New blog: my dwarf army

Check out new oldhammer blogger  Eduardo's blog.  One to watch!

http://mydwarfarmy.blogspot.co.uk/

Good luck blogging- careful its addictive like lead.

More Scifi progress

More Renedra bases.  More sand.  More glue.
More delicious minis from the golden age of rogue T.

Cross fingers.  Hot day.  Spray can.  Black fingernails.

Brush...

Paint...

Words...

Fail...

Rogues need trading

Hi.  Welcome back.  So hows that itch going?  You should probably see a doctor. 

You know... switching to Renedra 25mm bases with 4mm magnets for my scifi figs has been one of the best decisions I have made since breakfast.  

Renedra feel free to send me free stuff for endorsing you ;).

The speed I can base up figures has made a huge impact on my hobby mojo.  Trays of minis which once languished in the 'too hard' basket, now stand based up and primed and excitingly ready for color.

With 25mm vs 30mm bases I lose stability, however it occurs to me I can snap my models onto decorated 30mm washers using the hefty magnets for some games if I desire.  These bases allow for tighter storage- which is my biggest woe right now next to lack of energy from my recent illness.

Losing base decoration room actually means I don't spend any time worrying about it, and filling that empty space was eating a great deal of time.  Sure my bases wont win any awards but they are fast, unobtrustive and keep the focus on the mini.  I opted to give both my fantasy and scifi bases the same green-grey base coat, and vary the drybrush colors on that.  Keeps it quick and effortless.

I figure all this lacklustre basing gets the figure game ready- I can back and tart up the bases when I am further along.

I like seeing GW minis on non GW sanctioned bases.  Gives me a little tickle.  Not sure why.  But 25mm rounds are game legal... also amusing.  I also like bubble tea.  Also not sure why.

So now I have the excitement of knowing soon I will have heaps of rogue trader, street violence and 2000 ad figures to paint and play.  I am most excited to finally have my RT mercs and adventurers, plus an unhealthy amount of iron claw space pirates out and based, and I found a few gene stealer cultists I forgot I had.

To paint this huge influx of figures I have returned to my trusty prepaint and tint technique, using four layers of overbrushing and dry brushing with a huge soft brush, which I will then glaze over with color at my leisure.

Painting on a preshaded model is much nicer and easier than facing a black surface, plus the tooth the dry brushing gives the surface a paper like quality that helps take the color layers.  

Heres are some test figures (still have to finish the marines- the skin is flat color and the shading on the armor is a bit rough.  Anyway. .. enjoy. 

"You sure your readin' that right Orinocco?  That's inside the room?"

Generation 2 SPESS marines hanging out with an Iron Claw pirate.  A zoat passes by on the way to Iits painting apointment. mmmm... Oldspesshammer.

Start from black spray, apply these starting dark to light using ever softer, drier, drybrushing.

This makes me happy.  I am happy now see?

Citadel rogue trader and 2000ad minis with cryomek and hasslefree mini.

Genestealer karyoke.

Progress

Sometimes my hobby feels like a life sentence.  Am I really going to paint up all those figures?

Hell yeah!

My lack of space, sudden outage of 30mm bases and desire to expedite my process to get me through my horde has made me explore other basing options this week, and thus a bag of renedra 25mm placcies where pulled from my huge tub of bases.  These come in sprues of 10 and are analog with washers in profile.

I started by switching my old 25mm scale Ral Partha minis to these, as they look rather swamped on my 30mm discs and would be perfect for use on 1 inch dungeon floorplans for Dundred playtesting.

After a bit of trial and error I came up with a simple system of magnetising.  I started by boring a hole in the base, sticking sticky tape to the bottom and placing this on a big arsed metal washer.  A dab of super glue in the hole and thanks to the metal plate, the 4mm magnet would leap into the hole and pull itself flush to the base bottom.   Once dry,  I peel off the tape- which doesn't stock to the superglue.   Perfect!

It quickly became apparent that renendras bases had a lot going for them.   No mdf dust for one, and widening a hole could be done with a scalpel.  Paint adheres well, and they give a great low profile. They are lightweight too.  Plastic models could be bonded directly with the base using poly cement.

So I have to say I like'em.  Renedra Unfortunately don't and won't do black (I asked them- black is a bastard to clean out of their machines).  The shipping is a problem too.  For my next batch of bases I think I will get a set custom laser cut from black plasticard with the hole prebored in and scoring etched along the center to promote adhension.  I could also get holder discs cut too for sabot trays.  Yep.

Anyhoo, I was pleased with my new rpg based minis and decided to base up some old school hertiage, asguard and Ral Partha baddies to play with them.  Out came the usual low level suspects- kobolds, goblins and some of the really tiny Tom Meier goblins that will act as mites.

Well I got on a roll, and before I knew what was happening I had ALL my old school goblins based up... and had set upon my citadel goblins as well- finally shedding the last of my hex and round slottas and consistently basing my whole goblin tribe.

Next up I tackled my elves and dark elves, my mythos cobra aliens and many more.  Painting naturally followed and I swathed hordes and hordes with my new VMC german green analog from the hardware store.   Some even got drybrushed lime green or green ocre before I finally had to concede that the weekend hobby session was coming to a close.  My final fits of madness had figures mounted on tongue depressors for squad painting.  Clearly this means my brain is looking to mass paint factory style.

I am feeling quite Virtuous.   See my efforts...

Base process

The trays... the trays!

Somewhere the tea thinks I am bonkers

House paint

I have been meaning to try this for a while,  but today it finally happened.
I was running out of VMC german dark green- the basecoat for my bases- so I used the last of it making a color swatch.

Within the hour I had a huge tester tin of low sheet acrylic paint custom color matched to my swatch from the hardware shop.  Price:  ten bucks.

All that remained was to decant a few spoonfuls into a little squeezer bottle and add some flow aid and demineralized water to get the consistency right and off I merrily went.

The first samples where pretty much bang on color wise.  Jobs a goodun for the next... oooh five years or so.

The paint is very good coverage and low sheen.  Thins fine and mixes fine.

Ten bucks baby.  Ten bucks.

Next trip I will get my lime green highlight color ready for my undead assault board.

Speaking of which,  more skeletons have been arriving for my ultimate ode to oldhammer - and I finally got my hands on the dwarf ballista and mimbrin, the final dwarf in the set.  I need some bases cut for my undead hordes, then it's back on that project.

Super happy flying turtle

I found these in a market at one of the knock off shops and just adored them.  Super kawaii!!!
   Here they are all mounted up on 25mm mdf bases.  At some stage I plan to paint them up and use them for a whacky manga game of Stardred.
I have no idea what they are from... nerds?  Care to prove your superiority and name that show?

Kings archive?

So it occurred to me today as I was looking at some Fraser Gray pics in an old white dwarf that he subtly converted all his minis.
Things like, adding real chains to goblin fanatics or having a skull impaled on the big brother grim orcs helmet.  Small tweaks,  but nonetheless ones requiring damaging the mini.
It occurred to me that I really have this archival mentality.  As a collectior I want my figures to have all the original bits.
Now that's okay for, say, action figure collectors where the figure comes completed,  but it poses the question what counts as complete for minis?  And more importantly,  why should it matter to me?
Take for example a horse and rider.  I cut off the tag to glue it to my bases.  I then file down any flash, and drill and pin the model together and fill gaps.  Now... Why stop there?   After all... I am lucky enough to be at the stage where I can pretty much resculpt anything.  At this stage the model can be dunked in dettol and sold again.  The moment I cut bits off the value falls.

So do I plan to sell them again?   No.  Its my collection.  So why keep them intact?

Besides, what do I care if I change stuff to my liking?  Its my collection.   I have to look at them.

You see the interesting thing is that,  somehow,  in a part of my brain, I am archiving these figures by painting and posting them.  I am a museum.

Should that be so?   Why should I only convert my doubles?  Who am I saving this figure for?

And when you check off figures from your mail order catalogs- does a broken figure count?   Should I check off my champion of slaanesh even though she was missing a weapon hand?

What's your thoughts on this people?   Archive or enjoy?

Gotrek

I found this on  fleabay going cheap and grabbed it for my brother in law who is a hopeless, sad little fanboy.  Felix got away.

The paint job was ok, so rather than strip him I just worked over the top.  As with the ral partha sorceress, I dusted and cleaned the model first, used washes to darken and fill the gaps in the joins, reestablished flat colors using vmc and foundation paints, then worked up the shading.  Finally black ink with flow aid was used for lining.
The blood is good old tamiya red clear acrylic.
The base was filled with spak and magnetic sheet glued to the bottom.  This makes a nice solid feeling base.

Enjoy.

And before...

He just needs some varnish and its off to gather dust on a shelf!

Ed.  You fanboi you.

Saturday was sunny and dry...

Yes, the only saturday better than mr.saturday is a warm, clear, dry one.

Yes.  Its spray time!

Today I based and primed 149 minis.  The only reason I stopped is I ran out of superglue accelerator and superglue.  Nuts!

  Rather than facing my usual wall of unfinished minis to work on I decided to freshen everything up by raiding my storage tubs and giving me something totally fresh to play with.  I stopped enjoying the other ones so a little new-new shiney was needed for a morale lift.

In all that frantic work I did manage to do a few key things which I am excited about.  The main thing was a war on my procrastination.  I seem to have struck a good pace toward that end.  So here are the key achievements.

  One- I got all my oriental heroes and ninja collection well into the path of playable.  These have been sitting in a tub for years in an embarrassing state of just undercoated.  Not the biggest collection so far,  but its nice to see them finally based the same and progressing.  Its equally nice to know no more are lurking in my unpainted draws.  I don't know about you,  but I have a horrible tendency to buy doubles because I forget what's in my draws.  Ooh missus.

  Two- I got my part painted skaven tub rebased and mostly painted.  I still have a huge collection of unpainted metal skaven- but my Skulldred warband is well decked out for now.  They may have to wait.

  Three- my whole minotaur collection is assembled bar the skull faced minotaur lord, (a pinning nightmare I couldn't face without kicker or vodka) and is primed. Some even have color applied.  This is a huge deal for me- as its one of the areas of my collection that I have owned the longest and it was furthest from done.  A BIG morale boost.  Plus I do get a fair number of emails asking about them.

Threes a fair number, right?

Four- raided my Fiend Factory and monsters draw and got well and truly stuck in.  Everything from giant spiders, boars, snakes, assasin bugs and merbeasts got based and primed.  I still have a handful to go,  but its going to be good to have all these creatures playable instead of rotting in zip bags.

  This required a huge mental shift for me.

   You see I suffer badly from perfectionism- and its been holding me back horribly from completing my paint jobs.   I originally planned to have every FF and FA model on hand sculpted flagstone bases- but this would just take forever to do.   I had to negotiate with my brain and say- "look brain... stop eating that book on coding c# and come listen to me.  How about we just get them ff figs all done to an okayish standard on 25mm textured bases and worry about all that... brain... are you  listening to me?  Put down that abstract concept and.... BRAIN!  (Sigh) I dunno why I bother..."

So after that little tirade I did indeed go the simple,  quick basing route and tore through the lot in no time.  Satisfaction!

Perfectionism is a cruel affliction- one I am working on reducing so I can enjoy life more.  It goes beyond being finicky- it actually stops you doing stuff you enjoy because the anxiety of the outcome not being up to your unreasonable standards puts you off. Any advice is appreciated in the comments below.

I plan to have a full set of FF minis done and based for retro dungeon bashes at some stage.  Hence 1 inch rounds instead of my usual 30mm skirmish bases.  I picture using some of those pen and ink dungeon tiles you can get from rpg drive through for some seriously old school action.

Er.. Four.... no... Five.  Nurgle and Slaanesh warbands undercoated and some tzeench demons nearly colored.  Bet your itching to see that project roll off the line!  I sure cannot wait to finally have my classic Realm of Chaos skirmish board ready to play.  Some batreps perhaps?

Six... I kicked off my classic rogue trader figures with battle brother Orrinocco the comms officer from the first 40k relased marines (C100 predated release).  What chapter?  Crimson Fists of course.   And not the modern colors- that slightly purple toned grey blue from the cover art of 40K first edition.  This mob will be seperate to my c100 kill team Charlie project as the marines are all second generation. A set of space adventurers, mercs and iron claw pirates will join forces with them to battle ambulls, zoats, space orks and space elves surrounded by chocolate mousse tub buildings and red tipped giant cacti.  Zoatibixalicious!
I dropped using the brilliant Fenris resin bases for now, because I simply do not have the inclination or time to drill and pin all my 40k minis- plus some odd the rarer ones I want to keep the tabs on.   I highly recommend these bases- the sullaco ones are just fantastic... but for now I will set them aside in favor of discs with glued grit, just to get me roaring along into RT nirvana.

Lastly I managed to go through a great deal of my collection and start weeding out the doubles.  These will be ebayed off shortly, the dirty swines.  It's a pretty darn good haul- something for almost everyone.

Anyway,  glad to be back.