Jan 072013
 

Lunch Time = Paint Time!

Happy New Year!!! First blog post this year and I thought I’d bite a little off Larry’s resolutions post from BOLS. Thanks Larry! Without further ado, my hobby resolutions.

1) Organize my hobby work space. I should snap a pic of my room, shelves, closet, et. al. I spent 3 hours Thur night just getting organized enough to GET organized in order to clean. It’s insane, (holidays and our game on 15Dec didn’t help!). Every time I clean, I lose something, or more appropriately lose track of something. Not this time, the Log of Projects and Models has been amended!

2) Paint something each week. While my grand goal is to paint every lunch break at work an at least one evening for several hours at home each week, I know the way my world works. It’ll be hard enough even keeping to 1 hour per week, so as long as I paint SOMETHING each week, I’ll consider this resolution held.

3) Collaborate w/ nephew (see #1). My nephew has finally learned about the Grim Dark and is all fired up to paint. So, the goal is to collaborate with him on painting White Scars. His first army, my long overdue biker army.

4) To paraphrase Larry, “Face the ‘wall/closet/bins/shelves of unpainted purchases’, choose ANY 3 units, assemble, clean and get ‘em ready for paint.” Per #1, my organizing allowed me to catalog NO LESS than THIRTY ONE boxes containing Space Marine models on sprue and in most cases still in cellophane. This does not include Eldar, Orks or my Infinity & Warmachine projects… *sigh* In short, pick models which support the projects I am working on and get them assembled. Top options come to mind: Remaining infantry for Space Wolves, Rhinos for White Scars, ‘Thunderheart’ Vinidcator for White Scars.

5) No new purchases without painting a previous purchase, (see #4). To qualify this, I am further stating the following: No new models without painting a current model. No new armies started without completing an existing army. No new terrain without completing an existing piece of terrain. I am aiming to FINALLY complete 1500 pts of Space Wolves, so I think 1500pts of  40K is a good ‘completion’ point. There’s my White Scars collaboration, (see #3 above), which I have the models collected for to 1500. I also just started a PanO Shock Army force for Infinity, thanks to DesertFoxx’s holiday gift, so 200pts for Infinity should qualify. The only 40K ‘armies’ left to collect are Dark Eldar for me, which I fear may never happen as GW is seriously pricing things outside my comfort range. *sigh*Still, I should leave GK and all 3 of my Sons of Dorn tucked away until the above 3 are in some semblance of order. In fact, if I somehow manage to paint Wolves, Scars & some Infinity, I should get off my tail and paint from Necrons or Orks before another Imperial army.

6) Complete 4-6 pieces of terrain for each of my 3 tables. I have a fully painted Realms of Battle table as well as 4×4 and 4×6 temperate climate mats. I have several items assembled, but not enough painted. So, at minimum 1 piece for each 2×2 section for each table, painted to match. Again, to quote Larry, “I can drink in my house!”

7) Confirm state of paints, brushes, supplies. Some of my paints are quite old and I’ve begun finding a number which have dried up or separated their pigment. The desert is not kind to paint pots, so I need to know what I have that’s still in service and what NEEDS to be replaced for the upcoming projects, (looking at you my dried up Iyanded Darksun, right when I needed you for SW shoulders!!!).

8) Play 1 game a month. I’m lucky to get one game/month with the gang, but sometimes we miss several months. We only play 2 systems at present, we need to stay in practice. So, don’t let a month slip without playing.

9) Play with painted forces. I have 3k+ of painted Tau, and until I can paint more of something else, that will be my go-to 40K army. However, a better way to approach this goal is to not play any force without at least one painted unit. Every new game they play, they need to have one more painted unit than last time. This would suggest that if we play a game every month, I should have 12 NEW painted units before the year is out. As for Infinity, well, I’m going to paint up my PanO to at least 150-200pts and not play with my Caledonians until I do the same. Kilts are fun, so I need to paint them. Of course, being a skirmish game, perhaps for Infinity the goal will be to paint any models form a give unit type, so if I have my Shock Troop regulars painted next month, the next game day I should have my Bagh Mari painted, or some such.

10) Master 40K and Infinity.  While we have models out the wazzu for all manner of games, (40K/WFB/Necro/Mord/BFG/Infinity/CBT), not to mention those which we collect and don’t play regularly, (Warmahordes/Warlord/FoW/Epic/Dreadball), I can heartily say that 40K & Infinity are the go-to games. We’ve all had a recent thrust of 40K enthusiasm, (dunno why, since we all went into shock pricing out Chaos armies with the DV/CSM release), however Infinity is just such a terrific game with amazing models and a better than most entry price. So, we’ll be see Alpha Legion take the field vs Eldar on 12Jan, and after that we’ll do our best to hold 11 more game days in 2013.

Jun 272011
 
Over the hill

Over the hill

Well, we gamed on Saturday, with much of the new terrain in effect on the two tables. Dwarfs faces Vampires on table 1 and Ogres faced Skaven on table 2. Both tables were 4×4, so the 8 pieces, (incl a river & a marsh), on table 2 REALLY cramped up the massive blocks of Skaven and the monstrous block of Orges. In any case, I was just happy to get more painted terrain on the table. I still need to clock/moss the ruins mentioned previously, but I’m quite chuffed at how my hill turned out and plan to get the modular hill and 3 forest bases finished up to the same standard.

As mentioned previously, the hill was basecoated with an ultra flat brown spray akin to Scorched Brown. The crevices in the rocks were overwashed in VGC Dark Fleshtone. The rock surfaces then overbrushed with 1:1 Folk Art Burnt Umber(Graveyard Earth):Ceramcoat Charcoal(Codex Grey). Next step is a vigorous drybrush of Ceramcoat Rain Grey (Fortress Grey). Finally, a light edging by drybrushing Folk Art Linen (Bleached Bone). The caveat here that unlike my desert projects, I drybrushed all of the textured surface. As I intended to flock the majority, I thought the drybrush over the dark would provide interesting contrast should any flocking not take well or I decided to leave a patch or two bare.

The piece was then flocked with some random summer mix I’ve had for years and some static grass. I applied PVA glue across the based in quarters, adding static grass before the flock. After 4 passes around the base, I did the upper surface in a single go, again static before flock. Turned out quite nice. 3 forest bases and another hill to do, I feel like I can manage then pretty quickly in the coming weeks unless I decide to assemble Wood Elves or Night Goblins instead.

Feb 172011
 
Khador & Cygnar Battle Boxes, LotR terrain & Necron Monolith

A few hours and some glue.

Ahhh, spent a lovely evening finishing up a number of outstanding projects. First off were four old Lord of teh Rings terrain sprues. Simple walls, 3 sets per sprue, but always good to have lying around. Shoud be able to base & paint rapidly. After that, a couple of old Warmachine boxes, (these sets are in plastic now), which have been half assembled for far too long. Note the Cygnar warcaster’s head mounted on a wine cork, (I forget his name, sad). It’s too buried on the model to paint once assembled, so I left if seperate. I guess I’ll have to get really serious about painting it proper! And in the dark on the right is the 2nd of my Necron Monoliths, (recall I assembled it’s twin on Sunday). This one was a bit warped and was a bigger pain to assemble, but it’s done now and I can clean up the seams before painting.

It just feels good to get work done. Now if I can just get some painting done. We’ll keep an eye on the Necron and Warmachine projects over the coming months and see what we can achieve.