Personal Painting Challenge Wrap Up

After I failed my personal painting challenge, I finished up the Deff Dread, and then decided to take some pictures of what I did complete.  Hit the jump and check out what I did get done, and then take a look at my slowly progressing army.

A warning and a reminder.  Warning, there are a bunch of pictures after the jump so if the page loads slow that's why.  And the reminder: I suck at taking pictures of miniatures, so there's that to deal with too...

Personal Painting Challenge Update #4 - FAIL

Well we saw this coming for quite a while, and it's official, I failed my personal painting challenge.  I really set myself up for this trying to do too much with my normal summer schedule chock full of family stuff, outdoor stuff, work stuff, and drinking stuff (okay that didn't work, I don't just randomly drink stuff, I just find random stuff to do while I drink).  Anyway, add in all of my normal outside summer influences and my already limited free time gets stretched pretty thin.  Knowing this, I probably should have scaled back my ambitious attempt at focusing myself on 40K.  I was working on my Nobz, so I had those to finish, I really wanted to paint my Deff Dread so I put that on my list, and I always need more Ork Boyz painted so I put those on my list.

The Nobz were a treat to paint, but because I magnetized them I had to paint a slew of arms to complete them.  This was fine, but it took longer than I expected.  The Deff Dread was a blast to paint, but for colors I went cheap.  Most of the Dread is black, grey, or metallic.  Splashes of color were mostly reserved for the cabling or details.  However I again magnetized him so all the arms and most of the weapons had to be painted.  Unfortunately timing this weekend got messed up by circumstances in Real Life that curtailed my painting time.  He's almost done, and I can likely have him finished tonight.  His body is all painted except for some minor detail work, attached to the legs, the engines are done and glued on, and really I just have some detail work on the weapons and arms to finish up.  The Ork Boyz were cleaned but I never primered them, and thus didn't even start to paint them.

So while I failed the challenge, the challenge wasn't a failure.  Thanks to this challenge I was able to refocus on 40K, refocus on what made the game fun for me, and refocus on getting my army painted.  I failed at the task I set before myself, and failed my challenge.  But the challenge didn't fail me and I'm more invigorated for 40K than ever before.

Personal Painting Challenge Update #3

When I set up this personal challenge to myself earlier this summer it was an attempt on my part to manifest my re-commitment to 40K and create a challenge to try to fit this into what is always a busy summer schedule for me.  I knew I had put some pretty heady goals for what I was trying to accomplish based on my limited time I could set aside for painting, my penchant for slow as molasses painting even with me dipping, and hard end date of Labor Day.  I'm not throwing in the towel, but the challenge is going to go down to the wire, and hope is fading.

That said, I have made progress.

My Nobz are finished.  I touched up the paint and finished dipping this week.

My Deff Dread is still a work in progress and the painting is coming along.

I have done nothing with the Ork Boyz since getting them ready to be primered.

How can I finish the challenge?  Simply put I need to buckle down and get the Deff Dread done.  IF I can focus on the Deff Dread and get done painting him by the weekend, I have a chance.  Ork Boyz are pretty basic for painting, and with large mobs of them I don't do a lot of detail work.  Yes they look good, but I don't spend the time on them like I do the other models.  I could, if time permits, feasibly get them painted in a weekend.  However it is a holiday weekend, and I am not sure how much time I will actually have.

Its' gonna be close...hopefully I can get them done.

My Personal Challenge - Update #2

In my quest at trying to find ways to fail, I think I've set up a pretty good method this month.  With two camping trips scheduled in August those weeks tend to be a complete loss for painting progress as we spend our evenings packing the camper, and getting stuff around to go.  Or at least that was the case last week.  I wasn't able to do much of anything because I was either working hard to pack stuff up, or was just too exhausted from work and everything else to focus.

But I did get some stuff done after I got home Sunday.  I glued together some of the pieces of my Deff Dread that I wanted to paint as a whole and primered them.  I've finished painting the arms of the Nobz, and have only some of the boss poles that go with them to finish up.  My Nobz bodies are all at my buddy Steve's house in the middle of a game so when that is finished I will bring them home and finish gluing them together and dip them.

I planned to magnetize and start painting the Deff Dread Wednesday, but ended up getting home late from seeing some family.  My plan is to not do much to recess the magnets, because I'm envisioning the arms looking like they are barely connected...which I think will look very Orky.  I'll have to experiment some.  I'm magnetizing the small arms to make it customizable, and the big arms to avoid breakage in transport when I take it anywhere.

The Ork Boyz have had nothing done with them, because they are currently in the middle of the same game that my Nobz are in.  So I'll clean them up and primer them when I get them back to the house.

My Personal Challenge - Update #1

I've been working as diligently as time allows on my Ork Challenge.  I always paint in pieces, and then glue together, so I started gluing together my Nobz.  I have some detail work to do, and the shoulder armor pieces need to be painted, but they are coming together quite nicely.  If I can focus on them like I want, I envision having them dipped by the end of the weekend.

The Deff Dread is completely off the sprues and cleaned up.  I'm going to magnetize the Dread so he can be customizable, so I'm looking at possibly gluing some of the bigger pieces together before I paint.  I also need to primer the pieces.

The Ork Boyz are off the sprues, but have not been cleaned yet.  Once I do that, then I'll primer them and begin the assembly line process of painting them before putting them together and dipping.

Self Reflection and the Burning Flame of 40K

I'm not going to lie, I've been in a rut when it comes to 40K lately.  Yes, there is my normal summer malaise where constant family activities and outdoor shenanigans get in the way of my 40K time.  Yes, I've just started working again which has cut into my free time.  But I'm still dealing with this sort of funk in 40K.

I think it started the last gaming party.  I played 2 games and lost them.  One (against Steve) was close, and had the dice rolls gone my way on ending the game I would have won.  The other (against James) was a complete beat down.  I was obliterated, and what few models remained were completely violated in the butt by James' Tau.  I don't play very often, actually quite rarely, and so my handle on strategy, tactics, and list building alwasy seem to loosen between games.  But the fact I have not won a game really started to weigh on me.  I lost both games in what could be (depending on how you look at it) the worst way possible:  So close I could see victory, and so devastatingly bad I should have given up before the first round started.  For me the loss against James was the worst.  I cobbled together a list based on what wasn't being used in my game with Steve, and pretty much put together a list that fed right into James' strengths but had nothing to overcome my weaknesses.  Combine that with an assault that destroyed my entire Nob squad before they could do anything, and yeah I was bitter.

Can you blame me fore bing a little bitter?

So fast forward to last week when I started using my commute to play catch up on my 40K podcasts, and I listened to Episode 30 of The Independent Characters.  Episode 30 featured some great talking points about how to move from being a newb to being a veteran.  Within the overall discussion (which I highly recommend) they had a discussion about what 40K means to you.  The gist of the discussion was you have to understand what you are looking for in the game.  Are you looking for wins?  Are you looking for fun?  Is this a hobby, or a game?  And the light came on.  In the wasteland that is my game record I was losing sight of what 40K means to me.  I mean hell yeah I want to win, and hell yeah I want to kick those squishy fishy Tau in the teeth.  But more importantly, I want to get together with my friends, salivate over each other's paint jobs, listen to the compliments about the few pieces I've painted well, nerd out, and have fun.  Winning is part of that (there is a game to play after all), but 40K is so much more than just a game.  And the hobby encompasses more than just the gaming aspect.

I enjoy painting.  I enjoy the fluff.  I enjoy the discussion and debate about the rules.  And I enjoy writing about it all.  I have my dormant times, I think we all do.  It's just human nature to not be on fire all the time.  We're fickle, and we have other interests and influences that pull us away.  But like any good hobby, it's always there, and we always come back to it.

So I'm putting forth a challenge to myself.  Even with all the distractions that come with summer, by Labor Day I am going to have my customizable magnetized Nobz squad finished.  By Labor Day I'm going to have my customizable magnetized Deff Dread finished.  And by Labor Day I'm going to have another 20 Assault on Black Reach Ork Boyz finished.

I'm going to get some WIP pictures taken and set up something in the sidebar so you can track my progress.  It's going to be tough.  I have 2 camping trips, some family gatherings, and who knows what else on the agenda between now and then, but I have a lot of work that needs to be done, and I need to keep myself focused on more than just my pathetic win/loss record.