Craters and Dreadnoughts

 We have had a wild ride so far at the start of the year.  Lot of medical and business issues with my surviving parent put writing this post out of my mind.  But better late than never.  I have two new items to display on my blog.  

First thing is my craters.  I actually finished these a while back, and now I am going to put them up for display:

I used plaster as the form of the actual crater, painted them up using the paint formula from Hirst Arts on earth tones, and then gave them a wood stain finish.  I like the look and I think that it will last for quite a while.  

I also finished up a dreadnaught for the most part.  It is still missing the varnish, but that is something that will come later when I have better weather here in a few weeks.  I included the older squad of tac marines that I already have done for a family photo.  

I finally found a company that can do what seems like good squad markings for Crimson Fists.  I am still testing them, and finishing off the last of the marines in the new squad.  Little by little this squad will be finished.  I also have a scout combat squad that is currently being worked on, as well as one of the Ork squads from last year that I have been working on.  They are on the back burner right now but still actively getting paint on them from time to time.  

Orktober AAR

 So October has come and gone, and I now that I have some time to take a few photos, I decided to provide an update on the painting that I was able to accomplish.  Honestly it ended up going into Nobvember as well, but we will hold off on that.  Here is all that I managed to accomplish:

That is in total 44 Boys, 5 Nobz, and 1 Warboss.  A Total of 50 Orks with some kind of paint on them.  Now there is a lot of work to do, and likely are not going to be able to see most of the work, as most of the green is base coated that looks too dark to see the difference between black and Dark Angel Green, but trust me there is paint on all of these little guys.  

The front unit of boys are currently on the painting table right now.  Both are the sluggas and Choppas from the old AOBR box.  I am also using the Nobz from the box as the nobz for all of my units in this particular army.  Most of the boys in the back have problems that I will likely have to clean off using Simple Green.  I did not notice it at the time that I was painting on the green way too thick and it is marring the detail.  Good news is that I have plenty to work on until I can get these guys ready for priming once again, like these two units. 

These two are from the normal Orks box, one is a group of Ard Boys with Sluggaz and Choppas, and the other have the Shottaz.  Both get a Nob from AOBR likewise.  In addition to about the same painting treatment for the Nobz in the back, that is it.  I would show you a pic of the Nobz, but the picture turned out terrible.  Anyways hopefully more will be due from this lot here in the next year, but first it is back to the Crimson Fists.  I do have an update on them that I will show off here next week, I wanted to give the Orks their due limelight for now.  Until then.

Orktober

I am still having trouble with the decals on my Space Marines.  The decal manufacturers are kind of far and few between with some mediocre results or just not what I am looking for.  I will give a full update once I get that sorted.  Meanwhile I am still working on the rest of that squad and a new scout unit, but that is not the subject of this post.  The subject of this post is the targets for the aforementioned Space Marines.  

This month, being officially October, is also known as Orktober.  It is a month where we focus on those green little monsters and finally get some of them wet, with paint that is.  As someone who has plenty of Orks and need to work on them, I decided that I will change a few things up and get some paint down on them.  I will be participating in Orktober by working on a few Orks that I have ready and in inventory.  I already have been working on a few for a while as you can see here:

They have some shading and a few bits and pieces that need to be fixed, but they are very much along the way.  I did start up on the other half of this motley band of boyz just this week as you can see here:

What is after that you say?  Oh, I don't know I have a bit to choose from:

This may spread to Nobvember perhaps, which I have a unit of so that will work out for me.  Crimson Fists are not complete on the back burner.  I still have a whole batch of miniatures that I am going to continue to work on throughout the month, and trust me, more where that came from.  

Decal Frustrations

 So I was able to put the Chapter Badge on the Space Marines in the previous post without too much trouble.  Then I tried to figure out how to print out some decals for the squad markings.  It took me a while to get a good print of the chapter badges.  This was of course among other projects that I was working on during the past couple of months.  Once I was able to do a test run on a dummy shoulder guard, I noticed that even with a good print, the decal looked terrible.  The decal was so thin that it looked like a film on the shoulder guard.  I was thoroughly disappointed at my outcome.  I did find a company that does provide a similar decal sheet that should be professionally done, so I bought that.  Once I get it, since they apparently print them as they get the orders, I will apply them and see how they work.  Hopefully by the end of the summer I will have them and be able to finish the below models.  

On another note, I did some more critical errors on my painting so I have quite a few models in the ole Green Stuff bath. 

Sigh!

Long Time Coming in an update.

Alexa, how do you spell Negligence.  Sorry folks, you should know by now that real life got in the way of things.  Nothing too important, just the usual elderly mom being a lot to handle with little time to do any hobby stuff let alone blog about it, and when I do, I tend to get into a perfectionist loop of always trying to fix problems that I see.  That also does not include accidents.  I did have one full squad almost done but then I ruined them when an errant paintbrush went across them and ruined my paint job.  I also don't like to post pictures that are WIP usually.  I like to showcase what I have finished.  On the other hand, a PLOG may spur me to paint more if I start posting WIP's.  

Good news is that I am almost done with most of a full squad and my dread from way back when.  I cant use spray paint right now as the pollen is getting thick, so I am going to give them any final touch ups that I have to do and start with the decals on them.  Hopefully they will be ready for the varnish before May is here.  Anyways here is what I have so far:

I fully expect to have a lot more pictures once the varnish is on.  The three not pictured had a few problems that I could not fix and had to give them the old "Simple Green" bath for them.  I expect to have them as well as a Devestator squad done soon.  

 So with the new year upon us I am starting to do something that I really have not done much in years past. Set out goals in what I want to do with my hobby this year. Knowing my limitations on time and my standards of how I paint, we will certainly see if I can get all of this done let alone half of it. So without further ado here are my goals that I plan on working towards:

40K:

Crimson Fists: I have two companies of Crimson Fists and one is assembled and primed. Of that company I have decided to break it up into three elements. My goal is to finish the first element of this army this year, and this is the first project that I am going to be working on this year. The first squad has been finished as shown here.  I have three months before it should get warmer down where I live, so I expect to get a lot of this done in the next few months, especially as I am still working from home until April at the earliest. After that I would also like to get the other company assembled, but that is not likely, and honestly the second element needs to be priority, but painting has a different schedule than assembling and priming. We will see.

Orks: The boys from above need an opposing force. I have collected quite a few battle force boxes over the years. What better than to have their hated enemy available to them whenever someone wants to learn a classic game at my domicile. These guys are second on the list for assembly and priming, so I expect to have them at least primed and some paint by Orktober.

Other Projects: I have a few other armies that I have been collecting but have not been putting together. I am not exactly sure where I want to go from here, but I think that my next two armies that I want to start assembling are going to be Cadian IG and Tau. I already have some of my Cadians broken down and at step 1 of my assembly, so they are in a good place to start as any. This is a definite we will see if I have the time to get them put together. No expectations of getting any paint on these two armies any time soon.

WFB:

Orc's and Goblins: More specifically Goblins. I have been assembling a Goblin army over the past two years,(cleaning the parts have been a slog) and I think that it is time that I start getting some of these greenskins painted. Most of this particular element of this army is primed and ready for some paint. I still have some left to clean and assemble for this part of my Greenskins that I want to get done before I move on to other assembly projects, but not that much. Biggest question is will I tire in painting so much green?

Beasts of Chaos: I would like to at least assemble some of what I have in stock and get these painted. I feel that this may be a good change of pace from all of the green and blue that I will end up painting this year. Kind of a stretch goal right now.

Empire/Brettonian: I am not that fond of the look of the Landscheidt that GW made for their Imperial armies for WFB. What I do like is the War of the Roses look, and I have a few options on that. Likewise I would rather use historical armies for a Brettonian army rather than hunt for 5th edition metals on eBay. My goal for these two armies is to find humans to match somewhat tp what we had in the 4th/5th edition for Empire and Brettonian armies, which can be harder than you think. My goal is to finally paint up my test models that I already got and do a comparison of what I have found so far and see if I can settle on a historical company or two that sells these periods. As I am a fan of variety, I would like to get at least two if not three companies that are in these periods. First three that I like so far are Front Rank, Foundry, and Black Tree Games. Should a company like Victrix comes out with a plastic version of the WOTR or HYW period, and fits what I am looking for, I would be game as well. I am not a fan of the Perry's miniatures right now as they are noticeably small compared to what I want to use. The painting may be a break in all the green that I may be painting. Once settled on a plan of action, I expect to purchase and start assembling what I can. Empire is first on the list of the two.

Terrain:

I have some scenery that I want to get assembled and painted, especially a stone tower that needs a paint job. While I would like to, I doubt that I can get a board done unless I manage to find a table/Miter saw to cut the wood that I need, but you never know and that can be knocked out in the space of a weekend.

Lockdown Painting

 As many of us are now confined to our quarters until further notice, I have noticed that a whole lot of us in the hobby of miniature soldiers suddenly have time to work on their hobbies, which you can honestly say that for just about most other hobbies.  I would consider myself to be part of my group as well, since about half of my extracurricular activities involve being out among people.  With that in mind I have been working on my backlog of Crimson Fists that need to get painted.  I finally was able to finish my first squad of these all the way to placing decals and applying a hard coat on them.  I learned a lot about painting in general, as well as painting space marines, once again while completing these.  Lot of the mistakes that I did on these, I expect to not do again.  I actually got these done last month, it was only now that I was able to get some pictures of them.  Without further ado, here is my first Space Marines completely finished and coming to a table top near me.(whenever the hell we open up again)

Combat Squad A

So I had some trouble with the hard coat while finishing these guys up.  You can tell the two on the left are a little "frosty," whereas the two on the right came out like I wanted them.  The Sgt came out ok, but I think that I frosted his hand a little bit.  

Combat Squad B

I am not going to be anal enough to specify which model goes in which combat squad, but this is the other half of the squad.  

Regular Tactical Marines

Tactical Marines with Flame Thrower

Tactical Marines with Missile Launcher

Some close ups of them in groups of three.  

Some pictures of my Sargent.  I had the hardest time getting the face just right, and that is what I had to re-learn a lot of while doing this one.  Had I got him right the first time, this post would probably be a month or two old by now.  

Family Photo

This is a group shot of the whole squad.  While I am happy with the painting that I did on most of these models, I have some issues with the models themselves.  If you notice, they are AOBR marines which will work in a pinch, but leave something to be desired when it comes to some of the details on the model.  Most of that is hard to see in these pictures, but you have parts of this model without any undercuts.  That does annoy me quite a bit.  As mentioned earlier, there is an issue with the hard coat frosting on me.  I think that was due to the varnish that I used and not the day, as it was a clear warm day with low humidity.  I also screwed up on the decals when I was applying them on.  I managed to make them more or less look like battle damage, but it is something that I want to try to avoid.  This is on top of the fact that I am trying to use decals for both chapter and squad badges on any new models.  I will certainly use them for many years to come as I build up the rest of my chapter, however when the time comes, I expect to retire these guys.  

Outragous!

During the Covid lock down, I really don't have the "luxuary" of doing nothing but to just to paint my armies.  My work shipped me home to work from home, and I still take care of my parent on the weekend.  However, I am making strides on painting up some of my Crimson Fists.  Lot of setback as well, but more in a painters block in getting the paint job just right for my taste.  Did I mention that I am a slow painter?  I should have an update soon when I get my first functioning unit under hard coat. 

But that is not the reason for the long anticipated(I'm sure) update on this blog.  I was perusing the Goblin section of E-Bay and found the following auction:

Goblin Auction

At the time of this writing a box of 20 goblins is going for over 200 dollars.  Who the hell in their right mind is spending that kind of money on goblins like that?  I know that people spend money like that per model, but those are small units like Terminators and the like.  I have been collecting these kind of goblins for a while, so the good news for me is that I am predominately done in collecting this particular portion of the O&G army, so I don't think that I need a new set.(the operative word there is think.)  Actually, I have enough for a particularly large Goblin army, and maybe two of them. 

Having said that, looking at this auction, I am starting to take serious stock to see if I am missing anything else in my collection that I really want from GW brands.  Likewise, I look forward for the days of a good 3-D printer so that I don't have to deal with these kind of prices, which may be coming down the pike soon enough. 

Summer Painting Challenge 2018 was a failure.

For those who have been paying attention, yes I tried to do another painting challenge this summer, and it did not end well.  Unfortunately I got caught up in taking care of my parent's personal affairs all throughout the summer.  The good news is that one of the events that we did was to take a trip abroad.  It looks like things are starting to wind down with my parent however, which is good.  Honestly, some of it has to do with me just not feeling motivated to paint right now. 

 

As winter rolls in this part of the world, I will work in more time to paint what I have started on up.  I also want to do a figure comparison once again for a new empire army so I will be working on a few projects this summer. 

Summer Painting Challenge 2018

So I am going to do a do-over to last years painting challenge.  Same parameters, same goal.  The good news is that I am further along than where I was this time last year.  Over the winter I did paint a bit more on these models.  I was able to lay a lot of ground work on about half of the 80 models.  Instead of being all dark blue, I now have a lot that are the base blue that I want to use, and red where they need to be.  The bad news is that my surviving parent is the one that causes more stress in my life than anything else these days. 

 

I am confident that this year we will have this project finished by labor day.   Stay posted for pictures of my progress.