Weekly Hobby Group: Harby and Eiryss Lighten the Mood

Each week, more or less, a few guys come over to my house to paint and hobby.  We have a floating group of 6, and typically 3 or 4 are there each week (including myself.)  I have kids to put to bed, so the group comes to my house.  It's a nice arrangement for me, and they seem to enjoy it.  I dispense a lot of painting advice and get to see what everyone is working on.  I think I will start to chronicle what we work on here.  If I remember, I might even take photos.

I really needed last night.  The mood was light and we painted our little toy soldiers while Jimmy's wife made fun of us (in a good natured way) for playing with toys.  I mentioned in the last post that we had some family tragedy, so the mood had been quite a bit more somber recently.  On Tuesday, March 8, my three year old nephew died suddenly.  We basically moved in with my wife's brother and sister-in-law on Wednesday and didn't go home until Wednesday of this week, the day after the funeral.  My three  kids are each slightly older than their three other kids, and they have all grown up together, so the kids were able to play and keep each other busy while the parents made arrangements.  I think staying there was as much to comfort us as it was for them.   "Danger Johnny" (as his brothers named him) was a fantastically vibrant and energetic child, getting into absolutely everything.  I so clearly remember him crashing around the house with the kids, jumping in my lap to say hi, then squirming out of my arms to go chasing after the kids again.  He was something else, and we're all missing him terribly.

So after all that, and a funeral that included the funeral director's cell phone ending up buried at the bottom of the grave, we're all home and I enjoyed goofing off with my hobby group.  I had no real focus, so I just started painting models as the mood hit me.

I started with Eiryss' cloak.  Then started some freehand swirls with VGC livery green.  I didn't like that, so I made vines by adding leaves of GW snot green.  They didn't show up well enough, so I outlines the leaves in white.  I still didn't like it, so I extended the vines out and eventually adding little flowers of white and GW blood red.

I also put some paint on the Harbinger of Menoth.  I've had these two models for years without doing more than priming them, so they both were dusty.  After brushing all the dust off I realized how bad the priming job on the Harbinger is.  Her face had a paint texture on it that ended up looking like acne after putting a little flesh color down.  I guess she's supposed to be a teenager, so it makes sense in a way.  Why wouldn't the floating girl who acts as a voice for a god not have acne?  It's also attire for a teenager that would make the authors of (warning: NSFW) "Go Make Me A Sandwich" pull their hair out.

I also put together a unit of 10 Flameguard Cleansers.  I am greatly looking forward to getting off a CRA with them at POW 22, AOE 4" and RAT 15.  Oh, yes.  That might even hit Lylyth.