Hellish giftmas

Merry retrolicious leadmas my little Gelfling stabbers.
This year I managed to once again not finish my Christmas specials.  At least I am being traditional.   This year it is Reaper minis excellent Xmas Sophie who stopped shortly after basic washes.  Oh, but I did manage to sculpt up a matching rickety wooden base for Citadel's Sanity Claws from last year.
Next year I plan to not complete some xmas mouslings... and maybe a Christmas dwarf if I can find a nice cheap one.

One last act of xmas spirit had me assemble a Chaos Dwarf Hellcannon that I got for Christmas last year.  Finelycast?  Nope... it was so warped I could barely get it together.  I have done enough resin casting to tell this was untimely ripped from it's mold- the central cannon pivot support holes had collapsed in on themselves.  I used a hairdryer to kinda sorta fix it but once again I am reminded that this is a super expensive, inferior product.  Quality control be damned.

I felt better that I managed to assemble one more of my xmas presents... but it is kinda embarrassing how many I have yet to even get out their boxes.  I have two chaos mounted champions, three chaos characters, a box of hellstriders, dark eldar,a box of chaos knights, skaven, trolls and some plastic human millitia.  Yikes.  I better dedicate some gluey time next year.

How bad is your haul pile from previous years?  Go on... be honest.

Oh... I also tacked on another photo of some of my JB style chaos for you.

Limited Edition Sanity Claws (Citadel) and Limited Edition Xmas Sophie (Reaper)

Three Chaos Spawn walk into a bar.  The bar clears out.  All custom conversions.

Basing. Always more basing. And a spawn.

Tonight was a fabulous frenzy of basing.  A lot of my figures are on 3mm thick mdf bases, whilst my newer figures are on 1.8 or 2mm thick low profile bases, which I prefer.  A big assed packing knife and sandpaper, a little thinned weldbond pva glue to seal the bottoms (and stop them pilling) and a fresh paint job here and there, and a whole slew of minis where rendered a bit gooderer.

I had a couple of tubs of minis that I had been putting off because of this, but now I have the technique of shaving the bases down to an art, and the fact they where quick to paint- they lept up the paint queue to tonight.

Among these where early citadel dire wolves and hogs, a host of farmyard animals from Megaminis and Hasslefrees excellent baby maws... (perfect little buggers for slaanesh warbands- I must get more of these and some adults too!) Oh... and dogs.
Lots of dogs.
Why I have so many I really don't know... blink dogs, ratter from citadels rare villagers set, more megaminis, chaos hounds and armored war dogs from Ral Partha.  Strangely I do not think this is enough though, as I felt the urge to start putting these on the bases with their masters.

Oh, and I rebased the chaos dogzoat spawn to a large renedra round base to give him an epic feel and protect his wings in gameplay.

I figured I would leave you with a picture... here is one of the whacky chaos spawn I threw together after Steve posted all those lovely John Blanche pictures a while ago.  I noticed a huge mold line on the arm so I will have to address that before I continue.  I think he needs a stupidly sized, moss covered banner ala 80's blanche.

So that's my night.  Yawn.  G'night all.

Ed's first founding.

So last night my brush was tickling some spess mareenz for by brother in law's founding chapter project.  Yep, I have to tackle one of each.  Apparently there are twenty of the bastards.
Ed has been handing me marines in a steady stream and I have been dutifully setting them aside until The Emperor grants me the willpower to paint them.

The thought occurred to me that I have lost track of the number of space Marines I have painted over the years.  It's Become reflexive.  The challenge is not falling asleep.

But here is one for the fanboyz.  I will track down and personally bitch slap anyone who points out that color scheme x is not accurate according to codex Y.  Seriously,  I DON'T CARE.

These guys are mostly done, with insignia and other details remaining, a cloak on the blue dude... and whatnot.  I am no expert, but I also suspect the ultramarine needs a head.  A testament to Ed's delicate take on gluing.   I will let him pick out which of the numerous parts that have fallen off belongs to him.

Aaaaaand with all great modern GW tasks I absolutely had to do an old school Rogue Trader mini to keep sane.  And what a mini... one of the numerous Space Orks from the boxed set.  As you may remember,  I vowed to not collect RT space orks.

Naturally that means I have ten or so and a couple of dreadnoughts.

What a joy!  I decided to go full Rogue Trader tabletop style on them- going right back to their first appearance in WD98 (I think) with strong contrast, titillating pink lips and rich greens.  Quite a different style than my normal muted blends, but satisfying and glorious on the gaming table.

And finally a little 1980's pop culture D&D reference.  First one to get what is cool about this color scheme on a roper gets to act smug all week.

Orcs! Lots of Orcs!

'Ere yer go.  An earlee wurk in progress... me greenies... cor lookat 'em all.  Dems boyz gettin' reddy for Waaaahhhggg.

*cough*  gosh I say, orcish is just too much like being back in essex.  Innit.

So... er... cobber...  I decided it would be nice to get as many of my orcs out for a family photo.  This is the first time they are all together.   Obviously they are all in various states of unfinished- some nary out of their undercoat- but I figured you may like to see them.  Imagine them all painted up lovely.  Cooorrrr.

So with a few days left to giftmas I probably should focus on my giftmas sophie from reaper- or, you know,  base and varnish cthulu santa from last year.  But hmmmm... maybe someone can give me some 'arsed' for giftmas because right now I just can't be.

Slaanesh warband 2

Though very tired today I did manage to push some more figures further along the paint queue this evening.  I am mentally exhausted, but soldiering on with tasks will help recovery.  So...

I added chaos thugs to the mix, finally slapping paint on figures I have had under coated for years.  No real shading to speak of yet, but the little army is starting to appear in crude form.

I also finished two Ral Partha Golems... finally completing the set of four.  I have to dig out the clay and flesh ones for a family photo.  Sadly these two are on the endangered species list.  Ral Partha destroyed their molds during the Fasa takeover.  I have tried contacting wizards of the coast to get the rights to recast all these lost lines but to response.

Slaanesh Warband

Howdy doodie, duderinos.  The waves of figures on my desk have yet to destroy me.  A few more near completion.  Mushroom bases, a bit more touches of color and edging, then varnished and done!

Here I give you my new Slaanesh members.  I decided that pastels don't really say hardcore spank as much as shiney red and black leather.  So I give you my deviant palette.

The Daemondog ("young girl... they call them the Daemondogs".. Bowie anyone?) previously shown has her slap on now for the most part.

The Demonettes (fuck the bullshit 'a's) got classic paint schemes based on their first appearance in white dwarf- courtesy of Phil Lewis and John Blanche.

More as I churn, churn, churn.

More progress

A few hours early this morning got me a little further along.   All these still WIP.

Plague bearer yellow and the tablehorde

Howdy lead abusers.  I am in a 'get shit done' mood, so launched into a desk full of black primed minis.
A desk full?  Madness you say.  Well yeah, but to keep things rolling along I loaded up on easy kills- things with only a few colors and details.  You know the kinda thing... dogs, rats, boars, snakes and armored things.  Three or four steps and your done.

I had intended to just preshade them and paint their bases- but got a bit carried away and started coloring and highlighting some. 

By the end of the session I tried a pus yellow color scheme on my rogue trader era Plaguebobs of Nurglepants.  Kinda John Blanche demon yellows but sliding towards green.  This was in reaction to the 'green is boring' comments.  See, I listen.
  I think these two tests work nicely- and it will merge them a little more into my chaos undivided warband.  I will throw in some redder, a pale one and a greenish one for variation.

Morrison and Kev Adams individual takes on plaguebearers.  Work in progress.

Everything from Ral Partha golems, Citadel preslotta dungeon monsters and a couple of 80's chaos champions and limited editions dance merrily across the table.  Bliss!

Chaos Spawn

Okay, okay... I replaced the zoats head.  Tsk... you people.
Under the knife went a two headed chaos hound.  Much more spawny.

As you can see, I got the base tints down on my zoatspawn, but am yet to highlight  or smooth out the skin.  But progress is happening- which is nice.

Also pictured are two other spawn- the body from the dog mated with a demonette, and I think I posted a pic of the Blanche inspired winged spawn a while ago.

All very work in progress.  But its nice to feel like I am gaining momentum again.

I also managed to undershade and color tint a host of 80's orcs- including two boar riding heroes from Kev Adams first ravening hordes release and some limited editions.  That was fun.  I have been dying to paint those babies since Duran Duran where in the charts.

So yes, some progress finally!  Enjoy.

Turbolister Joy-Joy

So turbolister does this really cute, adorable thing where it takes grams and coverts them to ounces using an interesting bit of maths.  20 grams- the weight of a LE Motley Maniac, equates to 0.705479 oz.  Turbolister thinks 20 grams = 20 oz.

So motley maniac would weigh 566.99g- the same as shipping you 30 motley maniacs.  Imagine that... thirty limited edition motley maniacs.  Oooooh.  I went to a happy place.

So I gave ebay a call and we solved the problem by taking down the listings and crediting back all my lovely, lovely listing fee money.  All good.  Soooo... the problem is that Ebay recognised this bug in may... but here I am in december without a patch.  Great.

I thought I would help out the coder responsible by creating the elaborate code required to fix the problem.

weightB = (weightA * 0.035274)

Copy and paste this into your code.  If you can find the copy/ paste function on your keyboard- (which is the thing infront of you that you sleep on... in case you where wondering.)

Ebay recognised this error in march 2013.  It is december.  Something tells me the turbolister team has been downsized to a broom cupboard containing a bent paperclip.

I will be doing them the slow way shortly...

Sold to the guy in the funny hat

Forget black friday, it's blackdwarf wednesday!  Time to trample each other for capital gain.

I finally waded through the agony that is Turbolister to bring you lead, sweet lead from my doubles pile.  IT WAS HELL...  so please buy something so I can afford something to steady my nerves.

Stay tuned, for I have buckets and buckets more to list, which include some pretty sexy metal 40k minis from the 90's  including termies, landspeeders, metal dark angels and other shiney nice-nice such as heaps of awesome Reaper minis.  In fact it looks like I will be regularly selling on ebay for a while, looking at the box of stuff I have.

In the tradition of selling 80's lead, here is the details in 'ooligan speak.

Cor!  Blummin led boyz... Here da linky...  Waaaaaahhhhggg!!! Biiiiddd!

http://www.ebay.com.au/usr/kingofdaveness

...and here sum purdy pikturez- coz without pikturz it didnt 'appen.

And many more!

I hope these babies find good homes.  sniff... no... it's okay...  they grow up so fast...

Big box of stuff for you... yes, you!

You know buddy, sifting through my unpainted collection for doubles,  weighing, photographing and identifying them is an asshat way to spend a weekend.  I hope you appreciate just how much effort I go to in order to give you the chance to own them yourself.
Yes, its ebay time here in the house of flying lead.  That time when you allow yourself a moment to ask- do I really need two motley maniacs?

Of course I do... I could paint them differently and base them for different games... or convert one into a 40k jester or...  and this is the big one... or I could eat this week.

Hold on... I am still thinking it though...

So it turns out I have accumulated a big box of doubles, and yes it is time to let them go. Mainly for space, but also saving for IVF during a miserable time in the Australian game and film industry.  Seriously WTF?  One fx film coming in?  Just one?

I was quite surprised just how many doubles I have- as I made the mistake of not keeping a check list and immediately setting doubles aside.  If you are serious about collecting you would be best to start one of these off.   Downloading catalog pages from solegends and crossing them off is a good technique.  This will also stop you double buying figures sitting in your strip jar- my biggest mistake.

Along with my doubles will be a huge load of Reaper minis I got from the Tin Soldier closing down.  Lots of goodies there, especially if your after giant spiders, Egyptian figures, battle toads and orcs of kargir... which I have buckets of.

Among the citadel list:

Nurgle champion with scythe
Chaos sorcerer with skull face and wand
80's chaos warriors.  Yep.
Aardvark berserker
The fiend
FF wraith on horse
Iron Claw goblins
Rogue trader nib medics pack
Talisman centaur, witch, priest
Night horror big boo ghost
Gothic horror noel, noel
Perry first slotta orcs
Brothers grim champion orc
Orc shaman
Dark elf sorcerer first slotta release
Dwarf adventerer samurai (not rerelease)
Motley maniac jester of chaos
FF fishman
pre slotta martial artists
More stuff and nonsense

I plan on trying turbolister to get the first batch up soon- energy permitting.

Wish me luck.

Undead assault board 2

Heres a quick snap.  Not loving the water effect, may redo completely with a different technique and repaint this as concrete.

Undead Assault terrain board began

A bloody hot day today, so I seized the opportunity of fast drying time to start on my Undead Assault skirmish board.  After all, too hot for mini sculpting- the setting times where stupid.  Grr.

All I did was the baseboard, which is completely slimey greenish water with resin gloss varnish.  The idea is all my terrain peices are island modules which sit ontop of the water, allowing me umpteen configurations when combined with bridges.  The islands have rubber non slip tabs and are mainly foam with a little mdf to give them weight and stability.
For undead assault I need a castle island module, a bridge module and one large island.  For surface components I need the rune archway, the hill the undead stand on, a second to form the valley the undead pour through and several stands of giant mushrooms.  I may also do several corpse stands.
For the castle I plan to add a channel and plastic groove that holds the doorway so the skulldoor can be slid out sideways to reveal an open version or swapped out altogether.  The ballista on the roof will be seperate and snap in with magnets.

Once thats all done, I will be able to expand the modules to increase my options.  The first thing I want is a toxic dump style necromunda/fallout station set.

Exciting.

No point in pictures yet... its just a green glossy board at the moment!

Realm of Chaos made me do it

See?  This is what happens when I am left alone with broken minis.  A frikkin realm of chaos spawn made from three classic eighties figures- the zoat, coatl and that cornerstone of so many chaos conversjons of its time- the giant scorpion.  Remember Pete Tailors elephant headed spawn with... giant scorpion arms... or his yellow winged spawn made from the orc war wyvvvvvvern, umberhulk and... giant scorpion arms.  In fact I rarely saw a whole one.
For this one I had the spawn from white dwarf shown here in mind...  the coatl wings especially reminded me of this twisted minotaur.

For this conversation I blended procreate with small amounts of fimo to make a slow drying detailing putty that blends and feathers easily.  The fimo slows the cure and reduces the memory quality- which is what makes blobs of green stuff so dammed hard to feather together... perfect!  I use bright pink fimo so it stands out from the grey understructure.  Super sculpey works too.  Its softer cured so dont use for support structures especially if you plan to Vulcanise it.

Anyway, this zoaty spawn was a great little break between cure times for Oladahn from Hawkmoon and a fiddly boar warrior who does not like the sword I have given him.  We shall see who wins in due course.

This spawn will no doubt sit unpainted for a while till I have some brain cells back enough to concentrate on it.  The rest of my hobby time will no doubt be more unexciting basing and priming of my backlog.  Last night saw another twenty minis get grounded- but alas I am still not done basing just the minis I bought at cancon and moab over the last few years.   It's in my mind to have these done before the next one so I can purchase more :)

Sleep well you Slaved to Darkness...

My chaos spawn.  Citadel zoat, Coatl wings, Giant Scorpion claws.  Scratch built tail.  Base by warbases.  Dirt by bondi beach.  Hair by Julien.  Egad by jove!

Remember these?  Mike mcvey pj judging by base.

Renedra base comparison

Because you asked...  Renedra bases are half the thickness of gw ones.  You mortals are so easy to please. 

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.

Wear Purple Day

Today is Wear Purple day in Australia- to show gender variant and intersex youth we care.
And we should... among the transgender community alone youth suicide rates are around 45% according to some accounts- with many cases unreported.  This is a direct result of how society treats these kids.  People should not have to suffer for how they where born.

The wargaming community should be much more aware.  Its quite common to use the term transexual as a slur on a poorly sculpted female figure for example- and I already mentioned GWs sins in this department regarding Slaanesh.

Take a moment to visit wikipedia and look up transgender and intersex if you have never heard of these conditions or you still think they are mental disorders.  Then perhaps show your support next year with yer paint brush like I have here.

Its a silly little gesture,  but the more people know, the better this world will become.

Purple!

Ahh strip bucket Christmas and Wear Purple Day

I got in an hour of miniature stripping to take my mind of how darn crappy things have been of late.  A bit of mindless scrubbidy dubbin with a tooth brush seemed restful.

Its always like Christmas whenever the strip jar comes out.  I usually forget what I have in mine,  so invariably there is a pleasant surprise or two lurking in the dettolly mire.
For my hour of effort I had most of my c11 giants appear, paranoia troubleshooters, c100 marines, ten original edition skaven ratmen, a dracolich and a couple of rare chaos Champions I never knew I had.  Bonus!

This also cleared enough space to finally get the last remaining members of my Undead Assault project in to soak.  I am sure you all cannot wait to see that one taking shape!

I got a big hobby session in tonight and feel much better.
All my chaos familliars had been rebased on 1 inch rounds but have been laying around incomplete.  So I got those bases painted up, which gave me a nice feeling of completion.  I have had these figs since I started this blog and they where a constant niggle in the back of my collection.
Oh, and I got all my washer mounted dwarf and chaos dwarf warbands rebased onto 30mm rounds, as well as rebasing my old Ral Partha large monsters.   I feel like some progress has been made.  Yay me.

I also kicked off a small mini project by painting up a bunch of figures to celebrate 'wear purple day' tomorrow (in support of gender variant, transgender and intersex youth).  My wife, who helps communicate such things in a big company, told me about it tonight and I love the idea.  But, as I dont have any purple clothes to wear to work (or at all), I decided to dress my lead instead.

So tonight was all about da purps.  I slapped rich, opulent purples on a host of minis.

I avoided Slaanesh figs though... after all, it wouldnt be fitting for tomorrow as GW demonise hermaphrodites in that range (as if the sexism wasnt enough- female marines now!).  Not to mention use purple as the main colors of daemonettes these days- not very PC when you consider it really.   Still- I am a huge Slaanesh fan- and currently have about three boxes of Slaanesh goodies awaiting assembly - but thats for another time. 

Tomorrow is about letting kids know its okay to be born outside the binary... not pink or blue but a shade of purple!

Pics once I finish up.  I forgot just how striking purple can be- and vow to do a few purple warbands soon.  Hmmm... purple orcs?

Heres a random pic... you know... coz its not a post without a pic.

Cultist conversion, flamer

I have been passing time in canberra painting stuff with my nephew.
Here's a quick snap of the nurgle cultist I converted a little bit with spare putty, and a flamer my brother in law got me.  My hearts not really in it,  but it is  therapeutic.

For retail therapy I grabbed a molly squidgepidge boxed set, a pathfinder gnome Wizard and some more Greystuff to turn into old school style minis for you all.
Matt primed them up for me,  along with his Vicktorias boxed set.  He is done on the skins. .. gotta go get a move on to catch up!

Further kickstarter thoughts

So I was browsing kickstarter and indigogo the other night and thinking about how I could use it to help focus my efforts once I am back.

What I am thinking is that it's a fantastic way to go big and do some really polished,  high production cost things that I always dreamed of doing.

First though, I think I will use it to fund a small miniature production or two just to get used to the kickstarter process and do something I can deliver without effort.

So when I say big,  I am talking things like modular plastic kits in full color printed boxes.  Boxed set rules with dice,  tokens,  figures, cards, measuring gizmos and full color glossy handbooks.  Commissioning artists we love to do wot dey do.   Game apps.
Big stuff.  Stuff that requires me to hire hirelings and actually pay them money.

This kinda thing is all possible now.  It's daunting but amazing too.

In the near future I want to do some digital prints now that my caster has low temp silicon.  It seems silly not to use my decade plus years experience modeling digital characters. This could be a good opportunity to experiment with modular models with a goal of resin or plastic production.  That's the beauty of kick starter.  No risk production.

I have made a few posts about how I would run d&d and warhammer to both better fans and profits... The response is positive.   Shall I put my money where my mouth is and get serious?  Shall I kick start a business that goes beyond one guy pushing putty around in his spare time?

Is tantalizing stuff.   The idea of having money enough to make something special.   Something you know folk actually want because they paid in advance.

Tempting.

Thanks all

Well Canberra is bloody cold, but I am pleased to spend some time with my family.   My nephew is assembling a formidable necron force and I am sitting sculpting Hawkmoon figures next to him.  Nice to both have the same hobby. He is no slouch with a paint brush either!   I am very proud of him.  He is probably sick of my tutorials by now.   I do have a lot to say about minis... a looooooot.

Besides I have to beat the fanboy out of him before gw milk him any more.   He buys GW hobby sand and shite cast clean up brush fur christ sakes.  Summit has ta be dunn 'bout dat.

A big thank-you for your comments and links- cheered me up no end.  I am coping well. I sculpted a pig faced orc for myself to cheer me up in between HM figs.

I am off to the hobby store in civic to grab a little retail therapy tomorrow- not sure what.  I am certain I do not have enough miniatures. That's lead addiction for you.

Please post comments about kickstarter thoughts a couple of pages back!

Dad passed away

Soooo....  just recovered from being ill and eager to dive back in to work and then....
I just got the news my dad passed away today of a sudden heart attack.  No warning.  Done.  Thats yer lot.

So I wont be posting for a bit or kickstarting stuff as I will be off making arrangements for my dear ol' dad and hanging with my family for a bit.

I am doing fine- surprised,  sad, but well supported and strong.  So signing off for a bit.

Thanks to all my readers- If you want to cheer me up pop a link in the comments to the coolest damn mini thing you have seen on the net... distract my little mind!

Its been a funny sort of year....

Wippity do dah

A quickie wip to mark progress on my hobby fix- I had a few hours free tonight as my missus was out at work drinks.  I just pushed a few things on my pile further along without much focus- I am rather tired tonight.

Starring in this pic are works in progress of a classic winged cat from Ral Partha's golden ad&d era, and citadel lead aplenty:  a kniggit of dol amaroth, a chaos sorcerer, The orcish limited edition of the Brothers Grimm (Fraser Gray style) and a chaos centaur from slaves to darkness.  Oh and one of my new unreleased dwerg for Darkling Games!

In my last post I kicked off a kickstarter discussion- please pop back there and share your thoughts!

Kickstart my ass

I am toying with the idea of using kick starter to help me dedicate some time to my minis and games business.  I didn't want to jump on the bandwagon as the hobby is flooded as it is, but being pulled all over the place by work really inhibits my plans.

Here are the hovering projects I have.  If there is a kickstarter here holla in the comments:

*Dwerg series 2- artillery- modular troops and war machines.

*Skulldred core rules, toad minis, skully mini, portal minis, resin dread tokens, lasercut sticks and tokens.

*Dundred RPG:  old skool dndesque game with modern rules

*Dundred lairs:  Floorplans for 30mm bases, + card buildings ala 3rd ed.

*McNastybeastie: shakesperian scots minis.  Laird, lady, helldog, clansmen, spear girl

*Dungeon Noobs boxed set: rpg foolish minis on their first dungeon raid

*Stardred skirmish:  Skulldred with blasters!  80's style future minis action plus minis inspired by the era.  Space helmets, cricket pads and laserguns anyone?  Think eagle, future shock, starblazers, Druillet and Mobius.

*Missing bitz:  replacement proxy parts for classic minis such as early citadel giants and wheels for war machines.

*chaos halflings.  'Cause.

*Steampunkish/creepy cyber robotic spiderlegs and limbs to fit any minis.

*Amulet spell toads.  15mm versions.  28mm versions are awaiting production molds and webstore.

*restoring classic minis web book- kind of a heroes for wargames 2 style thing.

After these I was thinking of entering the resin kit market, getting stuff cast in europe and distributed from the UK, adding modular gaming thingies to augment my aussie made metals (I hate metal modular minis hence resin).
This would allow me to put into practice some of the ideas I have explored within my blogs.  I am, after all, a pro digital character sculptor and have all the same software and haptic hardware citadel use- no reason not to explore my own 80s scifi universe in an affordable modular way, right?

Kickstarters have worried me in the past because of my health- particularly my sudden chronic energy drops - it seemed random... however I am now diagnosed, am on the right diet and getting treatment, so thats not an issue anymore.  I am shiney and new and ready to go!

Anyway, I would love to hear you thoughts on Kickstarting Darkling games.  Its all about you folk after all!  Now back to Skulldred editing!

What-would-you-dohammer?

My nephew asked me what I would change if I was put in charge of warhammer products.  Fun question huh?

Okay, so here is my main thoughts...

1: remove 20mm bases from fantasy.  All troops on 1" bases.  All larger bases clean multiples of inches.  Launch a new set of low profile, non bevelled bases in clear, brown and black plastic with magnet sockets.

2: refocus kits, designs and rules to focus on more multiple sales of the same kit.  For example, a 'dark eldar' troop kit that lets you build six or seven types of units from the one kit- rather than four or five kits that focus on one or two types.  Imagine a single space marine squad kit that could make light, heavy weapon, veteran, command, or jet pack squads.  Shops would have less redundancy and it would be easier to buy gifts for players, and GW would greatly reduce packaging and tooling costs.  Resin bitz would be streamed out to fuel the new release hunger instead of kit after kit.

My 'more sales of same kit' drive would likewise see the crossing of 40k and fantasy kits ala chaos demons.  A zoat kit with fantasy parts, future weapons and bloodbowl helm bitz anyone?  Whats that?  Youll take seven?  Thought so!

Slan heads in the Kroot troops boxes anyone?  Fantasy weapons for kroot?

3: I would also make the huge change of making 40k a 30mm base standard. Lets face it, the minis are getting too big for 1". Starting with snap on adapter bases and moving to low profile clear and black plastic bases for all new releases.  Of course selling cheap packs of bases so you can upgrade is a must.  This would also mean wider, more dramatic stances are viable and true scale marines are go.  Yes.  I would relaunch marines true scale.

4: I would ditch the huge rulebooks for boxed sets of rules (with no minis in it).  The box would have a seperate book for rules, armies, fluff and hobby.  That makes lugging it around optional.  The rulebook itself is free to download.   Its the fluffbook/armylist book thats the premium bit.  Focus money making on minis not rulebook tomes- this encourages new players.

5: merge chaos back together into one.  Add 'evil sorcerer' as a new empire option (and add evil options to empire kits ) and allow crossovers of undead in both.  Skaven, beastmen etc can intermix.  The goal is to make players buy a mix of kits rather than single army focus.

6: race variant modules.  Tau could have been a head/weapon swap for eldar- fimir could fit orc models... slann on kroot... rhinomen on ogres... barbarians on chaos thugs... a few simple modules can enrich the universe and give players more options without more army rules or kits.

7: end wave releases.  Each month release a little of something for everyone rather than eldar month, then orc month... new variant modules, new characters... it would make WD much more appealing as a subscription.   New unit rules appear in WD and are added to website for download.  This does not need to be a whizz bang power thingie... resin head swaps or alternative weapons is enough.  Enrichen... enrichen... enrichen...

Well thats my thoughts... care to wade in ?  Comments below peeps !

Realms of Chaos era Warband: Nurgle

All this cryx stuff has made me pine for old school realm of chaz and dave.  Some demons require a summonin'

Pappa Nurgle!  Pappa Nurgle!

Oh happy days.  I finally glued together my greater demons of Nurgle.  Boy I am knocking those painful tasks out this week.  Its making me all confident and stuff.
I always coveted these, especially after Mike McVey pulled of a masterfully blended deep green pj in a white dwarf article.  After decades, I am about to fullfill the childhood wish to paint one up.  Twice!
This is the spirit of what drives us... that need to fill the voids white dwarf burned into our souls.
That little beardy gold grabbin git.

The three nurgle champs front and center I owned back then, did my best paint jobs on ever and promptly gave them away before migrating to oz.  I am excited to paint them again after all these years!

Later down the road I have me a plague Ettin, two mounted nurgle lords from different eras, and a cthonian larvae that will double as a beast of nurgle (til I get one).

I have some slaanesh stuff bagged up still, but not one tzeenchian chap to my name, strangely.  I will have to rectify that... anyone got a lord of change or two they fancy swapping?

Group shot

Here is a fun little iphone snap of some of my collection (in various states of completion).