Quick, Dirty, and Tabletop Worthy!!

Breaks Over!  Back to work!

Yeah, that time has come again for me to start posting on a regular basis not like I haven’t been but I did take an extra week off for the holidays.  It was a nice break.  Nothing crazy happened except Christmas! And a Dremel 4000 with loads of attachments!  That is right!  I be cutting MDF Board with a small hand held power tool and 3500 RPM!!!! BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Ph33r m3!!!!

So in case you are wondering, no I haven’t exactly been idle over the Christmas Season.  I painted up a Dwarf Lord from the Warhammer Fantasy line for a D&D Game I am in.  I also cut out a few templates (with the circular cutting attachment for my Dremel 4000!) which I will be turning into swamp templates for my Blindwater Congregation army, and I started painting up my Covenant of Antarctica Fleet after Joel and I had a friendly game of Dystopian Wars.  As you can see lots of little things. 

Joel and I have agreed to have our Starter Fleets plus Aircraft Carriers painted up NorCon.  Honestly it shouldn’t take a terribly long time to paint them up.  First off the scale is 1/1200 so they are super tiny and while they are packed full of detail I have absolutely NO intention of painting each individual rivet, wooden board, and window on those models.  Base coat, wash, drybrush, maybe some highlights, pick out a few metallic details, done!  In the course of one evening of painting I got all of the woodwork done on my Battleship, Fleet Carrier, and three Cruisers.  I am going to test out the hull paint scheme on one of the nine Frigates I have and if I like it…apply it to the rest of the fleet. 

Don’t get me wrong; I applaud those painters that take the time and effort to make their Dystopian War models look gorgeous, but that isn’t what I am going for this time around.  I want a painted fleet on the table.

Quick, Dirty, and Tabletop Worthy is my goal!! 

Joel and I have also both agreed to purchase a second Starter Box of a different nation and a Fleet Carrier (not sure on the Aircraft Carrier but I am presuming we will since both of us did that last time, and I know Jon did as well) once our first set is all painted up.  I’ll be getting the Britannia Starter while Joel is going to get the Empire of the Blazing Sun Starter. 

At any rate while on break I cannot be accused of having idle hands.  I’ll be posting pics of my progress on my fleet next week.  The gators will just have to be patient a little while longer.  I am sure they understand. 

P.S. oh yeah I also got Elder Scrolls: Skyrim so that has been chewing up a good chunk of my free time as well.  

A Family Photo Op...and the Rise of Gammera!!!

All I needed was a small chunk of time to finish up Brun Cragback and I got that on Sunday.  Admittedly I didn’t get as much time as I would have liked to paint but I did finish up the figure.  So that is what I did.  I sat down for two and a half hours and picked out the details of the skin, eyes (good god I hate painting eyes…cause I suck at painting eyes), the beard, and the weapons.  Overall Brun fits with Lug rather well, I tossed in a little touch of green to the figure to tie him into the theme of the army. 

I do however need to take a break from the Searforge Commission for a bit, need to switch it up.  I was listening to an episode of 40k Radio because a friend of mine was a guest host on it and one of the hosts talked about doing little chunks of lots of different painting projects.  It makes sense; it keeps the hobby fresh and helps to stave off the boredom that can sometimes slow the painting process down a lot.  While it does tend to extend out painting projects at least you are always working towards something bigger and as long as you are painting and improving your skills who cares how long it takes. 

Speaking of switching up painting projects, I am now going to finish a half-finished model from my Blindwater Congregation and then move on to painting up a Gatorman Posse.  Kind of excited actually, I am going to be painting up Gammera!!!!  Also known as the Ironback Spitter…and to make it worse, I am using the color scheme from a pokemon.  Yeah, I went there.  It all started as a subtle little joke that Duane said the first time I played my Blindwater Congregation against him and I brought out my Ironback Spitter.  He chuckled, made some off-hand comment about painting up my then unprimered Ironback Spitter to look like Blastoise and I ran with it.  I probably shouldn’t have, but I did and I have a half-painted Ironback Spitter that is in desperate need of being painted up.  So that is my next project and hear is the teaser picture. 

 

Pretty risqué huh?  

Da'Bears!

Well at least A’Bear!

After what has taken too long on a model that should have taken me a day to paint…maybe four hours tops, Lug is finished.  I am still trying to figure out where all of my painting time disappeared to.  Oh well, time to move on and stop worrying about it. 

Lug is finished and that is all that matters.  I am going to put the sealant on him sometime later today when it is not quite freezing outside and like the other Searforge Commission models I have, Lug will eventually receive a small patch of static grass to add that last little piece of something extra to the army theme. 

I have already started on Brun Cragback and I should have him finished the next time I get a good chuck of time to just sit and paint.  I have finished up Brun’s armor and now I just need to paint up the flesh tones, the weapons, and the bracers and then he shall be finished as well. 

I do need new brushes however seeing as how just about every brush I have is starting to either curl or the bristles are starting to splay out into fan shapes.  Pretty much none of the brushes I have are holding a point anymore.  My poor detail brush is so curled that I have to hold it at a 90 degree angle to get the paint where I want it on the model.  Let me tell you, that is fun (please notice the sarcasm here), sometimes it comes in handy but not as often as you’d like to think.

Oh well, I am hoping to get some new supplies in a few weeks; I’ll just have to work with what I have until then.  I am still trying to decide on what to work on next, do I finish out the last of my two primed Searforge Commission models or do I move on to the Blindwater Congregation? 

Hmmmmm…what to do, what to do.  Maybe I'll make some terrain, you know venture into unknown territory. 

Who knows?!

Slooooooooowwww Dooooooowwwwnnnnn

Things have hit a slow down for me.  I can think of lots of reasons why but mostly they just end up being pretty lame excuses.  Life shall be the broad category that all those excuses and reasons go under…needless to say; I haven’t painted quite as much as I should have this month.  I am just about finished with Lug and if I am going to try my best to get him finished up this weekend. 

Once I get Lug all done I am going to move on to Brun Cragback.  He doesn’t look like a terribly hard model to paint up since at least a 2/5’s the model is taken up by the cloak, which I have already painted up.  After Brun, I am not really sure what I want to do.  I still have Durgan and the Blaster to paint up but I kinda want to get started painting up some Blindwater Congregation.   I have also decided in my infinite wisdom to do a project log for one of the model(s) I paint up for the Congregation. 

Why you might ask…and the answer comes back as I don’t know.   Not like I am using a huge range of colors in my models.  Most of them run about 3 main colors and then a few washes and a couple layers of highlights and shadows but I do get a clean looking model out of it and that is what I want.  Maybe documenting every stage will show me places where I can introduce a new step or add an additional color.  For example, I was reading in the back of Hordes: Domination how they studio painters painted up the Swamp Horror…a retarded amount of insane steps.  The model looks amazing but holy jeebus, after reading that project log it made me realize how much of a novice I am at painting and how little I know about color theory. 

I also had the chance to see one of my friends paint up some Retribution models.  Quick and simple he says.  Admittedly on the warjacks I could tell it was pretty much all airbrushed but his Warcaster Kaylyssa was just beautiful looking and he says it was a ‘quickie’.  I cried a little bit on the inside.  Just goes to show you that practice makes perfect.  One day, in ten or twelve years, I’ll get to that point, one model at a time. 

This is what I have accomplished in the past two weeks…I know be amazed for it is truly underwhelming.  Hopefully next week I’ll have a finished giant bear!  I actually did quite a bit of small detail work.  I finished up the padding under Lug’s armor, added a layer of silver highlights to the armor, blacked out the leather straps and metal rings, and I even did up most of the leather straps around the bear’s torso.  I made the spurs on the armor look like bone spikes, so while I didn’t finish Lug, I did a lot of stuff to get to the goal of finishing him up.

All pix no brains

Well I thought I had this great big post brewing in my brain but I don’t, so here are some pictures of my progress with Brun Cragback & Lug.  

  

More amazing verbal discourse to follow next week.

The Four Primes

I am back in business.  My two cans of P3 primer showed up from Minaturemarket.com and I am back to painting again.  I didn’t sit idle while I was waiting.  I picked out the bases for the minis and made sure that they were drilled and pinned and ready to be primered up.  As soon as I got the order in, I primered up a Grundback Gunner, Durgan Madhammer, Brun Cragback & Lug.  I did have the internal debate of if I wanted to prime Brun Cragback & Lug in white or black.  In the end I decided to prime them black because I really didn’t want to have to chase down all the little white spots that I know will crop up. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I am taking the easy way out. I figure once I am done with those four figures for my Searforge Commission list I am going to take a break and work on my Blindwater Congregation army.  

Speaking of Brun Cragback & Lug, I am starting with those two first.  A dwarf and his pet polar bear just say something primal and while I look at their stats and I see a nice one trick pony, it will be nice to paint up something slightly different for my Searforge Commission list that isn’t mostly green.  There will be some small things that tie them in with the army but over all they are going to be standalone models in their own right. 

I'll post pictures of my progress on Brun & Lug next week.

I do like the idea of the models though and I can see where Privateer Press got their inspiration for the models.  Can anyone say the opening sequence of World of Warcraft with a Dwarf Hunter and his pet bear?  That was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw these figures a few years back.  Now I can’t really say where Privateer Press got the idea for these two but like most of the Minion Mini-Warlocks pairs, they are beautiful sculpts and each one compliments the other very well. 

The one glaring issue I can see with them is the limited control range of the models do to the low Fury score.  3 Fury equals a 6” control range and since most of the Warbeasts are speed 5 or more, on they charge they are moving 8” and charging right outside of their control range so they can’t be forced to buy extra attacks or boost attack or damage rolls.  This is easily managed by positioning the Mini-Warlock first and then getting off the charge with the other guy but again you have to be careful because now the Warlock can charge out of the control radius.  I guess I’ll just have to play it safe with the Mini-Warlock’s and their Warbeasts.

Time to switch topics for a few paragraphs or so.

This past weekend there was supposed to be a Tournament for Warmachine/Hordes down at the Armory…I say supposed to be, because only myself and one other person showed up.  Talk about a total let down.  For the past three months every other Friday night saw at least 6 to 10 people playing their Warmachine or Hordes army.  The campaign nights saw at least 8 people getting in games. 

I had high hopes that the tournament would have at least that many people…

And my hopes got flattened like a poor infantry model getting squished between a Ghordson Basher and a Khador Juggernaut.  Man, how disappointing.  Two people.  Two people showed up and I was one of them.  For the past three months I have been talking up this tournament during the campaign nights and telling people they would be able to play their campaign lists in the tournament.  It seemed like folks were pretty jazzed about it and then nothing, nada, zip, zilch.  Seriously!  What the *#$% people!? 

To say that I was disappointed would be an understatement.  I understand that people have stuff to do, I mean life happens.  I know of two players that had to work due to folks quitting and accidents, I know another player was going out of town with his family.  One player couldn’t find a ride, hell I almost wasn’t able to show up on time because my wife was doing something at the gym and wasn’t going to be back until 12:30 - 12:45 but I still got there with a few minutes to spare.  Maleficarum showed up about 30 mins after I did and we both kind of looked at each other, shrugged, and threw down a 35pt game.  Our game was rather enjoyable and even though I lost due to poor positioning on my part (block an escape lane) for my Warcaster or possibly better positioning by Maleficarum I still had a great time.  I did end up playing Major Marcus ‘Siege’ Brisbane with a ton of infantry which was a pretty drastic change for me. 

Anyway, off to paint!