Progress Report

 The Fireworks Stand itself is completed; I've got Mark himself and a few resin bits I want to glue into the fireworks stand still to complete, but I might leave those for another day.

Correction: I am absolutely leaving those for another day. Why? Because Goblins, that's why. 

Right now, with having just bought a house and making arrangements for insurance, a snowplow service for our driveway for the winter, and a sudden leak in our ceiling that manifested during a thunderstorm last night, I am more or less on Hobby No-Buy for the foreseeable future. I'll replace paints as they run out/dry out and buy some supplies here and there, but no new miniatures or terrain pieces for a while. Fortunately, I have quite the ample "Closet of Opportunity" to pull from. And October is in view, and that means Orctober, meaning I paint some more greenskins for my ongoing Oldhammer Orc & Goblin army. 

And I am drastically short on painted goblins. 20 archers, 10 wolf riders, and a dozen infantry with hand weapons are all I've got to show of the smaller, weedier grots. I've been meaning to get the dozen foot-sloggers bolstered up to a much more robust regiment of 40, and I think now's a perfect time to get those done. 

Here's a shot of the 40-figure movement tray loaded up with painted and unpainted goblins alike to get a sense of the project at hand. Most of these are either Knightmare Miniatures or Black Tree Design/Harlequin, but two figures here are from Midlam Miniatures - and all 40 are from the talented hands of Kev "Goblinmaster" Adams. I even got to include a fun little easter egg to reward sharp-eyed viewers; one of the goblins in the last row has thrust his club through a belt loop and is taking the time to scarf down a meat pie - one that has a rat's tail hanging out of it. 

There is a painted figure in the back row of that photo; he's one of a handful of Black Tree goblins I painted back in 2018, when I first decided I wanted to try building an all-metal Orc & Goblin army, and was still figuring out color schemes and skin tones. I wound up stripping the paint off of all of those the other day and selecting a few to repaint and include in this unit - replacing the figures with spears in the above picture with ones holding clubs or scimitars. 

I also get an extra shaman figure back for use in my army; I'd especially never been happy with the paint job I'd given him back in 2018, so looking forward to doing a better job on him this time around. 

First Project on the New Workbench

 I've inherited my father's workbench when my parents moved out of the house and my wife and I moved in; he left a few tools and such behind on it that I'm still figuring out new homes for, but I was eager to make the workbench "mine."

Clearing some space, I unpacked one of the last things I bought before we moved - "Mark's Fireworks Stand," a prepainted MDF kit from Black Site Studios that tends to only be made available for a few days on either side of the July 4th holiday - the #1 fireworks-buying holiday here in the US of A. I set to work on Saturday, September 1st, working on it a little bit at a time and allowing glue to dry.

It's a fairly simple kit, being a rectangular prism with a few bits attached - the sign on the roof, a working doorway, an interior counter. The roof lifts off allowing interior playability. All that's left to do is the awning over the windows, but I want a bottle of superglue handy for that - so another trip to the store is in order in the next few days. 

The kit also comes with Mark himself, a resin figure of a one-armed gent smoking a cigarette (to better instill confidence in consumers). I've opted to add a few additional bits inside for a bit of environmental storytelling - there will be a battered radio on the counter, and a mattress on the floor behind the counter; turns out when you're a one-armed, chainsmoking fireworks salesman, you don't earn enough to afford a fireworks stand and an apartment.