Tuesday, 22 March 2011

Ogres and Green Stuff.....

I find myself in a happy place today after finishing the bases of the last five Ogres out on my painting table. All in all this now means I have a 3000 point Ogre Kingdoms army completely assembled and completely painted. It's a sad thing to admit but in fifteen years or so in the hobby this is the first army I have ever completed to a level of 100%. Plenty have got close in the past but never to the grand finale that is project completion! Over the next few years I do plan to remedy this by digging out all my unfinished projects, updating them to reflect my improved skills and current rule-sets before putting each army back into active service.

But for now its the Ogres that revel in this victory and its quite an achievement. I plan tomorrow to take an army sized picture as well as some individual shots in the daylight to showcase the achievement. With the completion of the project however I found myself having a moments reflection out of the project gone by. Since I've been so fond of placing everything in bullet points lately why buck against tradition!

1. Motivation - Granted I have had a lot more time than I usually have to work on models for this army but my motivation has also been a huge factor. I think working to make sure a project is interesting the whole way through is crucial and the Ogres did this by being such a conversion heavy army! I think this will lead me to include much more conversion and customisation in my future armies and to always try to up my ambition for every project. In furtherance to this there needs to be...

2. Games! - This should always be an important factor but I have managed to get plenty of games in with the Ogres and this has helped spur on my production fantastically. Since I also made myself decent terrain to play on seeing a tin-boy army deployed across it really will not do! The other advantage is you get a friendly bit of competitive painting going on with your gaming fellows and it helps to feed off each other's enthusiasm for the hobby in general.

3. Green stuff - The initial reason for me starting my Ogre Kingdoms army (other than the fact I like the models and thought the 8th edition rules for monstrous infantry were awesome) was I had little ability with that ever so useful gaming aid, green stuff. Now after building my Ogre army I have a new confidence with it and it has helped me to see the hobby in a different light. Its liberating to be able to think up ideas and just turn them into a reality rather than be constrained to the contents of your bits box or the plastic kits on sale. With every Ogre in my army converted (and I've built 3 battalion sets worth!) I really got a chance to learn how to use green stuff. Because of this I think all of my future projects will have an ambition in mind of what I want to create and I feel like nearly every project will involve some crazy scratch builds or conversions as standard!

And this leads me onto the next project...as I sit here typing this entry I glance over from a completed army to a plastic bag full of Night Goblins fresh from ebay. My next project will involve plenty of green stuff indeed!

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