In my previous blog I wrote about how speedpaint helped me get a lot of mini's painted in not much time, and how that got me to decide I was going to practise my mini-painting skills so I would be able to make prettier mini's. Nothing chanced with my decision and I have gotten even more determined. I started practising and I discovered I really enjoy painting eyes. I still suck at it, but that is why it is called practise.
One other thing I did was sort my stash, my box of unpainted mini's, the Pile of Shame or Opportunity (depending on my mood). I discovered to my horror that I did not really have mini's I wanted to practise on.
I only had either mini's I was goint to slab some speedpaint on, or mini's that I want to save for when my skills are better and make pretty without mucking about too much. I needed mini's that would challenge me, make me want to practise but not be too awesome so messing them up would be fine and still have them game-table-worthy. Yeah, my brain went in overdrive and I have no idea how I came to that point.
I went online to order some mini's and lost focus.
In my defense, I just got my holiday money which we are not going to use for going on vacation as we have to do improvements to our house and will go to several larp events. I also got a bonus from my previous employer for my work last year, and that was unexpected. So I got some more pocketmoney to spend on mini's.
It got spent.
I started looking at Reaper Bones mini's. They are not my absolute favorite when it comes to quality, the plastic is kind-of bendable, but they have a lot of mini's and quit a number of them are fun. Not the standard fighting-pose 13-a-dozen race-class things, though I wanted some of those too. I was not looking for anything specific, just an assortment of different whatevers that look like fun to paint so I could practise.
There I lost focus.
In the end I cleaned out my shopping cart with 49 (!) mini's and ordered 14 mini's that I really liked and also felt like I could perhaps use them in my game some day.
How sensible of me.
But then my brain made a jump to the left and a step to the right and put it's hands on its hips and I remembered the oh-so awesome mini's that I once saw in a youtube video. The image of those orcs with feather-decorations just popped into my mind. When I saw them in the video months ago I loved them but dismissed them because I would not be able to do the paintjob in a way that would make me happy. But now, with my new plans....
And that is where my focus was completely gone, the escalation started and my sensible thoughts of 'I need to practise first' got kicked out of the door.
It took me a few hours to find the mini's. I thought they were from Warhammer, but I could not find them. Then I searched youtube for the video I saw them in, I knew it was something with comparing mini's but I did not remember the context. But finally I found the video by Goobertown (I remembered the soothing voice, so that limited the search a lot), and there they were at 8:50, the orcs by Conquest. The Conquest mini's website was found and the orcs turned out to be the W’adrhŭn Slingers and they were still available and in stock! And a tad bit expensive, but I got my extra pocket money! So I ordered the orcs with the feathers. And some more orcs but other ones.
Then I noticed the matriarch queen, also with feathers and my orcs do need a queen.
And then I saw the dinosaur with cannons and 3 dwarfs on his back.
Yeah, that happened.
By the way, I had forgotten all about the Warhammer Age of Sigmar mini's that I had ordered the day before, and that arrived the day after I ordered my insane add-on to the Stash. So I also have a box of skaven, some dead dude in a boat, a huge troll with mushrooms and there was something else but it has slipped my mind.
And when I got all excited to a friend about it, he told me he had 'a conquest mini' he did not use, so I could have it. That turned out to be a box with 12 crossbow guys.
What started as a plan to get some mini's to practise painting has ended up being a marvelous shopping spree and a pile of unpainted mini's that does not even come close to fitting in my unpainted-mini's crate. My inner todler is over the moon, my inner painter is very enthusiastic and my inner responsible adult is proud of me being nice to myself without feeling guilty.
Now all I have to do is continue practising those eyes, and then the rest.
This does not mean I have 'enough' mini's though, just like dice I will never have enough of those. I still have a wishlist, because I did manage to not order all the mini's that sparked my attention and joy and made my brushes dance in their jar.
I remembered in time that I have my birthday in a few weeks and needed to put some fun stuff on my wishlist, and yes that is the only reason I stopped ordering.
I regret nothing!