October of this year will mark 20 years since I bought my first Tactical Squad, along with the new 3rd Edition Space Marine codex, from a GW in Australia.
Since that time I have failed to properly complete a single army. Worse than that, I'm 99% sure that I've never actually managed to complete the compulsory 1 HQ/2 Troops that all armies are built off of.
picard-facepalm.jpg, right?
This must stop!
Part of what's holding me back is that the quality of my painting output varies wildly. For example, this -
is a WIP Typhon that has sat in a box for a good long while. I think this is pretty good. It's not going to win any competitions, but hey. I'm happy with how he's looking. I did most of what's done on this about two years ago before I packed in the idea of Heresy Death Guard and decided I'd stick to Loyalists. I've come back to him a couple of times to add bits or tidy up, but this is probably one of the best attempts I've ever made. Especially the face, which I'm particularly proud of.
Contrast that, to this -
which is a WIP of an Imperial Fist that I was working on yesterday to try and lock down my method for the ETL (I have sooooooo many of these guys to paint ). Admittedly, it's my first time ever trying an oil wash, which didn't really work, but you can see how flat and boring that yellow is, even after a bunch of airbrush coats of the base colour and shading, etc. etc. The only thing that's giving it any life is the gloss varnish reflecting the sun.
I know yellow's a pain, but equally, I also know how to paint it. I just tend to rush the boring stuff and only really focus when I'm doing something fun or difficult. For example, I painted this Doom-Guy style head at 1am this morning, after ETL went live.
Now, I suck as much at faces at the next guy does, but I knocked this out in about 10 minutes (excluding drying time), and it's got eyes and everything! Still WIP, but it's for a Sergeant so I'll likely not do too much more with it. But the point is, I did this on the same day as I did the awful Imperial Fist test above. I find my inconsistency so incredibly frustrating!
Which I suppose will hopefully be the point of this Plog. I want everything I paint to be at a higher level than I usually manage, and I want it to be consistent across an army. The ETL seems like a good time to start, because I've vowed, so I have to paint.
I will chuck in some fluff bits every now and again as and when I have time to write something of some quality, but the focus (for the next three months at least) will be on my Heresy stuff.
Wish me luck, and thank you for reading!