Nova Aetas - painting the whole thing to a tight deadline

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Right, and now to something completely different.!



NOVA AETUS! One of those Kickstarter boardgames. Few days ago a good human being approached me, and said "Sir, I really like this boardgame and I want to play the campaign NOW. Please paint all the minis for me until our next session." (something along those lines) Of course I can not turn away a fellow child of the sun and the moon, despite my busy schedule. Now I'm sitting here with my roughly 50 new best friends, all of them cast in that wobbly plastic. At least not quite as wobbly as much other stuff. And they all demand to be painted by the 19th of October.

The game's set in 16th century Fantasy Italy, with Fantasy Vatican threatening Fantasy Venice. And then there's Fauns as well. Basically it's the usual cooperative dungeon crawler fare, without a dungeon. Instead it's a series of pretty interesting scenarios, a few side quests, and so on. I was told a few things about the game mechanics, and it all sounds pretty nice. Less exhausting than Gloomhaven, more complex than Descent. Not bad.

The figures look OK as well. No high fantasy stuff, which is something I like. The Fauns are pretty neat actually. Warriors, musicians with flutes (don't ask me why they didn't get any pan pipes) and centaurs with bows. So I thought I'd start with this faction right away. Here's a test figure for the Faun warriors:



Casting's OK as well. Sure, mold lines are a problem and pretty pronounced, given the material. It's the wobbly China plastic. Not good, but it seems like this is what board games companies go with these days. The sculpts themselves are nicely designed, level of detail is OK. Not really crisp, but could be worse.

The execeptional thing about these is the size.



These guys are gigantic. The chap in the left and the Faun are from the boardgame, i also put a GW Ork and a regular 28mm Perrys figure next to them for size comparison. Golly. These are way beyond the absurd size of 32mm some want to establish as a thing. These figures are 38mm, foot to eye level. Weird.

So yeah, let's see. I'll start with the Fauns and go on from there. Wish me luck.

[OSHIROmodels]

Best of luck 

[Battle Brush Sigur]

@OSHIROmodels: Cheers. Things are looking a bit bleak though.






Fauns done. Rushing on to the Venetians (8 soldiers, 5 crossbowmen, the doge and two more characters). First I have to figure out a colour scheme.

I wrote up an estimated schedule based on how painting the Fauns went. I'll never get this done until the 19th.

[OSHIROmodels]

Things are looking a bit bleak though.

Never give up until the deadline has passed 

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Never give up until the deadline has passed 

What happened to good old "hide in a whole until the deadline has passed"?

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Painted up some test minis for the Venetian faction, so I can get feedback about the colour scheme from the customer:





Once the scheme's green-lit I'll paiont the rest of 'em.

[Tungdil]

Looking great! Like your choice of colours.

[Michka]

To put it lightly, you are out of your mind! That is a lot of minis to complete.
On the other hand, I've seen your Orks from the Future Wars threads, and I'd have never believed you could get those done so fast.
I look forward to seeing what you can do with a crushing deadline. I'm sure it will be great. So far, these figures look outstanding!

[Battle Brush Sigur]

@Tungdil: Thanks very much! Choosing a colour scheme was a bit of a headache, but being on a tight schedule helps with that.

@Michka: Thank you, Sir. Yeah, the deadline is certainly a stress factor, but maybe I'm being overly dramatic about it. The wording was "get as much done as possible by the 19th of October so my group can have a nice game". He also gave me a little note saying which models should be done if possible for the next scenario, but it's mostly stuff like "6 out of the 8 of figure

• ", which painting-wise doesn't help all that much, as it's much more time costly to basically do 6 of the single-pose dudes and then 2 more later on. Anyway, in my head I turned " would be nice if as many as possible would be done..." into "Everything needs to be done or the world ends.". I'm not a man of ambition, but what little ambition I have tends to show in surprising places and situation at times. I wrote up a schedule after the Fauns were done so I could estimate if it was possible to finish all the minis by the deadline and came out with a definitive "nope, not possible". Today I started veering a bit into a "Well, maybe....?" direction. Let's see. With the Orks it's pretty easy. Painting 40k stuff is like coming home. I know where everything is, they're made to be as easy to paint as possible, they're made of good quality plastic, and last but not least... I've known and painted these particular Orks figures for about 20 years now. Oh, and they're plus-sized 28mm figures rather than insano-size 38mm figures, such as the chaps from that boardgame. But I'm complaining again. Sorry, I'm cheery actually.

Thanks for the positive comments. Even after all these years these help tremendously with keeping up the motivation to keep going. I know it sounds odd and fake and whatnot (especially nowadays, as so many people seem to be in constant sales mode on the internet and be overly positive and "enthusiastic" about things), but it does help.

Anyway, here's an overview (Done, Work in Progress, To Do):

Fauns:
.) 8 Warriors
.) 2 Musicians
.) 5 Centaurs

Venice:
.) 8 Stratiota
.) 5 Crossbowmen
.) The Doge
.) Condottiere
.) The Gypsy

Vatican:
.) 8 Swiss Guard
.) 5 Papal Guard
.) The Pope
.) Cardinal

Characters:[/color]
.) Knight
.) Scum
.) Apprentice
.) Novice

Monsters:
.) Dragon
.) Manticore



So yeah, there's still a bit left to do..

Anyway, I also brought pictures!

The venetian soldiers are done now.







So yeah, those are done. Currently I'm doing characters (as you can see in the overview above). It's funny how the two human factions each bring their big boss to the table in the shape of the Doge and the Pope respectively. They also got nice figures each, especially the Pope. Looking forward to painting this one. On top of that, each of these factions also have some smaller-time characters. The Condottiere and the Gypsy lady for Venice and the Cardinal for the Vatican. I'll start with the Doge, the Condottiere, the Knight and the ...Scum for now. Hope to get most of them done by tomorrow. Hope you like the pictures!

[Gargobot]

Finishing all that in 11 days... yikes! But what you've painted so far, looks amazing. Godspeed!

[Battle Brush Sigur]

@Gargobot: Thanks very much, Sir!


Heyhey, here's an update with the first handful of characters:





From left to right: Knight, Novice, Doge (much shine, so Venice, cool!), Condottiere, Scum


And now for the updated to do list:

Fauns:
.) 8 Warriors
.) 2 Musicians
.) 5 Centaurs

Venice:
.) 8 Stratiota
.) 5 Crossbowmen
.) The Doge
.) Condottiere
.) The Gypsy

Vatican:
.) 8 Swiss Guard
.) 5 Papal Guard
.) The Pope
.) Cardinal

Characters:[/color]
.) Knight
.) Scum
.) Apprentice
.) Novice

Monsters:
.) Dragon
.) Manticore


As you can see, I'll do the Apprentice and Gypsy lady next. Then it's off to Vatican city.

[Michka]

So pretty! Love the soldiers. The shot with the scenery looks perfect. And those characters... That cape is amazing. 

[Andym]

That’s a beautiful collection of perfectly painted minis! The fact you’ve done them at speed.....even more amazing!

[Bloggard]

absolutely amazing in all respects. One happy customer there.

[Daeothar]

Respect to you for not only taking on a daunting project with a pressing deadline, but doubly so for getting stuff done at tremendous speed and at an amazing level as well!

And considering your output so far, you're going to make it too. You're approximately halfway through your allotted time, but have already finished nearly 2/3 of the lot.

So keep it up; we here at the LAF will be cheering you on all the way...