2024 Painting Log

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 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

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 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…

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

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.

“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

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…