Quarter 2 2016 Painting Summary

Some mixed feelings of where I am at with painting right now. On the whole, I have managed to paint quite a few minis in the last three months. However, unfortunately for a little over two weeks one of our cats has been very ill, and supporting him has meant my wife and I have been pretty tired and I have not been feeling particularly motivated to paint, so less output in June than originally hoped for. The most important thing is making our little cat as comfortable as possible for as long as possible, and hobby stuff will be there in the future.

In all I painted 12 minis in the last quarter, across 5 ranges, adding a couple of new ranges (Malifaux and G.I. Joe). I didn't play many games in the last three months, but have done some game design writing, and continue to work on the ongoing development of Pulp City with the rest of the Pulp Monsters team, so mixed outputs overall.

Painted in Q2 (-1 from Q2 2015)

• Pulp City: 5 minis
• BMG: 4 minis 
• Freebooters Fate: 1 mini
• Malifaux: 1 mini
• G.I. Joe: 1 mini

Not sure how things will progress over the next few weeks, but I will try and add stuff from time to time.

Sgt. Slaughter (G.I. Joe)

Only my second painted mini this month, and a bit of a surprise, even to me. A couple of months ago I would not have envisaged on starting yet another project, but I suspect that in painting Sgt. Slaughter I may have done just that!

I first encountered G.I. Joe through Action Force and Marvel UK in the 80's. Over time I grew to understand to rich background more and more and the distinction between Action Force and G.I. Joe, but then left it until IDW comics relaunched G.I. Joe in 2008. There are 4 or 5 IP's I love above all others, and G.I. Joe would certainly be up there. I was lucky enough to get hold of this mini and others from someone's private commission and they are not available commercially.

While not my favourite character (that would be one of several: Beach Head, Snake Eyes, Chuckles, Lady Jaye, Flint or a few others - they have a lot of characters!) , I thought former WWE/WWF star turned G.I. Joe drill sergeant Sgt. Slaughter would be a good tester for the olive colour I had in mind for some of the Joe's uniforms. I didn't follow the exact colour scheme on the action figure versions, but went for something that felt right with those points of reference.

The base is by Tiny Worlds, and I will certainly be getting more - I am very impressed with the first ones I picked up from them.

I have been very inspired by the thought of painting some more G.I. Joe minis, to the extent that I have been working on some game ideas, and re-purposing some previously unused game development work. The rules I am working on have the working title of Squad Wars (there is a reason or two behind that title), so hopefully this year I may get some G.I. Joe (and Cobra!) gaming done. Watch the blog to see how I get on.

G.I. Joe Minis Painted

G.I. Joe team: 1

Cobra: 0

Black Flash

Black Flash is the 46th BMG mini I have painted, and while not hard to complete by any stretch, it is far from a great mini (more on why later).

In the comics, I gather Black Flash is an avatar of death for those who access the Speed Force. I have not been a regular Flash reader since the early 80's, so while I am aware of the character, I am not that familiar with it. In BMG games Black Flash is essentially an effect token: he is not a starting member of your crew, but a representation of 'something bad' happening a Speedster fails a Paradox roll and then rolls 'double '6 on 2d6. Suffice it to say that probability suggests he won't likley crop up that often.

The mini was free as part of 'The Flash and The Arrow' expansion book pre-order. As an exclusive incentive, I am sorry to say I think he is a pretty odd choice as designed in game terms - something to paint up on the off-chance it very occasionally shows up. A better option may have been an alt-costume Arrow/Green Arrow or Flash mini that can be used directly and still ties into the book theme.

While I am not planning to paint up any Speedsters any time soon, this mini just looked like a quick win in maintaining painting momentum. Not sure what I will paint next for BMG as I have already achieved my target for year, plus a few extra. That said, I would like to finish the Joker crew, the Watchmen crew and maybe get a Team together.

The casting wasn't great, once again. Some recent Knight Models stuff I have found to be nice and crisp, of much higher quality than stuff I had assembled previously. This felt to me like them back to some of their worst casting. The cast itself had a roughness in terms of lumps of flash, but also that weirdly paint would not flow into some micro-pits. As I painted, I kept seeing the glint of metal that paint had not adhered to properly. That said, it wasn't a difficult paint-job once I had blocked in the reds, although some of the definition for the red lightning stroke banding was lacking in places. I have seen that on other BMG minis where it seems the sculptor has simply not bothered with continuing some aspect of detailing (Nite Owl was a previous example, and having assembled but not yet painted comics Black Canary, she is another).

BMG Painting Summary
BMG characters owned: 210 (added: nothing new, but some stuff is due imminently)
Percentage of owned characters painted: 21.9% (46 models)