Just A Flocking Rant

I just washed off a failed flocking attempt on my Realm of Battle board. I don't know what mojo you master flockers out there have, but if you have some advice please share. Luckily the section I flocked up washed off easily without loosing any of the paint. Now I have a huge mess on my hands with nothing to show for it. grrrrrrrrr!

This is a flocking disaster!

Realm of Battle Board 1

Drathmere 0

SCENERY Ruined Chapel WIP1

Now that I have a battle board I need something to put on it. I love more realistic scenery, so I decided to pile up debris in the corner. I really like the way this is turning out because it looks less like a toy and more like a diorama. Somehow that lets me enjoy games more! I think I may cut out colored plastic to make jagged edges of broken stained class all along the windows.

I think I may try to get some trenches created to go with my Death Korps army. Knowing how to easily reproduce a section of scenery makes it much more enjoyable!

Last Day For Storm Wardens! MD battle bunker

I am heading to the MD battle bunker today to drop off the LR I painted for the charity drawing. If anyone is up for a quick game let me know. You've got a few more hours left to make your donation and potentially win this fabulous army. I may even bring a Dark Angel's army to throw some dice down with.

The Wardinians have been getting all gushy about the end of this journey, but I think there is good reason for it. Usually bloggers swap little blurbs of discussion, and while there is community, it is very casual. Getting together with a group to achieve some goal (in this case helping Doctors Without Borders) forms a community bond that I am sure everyone who has been helping get the word out is feeling as well. I want to meet everyone who participated in this. I've followed many of their blogs for a long time, actively engaging in the hobby is how friends are made. John and Mike started something really special here, that I have never seen done before on this scale.

battle board WIP 2

I had a lot of really good responses to my last post. Unfortunately I jumped in and painted the thing up this morning. In hind sight, I wish I had kept the board in an ash wastes motif, but barreling ahead like normal I broke out my airbrush(just use the brush it comes with) and the brown paint from the scenery pack and had at it. At the moment, the board is off the dinning room table, the floors are mopped, and I think I may engender some more good will by cooking my wife a special dinner. I may even offer to take a dance class with her after this. I cannot describe the look of horror on her face when she saw the thing on the glass table.

Some great blogs to read on painting up one of these:

• A Gentleman's Ones :I love the look of this board!
• Jarakadar's Picassa Album: beautiful board using pastels

I speed paint, so trying to paint this thing was like an endurance race run by a sprinter. My arms are so tired I cannot believe it right now, and I am still not totally satisfied with how the thing is turning out. One of my problems was painting it in sections, and running out of wash half way through. Some good advice on the other blogs, just paint this thing as one whole table and avoid the tiled look that min has. One possible solution is to make another wash and even it out. I am tempted to try pastels, but as you can see from the photos, our condo is filled with white furniture, so I may have to pass on that. Maybe a heavy dry brushing would help. I know it needs a matte finish, but I think that will happen post pigments (perhaps) and post flocking.

I think ground up pastels could really work here, as would some dried grass. I have not mastered flocking, so there is some trepidation there.

I am going to wait this time and let the community guide me on next steps. My arms can't take any more dry brushing anyway!

Battle Board WIP

So I was supposed to play a game with warhammer 39999 when he was in DC. Unfortunately I got called out to California on work, so no luck there. However in preparation for the games I had hoped we would play, I went out and bought a Realm of Battle board.

A couple of important points:

1. This thing is large
2. Get your wife's permission before priming the thing on the kitchen table
3. Do not prime something this large inside when it is too hot outside to open windows

Now that that the important parts have been covered, on the fun bit. Painting. So the I had planned to airbrush this thing brown using the colors from the scenery kit, but after seeing it primed grey I am having second thoughts. A plan is a plan though, so my next phase is airbrushing light grey over the rock areas prior to washing them with dev mud. At least that is my partial plan pre brown spray. Anyone else have one of these things? Any advice for someone before they commit to a color scheme? Any creative color schemes anyone would like to share? I am all ears here!

Blood Angles Librarian and Sanguinary Priest

I've been experimenting with washes for a bit now, and tossed these two characters together for my blood angels army. The grey wash worked s0-s0 on the sanguinary priest. I think I have been putting on too many layers at this point. I need to do touch ups and finish painting some of the details, but I was so excited to see these finally in the army I had to take a few shots.

These photos were taken in blindingly bright light this morning, so every imperfection in the paint job shows. I'll take some more later under normal lighting conditions to see if that makes a perceptible difference. The ICs look much better in person, but I guess we read that in email and blogs all the time!

The librarian saw some action yesterday, and I have learned a few things. The whole point of the going to the store was for me to take the Storm Wardens land raider and let it get some air time, hopefully getting a few more people to donate in the mean time. I had no idea I was in store for such a good game. Since I happened to have a freshly minted librarian, I let him get some game time as my HQ choice. Jawaballs has posted about how awesome the libby is. He is right. The psychic hood add a whole new phase to the game that I have never played. It was really nice making mephiston roll off for his powers. My opponent was a heavy into the cult of jawa, and his list was fantastic. I was out mech'd,out-melta'd, and out maneuvered the whole game. His army was also nicely painted, which is so rare at the springfield store.

I want a rematch. (hint---no tanks! :)

Storm Wardens Crusader Complete

I don't normally add crew to vehicles, but since this was a special project, I decided to add two tech marine crew members to the Storm Wardens land raider Tempest. In order to storm warden it up a bit, I added a deathwatch arm to the gunner, and positioned him so it looked like he was using a scanner to fine some xenos filth. I don't recall ever reading about tech marines being seconded to the Deathwatch, but I like the idea. I think this helps the LR blend in a bit with the rest of the storm wardens army.

If I haven't mentioned it, it is a bit intimidating to included in the Storm Wardens group. However, knowing that this LR is going to transport miniatures painted by that illustrious bunch makes this project that much cooler for me personally!

So click on the donate button and help Doctors Without Borders!

So I Made My Own Wash

Sometimes things just don't go as expected. On Sunday I primed a whole force of grey knights black, and was just about to start painting when I had the clever thought to test out my paint scheme first. My plan was to go for grey knights, not boltgun metal knights, so my test was supposed to be of dark grey, with a directional blast of highly thinned space wolves grey to provide the blueish tint. Well it did not work. I spent about an hour playing with the airbrush, and while there were phases where I could have stopped I just didn't. Rather than have the minis go to waste I decided to pull out my laundry list of wash ingredients I purchased after watching a wash making tutorial. I used out of the pot blue on the mini on the left, a blue wash made by diluting the wash with matte medium and flow aid in the middle, and a soft black wash on the right. diluting wash with the wash recipe produce a lovely soft wash, and I will definitely keep experimenting with this. I did a quick paint job on the captain. I used new paints, and generally had a good time painting him. So what do I do with this guy now?