Challenge Suneokun Update #8 - Christmas Present for you all.

It's 1.55am on Christmas Morning, Mrs Suneokun and myself have been up half the night prepping the kids presents, finishing food, cleaning rooms and other sundries...

After completing all the painting last night ... I decided to hold off posting and finish the basing tonight...

May I present the completed army...

I'm going to bed now, kids'll be up early ... Christmas morning.

That DEFILER is mine!

Challenge Suneokun Update #7 - closing stages?

With a dazed expression, it almost feels like the end?? I've got 5 Tyranid Warriors which are basecoated and require 'Lashwhips' modelling. I have a Mycetic Spore in need of some conversion work and the amalgamation of three plastic Termgaunts.

I have built and base coated the Zoanthrope and 2 Hive Guard.

And that's it? With a slightly shifty look around, and a sense of deja vu... am I nearly there yet?

I've got no DIY monsters on the calender, but 4 tough days of installations and commissionings next week... best put this one to bed this weekend - methinks!

...and I would have gotten away with it...

Challenge Suneokun Update #6 - Knuckling Down to Herculean Effort

Thanks for the feedback on the previous post. Heading into Christmas, I have a mountain of responsibilities at work to arrange ... none of which will be easy and involve a lot of travelling. While the DIY has quieted down ... Christmas approaches! And this morning I have woken up decidedly ill!

Rubbish eh?

However the painting progress has been spurred on by two herculean nights of very fast (and questionably accurate) painting. On Monday night I completed the paint job on the 20 Gargoyles (tongues, claws and stipes, oh my!), 80% completed the 10 rippers and start to finish completed the paintjob on my second Trygon.

It was a monstrous effort totalling 4 hours of concentrated effort.

Last night I finished the Rippers and started both the HiveGuard and the Tyranid Warriors (next weeks challenge). All the above require basing, but I've decided to 'lump them up' on that front after all the other basing took about an hour.

This leaves me with:

• 5 Tyranid Warriors, half painted and ready to convert.
• Hive Guard (half painted)
• Hive Guard (pending)
• Mycetic Spore (pending)
• 5 Termagaunts (2 metal to be painted, 3 plastic to be converted onto the spore).
• Zoanthrope (unbased, unpainted, missing arms and looking pathetic)
• 1 1/2 converted flying warrior ... what to do?

So question 1 ... do I base the gargoyle flying bases?

And question 2 ... what do I do with a random half converted modern Tyranid Warrior? When all my other warriors are 'turkey heads' and the other two modern warriors have become a prime AND the Parasite?

Help me Obi Wan, luke stole my speeder bike.

Challenge Suneokun Update #5 - A Week in the life of a busy boy

"If I can get the base coats done on these Gargoyles - I can hopefully get them out of the way over the weekend." - Suneokun, 2nd December 2010.

Hmm ... what do they say about mice and men and the planning strategy ... it didn't go quite according to plan. As I did highlight during the email - there was a fair amount of work going on at home ... a fair amount of 'stuff' which would get in the way - and it did!

• Thursday 2nd - Hugely Optimistic and spend evening de-constructing the dining room of all furniture in preparation for bedlam.
• Friday 3rd - Last minute confirmed installation at a London University followed by an evening of Ironing - what fun! Wrong coving is delivered.
• Saturday 4th - Install wrong coving (which is prettier anyway), but don't have enough to finish room.
• Sunday 5th - Christmas Tree collecting, Santa visiting and painting all evening (the dining room that is)
• Monday 6th - Painting room all evening
• Tuesday 7th - Surveys in Leciester, grab missing bit of coving and bring home, install coving and painting room all evening with in-laws
• Wednesday 8th - Carpet installed in afternoon, I deliver chunk of old carpet to brother in laws house and am entertained all evening, wife repaints both cream and green walls - much deserved deadly ninja stares and cold shoulder behaviour on return.
• Thursday 9th - Relocate all furniture back into Dining room, cooking and cleaning in preparation for party... finish off coving and refit light fittings/curtains and other sundries.
• Friday 10th - late night shopping, going out with wife and small people to look at Christmas lights/buy light sabers/buy presents/separate light saber wielding Children. Come home and crash.
• Saturday 11th - Carol singing out doors with lispy, padre hatted religious people. Frozen small people. Return home to entertain a dozen people for dinner. Wife's curry goes wrong and she recooks entire curry (madness) ... fantastic night until 3am.
• Sunday 12th - woken at 5.45am by brother in laws baby and wife GOES OUTSIDE and de-ices car while I hide like the coward I am. Children jump on me demanding TV at 7.30am, as I'm sleeping on a lilo on the floor in the lounge (baby and in-laws having our bed).

Finally paint 20 Gargoyles and 10 Rippers at high speed on Sunday night until 1am.

NB: In laws 'steal' wife's book 3 of the Millenium series from bedside table, complete with her bookmark (which is weirdly an old password sheet) ... much bitterness and rivalry begins.

It's been a tough week, still - nearly Christmas. That'll be relaxi ... oh no.

Challenge Suneokun Update #4 - Delays and Upsets

New carpet is being installed today, so the last couple of days have been pure DIY mania get the coving (cornicing) installed, painting newly re-skimmed walls and finishing the skirting boards...

Madness! Oh and I bought a new TV and BluRay - it's Panasonic, 37" and it's very nice.

As such, no painting has occured. So we're back under pressure to finish the Garogoyles (tonight, I promise) and to start (and finish) the Rippers.

Crikey I was over-cocky!

PS: If the photo makes no sense, just type 'delays and upsets' into google.

Challenge Suneokun Update #3 - Gargling

Despite a night of ironing, and multiple nights of replastered, re-coved and repainted dining room painting I am currently ahead of schedule. The blog is keeping me focussed, combined with the sneaking suspicion that while I may have vastly overestimated the amount of time required to base 100 mini's (it's a couple of hours, not 5 evenings) I'm concerned that my planned layout for weeks 3 and 4 are ridiculously light.

• Week 1 objective (last week): base 100 mini's. DONE!
• Week 2 objective (this week): paint and base 21 Gargoyles and 15 Ripper Swarms. GARGOYLES ARE 80% THERE WITH ONLY INKING, BASING AND HIGHLIGHTS REQUIRED. RIPPERS TO GO.
• Week 3 objective (next week): paint and base Trygon, 2 Hiveguard and a Zoanthrope.
• Week 4 objective (week before Christmas): convert, paint and base 5 Tyranid Warriors and a Mycetic Spore.

So... I should get the Gargles finished tonight. 5/15 Ripper Swarms (now there's a survey worth reading!) are complete, requiring only basing, which leaves me 10 swarms left... infinitely doable. So do I try to add in the Spore conversion this week, or break in the Trygon?

It's certainly an interesting psychological aspect to this. I've never 'scheduled' my painting before. It's always been at my 'regular' whim or because I have a game coming up. Simply writing down an expectation online seems to have galvanised something in me, and I'm finding myself flying through 20 models at twice the speed I would normally.

The added incentive is that I'm also riven with guilt that these models have been languishing in the 'almost complete' pile for too long. Truly completing my first army (my forth one, Chaos Space Marines) seems to have galvanised my desire to see the others done. And showcase them here.

Challenge Suneokun Update #2 - The Ironing

In a bid to extend my lead further, I aimed to paint the Gargoyles last night. I instead spent the entire evening doing ironing. I don't know about you, but I suck at ironing, hence why it took me all night.

Watched 'Domino' and 'Glourious Basterds' - first film is shite, second really good but well ... random.

Stuff is now flat. Enough said.

Challenge Suneokun Update #1 - The Baseless

In a random panic I got confused and thought yesterday was today and I was out all day tomorrow. In an odd twist of events, so did my other half. It's like being in a house when the clocks go back ... A WHOLE DAY - very weird.

Apart from gaining another 24 hours, the panic also spurs some mad flocking death rolls and so I can proudly boast the following 82 flockers:

• 21 Genestealers
• 24 Hormagaunts
• 31 Termagaunts
• 5 Spores (I misplaced two!)
• 1 Broodlord

BASELESS: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

I also black-based the two Hiveguard and the Trygon and prepped the Gargoyles for painting...

A productive day. The danger is that I now take the foot off the pedal, but I have a whole room the cove, paint and have re-carpeted before next Wednesday. So whatever I can achieve this week will ease the pressure next week.

If I can get the base coats done on these Gargoyles - I can hopefully get them out of the way over the weekend.

Here's hoping - but a good start.