I thought it looked worse than it did

When I saw the pic of my scout at work this morning I thought it looked worse than it actually did. It really does not look that bad in the pic. I was concerned about how the face, especially the eyes looked on camera but I guess it does not look that bad. Anyway next weekend I am going to go through how I did that miniature step by step if anyone cares to know. I was going to do it tonight but things happened and at this point I think that kind of a post might be better posted on the weekend. I had to get to the painting last night because I am way behind and need to get a few more minis and a tank painted to three colors by Saturday.

I am really looking forward to TSHFT. I want this to be a good experience for me and for those that play against me. I am thinking very seriously about rigging up some movement trays for my guys so that when I move early in the game we can save some time. I can always remove the tray when the time comes for assault or we can just assault right on the tray. The trays will be flat enough to get that done. Of course if I have to move up a hill I would get rid of the tray.

I need to look at the scenarios! I have not even had a real chance to get that done. I don't even know what they are going to be at this point and I also have to review the rules. I remember many of them but there are so many more that I can't remember. I really want my games to go smoothly. I am thinking about sitting down Saturday morning very early and reading the entire rule book in one sitting so that I have everythinig fresh in my mind. I am even taking Ginko memory pills to help me stay clear and more focused.

I think I am getting better as a painter and I am now doing a little bit in the hobby everyday. I left my paints at work today so I can't paint tonight but I can put my assault terminators and my Predator tank together. I can also go through my list and work on the note cards I am going to be bringing to the tournament. Hopefully I will also be able to sleep.

I want to thank everyone for their suggestions on the Imperial Guard army I am going to build. They are very much appreciated and I am taking them all into consideration. I am getting more excited by the day for this army and will be posting my progress as the army develops. I want to take one of the character models of the guard and turn him into a kind of leader for my army. I don't know which one yet but I am leaning towards Creed. I think he is the coolest model in that collection and would fit in well with the rugged backwater world of Espandor, the world I have chosen to be their home planet. Espandor is a heavily forested world and the major cities are all in the westernmost areas of the planets two continents. It is a secondary settlement and the people are descendants of explorers from Macragge. They are very proud of their rugged existance and so I think the army should reflect that in some way. The one thing that I am concerned about is that it is the least densly populated planet so their might not be very many men to recruit from. That's ok though because the Imperium makes a habit of always going after their soldiers in rough type worlds so I think I can still justify it. Well that's all for now. The next post happens Friday. I am going to take a break from posting tomorrow to paint the minis up to three color. I have to a lot of work to do. Later.

My first painted scout

Well as I said yesterday I was using a technique that I learned for shading and highlighting models. In the previous pics I showed how the models look when they have been drybrushed with boltgun metal. Today I am going to show you a finished miniature using the technique.





It's not the best but you will notice that the paint job is a lot smoother than some of the marines I have done and that was a big deal for me going in. The idea is to lay on very thin coat after very thin coat of paint based on the proper shading and highlighting spots brought out by the drybrushing. It's a lot harder than it sounds and it takes an incredible amount of practice to get it right I don't know if all of you know this type of technique or not but I am going to do a step by step article on it at some point to show you exactly what I did. Well this is going to be a short post. I have been tired all week for some reason and tonight I really want to go to bed. Have a great night and see you next time.

The new guard and a painting journey.

Have you guys seen any pics of the new guard online yet? I will post one pic here but for the most part I think the pics have been pretty well played out all over the net. The pic I am posting is the Valkerie pic that Plastic Legions put up. I got it from Riddle of Steel so thanks has to go out to both of them.
What a cool and inspiring photo. I can just picture painting one of them up in the flavor of Ultramar. There are lot's of other preview pics on warseer and Dakka Dakka respectively. Both of which can be reached by going to those sites. I am sure they will be easy to find. If anyone can't find them let me know and I will post threads or just PM you on Ordo. I am really excited about the new guard codex coming out. Not sure when exactly I am going to be starting this army as with this economy those types of questions are tentative at best but I know I am really warming to the Ultramar concept and it will most likely happen at some point.

A painting journey

Tonight I am going to start painting on some of the newer models in my collection that I am going to be bringing to TSHFT. In doing so I will go through the process of what I do when I paint them up. If any of you see any real flaws in what I am doing please let me know so that I can change bad habits.

The first thing I do with my minis is clean them, file off the mold lines, and then prime them with black primer. I was thinking about doing white for the scouts but decided against it and went with the black. Once that is done I dry brush the whole mini in boltgun metal. This brings out the details of the mini and let's you know where all the shading details should be. It's like a guide coat for your placement of paint and highlights. Here is an example that I photographed earlier tonight.

You can see that when you do this the details of highlight and shadow really stand out. Take a look at the pants and the arms, also the highlights and shadows in the face are more defined to. This is a real dry brush to. There is barely any paint on it at all. It is even dryer than a dry brush would normally be. I actually used a bit to much paint for these.

Anyways now when I go to paint the actual colors onto the mini I will be able to make out the highlights that I want to accentuate while keeping brighter colors away from the shadows easily. I was taught this technique by an excellent top notch painter who probably would not want me to expose his name here. His technique is much more precise and expert than mine but I took what he taught me and have tried to batch paint with it. It has worked fairly well so far but the results are far from the master of this technique. You know who you are.

Anyway that sums up the basic steps I go through when starting a model. I will post more techniques as I go through the posts and may even post more tonight. I would not count on it though. I am going to bed soon. LOL. Thanks again for following the blog. I really appreciate it.

Time for another work week

Well it's eleven o clock on a Sunday night and I am posting here before I call it a night. I am pretty sure I know what I am going to bring to TSHFT and I am looking forward to it. I have a strategy mapped out that I think could work but I have to look at the scenarios so that I can map my strategy around some of the stranger things that are sure to pop up during the tournament. I just hope that I can get everything fully painted before the show begins. That is all I am really shooting for, that and being a good opponent for the people that I play against.

Anyways I started on some scouts today. I filed the mold lines off of them and got them primed. I will start painting on them after work tomorrow. They shouldn't take to long to get painted up. After that I need to put together and paint up some assault termies. I am going to play Marneus Calgar and those boys during the big show. I am going to put them in a land raider I think but they may not start out in it. I was on Dakka Dakka today and saw that they have a section on army journals or something like that. I might do that some time soon. Maybe after the TSHFT tournament.

I am hoping to get my camera back when I go to work tomorrow. When that happens I will start taking pictures of minis again. I would like to post some pics of Fire and Sword if I get the chance to do it. I am going to post again tomorrow on the new gaurd that are coming out in May. Those of you on the Ordo board know that I want to do up some gaurd as one of the regiments Ultramar is volunteering to fight for the Guard. I think they would make a perfect compliment to the Ultramarine force that I am currently running. Well that's all for tonight. I'm going to bed. Have a great night and I will talk to you all tomorrow.

Going to TSHFT! (and more pictures)

I was really happy to see that people are reading my blog. I did not think that I would get readers so soon. Thanks to all that are checking it out.

I bought my ticket for TSHFT today. I am very excited about the tournament and am going to attempt to prepare myself better for this tournament than the last. I want to at least have the rules down for the units that I am playing. I know that sounds silly but it's just hard for me to remember them sometimes when the models hit the table. Oh well I am still going to have fun.

I am not the best player as I tend to focus on the story being told in the game and not necessarily the game itself. When I sit down to play a certain scenario instead of thinking about how I should best use my army to win the scenario I start thinking about what the game would look like in an action movie. I can picture in my head the soldiers coming across the field to meet the charge of the onrushing Tyranid genestealers and instead of holding my army back and waiting for an assault or even counter assault opportunity I see great cinematics and run my marines right into the teeth of the Nids. I of course am wiped out in one turn because I am thinking in a completely different vein. The other thing that happens is that I develop strategy that I think is great and then one or two things about my opponents army or my own actions mess up everything and I end up getting wiped out.

But who cares? It's a game and I still love the hobby even if I lose. As long as I can wipe out a few of his cool units in a massive barrage of bolter fire or assaulty goodness I'm happy. As far as the army I am going to bring I simply haven't decided yet. I am torn between a large standing army and variety in my force. I know I said on Ordo that I was going with the 81 marines but those assault termies I bought today would be so fun to run with Marneus in the lead and the whole squad in a land raider. I may even scratch one or even two tactical squads to make room for variety in my force.

Well I forgot my camera at work today so I didn't take the pictures at Fire and Sword that I wanted to take for this post but I did promise pictures so let's see what I got....

This image is of my Ultramarine sarges with some of his charges and a Rhino. This was taken some time ago but I don't think anyone on this board has seen it. I posted it on Cool Mini or Not and didn't get the best reviews. I don't care though. I like the pic and the minis.


Here is a look at two of my tactical squads and their Rhinos from a distance. Again this is not the best pic but at least you can see that both squads are ready for action!

This final pic is of some more marines standing around and on top of the squad Rhino. Another pic that I posted to Cool Mini or Not. I just wanted you guys to get the pics you were promised. Well I can't stay awake any longer. I will try to post something up tomorrow but I don't know what it's going to be yet. Have a great night and happy gaming!

Tomorrow is pay day

Well tomorrow is pay day and barring anything extraordinary I should be heading over to my favorite game place after work. I am pretty sure that I am going to be able to afford TSHFT later in the month so this weekend my hobby time is going to be spent painting miniatures. The army that I am currently planning will include 81 standing Ultramarines with no vehicles. I am hoping the sheer mass of marines and their 3+ will be enough to hold objectives and make a play for a winning objective late in the game. I have a strategy mapped out that a GT winner laid out as advice to me awhile back and I am going to attempt to use the strategy at the tournament. I am not a good player. I have a terrible memory for rules and I often forget to do things that others would not when playing the game. I am hoping to overcome that somehow for the tournament.

I painted the insignia on some of the fourth squad I am going to be bringing to the tournament if I go. I am not good with insignia. I never get the U's just right. I am seriously thinking about investing in some of those shoulder pads that GW has out for the Ultramarines so that I don't have to do it anymore. I am also thinking about molding my own so that I can just put them on the pads instead of painting them. They make both the Ultramarine symbol and tactical squad symbols. I hope they make some symbols for fast attack and devastators someday. I really should just sculp some of my own though.

I am still looking for that darn Marneus Calgar sword bit. A guy overseas said he had one but he wanted Eldar Vypers and such for them which I do not own. I started an Eldar army a while back and it just kind of died. I would like to get back to that some day. I think the models are cool. Speaking of other projects as soon as TSHFT is in the books I am going to start painting my orc and goblin army for fantasy. I want to get 500 pts up and done so that I can get some practice games in. I want to paint my Grimgor so bad but I have to have priorities. I really want to bring a fully painted and based army to TSHFT. I might have the ugliest army there but I will be happy if at least it is fully painted. I am counting on 81 fully painted and based minis on the board looking pretty good.

Tomorrow I am going to post some more pics and if I can I am going to try to find some pics of the new Imperial Gaurd if I can find them. Gaurd is an army I have wanted to play for some time but it is a toss up between them and Eldar right now. I am definitely looking forward to the codex as there seems to be a lot of exctiement about it. I want to do a post or to on how I think GW manufactures excitement for their games. It will all be theory but it might be interesting to some of you and good for a laugh to others. Well that's all for today. I will post some pics tomorrow so if you read this regular come back then. Thanks.

One step closer to pay day

Friday I get paid. I celebrate this day usually by going to Fire and Sword and purchasing something while hanging out and sometimes even playing a game. I think Fire and Sword is a great store. They just recently moved and now they have much more gaming space than ever before. As I have stated before they also run the TSHFT tournament happening later this month for Warhammer 40K. I am not sure but I think they even have prize sponsorship this year from GW. All I know is that the community at Fire and Sword is a thriving one. Friday's always have a large number of people showing up and you can almost always find a game with someone if you bring your army. They are located in Lake City in Seattle proper.

One thing that the store offers is a discount on everything you buy for a monthly membership price. If you buy as much as I do the discount pays for itself with one purchase. Anyways I don't know everything about the store but Zen and Paul, the stores owners, do. You can hit them up at the website link located on my blog in the upper right hand corner. They are doing a big update on the site on the 20th according to what is posted there so you will have new information on the store coming out soon. I hope to be at the TSHFT tournament this year and I hope to see some of you there.

Ok back to me. As I stated in my Ordo post I fixed the black splotch on Marneus last night. It was midnight and I could not go to sleep knowing that it was there. You will see him again when I get the other guys in the box set painted up. I was thinking about doing something different with the battle damage. Perhaps turning it into guts. I was going to do that in the first place but then I thought that it might be to gross to do. What? To gross to do? It's 40 friggin K!

I pulled out my fantasy orcs and goblins last night. I have them all set up in a bag on my kitchen counter because after TSHFT is over I am going to start on painting them up for the next TSHFT Fantasy tournament or maybe even the OFCC if I can get there and get on a team. I am really looking forward to painting my Black Orcs led by Grimgor Ironhide. I have had the model out now for about a month just sitting on my painting table. I need to get him painted up and ready for bloodshed. I have a couple of wolf chariots that are going to be a part of my army and I am going to do something diffrent with the wolves as far as color goes. They are going to stand out in the croud.

My dwarves are on the painting shelf to. I have three of them done up and painted but I haven't had the time to do anymore than that. I want to have a cool looking good guy and bad guy force for fantasy. Two armies for each side. I want the same for 40K. I am just having difficulty spreading out my time. Right now I am just to focused on getting the Ultramarines ready. They are really my favorite army since they were the reason I originally got into the hobby in the first place. I am very seriously thinking however of getting the models for every special charcter the marines have and painting them up just to have them in a collection.

Well I've rambled on long enough. Before the week is out I am going to continue the fan fiction post that I started on the Ordo boards. It wasn't great prose but I really enjoy having a marine shred six orcs at once. I think that is the way it was meant to be. Have a great day, later.

Marneus Calgar - Old and pissed

Well I promised some pictures of my Marneus Calgar so for good or worse here they are. The first one is Marneus with two of his fellow marines at his side. As you can see Marneus really does look old and pissed. I am really happy with the way the face turned out. By the way, I really messed with the brightness and other settings on these pictures. The models pretty much look as they look here in person with in person being my prefered choice for viewing them.

The above pic is of the same trio but a little bit further back from the camera. Notice the jewels and the eyes. I was really trying to make them stand out and even though I did mess with the pics a bit on the brightness end to get the effect I wanted if you see them in person you will see that the jewels really kind of do look like they are shining a bit. I have some practice yet to do on them but I think they came out nice for these marines.

The one above is obviously Marneus by himself. His face is a little blurry but I wanted you guys to see that the Old and pissed theme really came out. I wanted to show Marneus in a rage with this model. He certainly looks like he wants to kill whatever it is he's looking at. Notice the battle damage on his left gauntlet. I spilled some glue on his arm at one time and it dried overnight. I thought I was screwed but I decided to try to save it. I washed the glue spotted areas in Badab Black and then made a Boltgun metal wash with lots of water.

Here is the final pic that I am posting tonight. This is the back of the model if you haven't guessed. I posted this pic to show the shading on the cloak. I think it came out pretty solid. The lighting of the lamp I had above the model is doing some of the shading but I think you can see that I did a lot of it with the paint job. At least I hope you can.

Well that is Marneus as he stands now. I am thinking about putting the ard coat and spray varnish on him to finish him off. I might do a retouch on his armor though because the model just isn't as clean as I would like him to be. Sometimes you just have to move on to the next model though. Things I know I need to work on.....

A better mix of water to paint. The paint on this model is to thick. I should have painted him with more coats of thinner paint instead of a few coats with a thicker texture. This is a mistake I have made before and will probably make again. I am working on my patience though. I am tired so I can't think of anything else right now. If you can please let me know. Thanks for taking the time to read this and have a great night.

Sitting at work thinking of TSHFT

I am sitting here at my work related desk in the warehouse thinking about how I am going to play Warhammer 40K at TSHFT. I have not had luck playing the game in the past because I always forget the rules mid game. The last tournament I was in my contact fell out of my eye and I had to play the game blind. I am going to bring my spare glasses this time.

I can't settle on a list. There are so many new models and things to play in fifth edition and I have most of them but I want to be able to be competitive so I am thinking about changing my scheme up. The first list I planned had a little bit of everything but I don't think that is the kind of list that will get me even close to winning a game. I know now that I am going to bring at least 40 to 60 marines to the tuornament as my troop choices. I am thinking about assault marines, bikes, or speeders for my fast attack. I have all three. I don't think I have enough bikes to make a go of it though. Maybe if I buy my ticket this Friday I will pick up another box of bikes so that I can make a proper squad of them.

I have apprehension going into the tournament because of the stuff I stated in the first paragraph but I will be playing many new players so I think that would be a cool thing. I am looking forward to seeing all of the cool paint jobs that are sure to be on display. The people running the event own the store that I go to and there are many very solid painters that go there. Sean Moomey has had his Blood Angels on the Games Workshop website and the artist known as Micah is probably the best single miniature painter I have ever seen in person. When he gets his entire Dark Angels army completed I would be willing to bet that it could win best apppearance at just about any tournament he would choose to enter.

I have begun to ramble with this post if I haven't already slipped into that so far. I might post again in a few hours. I want to continue the fan fiction post I put up on Ordo Fanaticus last week. I have a whole plan for the character that I created. I have a feeling most of the people that may have read the post feel that there is no way that a single space marine with a bolt pistol and chainsword could take out six orks. I hope that's the way they feel. There is a reason that he can do just that.

Have a great day, later.

Moral dilema of wargaming and what I did today.

When I started this post I started talking about the moral dilema of wargaming and decided that perhaps that subject would not work well in a simple blog like mine so I pushed the text on that subject down to the end of the post. If you want to read my thoughts on it you can scroll down otherwise you can just read the section on what I did today for the hobby.

I painted the armor and purity seals onto three more tactical marines today. I use dwarf bronze, shining gold, and a mix of mithril silver and shining gold to top it off. I base all of my marines black. I like the black undercoat because if you miss something it is not as noticable unless you happen to be taking pictures of your minis. The squad is coming around nicely. I have three fully painted and based squads since I started painting and each squad saw me taking another step in learning how to paint them. I love the fact that in this art form, as with many others I suppose, I am always learning how to do new things to make my models look better than they did before. I am probably going to go back and retouch all of my previous marines at some point so they all look uniform but for now I just want to get this squad done.

I finished painting a Marneus Calgar the other day and will try to post a picture of him in a post later in the week or even tomorrow. I am really proud of how he came out. I really like how his face turned out. I wish the armor had turned out a bit better than it did. I had an accident with the model before I got him based. I acidently dumped some glue on one of his arms and could not get it all off of the mini. I did my best to hide it but if you look really close you will be able to see what happened. I also lost the sword bit for him. I made a cheap green stuff replacement but I am looking for the real bit and hope to find it somewhere at some point. If you have the bit please let me know.

Well that's it for today. I have to sleep tonight. Remember if you want to read my opinion on the moral dilema of wargaming read on but if you don't have a great evening.

When I first started the hobby I actually thought about what it would be to play a war game when so many people around the world are actually fighting for their lives everyday. I hate war in the real world. It does far to much damage to the people involved in it and most of that damage is taken by innocent bystanders to the conflict. But after really thinking about it I thought it was silly and perhaps even wrong to even compare the two.

Wargaming is a game based on a medieval or science fiction fantasy of what you think war in that environment would be like. It is hardly a real representation of the struggles that real warriors and the bystanders that live with them put up with on a daily basis. Comparing the two in any way is almost wrong in my opinion. Moving around toy soldiers just isn't on the radar of most soldiers today. There are far to many people that do things to downgrade the efforts of our fighting men and women. Wargamers are the least of their concerns.

First post blues

I have loved the wargaming hobby for about four years now. I enjoy the painting aspect of the hobby more than the gaming but I enjoy both about as much as I enjoy anything in this life. Most of my spare time is spent either thinking about a model I am painting or actually painting figures for games that I play. Pictured to the left are some figures from the Games Workshop line of miniatures that I painted a while back. They are from the Warhammer 40,000 universe and are known as Ultramarines.

The Ultramarines are the most well known chapter of marines in the 40K world. They are the foundation that all of the other chapters are built on and they form the basis around which most of the game material regarding space marines is centered on. I enjoy painting them and playing with them because to me they represent the last bastion of hope for humanity in a world that is being pressed on all sides by alien menace. They fight for humanity and everything that it stands for everytime they step onto a battlefield. They also have some of the coolest looking special characters in the game.

The Ultramarines however are not the only army that I paint. I actually paint a wider variety of armies in one of the other table top wargames that Games Workshop produces. Warhammer Fantasy has been a staple of the wargaming community for over 25 years. They sport some of the best looking and fun to paint miniatures in the wargaming world. I am currently painting figures from three different armies. They are dwarves, vampire counts and orcs. The orcs are currently getting most of my attention on the fantasy side. I like Orcs because of one of their main characters. Grimgor Ironhide is the baddest orc of them all. His statline (statistics for the game) are very imposing and make him one of the toughest models in the Warhammer Fantasy universe.

Well that's all I am going to post for this first blog post. I hope to be posting more soon and I hope that my journey in the hobby might find something for you to take interest in. Thanks and have a great night.