Well, I have resisted creating a painting log on here until now, however I just committed to the 2012 painting challenge and feel I need to be able to post my progress somewhere. So here we go.
BackgroundI have been playing forever, however I've always considered myself a gamer first and a hobbyist second. I've recently been putting more effort into my armies, but that still doesn't make me think of myself as a painter. My standard approach is quantity over quality, and with a backlog like mine I'm not sure you could ever really look at it any other way. I also don't particularly enjoy painting - I like having it painted and I like knowing I did it myself, but the process itself holds little joy for me.
I only really started painting Empire last year, when I decided it was time to lift the army from an unused, unpainted state. To that end I proclaimed it the Year of the Empire and set about using only Empire in tournaments, and focusing my painting efforts exclusively on them. I've never taken that approach before, but it yielded results. Most of what you see below was painted in 2011.
The whole army - around 6000 points at this point.
Halberdiers
Handgunners and Crossbowmen
Knights Snow Leopard
Converted Kislev Kossars
Leopold's Leopard Company (Spearmen)
Pistoliers and Outriders
Regular Knights (many of them using Voland's Venators)
Steam Tank
Teutogen Guard (Greatswords)
White Wolf Knights
A few Wizards
My general, "the Doggy". And yes, that counts as a Warhorse. Poor thing.
Right then, that's where things are currently up to. There are various progress shots etc on my blog (linked in my sig), as well as a couple of battle reports and some tournament reports that accumulated over the course of the year.
Going ForwardThe army is nowhere near finished. I expect to have perhaps 4 regiments of Halberdiers, some Swordsmen, regular Greatswords, more Knights, more missile troops, artillery, characters, etc. And yes, I already have all the models. My quest will be to get as many of them done as I can, as quickly as possible. I'd like to have many of them done by about Easter, when we have tentatively planned a very, very large game.
One of the big hurdles for me (and also something that keeps me excited about this army) are the unit fillers. I've become obsessed with the idea of including 3 Ogres in each unit, dressed and equipped the same as the regular troops. My plans evolved when I discovered Instant Mold, and I have been working on and off on that since then. My only completed examples are below:
Halberdier Ogre (to match the old 4th single-pose guys.) The first I built, before I knew about Instant Mold
Kossar Ogre - this guy was done later, and I copied most of his components so I can make more
And the production line as it currently stands...
Right, so these unit fillers are likely to be the bane of my existence. But if they don't kill me, they will hopefully make the army a bit more interesting. I have committed to painting 40 Swordsmen (including 3 Ogre fillers), a Volley Gun and a mage before the end of January. Let the logging begin...