November: New Year's Resolution

At the present time, it is difficult for me to work on modelling projects due to family circumstances. Being slightly obsessive, such things are rarely far from my mind and I found myself having a nose through my blog and reviewing some things I've worked on in the past.

As often happens with me, I found myself feeling guilty about unfinished work and work that hadn't been completed to a standard that I now find is "up to scratch". This led me to two of my biggest modelling regrets (and there are others, I promise!)

2018 will be the 10th anniversary of two of the biggest scratch-build projects I have ever worked on. I was given a copy of the first edition of the "Apocalypse" rulebook by my friend Mike who also gave my son James (who at that point was still gaming) a Baneblade model. This, along with a challenge which James gave me to scratch-build a Titan - inspired us to do some modelling work and arrange an Apocalypse game!

The Baneblade was quickly assembled by James, but lay unpainted for a long time until I picked it up and completed it a while back.

So, since we're not millionaires, I accepted James' challenge and embarked upon my first scratch-build project - a 28mm scale Warhound Titan.

Whilst I am still immensely proud of the achievement, I've always felt disappointed by the overall result; the paint-job is poor and there is not nearly enough detail on the model. Too many flat surfaces. The basing is uninspiring too. Don't even start me on the banners - awful. I'd like to think my painting skills have improved somewhat since I did this and it looks horrible to me now.

The "good guys" were sorted - a large force of Imperial Guard (played by me) with allied Ultramarines (supplied and played by a friend of James') were facing off against a force of Orks (played by James) with allied Necrons (played by Mike).

Conscious of the fact that the "baddies" were under-represented with larger models, I also scratch-built a Stompa for the Orks.

Neither the stompa nor the titan have progressed past this point. Enough is enough, so, I resolve for 2018 to get this Battle-Puppy  and metallic Bigfoot back out of their boxes and rework the finish. I may even build the two missing guns that I was originally going to create for the Titan, so that it can have interchangeable weapons. The Stompa needs its feet working on, a better head and the gatling cannon thingy is a bit naff too.

I also have in mind another "Lords of War" scale project - I might do it in 2018. Not decided yet. I picked up a second Baneblade model a while back with a view to using it as the basis for an Astra Militarum Gorgon troop carrier. I've always loved the Gorgon model but as I've already said "I'm not a millionaire".

Watch this space. Brace yourselves for lots of black-and-yellow hazard markings!