Greetings readers! Well Week 5 has come and gone, and sadly, I have my first post showing off a failure, I did not finish the last 5 models for my unit…
While there are a dozen reasons, some good, some bad for this, it mostly boiled down to I had other things that I wanted to do with my free time.
One of the major drains on my time has been a childhood goal, that I am drawing close to completing; beating a video game I have tried multiple times, but never quite seen thru. Rated one of the best JRPGs of all time, filled with interesting characters and stories, and a spiky haired, angsty protagonist, I am talking about Final Fantasy 7.
Some of you just groaned and probably started typing what you think the best Final Fantasy game is, others smiled and nodded, and still others grimaced at the time spent video gaming when it could be painting!
I was listening to a hobby podcast and one of the host mentioned that miniature wargaming can be an all consuming hobby, we read, listen, and chat pretty much everyday about it in some form or another, and we tend to organize our precious free time around it; sometimes to the point where we feel guilty when we do something else we enjoy. This host specifically mentioned feeling guilty when lounging and enjoying a video game, because he was painfully aware of the mountain of unpainted minis in his gaming room.
When I was listening I initially scoffed and thought, “that is ridiculous, he should do what he wants with his time. Why not enjoy something different every now and then.” And then, I realized I am the exact same way…
Without going on too deep a tangent, I think this is why some of us (lets face it most of us) can grow to resent painting, because we feel guilty when we replace some of that time with something else. I don’t think this is the healthiest of perspectives, after all, both video gaming and miniature painting are my hobbies, I should enjoy both.
So, with Final Fantasy SO close to being beaten, my plan is to allocate more time to that, while still making time to paint nearly every other night or so. Once I beat FF7, then I will return to painting full steam ahead, with occasional video game time sprinkled in.
With that rant, string of excuses, and self examination out of the way, lets see what I did last week.
This picture is a little dated, the headcrests on the helmets are also finished, and I have started on the blue. 1 good paint session should finish up most of the unit! However, beyond my free time being divided, I ran into one other problem, my poor banner.
So my banner snapped, and I decided I would pin it to the model’s hand. Easy right? Well it had been a while since I pinned something, so I drilled into his hand, and then realized I had no rods to put in, but the toothpicks I had were the perfect size. Boom problem solved right?
Nope, that also snapped, leaving that area of his hand stuffed, and me rather annoyed. I still had 11 models in the unit without this guy, so I popped him off my pop sickle stick and set him to the side figuring I would deal with him later.
Let this be a lesson to all of you, often when you try to cut corners on stuff like this it bites you in the ass! I should have just waited till I could buy some proper metal rods to pin this.
Right, so commitments for next (this) week. I WILL finish this regiment of Soul Reavers, then I want to work on re-purposing a few of the peasant units I have. I think both Skeleton Archer Troops, and the Catapult would be perfect. For the Catapult I need to put it on a base, I am thinking 75mm to give it more room for some nice scenic posing for the crew.
I did play in a one day event here in Baltimore, and it left me very excited for Undead in 3rd edition. While I won’t talk about that much here (look for a future article in the next few weeks), it has me excited to get this army done and on the table!
Until next week, keep hobbying, but more importantly, keep allowing time for things you enjoy, what ever that may be :D!
