Having a second kid is not quite the mega-shock as the first one, but it doesn’t leave any time for anything at all. Given my 2 hours per day during my paternity that I’m not chasing after a 2 year old, I didn’t have a lot of time at all to read or do anything but sleep, and basically went insane about 4 days ago, pretty much right according to plan. That said, I busted out some Foundry Old West miniatures that had been sitting on my painting table for well over a year as a means, in half hour stints, to do something other than housework and child-care. As frustrating and tedious the hobby of painting small toy soldiers is, it really is a relaxing way to span productive time. You sit, look out a window for a little while, lay some paint, look at it, mix up some blends, look out the window, etc. Most of my work life is collaborative work, essentially getting other people to actually talk to each other to collaborate, and so working on a project all alone with a tangible, physical result (not a UT3 level or web page) is a bonus to the relaxation. Oh, yeah, now with 16 Old West miniatures complete as of today, I might actually be able to rope some people in to playing–that is if I can find some terrain.
Here are some shots of the figs. For my true 28 and 25mm miniatures, I have been entirely influenced by Kevin Dallimore’s 3-color layering method. I don’t recommend this on the giant 32mm (Games Workshop/ Rackham) at all, but for 25-28MM it is an awesome and effective approach as well as being forgiving if your eyes are not what they used to be.
The Town Drunk
With every batch of miniatures (I usually work on 3-5 at a time) there is one that I don’t spend much time on– just throw paint on and see what happens. I thought the town drunk would be the one in this group, but it undoubtably was not– I love this model– the face has oodles of Marx bro’s character to it and the stance is just plain silly. I made the suit all one color– I wanted him to seem very dirty but with some fine clothes on–turned out fairly well.
The Kid
This one is another great stance and face. I made the mistake of making his hat and cravat green, and his suspenders red at first–and then I dubbed him the Xmas kid–I can’t tell you how many times I’ve made the mistake of combining those two colors. I changed the hat to black and that solved it.
The Apache
This dude is the badass of the set and I spent the most time on him for sure. Worked on the pearl handle for his pistol and really worked the flesh in the face to get that scar to show. All and all a great model to paint.
The Whore
This was a fixed up paint job as I fucking DROPPED the model a few years ago and haven’t really painted since. Getting this one to look nice and get the base redone was key. I think she turned out pretty well. Proportionally though, 25-28mm scale doesn’t do well with the female form…
My wife mentioned that she would put miniature gamers lower on the nerd scale than even LARP’ers.