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I have pretty much all the Imperial Assault sets, bought purely for the figures, although I think the tiles will be usable as scenery. Likewise, zombicide and quite a few others. I even backed the zombicide in space KS that's due to drop in a month or so just for the figures. I'm reluctant to throw the "extra" bits out, but perhaps it's time to think about it, as they are taking up quite a bit of space

70mm tall Biomech overlord with two heads KS at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2004599158/biomech-overlord-miniature?ref=user_menu Runs until Arpil 7 and already funded (including yours truly)

It may be worth looking at cordless screwdrivers, although you will probably need a drill chuck adapter to use it with drill bits. They have much slower rotation speeds, more of the order of 100s of rpm, rather than 1000s One thing I always do now, especially on metal figures, is to push the drill bit into a candle first to give it a bit of a coat of wax. It makes it much less likely to stick when drilling

I was looking for more modern stuff, so have backed it. I like the idea that you can get "sets" as well as crates, as there's at least one I want to add to my pledge. The scenery they did for their space dungeon game didn't get good reviews, but they seem to be using better material now. Hopefully their next terrain KS will have something more futuristic in it

I bought the Fire For Effect videos as well, but I then remember the whole thing imploding and exploding at the same time. I'll need to check back, but last time I looked there was very little there, and the prices had gone through the roof. It was a great shame, as I had high hopes for the site. I did try to get my money back at one point, but didn't succeed. Just as a warning, before you do spend money at Fire For Effect, it's worth checking out the kickstarter comments - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1389554987/modeling-and-sculpting-course-videos-by-james-van/comments The miniature mentors sculpting videos are pretty good. They keep threatening to do a full anatomy one, but I've never seen it advertised.

Can't link for obvious reasons, and they're in the UK, but EMP Miniatures do a set of Arctic Explorers if you're looking to expand the group

There's a video by Tom Mason on this very subject that I watched recently - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRNJqd1dFDc It came in very useful when I needed to add a pistol to a figure :-)

There's about 6 inches of snow in the front garden and drifts of over a foot in the back garden. My front and back steps have pretty much disappeared Public transport is off while the red warning is on. I think it expires about noon, but there was a blizzard blowing the last time I looked outside. There were a lot of people stuck in their cars overnight not too far from me, so hopefully they're all okay now. The problem is that it happens infrequently (2010 was the last thing on this scale where I am), so we're never prepared for it :-(

All I really wanted were the figures, but I got caught up in the whole thing and ordered the player guide and the games master's guide, among other bits. Unfortunately the GM guide is wave 2, so over 2 years later (September 2015) I still have nothing. Hopefully the wave 2 stuff will turn up this year, but I'm not overly optimistic. To add insult to injury, I've just received an email from DriveThrough that the PDFs are now all available to buy. I suppose I should download mine from the backerkit at some point, although it's not a game I ever see myself playing. Six figures, it all seemed so simple when it started, but those were happier, more innocent times, when I was so much younger

couple of things regarding zbrush, one good, one bad... The bad, they stopped allow license transfers in August 2015 - https://support.pixologic.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/60/20/license-transfers The good, zbrush is about industry standard as you can get. The industry will not have moved away to something else by the time you've learned it. Even if it did, it's the output of zbrush that's important, not the product itself. As long as you can output a format that can be printed or used by something else, you'll be fine. There's so much money invested in support for the current formats that you'll be fine for a long time. There's a huge market out there for 3d things, not just on the figure side. Have a look around places like daz and renderosity to see what people are producing and selling. There's still a place for traditional sculpting, but spending time learning digital is time well invested. Watch some of the videos at zclassroom and youtube and then start playing with zbrush. There's an entire book on creating anatomy in zbrush - "Digital Sculpting - Human Anatomy", although it's a few years old now.

There are plenty of books out there that are worth checking out. Search Amazon for "clay sculpting", and have a look for books by Katherine Dewey What you need to do is nudge her into greenstuff, then commission her to make you some figures

There are primers available for outdoor plastic furniture that may be worth a try. I'm in the UK, so not sure what the equivalent in the US would be, but I've had success with Valspar Plastic Primer. I have a habit of buying cheap toy cars and weathering them for zombie type games. My current project is a dumper truck, and spraying the white container bit with black primer just didn't work. The plastic primer, however, left a nice rough surface that took paint without any problems. Even scratching it with my fingernail did nothing. As others have said, wash it thoroughly first. Sanding with a 1000 grit paper won't do any harm either, and a trip to your local hardware or car store may turn up some useful primer options.

I haven't had a painting funk for a while, but what got me out of the last one was buying a figure I really wanted to paint. That was enough to make me sit down at the table and start. If there's nothing leaping out of the pile at you, try selecting something you don't hate and use the "I'll just paint for ten minutes, then stop if I'm bored" trick. Once the brushes are back in your hand and you can see some progress, hopefully it'll motivate you to keep going. Another "trick" I have used in the past is to reserve first thing Sunday morning for painting. Even if I haven't painted all week, I know I have that time blocked out and it generally breaks through any doubts and reluctance to start. Finally, I'd choose just one or two figures to break the funk. You want to be able to see progress. My funk started because I was painting too many figures only once or twice a week. I never saw them move on and made more and more excuses to avoid working on them. Find a figure, sit down and start to paint. Stick on some music and don't overthink it. Best of luck for breaking the block.

Another vote for cutting the base down, but leaving a "spike". I used to cut the tab off completely and drill the holes, but hit the same sort of problems you're facing. I now cut the tab down to leave two "spikes" beneath the feet, round them off with a file and drill holes for them in the base. It provides a much more stable joint. One problem I have found with that method, however, is that the initial split of the tab spreads the legs ( ) of the model, which can be a pain with metals. I've started nibbling away the material at the place where I'm doing the initial cut. This means there's less force required to cut the material, which minimises the spreading. Your mini doesn't have that problem (it's probably more a metal thing), but it's something to bear in mind.

I'm not allowed to supply links, but if you go to the Lead Adventure Forum's Fantasy Adventures subforum the top two posts are about fantasy figure manufacturers. Most of them are probably in Europe. I'd add Hasslefree and Mantic to the names above, but there are many more. Welcome to the hobby - prepare to have your life and living space quickly taken over by small bits of plastic and metal