The Fēn Dynasty - An Old World Cathay Project

Still need to work out how to get a decent meadow/field basing scheme down too. The regiment trays I ordered from my nephew are, I guess, never showing up so I'll have to find an alternative for those too, god bless the lad he's alright enough but he ain't reliable.

The fella with the barrel isn't finished yet, not done his skin or some of the highlighting, the fella with the cannonball is essentially done, will definitely give him a once over tomorrow with fresh eyes though, tempted to try and get some more depth/volume on the blue fish he's lugging about 'cause it's a bit flat.

Quite happy with them, I think the yellow on the gut plate isn't quite what I want, but I'm not sure how to fix it/change it and it's not egregiously bad. I'm not the best at painting (well, at all, but especially) skin tones so I took the opportunity to do them differently to get some more practice in. Might add some rust to the cleaver or find some other way to dirty it up a bit, this army is supposed to be quite wealthy and prim and proper but I feel like the ogre mercenaries would probably be a little less put together, at least any gear that they brought themselves and wasn't provided for them.

Smashed the cannons out and started working out what's what on the crews, few fiddly bits on the former but for the most part it was just sitting myself down and working through them, quite happy with the result. Might add a fuse to one of the cannons, there's a small hole in the top of them that perfectly fits a paperclip so it shouldn't be *too* hard. Bit worried I won't be able to make it look reasonable but the good thing is I can just do it entirely separate and keep trying until I get it right, then once I do attach it.

So I sorta messed up a couple weeks ago, pre-ordered the new Cathay box, basing materials, couple of the Arcane Journals and..some of the paints I needed to continue painting...in one order. So I ended up not getting much painting done for a couple of weeks as I was bottlenecked waiting for the order to ship, which required the preorder box to hit its release date. Oops! But that arrived last week, so since then I've gotten around to finishing the sword and board Jade Warriors, a benefit of having to wait is I wasn't tempted to just throw the same unhelmeted head on the squad champion as I knew I'd have a few new options spare once the Great Bastion box showed up, so he's got a different bonce so there's a little bit of individuality between him and the other chappy. Happy enough with how these turned out, wish I could figure out how to be a bit tidier but my eyes, hands and brain simply won't allow for it, at least for now, can work on that over time though.

Primed the two cannons and their accompanying rabble, want to do the cannons themselves in jade green and see how that comes out, optimistic I can get those all done relatively quickly which would just leave the Lancers from that first box. I'd hoped to get it all done by end of month 'cause I've not told my two main Warhammer friends that I've been doing any of this, wanted to run the ol' double layered April Fools, tell em I'm gunna pick up a brush again finally, then say psyche, then say "nah fuck it I will" and take a pic of a random unprimed model in front of all my painted Cathay, see if they even notice! Either way, might struggle to pump it all out in 5 days, the Lancers feel like they might be quite time consuming. Still, not a bad effort.

Been a rough few days, on Saturday morning one of my parents' pet pigs had to be put down (RIP Piggles, you beautiful, daft bastard) after 15 or so years of truly spoilt, doted-upon life. I had to try and keep my mudda from falling apart and help my dad bury him while we both struggled to keep ourselves together too.

A bit of an odd aside, I know, but I open with that a) 'cause I'm sorta working through it all myself and I don't have many outlets, and b) 'cause I've found despite having a fair chunk less free time, I've arguably done more painting in the last couple days than I might've otherwise, because it's really offered a valuable distraction whenever I find myself falling into wallowing a bit.

As such, I've gotten almost all of the base colours down on the sword and board Jade Warriors, just need to do the golds, then some black on the belts/scabbards, then a few odds and sods, none of which ought to take too long. Then it's just a quick cleanup/sanity check before I start adding the shading and highlights.

I also spent some time over the weekend ordering some paints I needed to restock on, a couple paints and some contrast medium for some ideas I have for the Lancers (I want to try Khorne Red contrast over silver for the barding maybe), some more black spray since my rattlecan is running low, a load of basing materials to experiment with and I uh, might've ordered that Grand Bastion box. I really want the wizards (whom I believe my friend helped design, I need to check that though), I wanted some head options for the sword+shield warriors captain 'cause I didn't want to have an exact replica of the first captain but I don't have any spare unhelmeted heads, and I like everything in the box anyway, think it'll be fun to paint up some peasants. Maybe next time I'll explain my bittersweet personal history with Warhammer peasantry.

Anyway, bit of a ramble, my apologies!

Kinda got busy for a few days, but honestly I was mostly kinda deflated after finishing the first unit of Jade Warriors. Nonetheless I convinced myself to pick up a brush again and start work on the second unit earlier today. Just got the red down, and I painted a bit of brown on the arms of models that don't have full plate armour but instead have leather straps with strips of metal, just so when I do the silver next I don't have to worry about filling in the tiny slivers of brown between the strips. Hopefully find some time to do more tomorrow.

Few times a day I've taken a look at the first unit and I can't fully put my finger on what's annoying me about them, but the white belts that hang down around the legs are definitely part of it, the highlighting is atrocious, so I'll probably spend some time on these models working out a better way to do them and then try and touch up/fix the first unit.

Done that thing I do where I was quite excitedly painting these, enjoying most of the process, thought it was going quite well, then I finished them and looked at them and thought "eh they've kinda turned out bad".

Realistically I think they're fine, but I hobby for hobbyings sake, I live somewhere where I won't get to play the games, so it's kinda disheartening seeing the end product and thinking "eh, not that proud of this" 'cause it's not like anything else can come from it. I know the only response is to keep doing more and more and hopefully (with some intentionality) get better, I know that largely enjoying the process should be reward enough, I don't think it helps that the last thing I did was eyes and I'm truly atrociously incapable of that degree of precision so I ended on a bit of a sour note and maybe tomorrow I'll feel better about the whole thing but for now I'm honestly just a bit deflated.

It's fine, I'm a big boy, it is imperative of me to deal with it and I will. I just wish I was more excited to be posting the finished (sans basing I guess) pics than I've ended up being. Oh well!

Despite the promise/threat of "heavy snow", which amounted to about a 10cm^2 patch barely visible from my window, I managed a productive day.

Started with my sourdough starter staging a prison break, which isn't strictly relevant to this blog but I'm so proud of my precious boy, my strong, strong boy, so sod it you can withstand my parental bragadociousness.

Did the finishing touches on the (still headless) halberd warriors, including the transfer on the banner which came out a tiny bit wonky but I'm happy with it. Was a real faff getting the transfer to stay flat out and once it touched the model it was impossible to move it, I've not got much experience with transfers having only done them on a handful of Dark Angels. After a few attempts at lifting, unfolding and replacing though we got there. Can't imagine doing it without microsol/set though!

Quite happy with the unit, the colours work, they're mostly quite neat, looking forwards to the heads and bases being done, although I need to do some research and purchasing for the latter 'cause most of my basing materials are vivid purple alien-themed magubbins.

Then I primed up the sword and board warriors thanks to the unforeseen tame weather, and pictured here prior to priming, I got the heads sorted too. I've even started putting down some colours on those but nothing exciting enough for a snap, mostly grey seer base for the skin and plumes which I'll be using contrast paints for.

Think I should be able to crack out all 29 (I'd already done one on the test model) heads tomorrow, then start on the sword and board lads on the weekend.

Still chugging along making progress on the Jade Warriors, slight change in plans with the hanging cloth and fabric either side of the belt now being in yellow, I wanted another splash of colour and yellow is an important colour in the real life mythology I'm leaning on so it made sense and I think it looks quite good.

Not shaded any of the browns or yellows yet, once I've done that and then picked out the white bits of stone and highlighted a few other surfaces and maybe spruced up some details these guys (sans noggins) will be done!

My phone takes horrendously sharp photos that really bring out textures and stuff that I swear are invisible to the/my eye, I really need to work on a better set up and technical knowhow to try and capture them better 'cause I was really happy with the overall look until I opened these images on my PC and now I'm questioning whether or not I have a traumatic brain injury that prevents me processing ocular information accurately...

Plan tomorrow is to get the shading done, and hopefully the weather holds for long enough for me to prime the 15 sword and board warriors and all 30 of the corresponding heads, might paint the heads first as a treat 'cause this unit has taken me quite a while (albeit a fun while!) and I'd like to see them fully assembled.

Silver done on the last handful, light brown trim done around all of the armour and on the boots, fiddly little job but surprisingly painfree for the most part. Starting to come together nicely, even without a lot of the details blocked in and no washes or highlights the effect of the three main colours really does a lot of heavy lifting.