On a wing and a prayer

I'm sitting here at my desk the other day, paying bill, when I look up and notice something.  Generally I try to keep all my hobby 'stuff' (my wife pronounces it with more of a 'sh' sound, kind of rhyming with "it") together, but occasionally some of it tends to spread out a bit.  In this instance it is some unfinished models that have managed to creep up to the top of my desk.  Or, looking at them, I think they have all flown up there.
Ignore the clock, huge stack of itunes video CD's, and the scourge bearer under glass
It occurs to me, not that I have a bunch of models I need to actually finish, but that ALL of them have wings.  What is it with me that I can't seem to finish winged models?  I have done 20 gargoyles, three elohi and an ur-elohi, all with wings.  But these buggers sit up there on my shelf, mocking me from above.

They aren't completely random.  When my buddies game store (I still miss Krystal Keep) went out of business, I managed to pick up the Great Winged Taurus cheap, with the plans to convert it and mount my Abyssal Dwarf Overmaster on it.  Primed, but now gathering dust.
Several years back I did some trading at Buckeye Battles - a great WFB GT held by the Central Ohio Warhammer Slackers.  I don't remember what I traded, but I got a Cockatrice in return, that again ended up primed and that is it.
A few years back, my son and his friends tried to do a Warhammer map campaign, and they invited me to join in.  Early on I took a space that was a Chimera nest - my dwarfs had to fight against 6 Chimera's, and if they one, then they got to add one to one of their lists.  Dwarf war machines took out five of them before they ever got to my lines - I purposefully left the last one because I wanted to see how a unit of slayers did against it - and they took it out in one round of combat.  So I picked up a Chimera - this time I actually managed to not only prime it, but to begin a base coat.  The campaign only lasted about a month - I never had a chance to play a game where I could actually use the Chimera.
During the first Reaper Bones kickstarter, I saw this clockwork dragon and had to have it.  I thought it would be really cool to paint this up and take it to my office at work.  I did manage to glue it to a base - but the rest is still not even glued together - occasionally I have to put the wings back when they fall out.
Included in that kickstarter was the special edition Sophie vampire (known as kickstarter Sophie, is she is kick starting the motorcycle).  Cool, but I'm not sure if I ever planned on painting her.
Of course I already mentioned a while back the fantastic "Dragons Don't Share" kit for which I really love the terrain pieces - I painted them all up pretty quick, but of course still have the actual dragon to do
And then finally is my conversion for Arhak Soulbinder on his Manticore.  I had a lot of fun converting this, but it appears he won't be in the 2nd edition of Kings of War, so I won't have a chance to actually play with the model - so he is up there with the rest
A few years ago I actually won a (then current) metal model of a Reaper skeletal Dragon - once again all he ever got was primed white with some tan on his wings - he is now on a shelf in the basement with at least one wing that has now come off.

So I'm sitting here trying to figure out why exactly I seem to have a problem painting wings.  Or things with wings.  Or big models.  Or more specifically, models for which I have no other use than just to paint - that will never end up seeing the game table.

I think the last is the main reason (though maybe it is the wings that intimidate me).  Because I can look to my right and see five bins of Mars Attacks!, Deadzone and Warpath models, some of which need assembled but most just need painted - and not a wing in site there.  But not playing much of those either.  (I don't want to talk about the 38 martians I started painting back in February and are still waiting for the final silver base coat before being washed and detailed.)

So maybe sharing these models so desperately in need of some color love will help to give me incentive to finish them.  Or at least show some of the people who say I am a painting demon (ok, so yes I have done a 1000 pt army in a week - more than once) that I am a mere mortal - and am just as far behind painting as anyone else.  Of course they say that if you ever finish painting all your minis, then you die.  So this is also a plan to stay immortal.











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