I don’t love my format here. I like documenting my work, and I like sharing how I make things, but still photos frustrate me. I can’t take pictures while I’m working, so all I can do is put my tools down when I advance part of a model and take a photo of its current state. Work a bit more, put tools down, take photo.

It’s frustrating because the stretches BETWEEN those progress states are the only parts anyone can actually learn from. But I can’t work and take still photos at the same time, so I’m kind of stuck.

Or… maybe not?

Last year, Corvus Belli released some models that were, shall we say, controversial.

Obvious comparisons were immediately drawn, and the community split into camps: those who liked, or at least didn’t mind, the mild silliness on display, and those who were disgusted by the fourth wall breach that they claimed it represented.

I counted myself among the offended. Not because I objected to an oblique reference to a children’s brand, but because the cowards at CB failed to take this joke far enough. Because you see, while any run-of-the-mill joke may be funny once or twice, the most powerful humour can only be found when a joke is plastered onto the side of a blimp, blasted with floodlights, and then run straight into the ground, rammed through the surface, and pushed further and further until it breaks clear out the other side.

Subtlety, my children, is for chumps.

Let the blimp-ramming begin.

My local game store, The Hobby Kingdom, has run a Christmas Paint Exchange every year for about the last 6-7 years. I started the first one when I was playing Warmachine, and took the tradition with me when I joined the Infinity group in 2014. The basic idea is that each participant drops off an unpainted miniature, which is then handed off to a random person to paint for them. The mini can be anything, but people tend to drop off mercenaries, civilians, and support models as it’s less painful when those types of ancillary models don’t perfectly match your army’s paint scheme.

This past year, I received my random model, and it turned out to be a civilian belonging to local feline tattoo artist Tom, whom you may recognize as the previous recipient of camels and knights and stacking elephants in addition to probably half a dozen small projects that weren’t worth posting to the blog. In other words, I am already way too good to Tom, and he absolutely doesn’t deserve any more of my beneficence. So when I saw the boring-ass model he contributed for me to paint…

…I immediately said “screw that” and started pondering what else I could do for him. Technically I already have a few of his other models that I’ve pledged to convert or paint for him, but even those weren’t really piquing my interest.

So, **** it.

I sculpted him a Boba Fett.

As you do.

This conversation happens about once a month, generally at work or at family gatherings:

• Person: Do anything interesting this weekend?
• Spud: Not really. Mostly just sat at home and sculpted.
• Person: Oh, you sculpt? Neat!
• Spud: Oh, right. Yeah, I sculpt little dudes about an inch tall.
• Person: That’s so cool! Do you have any that I can see?
• Spud: Uh, no.
• Person: No?
• Spud: Yeah, I kind of end up giving away every single model I sculpt. I can’t think of a single one that I still have in my possession.
• Person: Oh. Hmm.
• Spud: Yeah. It kinda sucks. I have some pictures on my blog, though.
• Person: Ehh, I guess…

And then I show them my pictures, but I can tell that they’re disappointed, because that isn’t quite the same as being able to hold the model in your hand.

After a decade of having this conversation, I decided to finally do something about it. That’s right, kids: I am sculpting some models just to keep for myself. And what’s more, they aren’t going to be models for any particular game– I just want to draw a cool picture, then sculpt the character I drew, and then never paint the model, and have all of that be okay.

Prelude

Spud: So did you hear the leaks for the Hordes colossals?

Dan: Yeah, they sound okay. The Skorne one was a bit disappointing, though. It’s weird that they also just have, like… bigger titans.

Spud: What would you do instead?

Dan: I dunno, but there are tons of options. Skorne capture all kinds of different creatures, so why couldn’t they find some totally different type of horrible monster out in the desert? Like a giant Starship Troopers beetle that shoots acid goo, or another type of their dinosaur beasts? It could literally be anything. So it seems weird that in the faction known for huge beast diversity, they’d opt for “same, but bigger.”

Spud: Fair enough.

Dan: Or they could do something totally bonkers and make it, like, a giant Ancestral Guardian statue. Just a huge ****ing statue walking across the battlefield stomping on people.

Spud: Hmm… that would actually be awesome, but I don’t feel like that would be a warbeast.

Dan: Why not? Isn’t the Circle one just a huge Wold? And they made that a warbeast.

Spud: Sure, but Wolds are beasts to begin with, even the smaller ones. Ancestral Guardians are solos, so whatever’s going on with them, they don’t seem to “interact” with a Warlock in the same way a Wold does. So while I could totally see a badass giant Ancestral Guardian, my guess is that it would be a battle engine, not a colossal.

Dan: I guess that makes sense.

I have related this story back to Dan after the fact, and he does not remember the conversation. It did happen, though. So whether he remembers or not, all of this is squarely his fault.

Every year for Christmas, I pick a few people I know and make presents for them. The list of recipients changes every year, with the idea that everyone I know will get something eventually, even if some need to wait a decade before their name comes up. This is primarily a method of suppressing insurrection against my rule of the local community; I tend to treat those around me as poorly as I can get away with, and they tolerate the abuse in the faint hope that it will all be worth it someday when they are gifted with a small clay man that is different from their other plastic and metal men.