30-Day Challenge: 7 Days In

  Hullo! Today is Day 7 of the 30-Day Challenge between myself and Durne Kell. Pardon my lack of updates over the last few days, but I have been very busy with work, taking a day-trip with my brother and trying to catch up on lost sleep. I have failed, miserably, at the last...staying up hours past my bedtime, poking around on twitter. Note that I did not say anything about pushing on with finishing my Necron Warriors.

  In three days, I have glued arms and heads onto scrap sprues as preparation for the next steps of priming and base-coating them. Only two out of four sprues have been completed.


  This step was (temporarily) hampered by me losing one, very tiny arm. This was unacceptable, as the deal was that *all* parts needed to be ready for final painting.

  I never found the arm, but I have a friend who has been kind enough to give me a completely built and primed Warrior. I will, of course, be tearing the arms off of the mini, smoothing lines to meet my quality standards and re-primimg the entire model. Or maybe I'll just use the arms...

  The only other advancement I have made between the last post and this,  was to assemble 21 out of 28 minis to pre-priming level.

  Curious as to how far along the competition was, as he had also been lax in posting updates, I was soon to receive this in my inbox.

He was even so thoughtful to add the caption, "You will look good wearing green nail polish".

  After a few moments of throwing some profanities regarding how gently something could be done with a chainsaw, I was almost ready to admit defeat.

  Then, lo and behold, I received another picture...

This one being titled, "Reality".

  I was so relieved when Durne Kell informed me that he had hurriedly propped up the pieces of his Land Raider Achilles in order to make me feel the heat. The man is evil, I tell ya.

   But he may gain a huge amount of ground on me tonight...I haven't slept in 27 hours, and can not muster the energy to work tonight. Meanwhile, my evil friend will most likely work on his tank for another 6+ hours. Tonight might clinch the win for him.
  Zzzzzzz....
 

30-Day Challenge: Update

  With only 27 days left to the 30-Day Challenge, I thought I'd give an update on where I am in the progression of things. Not very far along, at all, I'm afraid.

  I already had 14 Necron Warriors cleaned of mould-lines and half-assembled. Half-assembled means that the torso halves are glued together and attached to the leg segment, which is in turn glued the base. Also, I already had 14 Gauss Flayers fully cleaned and assembled.

  I do not consider this as being an advantage to me as my opponent, Durne Kell, had already informed me that the parts to his Land Raider were already cleaned, and a couple of pieces had already been primed.

  Today I finally got cracking on filing off every line my scrutinous eye could find. This is a slow process for me to begin with...slowed down more by me being busy at work and only being able to work on minis on my 10-minute breaks.

  Here is the approximate progress made during my first break of the day (there were already 4 or 5 pieces done from the other day):



  And here is what I managed to finish by shift-end:


  This is what my opponent accomplished today. And he claims to have 11 more steps of painting needed to complete the track. Now, he's been called out for a job, giving me time to work on all these bits of plastic.:)

Deadlines: Game On!

Welcome back to The Closet Painter. I'd like to credit my absence to me preparing my envisioned painting space, but that is not why I haven't posted all week. The closest I have come to working on my closet has been creating a mental list of items I will need to replace those available to me at my current painting locale. Not much in the way of progress, I know.

I spend a lot of time on twitter, and on other electronic messaging venues, and have made several on-line friends. Two nights ago, I was dealt a friendly challenge...a race, of sorts... In 30 days' time, I need to have all 28 of my Necron Warriors 1)cleaned of all mould-lines 2)assembled as far as I want them to be for painting purposes 3)primed/basecoated. Meanwhile, my opponent has placed upon himself, a 30-day deadline to finish priming, assembling, painting and detailing his Land Raider.

So, to him I say, "Game on!".

Some of you may be thinking that 30 days is a ridiculously long time to accomplish such simple goals. I assure you that, to me, one month does not feel like an ample amount of time (please see my last post on Procrastion). I am extremely obsessive about removing mould-lines from my minis, whether the lines will be visible after final-assembly or not; and my competitor claims to be very detail-oriented when it comes to painting. Also, we both work long, odd hours (here is where I feel at a slight disadvantage as some days, but not many, my challenger works from home). So I have been transporting my tray of 'cron body parts (macabre hobby, isn't it?) to work, but making little headway on them because, hey, it's more fun to tweet on break than it is to delve into monotonous, meticulous scraping and filing.

Maybe I'll get started on them tomorrow...;)

Oh, and to anyone still hanging around, reading this, the wager was placed on the table as follows: The loser must wear green nail polish for a day. I'm a girl, so no biggie, really. However, I am upping the ante... Now, the loser must wear green nail polish for a week, with daily photographic evidence (think, "a dated newspaper").

Game On!

p.s. You may meet my challenger, Durne Kell,here. Please, do your best to distract him;)

Procrastination

  I am a firm believer that a person's name bestows upon him or her particular personality attributes. Traits not controlled by fate, or environment... By that logic, my name must have gifted (or cursed) me with the annoying habit of being a procrastinator. I have always been one to push off every little thing until the last possible moment.

  As irritating as this habit seems to be on the surface, it really is advantageous to me; I do my best work when under pressure. Whether that work is writing a report, whipping up a dish to pass at a pot-luck or painting a mini...pushing deadlines works for me.

  I hammered out the Harlequin shown below, from bare-metal to sealed in about 3 hours. It was my most feverish painting session ever, as that particular mini was Con-bound and due to leave a mere 5 hours after its completion.

  So, now, in addition to having deadlines to study the WHFB Wood Elves codex, WH40k Rulebook and 40k Apocalypse book, I need a deadline to finish setting up my closet painting space.

  I think. I'll put off setting that deadline until tomorrow...

Welcome

Hullo, and welcome to "The Closet Painter". Please excuse the slight disarray as, while just starting out, this site currently mirrors the state of my life in general, and my painting/gaming habits in specific.

While painting miniatures has been a long-time love of mine, and I don't claim to be any good at it, I have been away from the hobby for far too long. Up until this past July, I hadn't touched a brush, mini or paint pot in nearly 12 years...Life just invaded into any free-time that I used to have for the hobby.

Thanks to an old friend (the one who introduced me, so many years ago, to table-top wargaming and miniature-painting), I have re-discovered why I love the hobby so...it's an artistic, creative outlet...one in which I can escape reality for an hour, two or even an entire weekend. One that fills me with a sense of pride, satisfaction and soul-completion when looking at a finished piece of work.

Still, in part due to the fact that I do not paint at home and I still have that pesky thing called Life intruding into my free-time, I have not dedicated as much time as I'd like to the hobby.

So, I have resolved myself to setting up a little painting area in my already crowded flat. Unfortunately, the only out-of-the-way *and* cat-proof area is in my bedroom closet. Hence, I shall become "The Closet Painter".
It should be relatively easy to make the closet transformation a reality...It's a rather large, walk-in closet, already furnished with an old, metal kitchen table. All it's lacking is a comfortable chair, a good lamp, my paints/minis/supplies and me.

That's it for now. A very hearty "Thank you!" goes out to my twitter friends for giving me the inspiration to not only get cracking with my painting, but also to start a blog.

Until next time...