Miniature Dating

Hey all!

After weeks of consideration, I have decided it is time to date your miniatures. I have seen this idea on another blog several weeks ago (Sorry I forgot the blog name, but if anybody knows the blog, please link it for me. If the idea was yours do write it in the comments and link it so everyone can see too.) This idea is actually to write dates on the miniatures to when you paint them so you won't have to look at your miniatures painted years back and think your current paint job is still equally bad. This example is also from the other blog if I remember correctly. Correct me if I made a mistake.

I decided that I should modify the idea a little bit. Instead of just writing the date in which you painted your miniatures, why not for basing too? The difference too is I will not put in the actual that but rather only the month and year in which it was painted.

The letter 'M' will represent which month and year the miniature is painted and the letter 'B' will represent which month and year the base was completed.

My example: say you have a poorly done autocannon team like the following picture and you want to prove to your friends it was done many many years ago.

So to prove it, I just flipped the base over and it revealed the date! In this case: 'M:6/2013' , which means miniature painted on June 2013. But as the base have yet to be fully completed although greenstuff and corks have been added and a basecoat of black have been applied, hence the 'B' slot still remains empty. I wrote the 'B' there to remind myself I have a base to continue and see how long I drag it on until I finally got it done. This is also a sort of motivation for me to get my miniatures done.

Some may ask what if my base is a slotted one? Like maybe a small box of cadians, tyranids, orks, space marines and many other models that comes with a slotted base. Well, it is actually pretty easy. Instead of writing both 'M' and 'B', I decided to just put the 'M' there. This is to let me know when I painted the model. So, what if I did the base several months later? The answer is easy, just write down the date below the 'M'. If you are confident of writing the 'B' in, go ahead, if not, just stick with the date, like the base below, where I only wrote 'M' but did not write when the base is done as I have not based it yet. The reason for me not writing the 'B' is this:

The slotted base is separated into two portions, one larger than the other. As I have already used up almost all the space at the larger portion when writing in the 'M', I have no confidence I can write in the 'B' at the smaller portion. Thus I have to forgo writing it. But like I said earlier, if you are confident to do so, why not?

I got a Company Commander below where I tried my best to make the miniature pop. Though it wasn't very good, it was great improvements. 

And to show them how much effort you put in to improve your painting, show them your base to see the date/dates. That way you can see how much you have improved over the years rather then get confused with more recent models with older models. This is especially so if you got a load of miniatures like the tyranids or the infantry heavy Imperial Guard forces.

The following is a fully painted Catachan with it's base completed. 

The fluff for this guy and his squad is this : 

The Catachans were dispatched onto the deathworld with no soil except sand, with the tectonic plates of the planet constantly shifting to take out it's intruders. The Catachans not only face the threat of the enemy but also the threat of the alien menace that lurks on the planet. The entire planet is covered in rocks and grass plains. Their mission is to aid the troops (which is my cadians with purple helmets) to take as much of the planet's resource as possible before leaving as this planet was confirmed by the Mechanicum to be filled with huge amount of natural resources which can fuel an entire battlefleet.

The base shows an example of how I have written both the 'M' and the 'B' dates.

Last but not least is that I am very sure there is bound to be one or two models which you really like and full of sentimental value or the very first miniature you painted etc. Hence I came up with this, which is to write the number on the side of the base as I di for my Imperial Fists guy of the 3rd Company. He was the first marine to be ever painted by me, hence I wrote a '1'. I do the same with subsequent numbers such as '2' and '3' and so on but I would not recommend numbering every miniature you have with this except special ones as if all miniatures have a numbering, then the numbers have lost its meaning.

If you like to know what miniatures you paint on which day and all that, take a small notebook and jot down the dates and the type of miniature you painted so you can keep track of what you have painted on a certain day and so on. Though this may be a good way too, you may lose track of which models is which as you get more replicated models such as more Cadians or Tyranids. Thus I find the numbering of the month and year below the base is already sufficient enough for me.

Hope you guys could start dating your miniatures, though it is not exactly a must or is compulsory. I used Games Workshop Citadel Base Ceramite White to do the numbering, though any bright colours of your preference would do as long as it stands out from the base colour. You could also varnish the dates under the base too. For me, I would only varnish it after both dates for the 'M' and 'B' is written on, or rather painted on.

Hope you guys have a fun time painting, basing and archiving you miniatures!

Winters