Orc does some painting shock, no pictures not so much of a shock

Well, this month I actually managed some painting. Unfortunately as far as my current list of projects goes, it wasn't my gaming stuff I was painting.

Firstly, a 1:1 scale terrain project, to whit, the house. Redecorating upstairs has meant 1-any paintbrush I've been using has been far too big for minis, and 2-all my gaming stuff is currently in boxes in the loft. Curse you nice looking house!

Secondly, and somewhat more congenially, because it was outside on a sunny day with my friend Lyracian, I spent a very pleasant Thursday afternoon undercoating 50 rather funky Mantic undead (see the whole Mantic range at their site here), as the fulfillment of a birthday promise - having been skint at the time of Lyracian's birthday, and as he had a Tyrannid army in need of painting, I gave him a token entitling him to an afternoon painting session. A few months later and he's moved on from 'nids to skeletons, but never mind, I finally got to help him turn some lead (or rather plastic) into slightly-more-painted plastic. Hopefully, he'll finish them soon and put the results up on his blog (Tales of a Gamer, somewhere over on the left...)

Yet another month or more goes by...

...and an odd six weeks or so it's been since my last update.

A couple of days after I last posted, my friend Rob Marriott died suddenly. An artist, a gamer and a thoroughly nice bloke (as well as a maker of a fine cup of tea), Rob was also, through his insistence that I should play Warmachine, the guy that turned me on to the lovely minis produced by Privateer.

Thus, in a very real way, Rob is one of the inspirations for this blog, because it was in part my conversations with him about minis and gaming in general that lead to me kicking around the ideas that became the genesis of 'Rivets and Whimsy', and pretty directly the Warmachine minis have been an influence on my thinking about Victorian gaming, technology and aesthetics - hence some pics of them on this very page.

I never did play Warmachine with him, and I will always regret missing that opportunity. Farewell, Rob, I hope you're having a blast wherever you might be now.