Miniatures Painted This Year (May)

OK then, it’s that time when I look back on what I managed to paint (and what I bought) last month… and see if I’m actually lessening my pile of shame.

So starting with the painted stuff:

Above are pictured two more batches of dwarves from the various Oathmark sprues that I have – though, this time, I’ve mixed and matched pieces from the various dwarf sprues to kitbash a few unique(ish) models.

(the only real conversion work I had to do was change the bow arms of the ‘light’ dwarves to shield arms)

Anyway, continuing with the conversion/kitbash theme – next up are a few more orcs/goblins...

...and like some of my previous orcs, the one on the left is made from Mantic zombie legs, and a Warlord orc torso and head – but this time I’ve used some Frostgrave gnoll arms to give him a two-handed weapon. And for the little guy on the right, this was an old GW gnoblar model (which I had cut the hands off for something else) – and I just added some Oathmark goblin hands and head to make the model you see above.

(note that the orc on the left took a lot more greenstuff work than the last two – due to the fact that there was more undead flesh to cover up this time around)

And finally, I dug out a couple of old metal models that I’ve had lying around for years:

The one on the left is from an old Lord of the Rings range – I can’t remember who originally sold them (as the moulds have changed hands a couple of times I believe), but you can currently get them from Scotia Grendel.

The one on the right is an old Thunderbolt Mountain model – which, similarly, you can’t get any more from the original producers – but they are still available in a few different places.

* * *

OK – moving on to new acquisitions.

So at the beginning of the month, I bought a few random models from a (not so) local games store (as they break down various board games and sell the models off individually).

Now, I’m not sure where these first ones (above) are from – but the detail is pretty good for boardgame pieces:

Plus… I also picked up a few of the newer HeroQuest models (all of these were £1 each – so it’s not exactly breaking the bank).

I’ve also picked up some classic metal orcs from Reaper…

...and some cheap LotR style trolls from the 1:72 scale ‘Dark Alliance’ range (I’ll talk a bit more about these next month – as I’m currently in the process of painting them).

In addition to those I’ve picked up some more reaper bones skeletons as well…

...and the reason for this is that I’m thinking of trying to do a quick painting video – as I have a couple of miniatures related videos on the channel (which cover buying your first, or cheap mini’s), and a few folks have asked how I paint them. So, since I mentioned in one of those episodes that 'a good first mini to try painting is a simple skeleton' – I thought I’d put my money where my mouth is and do just that (i.e. paint a skeleton model with as little fuss as possible :) ).

I’ll also use this as an excuse to try out some of the new Army Painter ‘fanatic’ paints that have just been released.

And finally…

 ...last Friday I went to the UK Games Expo with a few friends. Now, I didn’t pick up much while I was there (is was super busy – even on this ‘quieter’ day)…

 

...but I did come away with a few models in that ‘local legends’ encounter box that you can see in the above picture.

 Note that this is my first purchase of anything from Steamforged Games, so I’m looking forward to diving into this one (though I have to say, even though it’s supposed to be a dark/nighttime encounter - the battlemat is a bit too dark for my liking, and I’m going to have to re-base the giant bats – as they keep falling over).

* * *

So to sum up – I think that’s 10 models painted this month (which isn’t so bad)… and 18 bought (which isn’t so great – considering that I’m actually trying to lessen my pile of shame).

However, the overall totals for this year are: 

75 PAINTED 

39 BOUGHT

So, I’ve still painted nearly twice as many as I’ve bought in 2024 - which is good going for me (even if this was the first month where I bought more than I painted).