Let the blog begin!

Well this should be interesting. In the category of new tricks...I will try "start a blog" for $500...
I have no idea how this will turn out, but I decided to go out into the vast abyss of the third stall in my garage and have a go at reducing the "lead mountain"...Yes, yes, I have heard the stories about what happens to a wargamer if he or she reduces their hoard of lead to nothing. One, I have no illusions that I could ever paint that many figures in what is likely to remain of this lifetime; and two, I am not afraid to cheat and buy more!!!

So two nights ago, 28 July, 2013, I broke out the Perry plastics and two bags of Perry and Foundry French in greatcoats and started segregating and trimming and gluing and next thing I knew, I had the beginnings of a 36 figure battalion for what will likely be a General de Brigade Army. Spent probably about two hours on that part of this task.

I then took the new batch of recruits outside to prime...at dusk...not a good idea. Apparently it was dark enough that I thought I was priming, but was in actuality, just priming the humid Florida evening...so, march into my magic kingdom (that third stall of the garage mentioned above), notice the problem and try again in the garage. I suppose the guys at Privateer Press will be elated to hear that I am spraying primer all over the yard and not on figures...after all, that means I need to order more cans...and I do love P3 Black Primer the best of all.

Well, the good news is, the figures are actually primed and ready to accept paint...now for many nights of uninterrupted work. Fat chance of that fantasy working out, but we shall see.

Ahhh, what is the plan you say? Well, my plan is to try to spend some amount of time as often as I can, painting, photographing progress and posting updates to this blog thingie. While I am at it, I hope to improve my painting skills and pass on what I learn and tell you all who or where I learned it from, and perhaps demonstrate to all the rest of you, just as average as me, gamers that all we have to do is march out to where our lead mountain is and begin to attack it and we can all have painted figs a-plenty with decent paint jobs and so on.

So, by the end of the evening on 28 July, 36 figures assembled, cleaned and primed...enough of a start.

No progress on the new project on 29 July.

Tonight, 30 July, 2013, dinner with wifey, ran into friends, chatted at the restaurant far too long...eating into the painting opportunity for a second night... darnit, this is working out about as I suspected so far. I managed to base the flesh on the back half of the mob. So, by my liberal arts count and with socks and shoes off...18 souls almost have faces and hands when I decided I should take a rest and start this blog adventure.

So far, this blog thing seems almost idiot proof...which is the most important thing if I am to become functional at maintaining this adventure. I also wanted to mention that my plan for the faces is to use what I have already in the garage...err, sophisticated gaming workshop. I happen to have the Vallejo Game Color flesh paints which are a wonderful basic tool for this project. As a result, the base coat is Game Color 44, Dark Fleshtone. The first highlight will be Game Color 41, Dwarf Skin, and the second highlight will be Game Color 4, Elf Skintone. I plan a fairly straightforward attack using these colors and armed with the knowledge I received from the Artmaster Studios video tutorials on You Tube...wonderful stuff!!!

Phew! I think this blog thing might take as much time as the actual painting!!!