2016 - The year in review

Oops, 2016 was not a good year for my hobbying. I painted very, very few models (that fellowship is still awaiting completion). My main achievement was half-painting a Mumakil and considering entering Armies on Parade (but then running out of time).

In fairness, I hurt my neck at the start of the year, and work got mad at the end, but still, I think I could have done a lot more than I did, and would have been happier for having done so...

Objective for next year- paint a model a month? Setting the target really low seems like a good idea given how little I did this year. And finish basing that darned Fellowship so I can call it complete.

February Update

A little late with this one but February was a very quiet month on the hobby front, mainly because I spent most of it preparing for, being in and unpacking from a trip to Singapore!

I did manage a last-minute entry into my local GW's painting competition. The conditions were that it had to be a hero and had to be painted this month. I picked Boromir, Captain of the White Tower and had a go at some freehand on his banner, I'd wanted to paint this for a while but been intimidated by the freehand so the contest was a good push to actually get it done.

I was a little short on time at the end so I kept the flag relatively simple (although I couldn't resist all the colourful bits by the spear). This was about 6 hours work all told (2 on the banner, 4 on the model) and I'm pretty pleased with the results given that I've done relatively little freehand to date.

January update part 2

I found a bit more time for painting today and managed to finish Boromir - I went with a nice muted palette and I'm quite pleased with how he turned out. The cloak shades from Abaddon Black through to Eshin Grey and I think it gave quite a good approximation of leather.

I also bought a new desk lamp this week with a nice daylight bulb to make painting easier and I'm definitely appreciating the better lighting. I still need to work out how to best use it with my camera though - I managed to take the shot below which gives a much more pleasing view of the model, but out of 30 odd snaps it's the only one that came out that nicely and I'm not sure how to reproduce it as yet!

January Update

My aim this year is to do some painting at least twice a week, and so far that seems to be working quite well - whilst I haven't turned out great volumes of work I have been much better at putting aside some time to paint.

I've been continuing to work on the Fellowship models I started before Christmas and I'm getting along fairly well with two more completed, and two basecoated - once those are finished I will finally have a full fellowship (some 15 odd years after I first acquired them!)

Legolas & Frodo are now complete - I'm very pleased with Legolas and feel that I've managed to keep him relatively well saturated this time (when I painted him previously he looked like he'd been dressed in pastels by a well meaning aunt). I'm also quite pleased with the gold detailing on his quiver & bow which I did in NMM, because I apparently don't own any gold paint. It's not perfect but  I think it's reasonably convincing.

Frodo on the other-hand I'm not very pleased with as he looks rather like someone hit him in the face. I think it's the third time I've painted this model and I still really dislike the sculpt, I may look into getting a different pose for him at some point but for now he's done. That being said, part of my dislike for this model may be because I always found Frodo a bit useless in LOTR, so maybe one of him is enough!

Boromir and Aragorn have been basecoated and washed. I'm aiming for a dark-green coat on Aragorn because I've always found the bright-green GW scheme a bit too glaring. The leather on Boromir's shield looks lovely so I'm not going to muck around with that too much but otherwise both characters are due for a lot of highlighting.

2016 - the year ahead

Whilst recapping 2015 I realised that I was also very good at purchasing lots of models to increase my painting backlog (oops!)

So, my plans for next year include the following:

1) The Fellowship of the Ring

• Finishing the fellowship on foot

• Acquiring & painting the fellowship on horseback - I have most of these models, just need to convert a mounted Gandalf the Grey 

Mounted Aragorn, Legolas, Legolas & Gimli, Boromir
Frodo, Sam, Merry & Pippin

2) Reinforcements for Moria:

• 2 Goblin drummers + drum
• 2 Cave trolls
• 10 Warg Marauders (to be converted)
• 16 Wild Wargs

3) The Last Alliance Army - actually painting this, rather than just looking at it in fear:

• Elrond, Gil-galad & Glorfindel
• Elendil & Isildur (alive & dying!)
• 12 High elf w/ spear
• 2 High Elf w/ banner
• 10 High Elf w/ elven blade
• 12 High Elf w/ bow
• 12 Warriors of Numenor w/ spear
• 19 Warriors of Numenor w/ shield
• 2 Warriors of Numenor w/ banner

4) The Uruk-Hai Horde - for when I need something easier than the above:

• Many, many Uruk-hai.....

Clockwise: Uruk-hai, more Uruk-hai, Last Alliance, Misc WIP

5) All of the models for the Fellowship of the Ring Journey Book.... we'll see about this one, it kind of ties in with some of the stuff above and I really want to start playing some games next year so I will have to see if I can get this rolling.

Overall, I will be happy if I can keep a bit more consistency with my hobby time next year, I find it a great way to relax in the evenings, provided I can actually get around to sitting down and painting!

Grand Target for 2016: Paint 100 models. 

Looking at what I've achieved this year I think this should be feasible and it will give me something measurable to aim for!