Howdy! Been a while, I know...I missed you too!

There really are not any real excuses as to why I haven’t updated the blog lately , the  truth is, I just haven’t.  I also haven’t been painting as much as I would like but that is because of a shitty ass retail schedule a bunch of closes and not actually getting to sit down to paint until well after 9pm on most nights.  Again not real reasons…heck not even valid excuses.  I need to get back into the saddle when it comes to painting.  Plain and simple. 

Now in an effort to get back into painting, I am going to do two things. 

1)      Finish up the Mountain King – Just need to finish up the Troll Whelps crawling all over the big’un

2)      Paint up two battleboxes

a.       Cygnar (My original Warmachine faction)

                                                               i.      Stryker

                                                             ii.      Ironclad

                                                            iii.      Lancer

                                                           iv.      Charger

b.      Alternate Trollbloods  Battlebox from the Journeyman League Rules

                                                               i.      Hoarluk Doomshaper, Shaman of the Gnarls

                                                             ii.      Dire Troll Mauler (already painted previously)

                                                            iii.      Pyre Troll

                                                           iv.      Storm Troll

Next Monday I am being sent down to Fairfield to train for my new job, I am supposed to be down there for a month, yup a month…well at least 4 Monday-Friday Weeks. 

So during that time I am going to work on painting up both Battleboxes.  I ordered in Hoarluk and I purchased the plastic Pyre Troll Kit and Storm Troll Kit (very nice kits FYI).  I also had to order in a new plastic Charger kit, since the one I originally got broke. 

For the Cygnar Battlebox I am going to a slightly modified ‘studio’ blue theme.  I drew inspiration from the IKRPG Book and the picture they have of the Ironclad being given its Quake Hammer on page 301.  It is a bit more on the purple-side than I am thinking about going for, but the thought did cross my mind to do the purple scheme.  Really I just want the one white shoulder pad and the white cowl around where the ‘jacks head is. 

For the Trollbloods Alternate Battlebox…well I am going with the scheme I already have but seeing that the Storm Troll and the Pyre Troll are both ‘elemental’ trolls they will differ vastly from the scheme I am using on the full-blooded Dire Trolls and Trollbloods themselves.  Should be fun and make painting them up pretty interesting. 

I figure I should be able to do each battlebox in 2 weeks. 

Other notes of interest…I won two painting contests this month.  The Sons of Bragg won the Unit Category at NorCon 2013 and my Searforge Commission list which consisted of every painted ‘jack I own plus Gorton Grundback won the best painted army at the Convergence of Cyriss book release event held down at Matrix Games.  Pretty cool but in all honestly, I still have a baker’s butt-ton to learn about painting compared to my friend’s Jody, Aaron, Jon, and Kaleb. 

The Mountain That Walks again...

Some photo updates of my progress on the Mountain King.

More pictures to follow as I slowly work on the Mountain King.

The Mountain that Walks.

It was pointed out to me the other day that I haven’t been updating the blog as much.

Tis a true statement. 

I have been rather lax in my updates lately and I am hoping to change that now that some major life events, which have caused some upset in my painting schedule, are calming down.  It has been a rough February and March, but I shall not bore you with details. 

I have been getting in some painting lately.  Not a whole lot but some.  I started in on Durgan Madhammer got about ¾ done with him and then decided I didn't like the colors and so dunked him in some of my favorite liquid, Super Clean, and stripped the paint off of him.  Now I just need to reprimer him and start over =)

I have been working on the largest model I own to date and that is the Mountain King.  There is the book release event for Gargantuans at the end of April that I am going to go to, so I want to have the Mountain King painted up for that.  I have gotten his skin tone done and really, I just did a quicky couple of layers.  Base coat, wash, and then lots of drybrushing. 

The detail on the skin is amazing.  Cuts and scratches not to mention musculature, so rather than have my bumbling hands muck up the awesome detail…I just drybrushed the entire model (five or six times). 

Yup, I took the cheaters way out.  

I am almost done with the bottom portion of the Mtn King that would be impossible to reach if he is glued to his base, i.e. certain areas below the belly.  Once I finish that up I will glue him to his base and then just go on a crazy painting spree to finish him up in short order.  For that to happen I need to put one more layer on the leather belt and then give the model a thorough once over before I glue it down. You can see the parts where I have had to hold the model by the top 'mountain spire' so that I could paint the under-carriage.  When I get him glued to his base I will reprimer the top portions of the mountain with my air brush.  

Just wanted to give a quick update really. More to come, more often, I promise.

Can you smell what the Rockram is cooking!?!?!?!

Quick update! 

I finished up General Ossrum's Little Buddy!  

Wroughthammer Rockram

Not sure what is next on ye ol'chopping block.  Might finish up the primer'd Durgan Madhammer I have been sitting on for a few months...err year or so.

General Awe...wait for it...some is here!!!

That's right folks, General Ossrum is painted up and ready to take to the field.  Scottie-too-Hottie got him for me because he is a cool guy and I got him half way painted up and then got distracted by plenty of other painting projects.  A Knight of Morrow for an IKRPG game, a 25pt Circle Orboros Holiday Bundle, the last two remaining members of the Sons of Bragg for my Trollkins…

And that is when I took a step back and realized that I had way too many unfinished projects in the works and that I needed to focus on finishing up one task before I started another.  Since I really wanted to play Ossrum, I needed to finish his paint job.  I was sent down to Stockton/Lathrop for training for Target (yup switched jobs and jumped ship to a different pharmacy) I had plenty of time to finish him up.    

Well, really all I had finished on him originally was the metals.  I started working with all the armor plates.  Instead of using the P3 paints I went with the Vallejo Caymen Green.  It is a little bit darker but overall it will fit in with the green theme of the Searforge Army I have going right now.  Even the dark red Grundback Blaster fits into the overall theme of the army and eventually I will finish painting up all the Gunners and Blasters that I have (light green and dark red).

Aside from switching up the greens a little bit, I followed the same formulae I used for the other models in the Army.  Green base coat, heavy Devlan Mud (or whatever it is called now) wash, second go around with the green, mix in some bleach bone (or whatever it is called now) for the edging and call it a day.  I mimicked (mostly) the studio paint scheme with the blocking of the colors.  To break it up a little bit I added in a tan brown for the bottom of the great coat and one of the front armor plates.  I am pretty happy with the look of the model. 

Again, I hate doing eyes…I can never get them right…ever! Damn you tiny eyes!!! DAMN YOU!!!

I’ll be working on finishing up the Sons of Bragg before I move on to the Circle Orboros Army. 

There is a 35pt Tourney on the 9^th of Feb and I am seriously debating throwing some Searforge on the table and rocking with them.  I have never played the Searforge Commission in a Tourney and at 35pts I have some pretty rock solid lists for all the armies that I own.  Though I am tempted to bring Kara Sloan to the table just because I haven’t played her in a really long time and she is one of my favorite casters for Cygnar.  

And the New Year has arrived.

And the holidays are finally over!  Whew!!

I made out like a bandit and I am supremely happy (and thankful) with everything that I was given for the 2012 Christmas Season.  Scored a Kindle from the In-laws, an awesome Hoodie from my mom, the spouse bought me a Circle Orboros Holiday Bundle from the PP Store in addition to the two latest books from my favorite RPG, Legend of the Five Rings, The Book of Air and The Book of Earth, and a much needed replacement to my electric razor 

I honestly didn't have the intention of starting another Hordes faction; I just seeded my Christmas wish list with items that were over $100 so that I could make sure I got the two L5R books, which combined were about $60.  It all started when I asked the Lady what the overall price limit was going to be for gifts this year.  She told me that we would spend no more than $100 on each other.  One day I am checking the bank accounts online and I noticed a spike in the credit card bill, so naturally I went to investigate and saw a purchase from the Privateer Press Online store…oh boy!  She blew past that $100 limit in one fell swoop.  The Faction ADD that I suffer from caused me to jump in delight as I knew a new army was coming in for me to play!!

That being said, Scottie-too-hottie and I are going to be working on painting up Tier 4 lists.  I believe he is working on a Kreoss T4…so butt-tons of Knights Exemplar, Errants, Bastions, and a few Warjacks.  I on the other hand will expand out the Circle Holiday Bundle into a Baldur the Stonecleaver T4 List. 

Scottie is also going to be hosting a 35pts Hardcore Steamroller Tourney at NorCon this year so I am going (yeah yeah yeah, I am a commit-a-phobe when it comes to finishing past painting projects) to have the Baldur T4 painted up for that. Which gives us: New Year’s Resolution #1. 

Last night I spent 5 hours vomiting forth a Rocks of Orboros tier 4 list onto my desktop in a frenzy of Zap-a-gap, pins, pins vices, green-stuff, and glued-together-fingers.  I still need to finish assembling Megalith but since I am going to mod him so that he doesn't have that crazy arms-raised-orangutan-pose, that will take a bit more time, since I am super horrible with green-stuff work and in all honestly I will probably outsource this to someone who is much better at green-stuff than I am.

Last night I also finished up the Precursor Knight figure I was working on for the upcoming IKRPG game that I will be taking part in.  And since this is a blog about painting and painted miniatures, I’ll leave off the first post of 2013 with a few pictures of the fully painted Knight of Morrow.  

Hmmm...just noticed I need to hit up the buckles on the Caspian Battleblade sheath before I seal the mini...check!

One Third the Flavor, One Third the Fun

Finished up Tor of the Sons of Bragg Character Unit.  Man, I love these trio of Trollblood Fellcallers, stumpy legs and all.  Not really sure what the sculptor was thinking giving the unit the bowed legs but I love the unit.  Fun to use on the table top as well.  

When the unit hits...boy does it hit hard (if the Dice Gods are in your favor that is and you have made the prerequisite sacrifices before the game started)

They are a pricey little unit at 6 points but they fill a nice roll as a counter-strike unit.  Run the Sons of Bragg up the flank and use them to drop annoying solos or to take down a heavy beast/'jack or to even roll into a unit and just tie it up for a turn or two.  Keep them in reserves and use them to counter-strike anything that gets a bit close to your Warlock or to even clear out a lane for said Warlock to wreak face

So next I move onto Tor's duel-sword wielding brother, Rhudd.  Hopefully I'll get him done a bit quicker...go ahead and roll your eyes now but hey in my defense I did say hopefully