Tuesday, December 15, 2009

The dreaded doldrums

Well it certainly has been some time since my last update. I've been pretty flat out with work lately, and lots of birthday and engagement parties, weddings and various other social engagements have all but wiped out my painting time.

When the madness died down, and I found myself with a bit of free time to paint, I discovered to my horror that I had encountered the dreaded painting doldrums. Before the influx of social engagements, I'd been working on a few Württemberg mounted jagers. When I saw them, sitting on my desk, 90% finished, I just could not muster up the willpower to finish them.

Taking some advice from the chaps over on the steve dean forum on how to treat lost painting mojo, I decided to put the 28mm Napoleonics on hold and paint something just for the joy of it.

Chatting with some of the guys at the local hobby shop, the idea came up for getting a 20mm WWII gaming project going. I dug out my copy of the LArdies 'I Ain't Been Shot Mum' rules and some Hungarians from near the bottom of the lead mountain, and set to work. I was powering along for a while, but as it turns out i'd commited a fatal error. I had merely replaced one huge project with another. Yet again, the doldrums set in.

Now I had not only the Württembergers sitting there almost complete, but also a couple of squads of 20mm Hungarians, as well as a few tanks and trucks.

Last week, in desperation, I decided to set my sights low. I dug out two - only two - of the excellent Askari minis 'classic' French Foreign legionaires. Last night i put the last lick of paint on the two legionaires, and started the basing. Looks like i've finally found my painting mojo. I'll post up some pics of the finished legion blokes in the next day or so, and am going to try to get back on the Napoleonic painting horse and finish the Wurttembergers.