Letting go

I had a wonderful evening in my garage … going through storage tubs that I've been hauling through my life since 1998. I found an entire metal/plastic dark eldar army from when they were first released. Mordheim figures. Gorkamorka boyz, trukks, and trakkz. Terrain pieces. Old sprue bits that "I'm going to do something with these." The pieces and parts that 'survived' being moved multiple times over 20 years were put aside.
After my walk through memory lane, I closed up the tubs, looked over my display cabinet, work bench, and "to do pile." I looked around the garage and the stacks of kids toys, gardening supplies, and various other "storage" stuff (holiday ornaments, bikes, exercise equipment, etc).
The storage stuff that hadn't been opened, let alone used, in almost 20 years went into the trash. I know there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth … but it needed to be done.
Currently, my AoS collection is Sylvaneth, SE, Khorne (mostly still unassembled), and a small collection of troggoths (about 1000 points, because I love the models). I still have my high elf and wood elf armies from WHFB. WH40K collection is fairly extensive, with a AM tank army, space marines, sisters of battle (1500 points from 1999, plus the new plastic release), orks (my first step into GW's world...still have some of my first models from 1990). Then there's the Blood Bowl stuff. The Underworlds stuff. The WarmaHordes stuff. The SW:Legion stuff. Flames of War. A bookshelf overflowing with board games.
I actually did have a momentary thought of "Offer this up to local gamers, see if anyone wants to take it off your hands." It lasted about 3 seconds before I remembered the 3 boxes of D&D books and White Wolf books that I lugged around, unused, for 20 years. The boxes I kept telling myself I was going to "take to the used book store, or sell them or give them away to local gamers." I've been saying that mantra for 4 years. A couple of weeks ago, I just tossed the box of White Wolf books into the recycling, and sent the D&D books to my brother.
I know what triggered this sudden urge to follow through with what I've been putting off. I went in to my local GW today and played my first game in over 6 months. Joined the Path to Glory campaign they have going with my troggoths. Literally had 4 models on the table. I looked around at the other players and had the thought that I should offer to sell my Khorne and SE stuff, because I've literally never played them despite having them since Soul Wars was released.

Hobby ADD ... and Things.

So, I feel so disorganized with my hobby stuff. Such is the problem with having multiple armies across multiple gaming systems. I decided to scrap the Mentor Legion for WH40K, and stripped the paint jobs that I had been working on. LA's Totally Awesome (available in the US at your local dollar store) worked wonders on getting the paint off. Most people suggest soaking it for about 12 hours and then going at it with an old toothbrush, I was impatient and let it soak for about two hours. Got the job done (there was still some primer, and in a few recesses on the models there was the base coat as well). Primed up a bunch of them and have started on a Sons of Orar paint scheme (yay Ultramarine successor chapter). Even printed off some chapter markings on transfer paper and have those ready to go.

That aside, I also have assembled and painted a wraithlord for my Ulthwe eldar, started working on some guardians as well.

Finally, I am also going back and trying to get my Sylvaneth finished up.

Not even going to mention my Orks.

Because of all the different directions I'm working, I feel overwhelmed at times. I wish I had the time and focus to just sit down and finish off one project before jumping to another. Part of the problem is that my gaming part of the hobby is pretty much nonexistent, so there's no real urge to finish anything. I want to participate in a WH40K league starting up in August, but that's when MWW is heading back to work and I have no idea how our schedules will align. If I were part of the league, it would give me reason to finish up one faction, at the very least.

Some Sylvaneth Projects

This post is going to be a bit of a photo dump, but I've been working on my Sylvaneth (in addition to Space Marines, Space Orks, and Aeldari).

 Alarielle the Everqueen. Still finishing up the beetle, but she's as done as she's going to be. If I keep fiddling with it, I'll mess something up, and I'm happy with how she turned out for tabletop purposes.

While I did stick to some of the color schemes they use in the studio, I did make a few minor variations. Nothing drastic, just enough to make it mine. Still working on getting better with painting flesh.

My branchwych. Went a little overboard with the Vallejo wood tone shade, but I'm pleased with the final result. This was also my first attempt at a vibrant "rune glow" on both the stone and sigil carved into the bark. Not entirely pleased with the blade of the scythe, but whatever. I'm happy with the way the base itself turned out.

 A kitbashed Branchwraith. Made out of parts of dryad, tree/spite revenant, Durthu, and hair from one of the sisters of the thorn. Quite a bit of green stuff. Not the best ever, but not too shabby, and I think she turned out decent for a first attempt. I regret the moss "belt" now that I look at it, but I had some unsightly green stuff gaps and was in a time crunch to get it done.

It wasn't until after I was finished that I realized I had put her on a 40mm base instead of a 32mm base, however none of my opponents have said anything about it.




Below is my first batch of spite revenants. The photo is a bit dark, but they turned out pretty decently. Happy with the skin, all GW colors: Ulthuan grey (to bring them up from the Mournfang brown primer), then a layer of Nighthaunt Gloom, then layered up Nihilakh Oxide and Baharroth Blue. Think I may have done a final drybrush of Fenrisian Grey as an afterthought to polish it off. Basing was very simple, went with a "dead" orange flocking around the feet and then just a green flocking for the rest of it.

Mentors vs Homebrew chapter

So, real life had caught up in a major way (as it tends to do): working 2 jobs, raising a kid, another kid due any day now, home improvement stuff … gaming had taken a back seat. Even when I had the time and energy for it, I would stare at my workbench and sigh and find something else to do. 

Last week I made it a point to get out to my FLGS for a demo of SW: Legion, just to get out of the house and do something gaming related. Since then, I've started assembling and even tried to get some painting done. That's when it hit me. I hate painting white. 

Like, literally hate it. It's time consuming and tedious. I tried doing it different ways: 

• prime white, add washes to the recesses, touch up, highlight 
• Prime, light grey, wash, build up 
• GW's new contrast white 

I got frustrated, put the paints away, went back to building. Started surfing the internet, played around with the space marine painter tool on TB&C and decided that it's not the painting I hate, it's literally trying to quickly get through the white. Whipped out some Zandri Dust and replaced the white with it. I think I'm inspired again.

Question is, do they still count as Mentors? Or do I have to work out the details on a homebrew chapter?