Medium Dawn Felagund of the Fountain

With the arrival of Spring comes warm breezes, amorous birds singing in the trees, and Dawn feeling the urge to paint. Truly, there are few ways more enjoyable to spend a Spring afternoon than to sit outside with one's husband while you both squint at inch-high models and quibble over bizarre tools. "Do you have the circular file? Do you know where the clippers are? Did you buy a pot of Snot Green for your last project 'cause I need it and can't find it?"

This year is no exception. I started painting miniatures roughly three years ago and, since, have had an on/off relationship with the hobby and a love/hate relationship with the company that makes the models, Games Workshop. Truly, I love painting, but every now and then, I sit back and ask myself whether spending fifty hours on a teeny-tiny Elf is really the most productive way to spend my time. Writing, yes, could develop into something productive. Miniatures painting? Not so much. It is probably my most pointless and self-indulgent hobby, and yes, I consider my Silmarillion obsession when saying that.

My ongoing project is this giant dragon and Elf* (relatively speaking ... the dragon is still only about 5 in/13 cm tall) that I've been working on for the past two years with not too much to show for my efforts. The stupid thing is finally completely put together, modeled, primed, and base-painted; I started outlining some of the scales in a dark green the other day. I was very proud because I got half of the scales on one side of the model outlined after working for about an hour. Bobby also bought for me a rather unique Gandalf-in-cart model that I adore; I started filing the metal parts today. That will keep me nicely occupied when I get tired of outlining scales on the ginormous dragon.

*Because I am a painting snob, then I will stick my nose in the air and announce that I am not using that gawdawful color scheme that they use on the show model but something entirely different that does not involve blue at all.

Bobby and I have even resigned ourselves to go to the Baltimore Games Day this year. Yeah, we make excuses: ticket prices have gone down, we haven't been in two years ... oh, and of course, I get entry into the Golden Demon painting competition free with a ticket. *nodnod* In reality, we're bitten again; Bobby's even talked of getting his Bretonians together and crushing some nerds' dreams at the event. Bobby is frighteningly good at the Fantasy game.

So it seems that I will be again descending into the depths of Nerdom, at least for a short while ... until the pushy Games Workshop salespeople, ridiculously high prices (three buckaroos for a tiny pot of paint?!), and general asocial tendencies of the people who are into this hobby (and by "into" I mean "life revolves around") get on our nerves and drive us away again. Until next Spring ...

Some of you know that my laptop is called Pengolodh, Lord of Gondolin. Well, yesterday, Bobby's new laptop arrived. It shall be called Rumil, Lord of Tirion.

Of course, Bobby didn't really go for this. When prompted to give his computer a name, he typed, "JOE." I said, "Joe?! WTF is that?" Personally, I think that Rumil, Lord of Tirion is far superior.

Additionally, we spent the past weekend setting up an aquarium and now have four fish in it. The fish will be named after Feanorians. Bobby's idea, not mine. (I swear!) So far, they have not been assigned names because we are getting more fish this weekend and will see which personalities fit which fish. Although I have decided to call the featherfin catfish "Maedhros" because he's my favorite.

( Pictures under the Cut! )

In other news, I have finally finished the second step of the Meryth and Talban models that I am painting for Jenni. (They are actually Elladan and Elrohir models, but Elven twins are Elven twins....) The first step, of course, is cleaning and spraying a basecoat. The second stage is to paint a gray base over top of which the color will be added. This makes the colors appear properly, for one, and also familiarizes me with the details that I will one day soon have to paint and shade.

( Meryth and Talban, Stage Two )

Hopefully, next week, I'll have them colored and finished pictures posted!