So.... I better do an update before I lapse into my old self huh?

Well in my last post I discussed I'd been building a new work bench for my hobby zone (or garage to a non hobbyist!).

I basically built a large bench using Formica (kitchen worktop), smooth timber, screws, blood, sweat, a cel power8 workshop and some google sketch up.

And this is my current state of affairs.

Fairly swish I must say. It needs some more work such as wall brackets for the speakers and some sort of hanging shelf underneath for the amp. You may also note that within that shot there is also a rather "slick" bookcase... You'd be right if you guessed it had been crafted by my own hand and the nifty power8 workshop in the left of the image.

Here it is




Ok there might be a slight angle to it... But it was built from my last gaming board. A fitting end to an old friend, after years of having dice, models and rules thrown down on it, it is now a perfect storage facility for all my rulebooks and gaming aid paraphernalia.

So onto the new kid on the block... The Realms of Battle Board! Basically it's going to be a desert board and have some cool as monkey poo terrain on it!

I've textured with sand so far... And the pics to prove that fact!















Since these pics have been taken I've also started laying down the undercoat of grey primer for the sand sections and black for the rocky bits.

And a little tease of one of my Grey Kinghts



I'm currently planning and working out how I can get a really cool textured and detailed base to represent a marble mausoleum type effect.

Hopefully results will appear once I've done some more testing!

thanks for reading

Location:New workspace and board

Where the have I been...

Wowser it's been far too long since I last posted! In fact I was on a strange mission to re-learnt paint. What's worse the results looked turd!

However it did teach me to be more careful with my painting and that I desperately needed glasses and a magnifier for painting. Since the escapades of the ultra smurfs... That results in 3 part painted minis, I jumped at the GKs as a force to try and make look fantastic... Dare I say, aiming to trophy status...

The GK are progressing and I'll take pics soon. The elysians are still my "love" force and I plan to kick start them soon enough.

However, the past 2 weeks I've been re-fitting my hobby zone (garage as the wife has banished me... Who am I kidding, I love it!). I've built myself a proper work bench that's solid enough for a fat bloke like me to stand on! It's not finished quite yet. I need to relocate my amp and get myself a/some display cabinets.

I've also chopped up my gaming board and turned it into shelves... With left over sheet material for other projects. Again, it's not the end of the world as I have my realms of battle board to texture and paint.

So many projects and so little time... Harumph!

Well I plan to get some pod sorted of a few things so that I can keep you guys posted of everything that's been done... And to be done.

Until then...

Back to Basics has a reason

So I just wanted to share the next project I'm working on (fear not the 205th are not dropped and I'll make some updates on them in the next week or two).

Tim (Dezartfox over at The Vanus Temple) and myself had a real hoot getting into the best army nominations and gaming together. So we have started planning our next doubles force. On my behalf I'll be entering with Ultramarines.... I know I know... But I've always enjoyed the crisp cleanliness of them and I want to turn my hand and messing these guys up with some weathering etc etc.

The plan is to go for a desert theme again as it will help the blue "pop" against the base, I have a handful of conversions / mini dioramas planned for my side of the force.

The theme is going to be of two forces joined together to combat the xenos threat of nids. 

So onto test colours. I really want to achieve a muted blue, that still manages eye catching, so I've gone into the Vallejo model colour range and also some model air as I'll be aiming to get these guys painted with the airbrush as much as possible. Here are the colours I've selected so far to trial:

VMC Dark Blue, VMC Ultramarine Blue, VMC Royal Blue, VMC Andrea Blue, VMC Deep Sky Blue, VMA French Blue and VMALight Sea Blue.

(VMC = Vallejo Model Colour, VMA = Vallejo Model Air)

So my first port of call was to lay down some Primer. I use grey primer these days from the Vallejo Model Air range. Once the primer was dried I layed a solid base colour down using the airbrush and VMA French Blue. This is a really rich shade of blue, however it does have the "classic" cartoony look to it. Again once dried I then airbrushed a highlight using the VMA Light Sea Blue. This was the result.

For me this was just a tad to "baby blue"... however it may work, once weathered. Though I didn't bother finding out. I reapplied the base colour and this time added a highlight using a 50:50 mix of VMA French Blue and VMA Light Sea Blue. Much better! from here I went a hit an edge highlight on using pure VMA LIght Sea Blue... Big mistake, it ended up looking messy:

It's almost there, but the extra highlight was rather sloppily applied for an edge highlight and looked more of a bad line highlight. However, not one to consider myself a quiter I decided to see what it would look like with a little more colour added - This is messy, so please don't judge... I just wanted to test! 

The white is the worst messy bit, but I decided I wasn't going to continue adding another 10 layers to get it smooth whenI could see the colours were just looking too cartoon.

back to the drawing board and to trial some of the other shades I have!

Back to Basics Pt2

So after finally getting round to finishing this guy or sort of finishing him, I took a few quick snaps.

I didn't go too far with this guy getting into the weathering etc as I know I can achieve that look. I'm relatively happy with this guy, though I think I can definately improve my edge highlighting technique!

Anyway here's a couple of snaps.

Anyway, comments on points to improve would be greatly appreciated :)

Back to Basics

So after a really successful trip to the 40K Doubles held at Warhammer World, Dezartfox (Tim from no on!) and I have already decided on what we will be doing for our next attempt at the best army title.

What I felt after being in the nominations, was "was I really up to the level required... or do I have a shiny a Forgeworld Army". I think it was a blend of it being 1) Elysians 2) I painted them quite well... but not perfect and finally 3) I was with Tim, a previous best army winner with his Deathwing.

Obviously I have had the thought... Am I really good enough? I think personally the answer is no. Me and Tim have had a good chat about it and come up with a potential screamer of a problem. I currently paint at nearly arms length in an almost comical fashion, as when I hold it closer I struggle to see the model. The answer is possibly glasses. I'm going to try and arrange an eye test if I can this Saturday.

Aside from that, I've ever truly worked on ensuring I have a clean, smart and tidy paint job in my life. So after taking some inspiration from Ron (FTW) and Dave (N++ Wargaming) I decided to go "Back to Basics".

FTW Back to basics
N++ Wargaming Back to basics

So I present efforts so far... Smurf #1

This first image I have applied black undercoat, and base coat of 50:50 black and regal blue and then another layer of 50:50 regal blue and Ultramarines blue.

In this second image I've appled line highlights of ultramarines blue, followed by an edge highlight 0f 50:50 ultramarines blue and space wolf grey. I've also notice I've taken some paint of the toes... Next lesson is painting on a handle.

C&C welcome as this is going to all about improvement.

GW Doubles Nomination and my Army

Wahooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I recently went to the GW 40K doubles tournament held at Warhammer World. It's a great even, I absolutely love it and will be going back for more. Dezartfox over at the The Vanus Temple and myself took a combined force of Angels of Redemption and the plucky lads from the Elysian 205th Air Corps.

The force really worked well together as the Angels of Redemption were the real hitting power to the force and the guard ran distraction. It worked so well we managed to come 13th place from what I hear... not only that, but we got nominated for Best Army as well.

So here's some pics of our force in the freshly installed cabinets.

And here's a few links to the blogs of the guys I went with:

The Vanus Temple
Marts Warhammer 40K Blog
The Rune of Stone

Nerd Splurge!!!!!

Wow, I went down to the exhibition held by my local war-games club today. It's an event called Vapnartak. It's a great little event for finding the occasional little gem.

Vapnartak is predominantly a historical war-games event, however games such as 40k and warmachine have been worming their way in. So much so that the 40k tournament being held there, managed to garner the prime spot!

Is was originally going to attend the tournament; a great little 1,000pts compt'd event. However, I had the opportunity to go to a comedy gig the night before.

So I popped down to see how the tourney was progressing and consider buying some Pegasus terrain... If it was there.

That's when what I can only describe as madness hit me. It's something that I think is a dormant beast residing within all gamers. I call it Nerd Splurge!

Basically, the average gamer turns into a spending idiot because they are at an event, with little or no thought of the repercussion.

So what was the result of my Nerd Splurge.

The blue crystal chessex dice.




Incursion - I have considering this for awhile.



Posh static grass... Though thus stuff is awesome



Shot of what you get with a paint pot for scale... It's double sided as well.



And a shot of it on a base.




Vallejo varnishes, matte medium and glaze medium




Vallejo fluro paints and my attempt to find and an alternative to brazen brass




So there we go... Did I need any of it? No! Am I chuffed with the result? Yes. Do I regret it? Partially, but I'll get over that.

So tell me about you Nerd Splurges.