Tag Archives: hobby

Sternguard Veterans – 10/10

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Well, I’m finally done with the Sternguard!  I hand them over on Tuesday!

Last week, I got a new camera, a Canon PowerShot SD780IS, as my old camera doesn’t hold a charge and takes minutes to process pictures.  For point-and-shoot photography, this thing is like night and day.  For the macro photography required when taking pictures of minis… I need to learn how best to do it with this new thing.  That’s okay… but it’ll take a little bit.

As a result, the following pictures have had to go through Picasa for touching up.  They’re not necessarily my best pictures.

Battle Brother VIII:

Battle Brother IX:



Apothecary:


The whole group:

Sternguard Veterans – 7/10

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Finished the second batch of Sternguard Vets.  Four more down, two (and a half or so) to go!

I’ve told Mark I’d get them to him next Tuesday, so I’ve got just a hair over a week to paint two of these guys and do the last few details on the Apothecary.  Should be doable, but I need to make sure I keep in mind that doing the bases takes longer than I expect it to and that I need to allow for time to paint some gloss varnish over the black base rims before I Dullcote the whole thing.

Battle Brother IV:

Battle Brother V:

Battle Brother VI:

Battle Brother VII:

Sternguard Veterans – 3/10

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Just slapped some varnish on the first three of the Sternguard Veterans I’m painting as part of the Battle for the Cure tournament/auction.  Between stripping the minis, work, in-laws and recovery from surgery it’s taken me way too long to make progress on these guys.

Now that I’ve got a recipe for everything going into this, the rest of them should come through pretty quickly, I think/hope/pray.

I still need to touch base with Mark to find out a couple of details (do I need to go in and paint the flex black, or does he like it green?), but I’d say they’s done.

The first battle-brother:

The second battle-brother:

The third battle-brother:

Painting Progress – 20100425

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I’ve been quiet ’round these parts for the same reason I haven’t really done much of a damn thing, hobby-wise, over the past week: I’ve been resting up post-surgery.

In a perfect world, being around the house for a week would equal immense hobby progress.  Not so; I’m so tuckered out, a stab at some highlighting late last week resulted in exhaustion and vertigo.  I hope that passes quickly this coming week: I’ve got to finish these f’ing Sternguard, you know?
I did take a pair of WIP photos the other day.  They’re a bit farther along than these, but not by much.
This first one is of the guys I’ve been working on.  The weapons, straps, parchment and purity seals need doing, but that’s about it.  Bases, too, of course. Less than a day’s work when I’m up to it.
 
These are the guys that still need starting.  They’ve been basecoated, but that’s all.  I need to go back and do a bit of sculpting on one: a shoulder pad has… been messed up.  Other than that, I expect they’ll cruise once I get to them.
Using the same color scheme Mark uses on his guys, for obvious reasons, but I’m trying to put a lot of skill into implementing it.  
For example, he basecoats Knarloc Green, dry brushes Camo Green and wraps things up with a Thraka Green wash.  The result is good.  I’m basecoating Knarloc Green, then rocking out an edge highlight of 50/50 Thraka Green and Camo Green thinned with matte medium and a thinner edge highlight of pure Camo Green before washing over things with a Devlan Mud / Thraka Green / Badab Black mix (the proportions of which are written down somewhere around here).  Debating going back and doing a teeny bit or two of Camo Green highlights on the brightest points.
So, should fit in just fine with his guys while, at the same time, standing out.

Khornate Daemon Display Board

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So, it’s done!

Painting happened faster than I expected: as tedious as the edge highlighting on the stones was, it only took a couple of episodes of Deadliest Catch to blow through.

I airbrushed the whole thing brown; craft paints, a tone that was pretty close to Bestial Brown.  I wanted it to look just like the bases on my models, so I hit everything with a very, very heavy drybrush of Shining Gold.  Then, I picked out the edges with Burnished Gold.

I smeared Devlan Mud across the whole thing.  That ended up looking like crap, so I went back and brushed Devlan Mud into the cracks, with better effect.

Faces and the Khorne symbol are Boltgun Metal with Mithril Silver highlights and Badab Black.  I decided at the last minute to paint the area around the symbol red (Scab Red basecoat, several very thin layers of Blood Red); originally, I had planned to leave it brass.  Water Effects make the blood work really well, I think.

Nothing special here.  The obelisk is done the same way, except the stone is black with Coal Black highlights.

Finally, what’s the point of a display board if you’re not going to put minis on it?

Painting Progress – 201000412

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Despite spending a good chunk of the weekend driving down to Williamsburg and back, I feel like this was an incredibly productive weekend.  How do I know this?  I can barely feel my fingertips.

Sternguard Veterans x10

Since I last posted about these guys, I’ve finished cleaning them (manually, picking out the crud with my seam scraper, which worked well enough), reassembling them, basing them (on some MicroArt Old Factory bases) and finally priming them.

So, they’re ready to go.  Tonight, I hope to get started.  They’re my #1 priority.

Daemon Princes x3

Nothing here.  I don’t expect to make any progress on these guys until I’m done with the Sternguard.

Display Board

Done!  I hope to take some pictures of it tonight.  There are some things about it I think maybe could have come together a bit better, but the finished product is certainly good enough.

Dark Heresy

As with the Daemon Princes, no progress here, and likely there won’t be any until I’m done with the Vets.

Malifaux

Earlier last week, I assembled and based a few Guild minis (Governor’s Proxy, Purifying Flame and Nino Ortega).

While the primer was trying on the vets, I disassembled, recleaned, reassembed and rebased (on DragonForge round-lip Trench Board bases that, with the right paint job and some water effects will, I think, look appropriately swampy) the Bayou Gremlin starter and then pushed on and did the same for a few more Gremlin minis (Hog Whisperer, Giant Mosquito x2, Piglets x4).

All that’s left to do here is find a washer to glue to the bottom of the 50mm Warpig base (and then attach both it and the Warpig to said base).  At that point, everything I have for Malifaux will be ready for play.  I won’t buy anything more until I’ve painted what I’ve got, and I won’t paint anything until I’m done with the Sternguard.

Gaming

I did get a game in at the GW Fair Oaks store with Casey, running his Tyranids, on Wednesday.  Did a random Battle Mission, ended up with the night fight Daemon mission.  It ended up being a surprisingly close game; it was a lot of fun, though I’m glad I don’t game at the GW store often.  The lack of seating really kicks my butt.

Also, I broke a leg off of a Soul Grinder.  Again.  I’m officially sick of that, in case anyone was wondering.  I’m scoping out what would be involved (in terms of materials and cost) with moving to Battlefoam to transport these bastards.

Stripping Minis with a Jewelry Cleaner – Failure

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About a week ago, I mentioned that I was stripping some minis that had a lot of gunk in the nooks and crannies, and that I’d ordered a cheap ultrasonic jewelry cleaner to blast that stuff out.

Well, it was a good idea, at least.

Earlier in the week my “Clearmax 800” showed up.

I played around with this the afternoon it showed up, but in the interests of science I’m starting from scratch and taking pictures for this post.

Here’s a picture of one of the minis.  It soaked in Simple Green for two days, and has been brushed as thoroughly with a wire brush and toothbrush as my back would allow.  (Hunching over the sink gets old pretty quickly, huh?)

After running the cleaner for 30 minutes…

(The picture’s blurry because my camera refused to focus.  You should be able to see some stuff there, though.)

So, clearly, it’s loosened something.  That water was clean when I started.  But:

Clearly, there’s more gunk still on the mini than in the water.  In fact, it’s pretty hard to tell the difference between the two

The cleaner I got is cheap, and annoying.  It runs for 3 minutes before shutting off.  So, to have it run for 30 minutes, I’ve got to press “On” 10 times.  Clearly, I can’t run it overnight or anything.  Maybe that would have better results, but my cats aren’t particularly interested in pushing the button for me.

So, overall, I’m going to have to call this a failure.  Maybe a more expensive, higher-end machine would have worked better… but I’m not going to drop $100 to find out.  I’ve since picked out all the gunk manually.

Maybe, at some point in the future, I’ll try filling the thing with simple green and running it just because, but I have no expectations of it working better.

Display Board WIP

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I’m just about ready to slap some paint down on the display board I’ve built for my Khornate Chaos Daemons.  Not a bad idea to snap a few pics before then.

The board is 3/4′ MDF, cut to be ~17″ x ~26″.  I needed a 15″ x 24″ board, but wanted room for the border (which I knew I needed to help keep things from falling off).  The raised parts are pink insulation foam.

All of the flat surfaces are covered in the same textured plasticard I used to make my bases.

The dais in the center is textured plasticard, plus some extra plasticard cut into an octagon and a Khorne symbol.  Nothing fancy there, I suppose, but I put a lot of work into cutting it out, so I’m proud of it.

I’ve had an Arcane Ruins set since GW released them that I’ve done nothing with… I got a lot of use out of it on this.  The skulls and faces on the edges of the raised platforms are from it, as is the obelisk in the back center.  I’ve tarted up the obelisk with some ForgeWorld etched brass Khorne symbols.

I originally tried gluing the skulls and faces on with E-6000 for some ridiculous reason.  That was a mistake: the glue ate through the foam like a hippo through marbles.  I ended up filling in the holes and gluing on the faces with wood glue.

The board rests on a breakfast tray.  This idea is blatantly stolen from Matt Hoell, who uses one as his display board.  I needed more room than the tray’s surface offers, however: hence the MDF.  I need to affix the board to the tray, though: I want to lift the board off the table, but I don’t want to make it that much easier to be knocked over.

So, there’s a bolt that goes through the board and through the tray.  There’s only one, because I wanted it to be removable, and there’s really only one spot I can hide a bolt: under the obelisk.  I’ll lift and carry the board by the tray, not the by the board.

Because it’s removable, 1) I’ll be able to reuse the tray with other display boards and 2) be able to store the whole mess more easily.

Also, the bolt is metal, which allowed me to glue a magnet to the inside of the obelisk.  That’ll keep it in place… but be easily removed and stored.  (I might even turn it into a fifth objective marker.)

EDIT: I’ve finished this!  You can find some pictures of the finished product here.

Painting Progress – 20100329

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Spent the bulk of last week and this weekend trying to beat the house into submission: we’ve got family in town for the next couple of weeks.  Trouble focusing didn’t help me get much out of the hobby time I did have, either.

Sternguard Veterans x10

Not much progress here.  I picked out some gap gunk on a couple of models, but at this point I’m really just waiting on the jewelry cleaner to see if that works out.  The replacement arm did show up, however: I’ve got to pop by GW Fair Oaks to pick it up.  (That was a really fast turnaround: ordered Thursday, in-store Saturday!)

Daemon Princes x3

Nothing here. Not sure why.  Just need to bang out some highlights on the wings and then I’m done.  It’s tedious, but requires very little actual thinking… which should make it perfect for lack-of-focus work.

Display Board

Do have progress here.  The tray I’m going to mount this on showed up, as did my Forgeworld order (with some models I’m going to use as objective markers, as well as the brass Khorne icons).  I’ve cut out the foam for the raised sections, done some plasticard cutting (more than I think I’ve ever really done).  I’ll be stopping by Home Depot on the way home from work to pick up some MDF and quarter-round (for a lip).

At that point, it’ll just be a matter of cutting the quarter-round, gluing and nailing the wood parts together, sticking on the raised foam parts, and gluing down the plasticard.  I think painting will be tedious, but will go by quickly.

I’ll have a post with some WIP pics, I think, as soon as I’ve got the wood.

Dark Heresy

Wrapped up the bases for these two minis, but haven’t really made much progress painting them.  They’re low priority at the moment, though, so that’s okay.

Malifaux

There’s probably a post about Malifaux rattling around my head: I’ve read the book, but haven’t played the game.  I like some of the minis a lot… but loathe just as many if not more.  The inconsistency of each of the factions is a huge turn-off for me.  Will have to see if the mechanics make up for it.

But, I did prep and base the Sonia Criid starter I picked up a Madicon.

Ecumenical Khorne – Tzeentch

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Themes: flying, shooty, armor-penetrating.  A successful result will look like it does what it’s supposed to do in-game.
This is the hard one.  Tzeentch units will, I think, involve the most actual conversion… and the most discipline. Everything I’ve brainstormed eventually transforms into something very Skaveny: dangerous looking, but madcap and zany.  That’s sort of thing is great for Skaven, but not so much Daemons.   Or, at the very least, not the sort of Daemons I done so far.  So, that’s the trap to avoid.
Horrors will likely see some table-time at some point.  That I run an army with next to no shooting is kind of crazy.  What I’m likely to do here is up in the air.  
Flamers, I have a clear vision for.  Bloodletter base, with the horns that sprout from the head shaved down (so it looks less dangerous than the Daemonettes and Bloodletters and brainier).  The Hellblade forearm is replaced with some rigid plastic tubing and capped with one of the heads from the Chaos vehicle sprue (because it shoots things).  Wings from the Gargoyle sprue (because it’s a jump troop).