No pledges? I’ll get onto that in a min…

1. all fine here – the wife and I are avoiding people wherever possible!

2. just about scraping by but work has dried up really quickly (I’m currently working with a company supporting the tourist industry so us freelancers were the first to be asked to “self-isolate”). I *can* work from home – it’s just the work has dried up!

3. Laser Squad. I’ve not seen a decent one yet, so am working on one myself. Stay tuned….

Before everything kicked off, I informed my wife that I would be going away for a weekend, to a miniature painting workshop. She attends art classes and says she always works better in company; not necessarily because of the instruction, but simply being around like-minded people. I thought it sounded like a great idea for miniature painting.

I asked at my local game store – Dice Saloon in Brighton – and after their change of premises, painting sessions is something they’re looking at starting up. In the meantime, I thought I’d book myself onto one of the Seige Studio courses.

Of course, all that is on the back burner now. But my wife’s art tutor has started running “virtual classes” – where artists are set a project, send in photos, get instruction (where necessary) from the tutor, and once a week have a conference video call. It sounds like a really nice idea.

In fact, if there’s one thing that’d get me painting again, it’d be being part of a herd,  and getting actual instruction (rather than posting photos onto a forum and have half the viewers just say “awesome, man” and the others “thin your paints”)  what I’d like is someone to explain where to put highlights and why, suggestions on how to improve with specific techniques etc, not just an overall critique of the model. I’d like personalised instruction, but to also feel I was part of a “class” so we could collectively work on similar techniques, paint similar models, share ideas etc.

That’s my pledge.

I’m going to find an online painting tutor. I may fail. But wouldn’t it be awesome if the hunt proved successful? Anyone else interested?

I didn’t want to take over the weekly chat-about-everything thread and have the pros and cons of online painting tutorial swamp everything (there’s plenty other stuff going on to chat about) so made a new thread here: https://www.beastsofwar.com/forums/topic/online-painting-classes-anyone/

Ok. Let’s get it back on track.

For example, can someone please clarify: International Palm-Lick-Handshake Day, has it been cancelled this year, or just postponed ’til after the summer?

So, just over two hours into “working from home” and I got distracted. In a good way, I guess. I tried some rattle-can zenith highlighting (my airbrush just splutters and spits all over my minis, so tried with some Halfords matt primer)

I base-coated with Halfords matt black primer, then – thanks to suggestions on the previous thread – hit them at just higher than horizontal with grey, then gave them a blast from above with matt white.

The effect isn’t so great on the soldier-looking guy, but is really effective on the suit-guy. The highlights on the woman look good too, but the photo came out a bit blurry. Sure, it’s a bit speckly in places, but I’m guessing that will be lessened once I’ve put some colours over the top…

(yep, I got all artistic and made a montage-type photo for you. Working from home is going *that* well).

This weeks pledge is the next chapter of tainted grail (8? – lost track), paint my Skaven gnawholes, and pick something to start from the spring clean challenge.

Questions of the week:

1. Are you well? – Bad exzema on my hands from all the washing, but otherwise my family and I are good.
2. Are you still working or send home? – My boss an I are taking turns to work from home while the other stays in work to manage the company.
3. What miniature game would you like to have a good video game representation of? – Was about to say Battlefleet Gothic, but then remembered there are already two. I think they’re all covered these days.

Them is the film with the giant ants