It has certainly been an interesting week hobby-wise. I have been dragging my feet the last week or two and wasn’t enjoying painting as much as I usually do. Work and life was slowing me down (and making more tired than I have been in quite some time) but I realized the biggest problem was that I was forcing myself to paint things that I wasn’t especially motivated to work on. I don’t need Ruffians for the next scenario and while I will eventually, that didn’t mean I had to work on them when I did.
Regardless, paint them I did and I am pretty happy with how they turned out. I gave myself a little challenge and painted one as a ginger. I feel like I only like to paint people with blonde, brunette, or gray hair so to have another go to hair color (even if I wouldn’t use it a ton because gingers are somewhat uncommon), it is still nice to have another color in the mix.
As you can see, those Ruffians were not only painted, varnished, and based. I actually went ahead and based up all of the recent miniatures I had painted as you can see above. I got some more flock so I added some light green course turf to some of their bases which I don’t entirely love the look of but I think it is good to have a little extra texture on the base. I have to admit, this isn’t a bad looking little group (well maybe the Hobbits would find them to be that way)! I really found these guys to be revitalizing and since working on them mid-week, I’ve been on a real hobby tear.
And then I got to thinking, what does it look like if you get all of my Ruffians together for a group shot? Here is 9 of them done which is getting pretty close to the maximum amount I can cram into my lightbox for photos so future group shots will probably happen on terrain or something like that. Having 9 done means that I only need 3 more to get to the magic number of 12 which is what most scenarios require. That will be a nice accomplishment for the nearish future when I decide I’m ready to get back to painting these guys.
There has been one other thing dragging me down hobby wise that I haven’t discussed yet. I spent a lot of time recently trying to finish Theoden, only to find that I didn’t have the skill to paint his sword the way that I wanted. It was really deflating as I know that painting TMM swords is not a strength of mine and edge highlight is also an area where I can improve further but both of these weaknesses have come together and I decided about a week ago that I would stop trying to get Theoden finished. The details on his sword are so fine and annoying to paint that I cannot do it and keep my sanity. This means that I will not be entering in the Golden Demon this year after all. This was pretty deflating because I felt like I was letting myself and others down who have helped and encouraged me along the way. I know I am a good enough painter to be able to put together a good entry in Golden Demon. However, I have realized that this mini is not the right entry. I made a couple mistakes on Theoden that I know the judges would notice and I should pick a more ambitious miniature as well. I don’t want to “lose” because I didn’t choose as impressive of a mini as someone else. I’m afraid that would have happened if I moved forward with Theoden. So, Theoden is going to sit for a while, possibly a long time while I focus on having fun and enjoying my hobbying time. I really do appreciate all of the encouragement I received along the way and I hope that Golden Demon is a staple at Adepticon for years to come so that I can enter it in the nearish future.
On a more positive note, I’ve got some fairly big things cooking for the Farmer Maggot scenario. I’m eager to show that I’ve learned from some of my past terrain mistakes as well so hopefully I’ll have some impressive stuff to show off in one week’s time. While I have failed miserably, my other goal is to get some more sculpts in my backlog so that I don’t run into a situation like I have recently where all I have to paint are hobbits and ruffians and I’m burnt out on painting both types of sculpts. I will definitely be picking up some new sculpts to help build up my painting backlog so hopefully you’ll be seeing some exciting new models in the coming weeks as well.
Kuribo's Painting 
These ruffians look awesome! Great job!
Sad to read that your Théoden isn’t coming along as you had hoped. But I’m sure you’ve learned a lot in the process? And you will have one very beautiful miniature after he is finished. 🙂
I haven’t painted miniatures for some time so I’m actually looking forward to doing so. I’m waiting for spring so that I can spray paint new models outside in the right weather conditions.
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Waiting for spring, a long wait we all suffer alongside you with.
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Thank you as always, Gero! 🙂 I feel similarly about Theoden, a bit sad and a lot relieved but I do think he will look very nice when finished and that is one less mini needed for any Rohan and Pelennor Fields scenarios!
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Shoot, that one sent before I was ready! I hope you get good weather from priming soon! I feel like it is going to be several more months before I can prime anything outside again though I am looking forward to it as well. Now is the perfect time to build up my backlog to get ready for better weather!
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Shame your burning out on the sculpts. I saw some minis being released by a company called Unreleased Miniatures that are clearly intended as Ruffians. When I saw them I immediately thought of you!
Looking forward to seeing your plans for the scenario though. With the fields and scarecrow so for I expect good things.
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If you aren’t careful, a lack of creativity and repetition will put you in a hobby rut for sure! Unreleased Miniatures have made a business of giving people alternatives to GW sculpts and I know some people really like them. I could use some villagers for an upcoming Shire scenario so I will give those a look!
I appreciate the kind words on the terrain as well. I don’t have any terrain that is as large in scale as the fields but I think what I do have looks pretty good and will be fun to show 🙂
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I noticed on the website that they have a few hobbits as well. Even lady hobbits to mix in for the defense of the shire. Even though I’m not buying 28mm now it doesn’t mean I can’t look (and want).
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Ooh, that is something that catches my eye. Some female hobbits would look really cool. I’ll have to give them a closer look. Absolutely! I’ve been doing my fair share of miniature window shopping lately too to figure out what I can get to add some variety to my painting queue 🙂
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Some very nice models there – but wow on the prices! When unlicenced alternatives make GW’s prices look reasonable, then there’s a bit of an issue there – especially on the more generic rank & file troops!
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There is divided opinion in the MESBG community on manufacturers like this and perhaps price is part of it? I suspect some of it is whether to be loyal to GW as well…
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Loyalty to GW isn’t something I struggle with personally, 😀 but price – or perhaps perceived value puts it better – is something that I do have an issue with a lot of the time. 🙂
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Sometimes they’re prices are reasonable and other times, not so much. I also know they’ve had their fair of missteps too even though I was not in the hobby during that time, I can understand why some people have found it hard to move on from that as well.
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It’s pretty common I think in our hobby to sometimes have to paint something that we’re not super jazzed about just to get it done. I do a thing where I put two painting projects on my desk at a time; and before I do anything else one of those has to be completed. I find that way I get a little variety but still working towards a goal. Otherwise I bounce around to much and no project ever gets done. But that’s just how I do it. 😀
Sorry to hear about Theoden but I think you’re right that the miniature itself isn’t one great for a painting competition. It’s not big or dramatic enough. One would need a little speaker playing his battle speech from the movie to remind the people why he’s so awesome.
Nonetheless there’s always next time. 😀
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I like to have two to three things to bounce between too. I shouldn’t let myself get into a situation where I have less than that in my queue. It clearly does not go well!
I completely agree on the impressiveness of the mini. That was what made me decide to pull back from entering Theoden (that and it felt like a waste of $40 if I wasn’t completely satisfied with him). My plan now is to go to Adepticon and “scout” the competition to see what I might want to enter in the future 🙂
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I think your Theorden model looks great up the the point I last saw it, but at the same time, you shouldn’t go into a painting competition at a large con *expecting* to win, let alone something like Golden Demon or Crystal Brush. My advice would be to go in and simply do the best you can and see how you do. Of course, I may be a hypocryte, as I don’t have any interest in painting comps these days as the standard is such that I *know* I won’t place, let alone win – so what’s the point? 😀
As for the Ruffians, well your posts that I’ve been reading the past couple of days did inspire me to find my own models (took over an hour!) and I’ve started cleaning them up. 3/12 cleaned so far. They won’t be painted too quickly, as I’m going to do a Dave Kay Tray for my next batch of painting and see how that works for me, but they’ll be ready to join one before too long….
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Thanks, mate! I learned a lot about myself working on Theoden and I have consistently found that display painting is not really fun for me. While I would love the recognition that would come with it, I don’t know if it is enough to “punish” myself by painting in a way that I don’t enjoy. I don’t know that I can win such a competition even if I really work hard on it, so your point stands. I will certainly think long and hard before I decide to enter in a competition.
That is great to hear on the Ruffians. There are a few sculpts that leave a bit to be desired and the repetition of having to paint them is not great (just a couple more sculpts would have really improved the variation!) but they look great when they’re all together. I’ve got eleven out of twelve of mine done so I will probably knock that last one out and share the results on the site here soon.
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Comps are a personal thing. For some they can be a huge motivation, for others (me) notsomuch. 🙂
The Ruffians are going to be a batch-paint project alongside the Hobbiton Militia and my old Frateris Militia from 40k. Basically all models that I consider low-relevance and unimportant, but ones that share a “civilian” look, feel and palette – so while I won’t be aiming for a crap outcome on any of the models, it’ll be a good chance to try some more contrast paints in a different context – one more akin to their “intended” use – and see if I can get that 30 or 40-odd models that were never going to be considered important enough to actually paint done in a single (probably long) weekend.
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I have some paint friends who compete and they are godlike painters. They put me to shame with their creativity and skill. They also paint to paint whereas I paint to game so that is something I should be more cognizant of if I get the big idea to enter in a competition again…
That sounds like a great approach for them and they should be a good project for when you don’t want to think too hard about what you’re doing like after a long day at work.
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