And here we are 18 months later and all of 2023 to cover....

 

Kicking off 2023 was actually a minor expansion of 2022's big commission. It consisted of 1 Necron Overlord, and a whole stack more of terrain, and took up the entirety of January to complete.

 

 

Next up was Dystopian Wars commission for a USA Fleet in a striking Red, White and Blue scheme, consisting of 25 Ships. These started out fine, but ended up turning into a 8 month long ordeal (The initial quote was a much simpler scheme, and I'd planned for 2 months tops). When will I learn this lesson?

 

 I actually ended up having a very quite few months (besides those darn ships) between February and May, with just one, single model Hero Forge D&D model commission. Typically, I can sit and paint a character start to finish, in one or two longer sittings, usually in a single day. Models like these are great palette cleaners and really do help to refocus upon their completion.

 

Mid-May however, saw the arrival of a new client and MASSIVE ORK WAAAGHHH!!!!, over 100 models...

We had Ghazghull and Makari in plastic, Ghazghull in metal, Boss Zagstrukk, Grukk Face-Rippa, a Kill Rig, 10 Squig-Hog Riders, 10 Beast Snaggas, 3 Killa Kans, 16 Nobz, 10 Stormboyz, 10 Kommandos, and 3 Runtherds with 30 Gretchin.

 

THAT was a lot, A LOT of Orks.... they really, REALLY got my creatitity into gear, it was so great having something so differernt to my usual work, AND I got to work on a pipe-dream army I've never had the money to do for myself. At no point in the 5 months I was painting these did it feel like a slog, I really enjoyed the project start to finish, (added bonus, it really helped break up the drag of those DAMN SHIPS.....)

 

September saw the regular family of commissioners reach out once more, the order of the day being expansions to their Sororitas, Drukhari, Necron, and terrain collections, additionally, they'd be going big, with some Tyranid big bugs.

 

The Necrons saw just three new units, a Shard of the Deceiver, a Chronomancer, and 3 Heavy Destroyers.

 

 

 

The Sisters saw more sizable reinforcments, with a Palatine (you'll need to forgive the pic, my Cannoness appears to be standing in the Palatine's spot...), 5 Celestians, 5 Retributors, and an Exorcist.

 

 

For the Drukhari, some speed in the form of 10 Scourges, and a forth (or is it fifth!?!?!) Raider,

 

I really am a fan of the Raiders in red....

 

 

Right, time for some BIG BUGS. The fledgling force consisted of a Winged Hive Tyrant, a Harpy, 2 Tyrannofexes, 3 Norn Emmissaries, and a counts-as Swarmlord.

 

 

(YES, there's only one Tyrannofex pictured, yes I REALLY did send the second one off to Japan without taking a SINGLE picture of it)

Unfortunately the Emmissaries and Swarlord fell WELL into 2024, and we'll talk about those then. This scheme is one that I personally struggled with. I don't mean I found it hard to paint, but I felt like it was so limiting with what the client requested. Specifically, I just wanted to do more, there's many small tweaks I wanted to make to really bring out the details and make these really pop, but the restraints were on tight for these, and I see the potential, and the result just isn't there. Honestly, it was more than a little demorilising. At least it was only a few big bugs, and not like I was doing 80 Gaunts or something.

 

And finally, bringing 2023 to a close, the terrain that accompanied these models,

 

 

You may notice colour variation between these and the older terrain pieces, but it really just the inconsistency of the lighting, rather than any real difference.

 

 

My big takeaway from 2023 is that down-skilling my paintwork is just a challenging as pushing to do my best work, from a motivational point of view, that can lead to real mental road-blocks.

 

Thank you once more for reading through all this, and once again, I'll try and get to 2024 in lass than 18 months....