Long time no post… again…

1 year and 1 day has passed since my last update. The time has come to pretend I will update this blog regularly once again. A lot has changed in my life in the past year, but I have still been getting a lot of painting and gaming done. Just haven't had the mojo to update the blog.

Messy desk means lots of work right?...

I left my job at Battlefront Miniatures at the beginning of the year, which for the blog means taking decent photos isn't as easy. However it just means I'll book in photo sessions and do alot of photos in bulk rather than as I finish a project/model.

Lots of exciting models I'm really pleased with to show off, so my aim is to post once a week and see how that goes. 

To start things off, here is my character for a DnD campaign we played to try out 5th edition.

Chad Riffburner!

I decided to play a Bard for a few reasons. Mostly because I never had before in either tabletop or computer screen, but also because it was a way to use spells without being a fragile wizard or something. I could still whip out a rapier and get in the rough and tumble.

Unfortunately I found the problem was the spells weren't as effective as the rapier, so I ended up being more of a sub-par fighter, but maybe I just chose the wrong spells. He did offer a lot of cool roleplaying moments out of combat though, and this made the character very satisfying and a nice change from my normally combat orientated characters.

Chad was a lot of fun to paint, especially the base, for which I used a mix of textured plasticard and individual bricks.

My friend James made the Guitar/Lute for me from plasticard and thin wires, and another friend Evan sculpted the strap. I tried to paint a mother of pearl effect on the edges of the gat, but it didn't really turn out how I hoped. Really pleased with the face though, which is mostly thanks to the detail of the sculpt.

One new trick I tried (which I stole from James) is for the rapier blade, I used a knife to scrape away my undercoat and polish up the metal, which gives it a super shiny effect. Not something I would do for all blades but it worked really well for such a thin weapon where shading with metallic paints wouldn't have been very effective.

-V-

Jade Skorne: Part 4

Earlier this year was Aucklands largest Warmchine tournament, Ides Of March. Last year I had a lot of fun playing Skorne so decided to stick with that but add a new caster and some beasts.

Makeda 3 had recently been released and I was quite eager to paint her up since she comes with 2 immortal friends.

Naturally when you bring Makeda, you're gonna bring Molik Karn…

And these 2 reptile hounds were a lot of fun to paint. Tempted to get more but need to figure out how to make them work on the table better first.

I came away with 2nd best painted. The standard of all the armies was really great so I was lucky to get that. As for my gaming results… 38th out of 40. But I got 2 wins!…

Looking forward to next year. It will be Skorne again, and I really need to get my Mammoth done.

-V- 

Big guns!

I've done a few batches of painting for Flames of War books this year, and here are some of my favourite items.

We also had a fun painting challenge at work. We gave ourselves the task of painting a tank from a training regiment in 12 hours. Was a fun afternnon/evening and there were some cool tanks that came out of it. The articles about it all are here (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4), and here are some more shots of my Ausbildungs Tiger I E.

Lastly, I pimped out a Jagdtiger for a painting guide showing some easy ways you can individualise your tank.

-V-

Back in the game!

Well to say it's been a while since I last did a blog post would be an understatement. It wasn't due to a lack of content, it just dropped off as a priority. But now I've got lots of stuff backed up that I'd like to take photos of, so it makes sense to blog about them too.

For the next little while I'll be posting things I've painted or worked on over the last year and a half. By the time I've caught up I should then have current projects I can show and hopefully not have a long break again, but no promises.

I'll start with some Iron Kingdoms RPG figures for my Character in a campaign we ran, which has since ended (we've moved on to DnD 5e).

These two were a lot of fun to paint, and I'm really glad with how well they match and look like a team. I discovered freehand isn't so daunting when you have a decent brush!

I have a few more figures to go along with these guys, and will eventually have my own party with 2 more characters and 1 more 'Jack.

-V-

Jade Skorne: Part 3

The force is finished! Well, there'a a couple extra pieces I'll do eventually, but I'm happy with this for now.

The push to get these finished was 'Ides Of March', the first of hopefully many Warmachine tournaments of its name here in Auckland. 

36 players, 7 games. I won 2... Moving on.

No but seriously, it was a lot of fun and glad to have been a part of it.

Aside from finishing the gold on the Immortals, the Bronzeback Titan was the only thing I needed to get done for Ides. Was nice to not be painting until 5am before the tournament for a change.

And here's some other random pics I took while the force was on the table.

Ancestral Guardian

Standard Bearer... minus the Bearer. Since it gets no attacks I used the fig to make another Swordsman.

Bronzeback Titan and Extoller 

Cyclops Brute AKA Zaal's bodyguard.

Titan Gladiator

Hakaar

The man who makes it all tick and his sneaky friend.

Swordsmen 

Currently deciding which force is next. But first, some IKRPG figures!

-V-

Not so Purple Worm

I painted this a month or two ago for work. GF9 is releasing Dungeons and Dragons figures soon, and this model is in the first wave. 

We painted up some examples of our own to show off what you can do with them. I went for a desert theme using scorpions and snakes as inspiration.

I wanted to use this little project as a chance to get some practice in with the airbrush. I haven't used one much before, and never for blending/gradients. The intention was to go from beige on the bottom/belly, to a very dark brown along the back.

The model has dings and scratches sculpted on it where it's been previously attacked or stabbed. I made these into current wounds by adding arrows. I got the idea from this blog post, http://massivevoodoo.blogspot.co.nz/2012/01/tutorial-creating-realistic-arrows.html (awesome blog BTW), but instead I just used thin brass rod and paper.

I added a little extra sand to the base and painted it similar to my Warmachine bases. For the mouth I use reddish browns and white mixes to highlight areas and the gloss varnish helps sell the effect.

This was a really fun mini to paint and a learned a lot. Not so scared of the airbrush now and look forward to using on my IKRPG Warjack.

-V-

IKRPG NPCs 1

I've been slowly working on this Warjack to be an NPJ (Non-character 'Jack!) for the Iron Kingdoms campaign I'll run eventually. I wanted to have a couple NPCs heavily involved in the campaign, 'cause making characters, and also modeling them, is one of the things I enjoy most about roleplaying. So even being the GM I wanted a way I could still do this.

So there will be 2 NPCs, and one will have his own 'Jack ('cause what's the Iron Kingdoms without 'Jacks!). I'll detail the characters more when they're complete, but I wanted to show off the little conversions I did on the 'Jack first so here goes.

The 'Jack will have a Steam Lobber, so it was a no brainer to use the steam tube from the Mule.

He'll have the 'Heavy Boiler' rule, and his boiler is also powering his gun, so it's only logical he'd have extra smoke stack for all this pressure… It's taken from the Nomad plastic kit.

I used the Avenger's gun, which normally has 2 rounds under the gun. I wanted to remove these and make a magazine like thing so it didn't look like he only has 2 rounds with him!

I know it's silly on the hammer arm, but the piece fit perfectly, and there's nothing stopping it in the rules… Also from the Nomad kit with a spike from Drago added.

I like the look of hulking robots with small heads. Much like this:

So Dragos head seemed great. I just removed his horn.

They looked silly on Vladimir, and they look silly here. But I like silly. And I also like top heavy robots… Like this!:

I got textured plasticard from a model railway store quite a while. One of my favorite aesthetic features of the IK setting is the victorian style streets so figured this was the perfect basing idea to use. I may go crazy and add newspapers/litter or something after painting.

The 2 NPCs will also match.

Some other things I did were drilling out the smoke stacks and gun barrel, and I removed the Cygnar Swan from the top of the hull.

Stay tuned for paint!

-V-

Twenty Thirteen

The new year has started, and with it a new painting mojo… Right? 

WARMAHORDES

Painting has been slow (or non existent) in the past few months. New band and girlfriend are the main culprits, but also lacking the motivation to paint new things. Well in just over a month is Ides of March, a Warmachine tournament here in Auckland. I've decided to go with Skorne again to ease my way back into brush work. I'll need to paint one more beast and finish of the immortals unit to have my force ready. I've also ordered a few more solos so they might see paint time at the same time, but I might wait for these to be realsed…

My ever expanding Rhulic army is still in the assembly stages, but they will be lined up after the Skorne. Maybe there will be another tournament later in the year to give me the push? After those 2 armies are complete, I'll have to choose between Cryx, Farrow, Retribution, and Cygnar. But they all require quite a bit of buying...

IKRPG

I have a few cool models to do up for this (2-3 NPC's and a warjack), and will start working on mapping out the campaign soon. I want to try show off the conversions I do to the figures here, and then have real fun painting with more dull and drab tones to my usual Warmachine painting, and trying new weathering techniques on the jack

DYSTOPIAN WARS

This has to be the project the has gone the longest without being started. With the last of my ships hopefully arriving soon, I'll be able to finally airbrush them all and dive in. But there's not rush so they'll probably be done along side my Warmachine armies.

OTHER

I've got a few random single miniature things I'd like to work on. I just finished a monster from GF9's new DnD miniatures range, which I'll hopefully be able to show soon. I learning a lot while painting it, and have become more confident with the airbrush, which will come in handy for the dystopian stuff.

I also have a Han Solo figure that is too cool to leave much longer, and I might paint a space marine or two!

-V-

Where did July go?

Well I have literally a few hours to get a blog post in to keep up my 'atleast once a month' streak. This wasn't intentional from the start, but I might aswell keep it going. If this was a blog about getting schmammered at bars though, we may have had more posts in the last month.

I haven't got much painting done since finishing the Skorne (which still isn't quite finished), but I've done lots of thinking about painting. And a bit of buying things to paint…

Dystopian Wars is creeping slowly towards the painting table. I've been doing research into Imperial Japanese Navy ships, printing out some blazing sun flags, and buying a couple last pieces to give me a 1500point force (including an awesome squid). Maybe by the end of the year I'll put base colours on…

I bought some Farrow, bringing my Warmahordes faction total to 7, and my painted ratio down. But, they're bad-ass mechanical pigs, so it's a win. Again it'll be awhile before these see paint, as I'll be buying the units slowly.

I 'spose the next painting table inductees will be some more Dwarfs! I finally bought some units for them (Max Highshields and Forgeguard) and with the release General Ossrum in the new Warmachine book, it should provide some cool new dynamics to the dwarves play style I'm used to. I should be able to pick up the General while I'm at PAX, along with the Iron Kingdoms RPG rulebook. Looking forward to campaign of that, and looks like I might be Dungeon/Game mastering it.

Oh yea, I'm going to PAX in a month, so there'll be a post about that at some point after.

I've also joined a rock band. Static Era. Had two jams so far and it's been pretty fun. Getting straight into things and recording a music video this weekend. Will be a learning experience for me.

That's all 'till next month. To the bar!!! *Ehem* I mean, to the painting table!… yeah…

-V-