to glue the paper to your fingers and remove the print and have to start again with a fresh sheet. I've been enjoying the WI sprues each month, looking forward to the surprise of a sprue of something that I might not necessarily choose to buy but having a go anyway. I'm disappointed next year they are dropping to bi-monthly and especially disappointed with this month's Judge Dress graffiti transfers. I'm sure back in January we were promised a year's worth of sprues, although that might be me misremembering. If we were however, bad form WI, bad form.

What else have I been up to? Well, being a busy grown up it's not all painting models and playing games, sadly sometimes one has to do the washing up or commute to work as well. But I have the solution for the geek who can't help but want to fill their day with gaming, podcasts! Use whatever podcast downloader of choice and then listen to these. For the old school Longbeards may I recommend "Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy"  from the History Network. They even did Episode 33 live via YouTube and yours truly got involved with a few questions. (Yes I did instigate the James May discussion, sorry.)

For a more light hearted listen I have two D&D podcasts I am currently listening to. I find most D&D play podcasts far too serious and not really inclusive enough but are hilarious and yet also inspiring to my own gaming. (ie not just a bunch of fart jokes)

First is Not another D&D Podcast. Three American players, one of whom has never played before but is leaping in feet first with his Barbarian, Hard One, a Mushroom lady druid and a halfling Paladin working towards getting his scout merit badges.

The other is The Dragon Friends. Three Australian comedians take part in a live monthly stage show D&D session. They release each half of the evenings show in a separate episode. This is hands down my favourite podcast I have found so far. My only bugbear is I am caught up and have to wait two weeks between episodes!

And finally. For my fellow bloggers out there. You may not yet know that Google have finally updated the Blogger Android app! It's about time, it's actually been years since the previous update. So this blog update has been done from my phone, photos and all! No more excuses!