Morat Aggression Force Sogarat: "Invictus"

Looking wistfully out the window at the sunshine

I'd like to introduce Invictus.  He is a Sogarat- a Morat power armoured infantryman.  He is armed with a big gun (HMG) and a Big Axe.  He reminds me of a Space Marine actually.  His armour is thick and is powered by lots of cabling that glows.  Yes, he clearly isn't much good at sneaking up on people at night, but hey- since when were giant axes close combat weapons of choice in a world of high powered assault weapons.

And I've just heard he is going to need a much bigger base (30mm maybe?  Terminator sized base?)

Damn.  So I guess he's not finished after all.

Anyway, got a bit side tracked here.

Originally I didn't like the model at all.  And this is why….

Plain green all over

He looked super dull.  So I thought I'd add some colour….

Hello, I am Santa's evil little helper

I really didn't like how the colour scheme was turning out.  He looked like a demented Christmas Elf- green, red and white and kind of messy looking.

It was a bit demotivating, having to stare it and wondering if I was going to have to scrub it down and start afresh.  Then I dropped the model and his arm fell off- curse that araldyte and super glue mixture!  Things weren't looking good.  Now I had more excuses not to paint.  Finishing off Far Cray 3 or even Fallout: New Vegas had never been so tempting….

I recognised that I had hit a creative stumbling block.  I wasn't painting and I *hate* not finishing projects but I had lost my willpower to even act.  So I decided to:

1. "Small chunk"- lower my criteria for success to tiny tasks that I could accomplish and accomplish well.

2. "Be process focussed NOT outcome dependent."  It means only to worry about taking action (and being satisfied with taking action) and not care about the outcome.  I was going to do it just to do it.  I would take my ego and need for perfection out of the equation and paint for the sake of improving my current skill.
  
3.  "Tiny progress IS progress."  And no one model will make or break my painting career.  So stop caring about whether it's awesome and just revel in the fact that I'm learning and trying out new techniques all the time.

4.  Set a deadline.

With that in mind, I started painting in the small steps- the 0.1% of a model at a time- and let it slowly snow ball.

Green highlights, blue cabling and red plates completed

I couldn't stand looking at that dark maroon and applied Evil Sunz Scarlet- a much warmer red- over the red armour plating of the pauldrons and the helmet.

Weapons completed.  Detailing and basing still required.

The more little steps I took, the better he was starting to look.  I paid attention to detail, I tried out a few new techniques- the "streaking" across flat surfaces for example- and I was beginning to enjoy painting again.

Invictus wonders how big his new base will have to be.

And I finished him.  The clean up a fair bit of time, but I'm glad I did it.  This is the kind of model that can't get away with a sloppy finish.  Especially since he looked down right horrible right at the beginning.

The glowing bum is not very tactical.

Overall- now he's done- I'm very satisfied.  I learned heaps- and most importantly- it reinforces (once again) that being consistent and sticking with the process leads to steady improvement.  And in this case, a pretty good outcome I'm happy to say.

Until next time!