Dec Target Hit/New Years

Looks like my last post was wrong I would get another post in prior to the New Year. I received a package in the mail today and that spurred a post. Here is a photo of my Dec PtT which consists of my Boneswarm and second Bull Snapper. The second snapper came out pretty close to the test model I put up in a RMM 2 weeks ago.

I didn't get a chance to take multiple angle shots of these fellow just the one I submitted to Gday at LH. All in all I am please with the two of them and enjoy the "speed painting" aspect I have been trying to accomplish with my Blindwater. I have done a little work on the Blackhide and was able to bang out all the skin in ~30min which, again, is really good for me.

Here are the contents of my miniature market package. I wanted to get these through mu FLGS seeing as I had a $25 store credit and to support the store but they were unable to get any of these through their distributor.

I picked up a second box of Kriel Warriors, 2 Cabers, and a second blister of Whelps. The warriors and cabers are for a Vox write up I intend to do for January based on eBloodsong. The warriors and cabers are also slotted for a Calandra Tier list I hope to have painted for Templecon (if I go) to play in the Blood, Sweat, and Tiers event. The whelps are for a list I am working on to play in Hardcore (if I go)

So that takes up the PtT part of today's post on to the New Years part. This year I have a few goal which I intend to meet. The first is to have my Trolls to fully painted status by years end. I did a little number crunching the other day and it is a bit scary. I currently own (prior to today's shipment and pending gifts) but as I stand I own 237pts and only 87pts meets hardcore standards. That's is a whooping 37%. The break down is a little more disturbing as 40% of my 'locks are done, 56% of my 'beasts, 48% of my solos, and 8% of my units.....yes that is an 8! Some of the unpainted stuff is partially painted but anyway you look at it there is a ton to get finished.

 I really need to get this done and intend to use the PtTs of 2012 to aid in this goal. Also Trollblood Scrum is setting up a weekly paint challenge to aid in fully painted status. I am not sure if I will commit to this as they want one mini painted a week and I tend to batch paint (when I paint) and I want to follow their guidelines if I were to commit. My second goal of 2012 if to not miss a PtT. This goes hand in hand with goal one but from time to time the target will not match up with my troll goals and I will still try and hit it. Goal number three is to get my Blindwater up to fully painted. This should be no where near as daunting of a task as my trolls. My final goal is to make it to one of the large conventions this year. Templecon is right around the corner but this seems to be the best bet for me.

OK so there they are down on "paper" so I have no excuse to not get them done. Have a safe and happy New Years everyone and here's is looking to fully painted 2012.

Random Miniature....Tuesday?

I just realized Monday came and went and I forgot to throw up a finished mini from the past. Truth be told yesterday was kind of a waste of a day as the entire household was under the weather and didn't really do much at all. Looking at my done folders I picked this "Monday's" miniature.

Here is a Lanyssa Ryssyll I did a few years back as part of PG_theblklotus' escalation league. Looking back I think that 6 week league produced more finished minis for me than any other period. I am pleased, for the most part, with how she came out. I like the purple and grey of her clothing best. I might try and go back and finish the eye more appropriately as I have a little more practice with eye now and they usually make a big difference.

Even though it is a week off I don't see myself getting much more work done in the next few days. I might try and finish up bull snapper #2 but that would be the most I can see getting done. I am going to take a finished photo of the boneswarm and send it off to Lost Hemisphere for the Dec PtT. I did go the cheap way by using him but a finished mini is a finished mini I suppose. Most likely this will be last post of 2011 so have a safe and happy New Years and see y'all in 2012.

Merry Christmas: New Toys and Minimal Progress

First and foremost merry Christmas. I was able to sneak out of work 30min early this morning and I rushed home to do Christmas with the boys......and too my amazement they were still asleep. So I paced around for a while and finally nearly 90min later there was stirring from upstairs. This year the wife and I decided to keep our gifts to a minimum and focus on the boys. That is not to say I didn't get anything.... I did buy them for myself however :)

I have been intrigued by this pair for some time and have thought about playing them with Grim. I figure a 10 inch spray against models at -3 def on Grim's feat could be fun (for me). When one of our FLGS was having a sale on selected minis and this bad boy was on the list at 40% off I couldn't resist.

Here is another item I picked up at the end of the year sale. This bad boy was 65% off. I plan on using these parts when I get to the terrain pieces I have been cooking up in my brain. The terrain work will have to wait for a while but at 65% off I could resist picking this up to have on hand.

I finally got to open my box of Super Dungeon Explore. I have to say the Soda Pop Miniature guys put out a nice looking product. I have been looking forward to this since I saw my first preview picture from Gencon 2010 coverage online.

The manual is beautiful and full of great artwork. I cannot speak for the writing as of yet 'cause I just looked at the pictures. The map on the first page leaves open nice expansion sets/ideas for them. I am pretty sure the previews for the first expansion are out there and it is going the baddies are going to be turtlemen reminiscent of those in Super Mario Bros. 

Tons of pop out counters

Gaming boards.

When I got to my last board I saw this....it made me chuckle.

Yikes look at all those plastic parts. They have a solid spot on the back burner.

With work and the holiday I haven't been able to work on much. My Boomhowlers haven't been touch and it is safe to say there is no way they will be done in 3 days for the Dec Paint the Target. So in an effort to not miss a target I am going to submit the Boneswarm and hopefully a Bull Snapper. I have done a little work on Bull Snapper 2. If I am going to get the Bull Snapper to Gday he will need to be finished tonight/early tomorrow before we head to my folks to celebrate Christmas.

Oh I almost forgot the wife also bought me (us) a new camera so I will have to try it out and if it does a better job photoing my minis.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all. Hopefully Santa brought y'all what you wanted. 

Faction Attention Deficit Disorder (FADD)

Well my random miniature Monday this week triggered my FADD as I am interested in my gators and not my trolls at the moment. I took a few minis down into the basement yesterday and blocked in some color with the airbrush. I think I am in love with the airbrush. I was able to basecoat a Blackhide, Bull Snapper and two gatorman grunts in less than 30 min which for me would be unheard of with a traditional brush.  Here are the results.

I need to improve my light setup in the basement where I spray 'cause I have a hard time seeing exactly what I am shooting at times. this is evident by some over spray I had. This should be easily correctable however with some quick brush work.

I also spent about 30-60 min working on my Boneswarm. I got this mini about a month ago from a store that had some old IKRPG minis still kicking around. I was able to grab this bad boy for $9.99 which is a steal compared to the MRSP of the repackaged Boneswarm.  I  almost feels like cheating painting this guy up as it went so quickly. I did a wash, few layers of drybrushing , light wash, drybrush, and spot wash and boom pretty much done. Working on may gators as a "speed painted" army is a little liberating as I get quick results and finished minis. I am just working on the base now and will call him finished. I might end up submitting him for this months Paint the Target over on Lost hemisphere. I was going to submitted the Boomhowlers but I do not think I will have them done in time.

Random Miniature Monday

Wow the week off went fast. Here were are another Monday and time for another miniature from the done shelf. Today I selected a bull snapper from the Blindwater Congregation.

This mini was my test piece for my Blindwater army. This mini was speed painted to try and find fast(er) way to paint an army versus how I paint my trolls. I kind of stumbled across the green on this mini when I was doing the back spikes and liked it. The mini make heavy use of drybrushing/washes. I typically do not use drybrushing but I was happy with the speed and overall results so I decided this is how I would my Blindwater army. When I get back to working on my gators it should allow me to bang through the troops and beast in a relatively fast manner. This process should also be aided now that I can do my basecoating with the airbrush. I have a bunch of troll stuff I want to get done first but hope to get back to gators in the not too distant future. The only thing I need to do is add the static grass but I am going to do that on the entire army as a whole when it is completed.

Tourney time

Our modified longest night tourney was yesterday. I had a really hard time deciding on what my second list was going to be. After playing with multiple lists for multiple 'locks I decided to go back to one of my old favorites eDoomshaper. I decided to go with eDoomie due to the low model count and short timed turns this event. The two lists I packed up for today where:

Borka Kegslayer (*5pts)
* Dire Troll Mauler (9pts)
* Earthborn Dire Troll (10pts)
Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (Boomhowler and 9 Grunts) (9pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 3 Stone Scribes (3pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Stone Scribe Chronicler (2pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)

Reinforcements:
Swamp Troll (4pts)
Gudrun the Wanderer (3pts)

Hoarluk Doomshaper, Rage of Dhunia (*6pts)
* Troll Axer (6pts)
* Earthborn Dire Troll (10pts)
* Mulg the Ancient (12pts)
* Trollkin Runebearer (2pts)
Trollkin Champions (Leader and 2 Grunts) (6pts)
Janissa Stonetide (3pts)
Troll Whelps (2pts)

Reinforcements:
Slag Troll (6pts)
Feralgeist (1pts)

The eDoomie list is a little different than ones I have used in the past. I decided to add the champions as a bodyguard for Doomie as he can be a little squishy. I know some people want a damage buff in all lists but from my own playing I find Mulg and the EBDT don't really require one. Sure some extra damage is always nice but not essential.

The tourney really had little to do with the Longest Night at all and was more of a SR2012 beta tourney with Longest Night patches. We only had 7 guys show up and one left after the first round. I have to say some of the SR2012 scenarios seem a little odd. Many time we just ignored them and went for caster kill cause they seem convoluted and not worth doing. This may be that out play group has played so many games with SR2011 that we are stuck in our ways.

Game one was against Hammy playing pStryker. I went with my Family Reunion list. The shortened time limits in SR2012 really but the pressure on and made for a slightly contentious game. This was a little upsetting 'cause I don't get to play too often so I don't like having hard feelings, one way or the other, when I do get to play. The game used one of the new scenarios and I had a hard time wrapping my head around it so I just ignored it. Hindsight being 20/20 I actually think I had a decent list for the scenario and should have been trying to play it. The game ended up going to dice down and he won on points in his control area....truth be told he would have won on VPs too had it come to that. Well 0-1.

Next game I ran into Scudo. No matter how many people are in an event I seem to play him. If I actually get to got to Templecon I bet I get paired with him there too. He was playing an eBaldur theme list (T3) and I went with eDoomie. This scenario used the reinforcement rules which were kind of fun. The game went pretty well with my heavies putting a lot of pressure on him and Doomie staying pretty protected in the rear. I made some dumb mistakes, like I tend to do, but the game ended with my EBDT eating Baldur. I should have payed a little more attention and farmed some VPs this would come back to bite me later. I forgot to take photos of this games forces/set up. His list to the best of my recollection was the following:

Baldur the Stonesoul (*5pts)
* Megalith (11pts)
* Woldguardian (9pts)
Druids of Orboros (Leader and 5 Grunts) (7pts)
* Druid of Orboros Overseer (2pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
Blackclad Wayfarer (2pts)
Blackclad Wayfarer (2pts)
Lord of the Feast (4pts)
Reinforcements:
Woldwatcher (5pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
The last game was against LordSorrow playing Legion and an eThargosh list. I once again went eDoomie. He was able to get so quality damage on Doomie and had he not run out of time might have finished him on the feat turn. He most certainly would have made a few more moves which would have protected him a little better. Due to time running out however I had a charge lane to Thags with my EBDT with wild aggression on him. Thagrosh ended like Baldur as a snack for my EBDT.

Well we were packing up and prizes were being announced. The champion and winner of the Longest Night model was PG_Z1G1. He was the final game by going to the 4th tiebreaker and winning by 1 VP due to his 'caster having a lower point cost than his opponent. It turns out I missed third play by 6 points. I really wish I farmed those VPs in game 2. Looking back at the game I had a pretty easy 8 VPs right there when I killed Baldur...oh well. All in all a good day. If I do make it to Templecon I really need to practise these new SR2012 rule and time issues.

Gudrun Build-a-base

Since I intend to be able to field Gudrun this weekend I need to get him a proper base. Since I am going to be building one now I figured I do a step by step of my base building. This is my take on building bases from the multiple tutorial I read in the past most notably from the old brushthralls site (I loved that site).

The first thing I do whenever I am working on a base is use some masking tape to cover the slot. I do this even if I intend to use the slot as if the metal tab on the figure doesn't fill the entire slot the gap is covered with tape.

At this point I grab some cork and start ripping. I use 2 different corks when I work on bases. The lighter colored one I typically use for character solos and the sort whereas the dark cork I use for 'locks/'casters as it is thicker and gives added height to the more important characters. Seeing as Gudrun is big enough already and just a solo I went with the thinner cork. I tore the piece of cork to match Gudrun's footprint. I picked up both of the cork sheets at a national chain craft store.

Here I affixed the cork to my base using my super glue. I also took a piece of scrap cork and added it up from to add some extra texture to the front of the base.

I took a little watered down white glue (I used Elmers) and put a little on the cork (will be between his feet) and on the ground area needing to be covered with "dirt".

I have a contain which has a mix of two or three different grain sands/rock which I use on all of my bases. I bought these bags years ago and still have tons left in thew container.

I dipped my base into the sand mixture fact down after I mixed it up. This got me a nice mix of fine and thick ground cover. The next step will be paint but before I move onto paint I have to let the white glue fully dry.

Oops I realized in my rush to get a base done for Gudrun I got ahead of myself. Some people like to prime their base after the sand is glued down to give it a little extra hold. I am not typically one of those people. I normally paint up my rock section prior to putting down my dirt. OK to correct this I grabbed my jar of black gesso and brushed it on over the rocked sections.  

Colors used on rock. I should have arranged them the other direction but based on the photo I took I go right to left when I paint my bases.

I then use a 3 color drybrushing to paint my rock. I go from one color to the next without cleaning my brush to allow some natural blending of color. The first two drybrushes are on the heavier sided and I go a little lighter with my final highlight.

Colors I use for my dirt sections. I took this photo correctly as I work from left to right in color selection here. I used to use GW brown ink instead of the VGC sepia but as GW doesn't make there ink anymore I had to find a substitute.

Three color drybrushing just like the rock section. Again I do not clean my brush between colors and just move on to the next when ready.

Mostly finished based. I clean up the rim with a little black paint. All I need now is a finished model to mount and then add a little static grass.

The wife is going out to do some Christmas shopping today which puts me on daddy day care. I don't for see much painting time today but we shall see. I haven't made any more progress on Gudrun or the Boomhowlers since they were last photoed all I have done is get this base ready.