2021 Review and 2022 Preview

"When writing these lines a strange and crazy year lies behind us and it looks like this will accompany us far into the new year." These were my first lines of my Review/Preview one year ago. It looks like these were still valid and a good opener for my first posting in 2022. My first posting in 2022 and it is mid of April 2022. The reasons are simple and the same as for sparse blog activity in 2021... a lot of diseases. While our kid enjoyed his day care location and his new infection community he spread nurgles blessing every two to three weeks at home. I can´t remember a phase in my life I was so often ill. Consequently, my job had became very very busy. Spare time was rare and my energy and motivation often low. All this while fighting through the second year of the Corona-pandemic. It wasn´t easy to get some hobby progress but from time to time I enjoyed some time at my workbench. Let´s take a look on the results of the old year and see how my plans look for 2022.

Painting my Dark Elves 

The first miniatures I painted and finished in 2021 were some Cold One Knights, which waited abandoned since a very long time on my workbench. They were part of my armyshot I presented in my last Review/Preview. I decided that I would finish the whole unit of Cold One Knights which were no less than 10 miniatures. At this time point I did not know that this will became an odyssey accompanying me for the whole of the year. Yes, I painted no more no less on my Dark Elves army than this only unit... and the last Knight is still missing. However, the result became a stunning sight. I published a preliminary result in mid of october.

My Cold One Knights regiment with command and general in my october 2021

After that three miniatures were still missing inclusing the Battle Standard Bearer. The latter took me was my biggest project in 2021. He was converted as close as possible to the original studio conversion. The painting of the whole miniature took all my spare time during two and a half months. An article with this story will follow. Until then enjoy some first teaser picture.

4th/5th Edition Dark Elves Battle Standard Bearer conversion

The result was an awesome sight and I was very proud, when I had this miniature finished on my workbench. Half a year later I still enjoy looking at him in my cabinet leading my Dark Elves Army. He motivated me to finish a further Dark Elves Cold One Knight and a further Cold One in December 2021. However, the motivation faded afterwards and the last knight is still work in progress on my workbench. That is how the year ended for my Dark Elves Army. But that was not all I had painted in 20021. I had some other small projects.... 

From my shelve of shame

One day in February I decided to finish one piece from my shelve of shame. It was a Daughters of Khaine Death Hag I sarted and abandoned some years ago. She was a reinterpretation of the famous Mark Gibbons Witch Elves Artwork from 1994. I had plans to base her on Morthis base but her step lenght was larger than the step. It was necessary to convert the whole plastic bit of the base and with that and starting my 4th Edition Dark Elves Army I lost my motivation. However, I felt Lady Gibbons angry glance and her evil stare bacame more and more threatening the more time has gone by. Therefore, she was my first choice to finish as an entry for The Miniatures Open Painting Competition. I was very happy finishing her and to unleash her beauty in this Online Painting competition. Isn´t she a lovely fury?

Daughters of Khaine Death Hag in referece to the famous Mark Gibbons Witch Elves Artwork

The competition was a very very tough one and unfortunately she was not able to win a trophy. However, I am more than happy having her finished after all those years waiting on my shelve of shame.

 

The call of Slaanesh

Beside Dark Elves I love Games Workshops Chaos armies. Through the ages I have collected large armies and started different projects for the different Chaos fractions. Beside wonderful army projects, dozens of unfinished miniatures fill my shelve of shame. After a loss of motivation painting Cold One Knights in March/April I decided to paint a further miniature from my Shelve of Shame. already on the path of Slaanesh through some collecting activities, I took a Champion of Slaanesh I started painting in 2009 and never finished. It was a project I enjoyed a lot and so I painted a couple of deamonettes to join their Champion.

Small Slaanesh Warband I painted in preparation for an upcoming army project

It was a lot of fun to paint this small Warband and test some colour shemes. I love these old Citadle Realm of Chaos miniatures and they are a pleasure to paint. Luckily, I have collected a respectable collection of these and I am looking forward to paint them in a future project.

 

Cleaning up my workbench and years end

It may sound surprising, but my biggest problem in miniature painting is the basing process. While I can transfer nearly every color scheme or idea on a miniature, it is hard for me to transfer my environment ideas on a base. Mostly it is a technical problem in combination with ambitious ideas. This results in a lot of unbased miniatures or on hold projects because I have problems to realize a basing idea. Therefore, when it comes to clean my workbench at years end I decided to solve some of these basing problems.... solve some of the bigger basing problems! I decided to base my two unreleased Chimeras. My initial idea was to place them on higher ground using parts of a collapsed High Elves column. I thought a long time how to realize that. Finally, I did some sketches, design the column, made a mold cast it in gypsum in broke it in pieces. That´s the short story. Here some teasers of the Chimera project I am actually workin on

Both 4th Edition unreleased Chimeras based on my workbench

 Meanwhile, the first chimera is already painted and I do not want to keep back a first view on the result.

I am more than happy how she turned out. It was a great pleasure to paint this beautiful monster and to highlight this rare miniature. The second one is already work in progress an I hope to show the results and an article in the futre on this page. Stay tuned!

 

Outlook 2022

I don't want promise to much as I have learned that real life is hardly predictable at the moment and to often it makes it necesarry to reduce my activities. As you have seen above, I had some good progress through the last year but I hardly get the time and muse to write about it. I hope to be able to write some more in the upcoming months to show all the finished stuff and finish all my started articles. But be patient with me. If the real life gets hard my focus is always on the painting side to escape these troubled times.

Painting in 2022

In the moment I am looking forward to finish the chimeras. I would also love to finish my last Cold One Knight as well as standard troopers and finish some regiments for my Dark Elves to make the army  ready for a new army shot. Beside working on my Dark Elves army I will try to paint a couple of different things this year. I would also love to add a couple of further Slaanesh miniatures to my growing Realm of Chaos Warband. Additionally, I also want to paint more of my rare and unreleased stuff. Through my collecting activities I was able to get my hands on some very precious miniatures. I would love to paint some of these figures to pay respect to the honorable collectors who sold these rareties for my collection. 

My workbench in mid of April 2022 wit a Teaser of the second chimera.

Now it´s time to return to my workbench. I hope you enjoyed my little review and my further plans for the new year. Let me know what you think and what you are working on in 2022.

Kind Regards,

GeOrc