Tuesday, September 3, 2013

NOVA Recap







The NOVA open was a blast. I met a lot of new friends, and had the opportunity to reconnect with old ones. Very little sleep was had.

Rather than play in the GT, my Ultramarines supported humanity against the virtue in the narrative event. Despite failing at nearly every battlefield encounter, they managed to win best painted for me.

The Narrative event itself was loads of fun. For years to come I suspect, Supreme Allied Commander of Humanity Owen, SACOH, will wonder if perhaps a few of his field commanders were Virtue double agents. He should probably just blame it on the Space Marine Scout Bikers like everyone else. There will be more scouts next year. Clearly what I did wrong was fail to bring enough of them.

The painting competition was very difficult this year, which is great news for the NOVA. One of my entries, the EC Dreadnought, earned me a bronze. I am very pleased about that.  Winning two painting awards is really special. I've been upping my painting quality slowly over time, but the forcing function of the competition made me spend more time than I normally would on both of those models. I intend to paint the rest of my EC's up to that quality or higher, so hopefully I am ready with a heresy list for NOVA 2014. I am also planning to submit multiple entries next year into fantasy, 40k, and Historic. I may paint a version of me 'from last week' for the historic category and see how it does. The model would be me holding a scale model of me. It would be fun to wear the 'me from last week' outfit when I hand in the entry as well. It is bordering on performance art, but I like the meta aware quality the piece would have.

The only thing I want to add to NOVA is a fully stocked painting room. I think it would be a blast to while away the days painting mini's while waiting for the narrative to start. Maybe we could borrow Dave Taylor's idea of a painter's lounge.

Oh, yeah about that model. I just wanted to play around with the hairspray technique for chipping. This is not part of any particular army, but rather a way for me to experiment. Originally it was slated to become a piece of no-mans-land terrain for my DKoK.  I am rather taken by the leaking oil effects though.

I hope everyone had a blast at NOVA. You will be seeing me next year.

*EDIT
I added some photos in better light. I am really happy with the spilled oil around the oil caps on the back of the centaur. In better light it should be easier to tell this is in Death Guard colors.

10 comments:

  1. I forgot to mention that Chris and I played FoW, which we both really enjoyed. Hopefully I'll be seeing him in the Mid-War single day tournament next year.

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    1. It is indeed a cracking good game!

      Congrats, by the way: nice work.

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  2. Your weathering is excellent. I am envious of your technique and which I could achieve something similar. Looking forward to see you EC army, so far it is looking good.

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    1. The weathering was composed of just a lot of simple techniques. I was very heavy handed with the chipping due to the paint just tearing up on me, but that is a lessons learned on my part. The model started out with a paint job of panzer green (the very dark chip color). After that I sprayed a heavy amount of hairspray on. ONce dry I sprayed on the light tan color, and produced the sharp fading on the edges. At that point I pulled out a large junky brush and after softening parts of the model with water just rubbed the brush around until paint teared up. Then oil washes and streaking were applied. The tracks involved an oil wash, and then weathering powders. They are now ready for metallic powders.

      As you can see each step is easy, but there are loads of steps. I think the tank looks abandoned, but it could work for loyalists fighting out after Horus bombarded the surface of some unknown planet. (my DKoK will be heresy era)

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  3. i had a good time too, although i was only there for a few hours. gonna have to spend more time there next year.

    painting lounge would be awesome! though given the space limitations, it might be a fee for access. still i'd pay for that.

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  4. Well deserved mate,although you had all golds in my eyes, i can only Imagen the level of the other entries, well done mate :-)

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  5. Thank you very much, I really appreciate it!

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  6. Congrats!

    Man, if there were a Painter's Lounge, I'd probably have to skip the GT and spend the weekend in it...

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  7. John,
    Thank you for the airbrushing class and instruction on oils.

    Dewey

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    1. No problem Dewey! It was a lot of fun. I am looking forward to getting together to paint.

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