Small Victories and Headaches

After a week where work was stable and fairly busy (so it went by fast), I now have about two weeks off work for a holiday break which is pretty exciting. I’m not traveling to see family which is a bummer but it is the safe thing to do with COVID running wild here in the states. So that means there will certainly be plenty of hobby time for me which will be interesting because this week is the first one in a while where I felt like I might lapsing into a bit of a hobby rut but more on that later. Let’s take a look at what I finished up this week.

Last week I was debating whether to go ahead and make a radiated pool piece of terrain and I decided to go for it. It was interesting mixing up the unusual colors needed but ultimately, I think everything came out pretty well with one small exception. Some bubbles formed in the resin while mixing the paint in and I could not get them out for the life of me. I still haven’t figured out exactly what to do to fix that when it occurs but I’m not sweating the one or two little bubbles much. This is radiated water so who can say if it bubbles a bit! I also realized that I could easily start to build out a Glowing Sea “board” (pictured below) in the near future that would have a number of these pools of water in them. So that got me a bit more excited at the prospect of making 5 more. I need six in total for a Fallout scenario so that will keep me busy for a bit. Fortunately, this is terrain that I don’t mind working on much so I’ll keep chipping away at it.

Speaking of terrain, I got my order from Poland relatively recently and as it turns out, when they say, “Made to Order – 28 Days,” that is pretty much how long it takes for them to ship. Not the fastest service but I’m mostly happy with what I got. I made a wooden pallet and started painting the wood like I normally do with the wood grains and it looks good but not amazing and man, was it tedious and more time consuming than I wanted it to be.

So I figured, why not try drybrushing on the other side instead? I feel like the wood grain lines are too wide and hard to recreate realistically anyway and sure enough, not only was drybrushing way faster and easier but I think it looks better too. That will make painting up the rest of these much quicker and more enjoyable thankfully. I think the pallets will really add some character to any gaming or scenic pictures I work on in the future too so I look forward to having them done.

There’s nothing like working on terrain to make me want to paint a miniature instead so I also decided to take on a relatively quick sculpt that would be satisfying to finish. I had one last generic settler to paint that I had been pushing off because the sculpt didn’t speak to me as much as the others and the primer really messed up in places and led to a rough surface (not sure if any of that will be visible in the pictures thankfully!). While this is far from my best or favorite Fallout mini I’ve painted, I think she came out well enough and more importantly, since she was the last one in the box, I could remove the empty box from my small backlog pile which was immensely satisfying. Its so easy to buy new minis but when you finish a box of them, you’ve put some time into that project and you know you’ve done well!

But that’s not all! Since I got all of the Survivors Core box done, I thought I’d setup a nice little group shot with some scenery in the background. One day I’ll be able to put together something more appropriate for the faction than the construction trailer but for now, I’m quite proud of this picture and it was a pleasant surprise to have something of this quality to share this week. I did a bit of math and I currently have 11 resin Survivors minis painted (plus a couple of the lower quality plastic ones which I won’t use much unless I have to) out of roughly 34 available different minis. That is not only more than enough for most scenarios. It feels good to have that much of a faction in the game finished. You certainly couldn’t say that if you had 11 minis painted in a Warhammer, 40k, or even MESBG army!

So that was my week hobby-wise. I did hit some low motivation points during the week and so I’m going to try and add as much spice to my hobby workload over the next couple weeks as I can to keep me from feeling burnt out. I really should have thought ahead and had a couple of diorama or vignette minis ready to go so I could start painting one. I’m sure that would help stave off any kind of hobby slump. This topic brings us to this week’s special focus.

Welcome to Samurai Corner! Like a ninja, I bet that topic snuck up on you! We’ve entered Samurai Corner partially because I’ve been playing a video game called Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. The game is hard as nails but pretty enjoyable and in it, you are a Shinobi in a kind of historical and kind of fantastical Japanese setting. Now I love Roman history and that would be the historical game setting I’d most likely pursue in the future but another favorite of mine from a visual perspective is Samurai-era Japan. This might surprise you because I have to admit, I know almost nothing about it from a historical perspective. My love for it comes from when I took Art History in college and we talked about a major source of inspiration for the Impressionists which was none other than woodblock prints that Europeans imported from Japan. I just find the style and subject matter visually stunning. Additionally, the architecture and natural beauty you often see in this setting really speaks to me too.

So my artistic mind has been thinking about something I’ve wanted to do for quite some time and just never acted upon it. I don’t think gaming in this era is a great fit for me. I’d love making the terrain and painting the minis because the setting is so beautiful but I know so little about it that I have a hard time imagining myself getting immersed in it the way I can with Fallout or Lord of the Rings currently. I’ve certainly considered Test of Honour as it seems like it could be solo-friendly but ultimately, I know I’m not in a good place to do that. I need to read more about this period in history and would do well to have more storage space too. I’ve tried to find books on this subject before and haven’t had much luck but I will certainly give it another go and see what I can find too. With that said, this era/setting is so rich visually that I’m sure that I can make some really cool looking pieces if I harness my creativity and don’t worry too much about historical accuracy.

So what I think I should do is try making a diorama or two or three instead. I think that will help me tap into the visual style that I love so much and I think I’ll really enjoy painting up some samurai figures as well. As far as I can tell, the best 28mm-32mm sculpts on the market are from the Bushido game. They also happen to mix some historical styles with lots of fantastic elements which is right up my alley. So I think I will take the plunge and order some in the near future so I can start on my samurai journey. I still have grand plans to make another MESBG diorama or two this year as well but it would be good for me to mix some higher level painting alongside the usual gaming stuff so that I don’t get bored or burned out on either kind. Even if I go ahead and order some new minis soon, it will probably take a bit for them to arrive from England, especially with the postal service getting worse and worse where I live by the day so don’t expect to see anything soon but hopefully it will be a nice change of pace and fun to see how I get on!

That’s all for me this week. I hope to have a battle report to share with you next weekend and in the meantime, I wish you all happy holidays. Stay safe and I hope you enjoy time away from pesky obligations like work!