Pretty good year

I wanted to put together a little photographic year in review for you all. I've been perusing my collection and realized some of my best/favorite stuff was painted all within the past 12 months. So this has probably been my best year painting. There is a good diversity of genres painted here. This is also the year when I did most of my larger-scale figures (I did do some 40mm old west a few years back.)

 I've haven't done a lot of figures this past year, but that is probably because this is also a year in which I started doing a LOT more of my own conversion work; I think the larger figures gave me an easier platform to practice converting, which I could then apply to my smaller scaled minis.

Currently, I'm still stuck on what to do next (as a BIG project), but I'm at least occupied by painting (AND converting :) a few pulp fighters. I still have no idea what to do after them. 54mm pulp fighters? I'm not too worried; Apparently, I did manage to take some breaks in the past year, filling the void with the random mini here and there. In any case, here is my photographic year in review:

I actually started these samurai, all from Steve Barber Model, in Dec. 2009, but I painted them through February of 2010. These marked the first time I made my own custom-hammered sword blades. I also sculpted and built my own accessories.

With my new-found confidence in making my own sword blades (and a return to playing my old copy of Two Hour Wargame's Red Sand, Blue Sky), I found and tried my hand at these fantastic little gems. These were originally offered by the now defunct Alpha Miniatures, but the sculpts were bought up and are still being sold by Black Cat Miniatures. I gained more confidence with my sculpting on these figures, adding such details as horse hair crests and leather armor.

I was competent at this point in the year with my sculpting abilities enough to have a go with some almost-full-fledged conversion/sculpting. Bronze Age Miniatures' Generic range of figures was the perfect fit for where I was with my own skills. I had the weapon-making ability from my samurai, and my sculpting ability from my gladiators. I pulled it all together, adding animal skins to my small repetoire, to make my own  fantasy/prehistoric Waiteri Tribe. Still one of my all time favorite collection of figures.

It hadn't crossed my mind to paint sci-fi spaceships, but I was intrigued by the retro qualities of Hydra Miniatures' War Rocket range; that, and they used my art on the back cover of the rulebook. So I had a go at my own squadron.

A fan-favorite, I actually started this project a couple years ago, finishing the original Ghostbuster team, complete with custom-built proton packs. The remaining civilian investigators, ghosts, monsters and the Ecto car were done this year. The original Ghostbuster figures and some of the civilians come from Heresy Figures. The monsters are a hodge-podge of  Reaper, Heresy and a couple custom sculpts, including the treyentacle, which was the first creature I ever sculpted entirely by myself. Ok, that's not all true, I did sculpt a dead mammoth in '09; but this is the first "live" creature I've done.

While I was finishing up my Ghostbusters, I purchased a copy of the new edition of Gamma World. To go along with the game, I, of couse, had to purchase some minis to go with! I wasn't sure what I should paint up until I found these original TSR Gamma World miniatures (1982) over at Noble Knight Games. I added a few of my own creations along the way, my favorite being the Nyarlothatep figure (in the center of the photo.)

And this brings me to my current project, adding a few figures to this small collection of pulp fighters which I will use to play the upcoming "Smokers" pulp fighting game by Two Hour Wargames. This isn't a large project, but it fills the time.