Published: Sat 08 November 2025
By Adam
In Craft .
tags: miniature painting
The Strange Artifacts crew has decided to explore Mordheim, and we've all
selected war bands. Myself, I've chosen to play the
Skaven of Clan Eshin ,
pics and lore to come. But, as a hobby goblin, now that I have a project to work
on there's nothing I want to paint more than literally anything else .
So, since I've begun my Mordheim war band, I've dug out cast models from the
vaults to assemble and base. I've reread all the rules for Cauldron - a
beautiful, whimsical game by
HILL GIANT -
and pulled together two new gangs for Ramshackle's
Mini Gangs .
I don't know what it is about me, but I'm flawed in this way, and I'm sure I'm
not alone. Big projects are fun but they can also be daunting.
Palate Cleansers FTW
I don't do a lot of kit bashing, in part because I don't buy very many kits,
Battletech aside. Most of my models I 3D print at home. I've easily painted a
hundred or more
Knucklebones
minis, for example, and I've printed many more. The bulk of the rest are from hand casters, like
colecifer_xxviii ,
Marcello Rizza ,
and especially Ramshackle Games .I
even do a bit of sculpting and casting myself.
Printing and collecting can be a hobby all its own. Because of this, whenever I
print new models, or I get new hand cast models in the mail, I will usually
clean them up, base and prime them right away. This way I always have plenty of
models on hand, ready to paint.
I don't want to skip a hobby session because I'm feeling overwhelmed by my
current project. I'd rather grab a prepped model off the shelf. While I'll
frequently have one or two non-project models in various states of completion,
my favorites are the models that I can paint, start to finish, in a single 60-90
minute session.
Each of these models I had based and primed, on hand in a box on the shelf, just
in case I wanted to paint something fresh. In the case of the frog and the
Dunger in particular, I had a moment of inspiration that I wanted to act upon
right away, while the muse had me. Each took about an hour to knock out, and I
left the bench feeling very happy with the outcome. Each session was time well
spent even though they were painted with no other purpose in mind except to have
painted them.
I'm also reminded during these one-shot painting sessions why I choose the
models that I choose. Each of them speaks to me in some way that only I can
hear, in a way that is unique to me. Just like everybody else.