Meg Maples Painting Class

Well this post is months overdue but I had some time and said lets bang this out. Back in October (I think it was October) Mr Bell aka Northblade was hosting a two day painting class up in Toronto. This class was being taught by former PP studio artist Meg Maples. When I found out about the class I checked the work schedule, cleared it with the wife, checked with local guys to see if they wanted to come, and booked arrangements. Local gamer/paint Mickey aka DieselDM was free and he took the trip with me. We got into Toronto Friday at rush hour (great timing). We got settled into the room found some grub and laid low so that we would be all ready to roll first thing in the am Saturday.

 

Saturday morning we hit the free breakfast in the hotel and headed over to the local college where the class was being held. I am nut sure exactly how it was arranged but Northblade got one of the art studios for the weekend for us to use so the space was nice. The class had between 20-25 students of different skill levels but many were very good. Due to the size of the class Meg would people up to her painting station in groups of 5-8 people to demonstrate a technique and then seen them back to do their best. The major draw for me was to learn and watch two brush blending. We were all given a Nemo1 resculpt as out test mini.

 

 

 Training session

 

Mickey working on his beloved Swans

 

Northblade fighting the urge to eat his paints :)

 

I typically prefer black primer but Meg likes white and when in Rome

Base colors. I have wanted to try out the Mirewatch scheme from an old NQ Guts and Gear article  and finally pulled the trigger and gave it a shot. 

 

 End of day one (front)

 

 End of day one (back)

 

So as day one drew to a close this was the state of my Nemo. The day was long and a tab bit frustrating. The technique, while making complete sense, was more touchy and difficult than expected. I went through bits of extreme frustration with my miniature and actually rebasecoated a few section different time to make a second and sometime third attempt. I was pretty discouraged with my mini by the end of class and was sick of looking at the old man. After everyone packed up their supplies we locked up the room and headed out to Dave & Busters for some much needed dinner and drinks.

 

Upon arriving at D&B we were told it was a two hour wait for a table so we just flooded the bar area and took every chair they had. This was a really nice time as we had time to mingle in small groups and get to know some of the people in the class a little better. I had some time to chat with Meg about painting and some future projects like Kingdom Death (man she has some crazy ideas there). Around 9pm Meg was ready for bed and Northblade took her home. Most of the class left at that time but a few of us weren't ready to all it a night so we continued to BS, have some drinks, and ruin a first date (you know who you are ;). Big shout out to Charles who was my partner in crime for the night and while everyone took off hung out and partied with me until I don't know maybe 2am? (can't remember).

 

I was pretty burnt out on painting the next morning and didn't have the same enthusiasm as day one but after grabbing some breakfast we headed over to the class room. When I left the class room after day one I was pretty discouraged with my Nemo but I guess sometime away really helped this as when I sat at my station day two I no longer hated my mini and could see some positives. Day two I did the blending on the blue sections of Nemo's cloak and a few details here and there. I wasn't able to sit and focus for long stretches as day one so I just listened to Meg's lessions and mingled most of the day.

 

 

 

While not 100% at the end of day two here is Nemo as we packed up and called it a weekend.

 

I have to say the class was very informative and I'm glad we made the trip. Meg was cool and very helpfully and the class had a lot of quality painters that were fun to be around. We had a lot of laughs and learned some new techniques so it was a very successful weekend from my point of view. Due to the nature of the weekend I didn't have as much time to catch up and BS with Northblade as I would have likes but them the breaks, eh? I will leave you with some photos of the sample minis Meg brought along with her.

WWX Assembly Begins

I have not had a ton of time to work on my WWX minis but I did start playing around with assembly and getting the hang of working with resin.

The first thing I did was get to hacking my Union line troops (hired hands) off their sprue. If you are working on your minis I highly recommend looking at Outlaws main webpage and their instructions.  http://www.wildwestexodus.com/assembly-instructions/ The minis are fairly complex for basic troop minis and if you clip everything off at once you may have a heck of a time figuring which parts are for which mini.

I cut all 10 line troopers off their sprues (one at a time) and stored them by trooper. As you can see above each trooper has their own vial and I will be using these as handles when I get to painting.  

 

Sitting bull clipped and cleaned of mold lines

Assembled Sitting Bull

 

Roar!

Sitting Bull and Geronimo ready to defend the Warrior Nation

 



All and all these minis were pretty easy to clean and assemble. The mold lines on Geronimo were worse than the lines on Sitting Bull but due to the soft nature of the resin they cleaned pretty well. I have a couple tiny gaps I may fill on Geronimo where his arms meet at the elbow but I may just let it slide. I am a little concerned about the seam where Sitting Bills leg sections went together and I may have to do something so they aren't too noticeable once he is painted. I need to clean these with some soap and water to get any mold release agent off then they will be ready for paint. I am not sure what colors I am using yet so we will have to make a decision here soon. Two posts in one day.....look out!

 

When it Rains it Pours

After waiting so long for Kickstarters to arrive I have now received two boxes in the last 7 days :) I received my Rivet Wars kickstarter shipment about an hour ago. Lets do a little unbox shall we.... I love new toys :)

Brand new game smell :)

Packaged nearly identically to Zombicide

The green cards are the starts for all the minis the other cards say what they are ;) The dice are just regular old brown dice. I will be receiving faction dice later down the road when the fulfill the rest of the pledge items.

Small box contained the tanks and their hatch plug. Another try will be arriving at a later date.

Allied forces. This tray also contains the wound markers and a few other tokens. Will be getting another tray like this (minus the characters) when they fulfill that part of the pledge.

Blighten Empire. I think these are going to be my guys. Same as Allies another tray or grunts coming.

Dashboard sheets with the stats of all models in the base set. I think these will be very handy up front but once more of the Kickstarter items arrive the will lose some of their utility.

Punch cards for bunkers, objectives, and terrain items. As part of my pledge I will be getting plastic 3D versions of all of these but they decided they are going to ship them at a later time with other pledge items.

Lastly we have the boards. While I wanted to unwrap them I held off due to an email I received earlier today. I guess some people have been having some issues with warping and the guys at CMoN said they feel it may be due to some of the extreme weather going around at the moment....seriously its like Hoth cold here I'm pretty sure if it gets colder we are going to have to go to Tauntauns for transportation. The box and the contents were icy cold when I opened it so I am going to allow it come to room temp before I unwrap the boards and hope that will avoid any issues.

 

There you have it my shiny new copy of Rivet Wars! I hope to get a couple games here soon and I'll try and take a few photos and do a little write up on our first few games. Have a good one and try and stay warm y'all.

It's Here! Wild West Exodus Unboxing

Ok so yesterday when I was giving the run down of my pending kickstarters I said I thought Rivet Wars might be there today and WWX by the end of the month. It turns out I had my arrivals wrong. Last night when I woke up to go to work I had a box waiting for me on the front step and it was from Outlaw Miniatures! It turns out Rivet Wars will be here Tuesday the 10th but that's for another post...

Enough of my blabber pics pics pics pics:

I started to open the box last night prior to work but ran out of time (damn work gets in the way of fun)

 

 While my 5 year old was at skating lessons today with the wife I set the 4 year old up with cartoons and got to the box for real :)  My painted test sprue enlightened hired hand looks on in excitement

Lawmen: Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Judge K Stern, UR-30, and wave 1 hired hands

Warrior Nation: Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Sky Spirit (he lives), Walks Looking, Braves with Apparition, Energy Beast (missing two) 

Geronimo! So awesome.
 

 Geronimo's legs for scale. He's a big boy
 

Warrior Nation wave 1 and 2 hired hands

 

Close up of two wave 2 hired hands


Outlaws: Jesse James (regular and alt), Billy the Kid, Frank James, Cole Younger, Apache Kid, and Jake "Smiley" Williamson


Outlaw wave 1 and 2 hired hands


Close up of wave 1 hired hands


Union: Lincoln, Grant, Pinkerton, Sheridan, Loveless, and Courtwright


Da Prez gonna get ya!

Union Wave 1 hired hands

Union Tank!

 Entightened: Dr Carpathian, Creation VII, Creation XIII, and wave1 hired hands


Up close of Creation VII he's pretty cool 

Heavy Weapon hired hands. One was missing :(

 

Firefly crew....I mean the Wayward 8 ;)

Dark Council member, Warrior Nation Totems, Marcus Cunningham (mystery backer mini), and ladies of the west 

 

 Odds and ends. I also had the three comics, rulebook, mini rulebook, and novel but didn't photograph them.

 

So there you have it my WWX haul. I was missing a couple things but I'm sure Outlaw will fix those issues. I have my bag coming in the second wave of shipping too. Ok I have to go to bed.

 

 

Looking Back/Looking Forward

Hello all the first of the year has come and gone so I suppose I should do the obligatory year in review. I'd first like to say thanks to those that stop by from time to time and see what I am blabbering about. I haven't done a good job blogging this year (really bad the last part of the year) and I appreciate those that stop by and occasionally leave a comment.

I would have to say 2013 was the year of the kickstarter addiction and one of procrastination. I have continued to work on my beloved troll throughout the year and have picked up a few other projects but never really made much head way with anything. I think some of this was due to the "oh new shiny" syndrome of kickstarters and the other (probably largest contributor) was my lack of actual game play. I feel like I got more game in the first half of the year and this lead to me being more productive and to a larger number of posts. I'd say the highlights of the hobby year would be Templecon and the two painting class I tool in Toronto......what’s that? Oh right I never wrote about it :/ I plan to do my write up soon....I promise.

2014 will be the year of the fulfilled kickstarter and the continued growth of the Kriels. Most of the kickstarters I was expecting to receive in late 2013 have been pushed to early 2014 so here is the list:

-Rivet Wars (maybe tomorrow!)
-Wild West Exodus (by the end of the month?)
-Mega Mat (early Q2 2014)
-Kingdom Death (missed the KS but got in due to a last min deal should be late Q2 2014)
-Wrath of Kings (middle/late 2014?)
-Warmachine Tactics (late 2014?)
-Relic Knights (?)

I have Templecon 2014 looming around the corner and I am really looking forward to catching up with friends from out of town. I don't intended to play a ton of tournaments but will play in one or two. While I am not planning on going crazy with tournament games it doesn't mean I don't have a painting goal and I will post on this early next week. I am hoping to play some demos for my upcoming KS releases and maybe pick up some items I didn't add to my pledges.

Ok so there is the mandatory wrap up :) Hope y'all had a great year and hopefully you will be hearing from me far more regularly this year. If you're going to be at Templecon hit me up and maybe we can grab a game in the Iron Arena or a cocktail in the bar :)