Lockdown Day 23: Interlude of Ponderment

Hi!

After I posted my last update, I spent the evening and this morning having a bit of a ponder on what exactly it is that I have found so enjoyable about painting all these older figures and why I get put off 28mm so easily.

I think I may have stumbled over the answer as I sat painting a Void 1.1 Assault Androsynth. It's a considerably more modern figure than the stuff I've been painting and enjoying and it's technically very well sculpted. The proportions are better than Flintloque miniatures, the sculpting is smooth and detailed but I have had absolutely no pleasure in working on it whatsoever.

Last attempt at painting Syntha

I will finish it but why have I had such a negative response to painting this one 28mm sci-fi chappy? I suspect that it is precisely because it is a technically good, mordernish sculpt. There's just no character or charm to it. It's bland and uninspiring and I just don't have the jolly response to it that I did with the old plastic GW Ork boyz or my Flintloque project. Similarly, I could paint something similar in 15mm and actually enjoy the end result. Maybe it's because at the smaller scale a not quite perfect paint job is more forgiving or the techniques for getting the results I want are different.

In 28mm I love the charm and quirkiness of Flintloque with it's chunky, slightly cartoony proportions and the older miniatures are very forgiving to paint but this new figure I have sat down to paint has had me pick it up and put it down repeatedly and just been a bit of an uninspiring lump of lead.

During the Lockdown of doom, my enjoyment of painting has really helped keep me sane whilst being stuck in the house for 23 hours of the day and having found myself frustrated with this one figure has irked me and I wondered what I could do about it.

The Boar Company

My first response would be to sculpt all my own stuff as over the years, I have put together quite a few different projects that I have sculpted, be it Rusty Robots, Somewhere on the Border, Battletech SD or even tiny Orks, each chunky and hopefully characterful but there have been none that I have balked at painting as I created them myself and therefore didn't find myself stuck with what to do with them.

Rusty Robots

As I mentioned in my last post, I have actually pulled out the sculpting tools and am nearing finishing a group of Rusty Robots which I hope to get painted up this week and I have got enough of my Somewhere on the Border stuff to play all sorts of small skirmishes but I keep seeing interesting ranges that fire my imagination and get distracted!

 SD Battletech

I think that one remedy to the situation will be to spend a couple of days a week sculpting during the lockdown to see what I can put together and the rest of the time choosing only the miniatures I enjoy painting to work on. I think that I need to go for my book approach, in that if a book doesn't catch me within 50-100 pages, I discard it for another with the discard going to charity, in this case, miniatures which don't catch me being sent to ebay for recycling into the hobby fund!

Boodaxe Boyz

The other thing I am keen to do is explore some of the new and for the most part still readily available ranges that I find quirky, characterful and charming with the following three being high on the list:

Relics is a fascinating range of stitchpunk figures with bundles of character and very unusual forces to choose from. The downside is that the range got sold and seems to have pretty much vanished into the Aether which is a real shame.

War of Ashes, be it Shieldbash or Shieldwall are both in production and the miniatures are available, even if it is from the USA so shipping and import duties become a bit of an issue. The only niggle is that Zombiesmith is currently reworking the sculpts into a slightly larger scale which puts me off picking up any more for the time being.

The final option for the time being is the World of Twilight which I briefly mentioned in my last post. I've heard so many good things about the game and miniatures and it certainly ticks many boxes for me. The figures are certainly interesting and I may have to dip my toe in the water so to speak and pick up a few to see how I get on!

I also plan on keeping on with the Flintloque/Deadloque stuff as I have really had so much fun painting them that it seems a shame to stop when there are so many other great figures to paint.

As for the rulesets that have interesting factions, forces and races, I think I will translate them to 15mm as I did with the Syntha chaps which will allow me to keep the inspiration but make it more usable in smaller scale. I've done this for Warhammer to a certain extent with my 6mm Goblins who will eventually be a decent sized horde but using 3rd/4th edition Fantasy Battle as inspiration.

We shall see how things go in the next few weeks but I also have my 2mm stuff bubbling away too which reminds me that I have a bunch of Land Ironclads to work on...

Needless to say I'll probably get distracted by something during this time but hopefully I'll be able to keep my hobby mojo going and refreshed by my new approach so watch this space. 

In the meantime, All the best!