Welcome to my hobby blog. I wanted to start this little project for some time now, and as the month of O(r)ctober is nearing its end, I decided that now is as good as ever. Especially that I accomplished the prerequesite that I set out for myself: finally finish painting a miniature - first one in around 8 years. In another post I'll provide the link to the tutorial - all the credit for the scheme goes to Sonic Sledgehammer Studios.
As you probably guessed already, the green Ork Kommando on the right is the element of my pile of shame (or opportunity) that is no longer a simple, grey piece of plastic. I really do have a lot of those, a figurative sea of grey, that I would like to cross in time. This blog is my attempt at documenting the process, getting some more motivation and also an opportunity to return to writing - even if the posts themselves won't be long, practice is practice and I've grown a bit rusty.
What I'll want to publish here? Pictures of assembled and painted miniatures, obviously - this is the main goal. I cannot promise that it's going to be often. Also, I can't promise that the effects will be good. Other topics will (probably) include: commentary on painting tutorials, commentary on model ranges, 3d printing etc. And musings on topics that kept me from both enjoying painting and painting at all for the past few years. All in due time.
Now that you know about the idea behind the blog, I'll write a bit about myself, just to make it a little easier for you to choose if you want to come again and read more when texts and miniatures are published or just forget about this place. I started collecting miniatures more or less 19 years ago - at the time when Games Workshop were releasing the new version of Lizardmen (it didn't change much since then, now did it?). It was precisely at a point when I couldn't get the old models anymore, but the new ones were not available yet. So I settled for Orcs & Goblins and then just bought what I wanted. To be honest, until recently I didn't care for wargaming much, I just got the miniatures and I even painted some of them. And then repainted them. And then repainted them again - without ever stripping the paint from them. Up to a certain point in time, the number of grey models in my possession was maneagable - I had a bunch of LotR miniatures from a magazine that had been sold in my country for a couple of years that I didn't really intend to paint, a battalion of painted Necrons (plus 3 metal Immortals and a Necron Lord), a bunch of painted orcs and goblins, some lizardmen, some space marines, some dwarves and some random miniatures. I always had a soft spot for those big "value" boxes... that proved to be my undoing, as for a few years now I was just buying more boxes (my pile of shame will be a separate page and I think I'll list it in increments) and not painting at all - instead of just not painting. Getting a 3d printer didn't help either.
I cannot say that I'm a good painter - at one point I believe I could paint to a solid tabletop standard ( later I'll probably post the picture of a model that I painted while I was idling in DotA 2, either dead or in the lobby), but with so many years without practice my brush control and abilities overall deteriorated considerably. This is why I'm quite happy with how the ork on the picture turned out. I totally intended to paint the whole kill team (maybe excluding the goblin and squig) for Orctober, but now I don't believe I'll manage to do so. I had to wait for the paints that were missing in my collection (I ordered them before the start of the month). Then the primer went on really badly. It was patchy, textured and in some place cracked - only the model on the picture was salvageable, the rest had to be stripped off paint and this was a thing I never attempted before - it wasn't a complete success, but when the surface was smooth I primed them anew, and now they wait for their coats of paint. Hopefully I'll manage to paint at least one or two more before the end of the month.
If you managed to read until the end: huge thanks and keep your fingers crossed for this little hobby blog!
