2024 Painting Log

Returning to Mythic Battles: Ragnarök, here we have the great Fafnir, a giant of a miniature who looks great and was a joy to paint. I did a black primer as usual, basecoated the ice in a grey-blue (Reaper Paints Ash Blue if you’re keeping track), then did nearly all the rest with drybrushing. At the very end I filled in his helmet (or whatever that is) and jewelry in gold and gave it a quick strong tone wash. Very quick but I think the results are pretty good.

Next we have Hel, goddess of the dead, along with some Oathbreakers and Berserkers. The groups of troop figures can be a little tedious, but these weren’t too bad and went pretty quickly. The Oathbreakers were done the same way as Fafnir, with just black primer and a bit of drybrushing. The goal is to match the game artwork as closely as possible, and the art for these is pretty dark. The Berserkers were a bit more fun, but also done with what amounts to a drybrushed base coat, then picking out a few details like skin and weapons with regular paint, then doing a wash over those to bring out the details. I finished them off with a drybrush of reddish-brown along the front of each figure, just to differentiate the human figures’ tone from that of the bear skin they’re wearing.

2024 models painted so far: 121, for 5 different games

Next up I’ll be finishing the figures I need to play the next two Ragnarök scenarios: Thor, Fenrir, a group of Seers and a group of Ulfhednar (wolf versions of the Berserkers seen here). After that I think it’ll be back to Star Wars for a while, my pile-up of unpainted Shatterpoint stuff is getting out of control. I’ve also got a fair amount of new stuff for Gangs of Rome. Ah, the curse of the short attention span…

“A long time ago” is pretty vague — it’s at least possible that Star Wars takes place at the same time as the ancient Viking sagas as described in Mythic Battles: Ragnarök. So I’m not straying too far afield by taking a quick break from the legendary Norse to get some Jedi and clones done.

I think The Bad Batch is one of the better of the recent Star Wars streaming shows, so I was happy to see them make their way into Shatterpoint. Their grey armor made them fairly straightforward to paint, just black primer, a few grey drybrushes, and then black speedpaint for the spaces between the armor plates and red and light grey armor accents. Omega took a little more work, but not much since the figure is so small and relatively undetailed.

I’m kind of struggling with the bases more than anything else. My original idea was to do the bases using either speedpaints or washes, in order to avoid having to drybrush and then do cleanup around the models’ feet. but I have found that speedpaints and washes are a little challenging when applied to relatively flat, horizontal surfaces. They tend to pool in ways that don’t look particularly good. I’m going to try to think of something else for the next batch of Shatterpoint miniatures.

I hadn’t originally planned on buying the Plans and Preparations squad pack, as Luminara Unduli & Bariss Offee aren’t particularly interesting to me, and I already have plenty of clone troopers. But I found one on clearance at a local shop, so I thought “why not?” They came out okay but I think my relative lack of enthusiasm for these characters shows through.

Next up for Shatterpoint I have the Luke and Vader sets, as well as the two squad packs from Rebels and the two from The Mandalorian, all of which should be a lot more interesting to paint. Plus I’ve been reading Tommie Soule’s book, so maybe I’ll try to apply some of his philosophy to the next batch.

2024 models painted so far: 111, for 5 different games

Or maybe just an icy battlefield. Here are 8 more for Mythic Battles: Ragnarök. These were done in my usual black primer –> drybrush a base color –> fill in other basic colors –> wash –> drybrush highlights technique that I’ve been using for most of these. I’m mostly using traditional paints rather than speedpaint — I’m not sure I really have a handle on the speedpaint process yet, but I am occasionally using them as heavy washes, or to course-correct if I find a color I’ve used needs adjusting.

Now I have enough done to actually play the first scenario, which I did over the weekend. We played the first scenario in the base game book as written, which I lost decisively. We played a second game with the standard skirmish rules using the same models, which led to a longer and somewhat more satisfying game. I do like the Mythic Battles rule set a lot, especially the use of cards to determine model activations. It gives the game a chance to show off the stellar artwork — with most games, the art is on the box and in the rulebook, and maybe you use it as a painting guide, but once you start playing you don’t really get to look at it any more.

2024 models painted so far: 102, for 5 different games

Next up: I’ve pulled out the figures I need for the next two Mythic Battles: Ragnarök scenarios — 21 in total, including 2 huge impressive looking monsters that should be fairly easy to paint quickly. I’ve also got a backlog of Star Wars: Shatterpoint sets that I’d like to get done since the boxes take up so much room, so I’ll probably be alternating between the two.

I was hoping to get to 100 miniatures painted by the halfway point of the year, but my hobby time this week got consumed with errands so I didn’t quite manage it, although I did get pretty close at 94. I really shouldn’t complain, I did get to spend the entire weekend gaming — mostly board games but I did get in a few games of Star Trek: Away Missions and Monolith’s Conan on Sunday.

Here we have another handful of Mythic Battles: Ragnarök miniatures. Most of these are gods and monsters that are around 54mm in size. You would think the larger size made them easier to paint, and it does, but in this case it also increases the amount of detail that needs attention — it’s easier to hide your mistakes with washes and drybrushing at the smaller size.

2024 models painted so far: 94, for 5 different games

I almost always paint in batches, and I like to have a few relatively easy miniatures to work on while I’m waiting for washes to dry, etc. This batch of ghosts was easy and fun.

The one on the far left is from Crooked Dice — originally I was going to try to do something different from how it’s painted on their website, I was thinking of basing the color scheme on the Scarecrow from Batman the Animated Series. But I ended up with something that looks pretty much exactly like how the miniature is painted on the Crooked Dice website…

The other three are from Reaper Miniatures. The two in the middle are pretty standard, but for the one on the right I was thinking of the classic white sheet with eyeholes Halloween costume.

These don’t have a particular purpose, but they’ll most likely be used for 7TV as part of a Ghostbusters-style scenario. I’ll have to see if I can find a cheap Marshmallow Man toy…

2024 models painted so far: 88, for 5 different games

My interim goal is to get to 100 by June 30. 12 more to go…

In the midst of the mad dash to finish my Spring Clean Challenge project, I still managed to get some more Mythic Battles: Ragnarok figures done. I’ve started on the core box in earnest — I started out by picking figures out of the box one row at a time, but if I keep that up I’ll have to finish everything before I get to actually play the game. So I’ve course-corrected slightly by looking at which figures are needed to play the first scenario and working on those first. This batch is more of a random smattering, but when I get the next batch done I should have enough to play.

2024 models painted so far: 84, for 4 different games

I’m starting to get a little fatigued by excessive Kickstarter games that bury you in grey plastic, but at the same time, I am looking forward to playing this game as I’ve really enjoyed Mythic Battles: Pantheon. And say what you like about Monolith, but they do make great looking miniatures.

For reasons I don’t clearly recall, I’ve decided to start this massive undertaking with the Ragnar Saga expansion. For me, the goal with board game miniatures is to get them looking as close as possible to the accompanying artwork — the only thing that really matters is being able to easily tell who is who. This might be a little challenging with this game, as a lot of the artwork is on the dark and murky side, but the art for these figures is actually pretty good. Luckily, the art book that came with the Kickstarter pledge includes the full image for Eysteinn Beli so I was able to see what color the giant cow is supposed to be (you’ll just have to take my word for it unless you have the book).

These were done by priming in black, drybrushing in various browns (grey for the giant cow), and then filling in other colors where needed. I used a bit of speedpaint here and there (mainly on Ivar’s shield which you can’t see because it’s on his back), and washes where needed to darken up the color a bit. Then a final light drybrush of an off-white to add highlights. The other goal with board game miniatures is to get them done as quickly as possible since there are so many of them.

There is one miniature from the core box here (Gullveig) — I had to pull it out in order to straighten the spears out (the hot water trick really does work!), so I decided to go ahead and slap some paint on it to make it an even six. Only about a hundred more to go…

2024 models painted so far: 75, for 4 different games

Here are the last Star Trek: Away Missions figures: the original series crew, including Lt. Leslie, the ultimate red shirt. Apparently Leslie (played by actor Eddie Paskey) appears in the background in almost every episode of the original series. He’s worn all three colors at various times, and has the distinction of having died and then reappeared later in the very same episode.

Like the rest of the miniatures for this game, these were great fun to paint. I started this batch out primed in light grey and then drybrushed white, thinking I would try to do them entirely in speedpaints to give them a slightly different look from the Next Generation crew. I got mixed results, and ended up doing extensive highlights over the speedpaint with traditional paints (I even repainted Chekov almost entirely). The final results look good though, and I’m looking forward to spending some more time with the game.

2024 models painted so far: 69, for 3 different games

I’m thrilled and surprised to have received not one, but two Golden Buttons related to this project, one for the first round of Star Trek: Away Missions figures back in March, and another this week for the Gangs of Rome models. The encouragement and validation really means a lot, it’s definitely a great motivator to get more painting done.

And here are the rest of the miniatures from the recent Gangs of Rome Kickstarter, plus the Reapers of Minerva, a set from a few years ago that I never got around to painting. These went considerably faster than the first batch since seven of the thirteen are Vigiles (Roman police, more or less) who wear the same outfit, and one was a statue that took all of 15 minutes to do.

And yes, I’m counting the 2-per-base Vigiles as two figures each.

With these done I’m looking forward to getting a game or two in, maybe even this weekend…

2024 models painted so far: 61, for 3 different games

Up next: I’ve got the rest of the Star Trek Away Missions figures primed, as well as the first batch of Mythic Battles Ragnarok (I may post those as a separate project since there are so many of them, we’ll see). I also (perhaps foolishly) bought the miniatures upgrade pack for V-Sabotage (formerly V-Commandos), which adds 110 more figures to my queue. I seem to be on a tear with regards to miniature/board game hybrids…

My entry into Gangs of Rome followed an all too familiar pattern. I read about the game and it sounded interesting (it’s possible I had just rewatched the Rome TV series and was flush with enthusiasm for ancient Rome). So I bought the rule book, accessories and enough miniatures to try it out, plus a terrain kit or two from Sarissa. Assembled and painted everything, then played the game and enjoyed it quite a bit, although I did find some elements of the game to be a little fiddly, particularly the damage and equipment tokens. I especially like the amount of NPC action the game has, between the mobs that wander around the board and the individual incola who do things like throw scorpions at your fighters for no good reason. I bought more miniatures and terrain, painted those…and never played the game again. That was in 2020.

I like the game and the setting, it’s just that there aren’t enough days in the week for me to have time to play all the games I want to. However, the Kickstarter for the second edition caught my attention — it looked like they addressed most of the issues I had with the game, and the new action system involving planning out your actions and then rolling to see how many you can actually accomplish looked interesting, so I decided to give it another go.

I have quite a few miniatures from the older edition which of course are perfectly usable, but I am conditioned to paint first, then play, so I want to get the new miniatures done before I try out the new rules. This represents just under half (10 out of 23) so I’m well on my way.

These were all done primarily with speedpaints over a black-then-drybrushed primer (still not calling it Slap Chop). The speedpaint flesh tone doesn’t cover particularly well, so after one test (the puppeteer), I did the skin on the rest of the figures by painting flat skin tone with regular paint and then doing a flesh wash. But I think maybe my bottle of flesh wash might have gone off, it was pooling and drying in a really patchy way. So I had to go back over most of the skin with regular paint to clean up the mid tones and highlights.

2024 models painted so far: 48, for 3 different games

I decided to use the old black primer –> drybrush –> speedpaint –> highlights technique for the Klingons, since there isn’t much variation between their mostly grey uniforms. I tried to add a little variation with their skin and hair color, and of course the Duras Sisters and their annoying nephew Toral all wear red collars and sleeves (although, weirdly they changed to green in the second part of the two-episode story that introduces them).

I’m quite pleased with the way these came out, given the short amount of time I spent on them. I think Gowron’s likeness is particularly good.

2024 models painted so far: 38

I’ve still got the two Original Series sets to do, which feature all Federation characters so they should be fun and colorful, although I do want to try to make them look distinct from the Next Generation characters. I might take a break and work on some other stuff before I get back to them. I’ve got a ton of other stuff waiting in the wings: more Shatterpoint, Gangs of Rome, Savage Core, Test of Honour, a few others, and the big one: Mythic Battles Ragnarok, clocking in at 109 miniatures plus a bunch of terrain pieces. Hmmm, maybe I should finish up the Star Trek characters first…

I had a feeling that the Federation characters would be the most fun to paint, and I was right. There is something really satisfying about painting bright primary colors, and these models have more expressive faces than the Romulans or Borg.

These have such flat surfaces that my usual base-coat-and-drybrush technique didn’t look all that good, so I went over it with a lot of flat layers. I think they finished up looking more or less how I wanted them to.

A few notes:

• Worf was by far the most fun to do, with Riker a close second. Those eyebrows!
• There are probably 12 layers of paint on Data’s face and hands. His skin tone was very difficult to get right — it’s a pale gold (or yellowish silver) and since it’s metallic it picks up reflections from whatever room he’s in. Plus it’s a lot more yellow-gold in the films as opposed to the TV series.
• Shelby was an interesting addition, but it makes sense given her prominent appearance in the episodes the game is based on, and I’m glad they included another female character.

Next up: the Klingons!

2024 models painted so far: 29

Moving on from Star Wars to Star Trek…

I hadn’t planned on getting into Star Trek: Away Missions. The goofy looking miniatures were a bit of a turn-off, and I never really thought Star Trek was a good fit for a skirmish game, since it usually tries to be about non-violent solutions and doesn’t actually feature combat very often. But, the OTT Let’s Play made the game look interesting, with an emphasis on mission solving over head to head combat, and I am a big Star Trek fan, so…

I originally wanted to do these in a more flat, action figure style, rather than falling back on the usual base coat-wash-drybrush. After a few false starts with the Borg I ended up doing a drybrush with metallic black, painting in the pasty faces with a mid grey and drybrushing a lighter grey, then filling in a few details in silver and washing over that.

The Romulans were more interesting but also a bit more difficult. On the TV show there are actually several different styles of Romulan uniforms, but that doesn’t really come through in the sculpts. I tried copying some of the different quilt patterns on their jackets, but I don’t think it’s very noticeable. Luckily the character names are on the bases so you can tell them apart during play.

I managed to get my hands on the Q promotional figure, and he was by far the most fun to paint so far. I do have to admit that the cartoony style of the figures is growing on me — I’m actually painting eyes for the first time in years. Next up is the Next Generation crew, which should be fun to do since there is a lot more variation between the characters.

2024 models painted so far: 20

Well, I’ve just spent nearly three weeks of hobby time on it, so I’m going to say yes. Especially when it comes to plastic Star Wars: Shatterpoint buildings and bridges — they have enough detail bits that they often feel more like figures than terrain.

I don’t really like assembling miniatures, but I do enjoy painting them. I have found that the opposite is true when it comes to terrain: I enjoy the assembly but painting those wide, flat expanses of wall can get boring, and my usual techniques (washes, drybrushing) are either much more difficult or don’t really do anything useful.

In this case, however, I think these came out okay. The tan buildings were primed in Army Painter Leather Brown primer, and the bridges and rooftops in black. It was a rare case where I used spray primer, as brush-on would look awful on all those flat surfaces.

When I painted the terrain from the Shatterpoint base set I assembled first, then primed & painted, but for these (the “High Ground” terrain pack), I primed and did some of the basic painting first, then assembled, then touched up the details, which I think was a little easier, or at least faster. most of the painting was drybrushed tan or silver, then I went in and did all the wires and control panels. For the grey concrete I did a base coat of a mid-grey, then drybrushed in a lighter grey.

I’m happy to have these done, but I’ll be even happier to get back to some actual tiny fighting men. I’ve got miniatures for Gangs of Rome and Star Trek: Away Missions in various stages of prep, plus a bunch of the Wyrm Forge “Sky Wars” characters who look like they’ll be a lot of fun to paint.

2024 models painted so far: still 8

2024 terrain pieces painted so far: let’s call it 7 (3 buildings and 4 bridges) and not worry about the ladders and boxes.

First up we have some Star Wars: Shatterpoint figures that have been languishing on my “in progress ledge” for some time now. These were assembled and primed in December, but I didn’t get any actual paint on them until last week. Most of them were primed in Army Painter brush-on grey, then drybrushed white, then painted with Army Painter Speedpaint 2.0 paints (I dislike the term “Slap Chop,” which doesn’t really describe the technique and is also the name of a vegetable slicer kitchen gadget).

After doing a base coat with the speedpaints I painted in the odd detail with regular paint, and drybrushed over the top to get some extra highlights.

The Clone Troopers were pretty much ready to go after priming and drybrushing, I just had to add some black for the armor joints and weapons, and then the red stripes for the Clone Commander. For Savage Opress, I primed in black and then just did some quick highlights and details (face & lightsaber). The green smoke is the only part that I used speedpaint for.

I like the brushstroke look that we see on the Clone Wars animated series. I tell myself that I’m making a conscious effort to mimic that style, but really I think that’s just what my painting style always looks like…

I finished these on Friday, and did manage to get a game in using some of them (Savage and the Dathomir witches) the very next day.

2024 models painted so far: 8