Miniatures Painting Again

This weekend is the HMGS Fall In! convention in Lancaster (PA), and I probably won't make it out there this year, even for a brief fly-by. Even if I no longer feel the need to block out the 2-3 days to attend the whole convention, play in a few games, and perhaps even run a game or two, I still always enjoy stopping in to these conventions for part of a day to wander the event rooms and get energized to go home and do some painting of my own.

That won't happen this time around but I am happy to say that the painting bug has already bitten recently, and I have been properly re-energized as far as painting goes. I have noted in recent posts that I have been painting some sci-fi stuff along with Ryan and Josh (for Kill Team), but the painting binge has extended beyond that.

There is a very nice ongoing line of releases for WizKids unpainted D&D miniatures (and Pathfinder minis). The figures are very nice for the most part, and pre-primed, so all you need to do is break something out of the package and dive in. Below are a few of the things I have been working on over the past few months. I won't discuss backlog of unpainted purchases...

Recent batch of painting - high view

The newly painted lot includes (in rough order of completion) a griffon, 4 gargoyles, 2 rust monsters, a pair of umber hulks (there are 2 more finished in addition to these 2), an earth elemental and a troll.

Recent batch of painting - lower view

These minis are the made from the same softer plastic that the pre-painted WizKids stuff is. I have purchased loads of those over the past 3-4 years. The paint jobs range from pretty good to pretty "meh", but they are ready to go on the table the moment that the magical eBay fairy delivers them to my house from my main supplier in New Mexico (kingsoflight eBay store - great folks...).

I paint better than the mass produced stuff coming over from China, but I also don't have to crank out "x" number of figures per hour. The main difference in my painted stuff versus the pre-painted is that I tend to go for brighter cleaner colors (or maybe I should say lighter cleaner colors). Some of the pre-painted stuff is pretty dark, and can blend into a table pretty well in a not-perfectly lit basement gaming area.

Next up on the painting table is up in the air at the moment. I have sci-fi stuff to finish for whenever we get together for another round of Kill Team. I have a bunch of WizKids character figures to paint that will be a fun challenge, but which I don't really need for anything as far as actual gaming goes. There are a bunch of elementals, mimics and other D&D monsters to get to at some point. And I can always dive back into my prepped-and-primed backlog of historical minis, especially Ottomans and later medieval Hungarians and other eastern Europeans.

Time will tell....