100 Minions!

So, this morning my blog list hit 100! I hadnt really noticed I was getting that many readers! O.o

I guess that means I'll have to make some attempts to be more amusing and post something worthwhile on a regular basis.

I'm amassing a rather large Warmachine Mercenary force, its not really a coherent roster yet since Im trading for the stuff- its kind of a random hodge podge of units. But many of them have alot of character, and will be fun to paint. The Forgeguard guys look kinda like pot bellied stoves with big ole hammers, Croes Cutthroats look like a buncha D&D or Warcraft rogues gone wild, and the Iridian skirmishers are some of my favorite as they have a very arabic theme(and since I like Tallarns....).

Im hoping, maybe in the next week I'll get some painting up. The health issues havent been overly cooperative lately, but Im gonna try to push past it and see if I can still get some decent results.

Le sigh....I think Im done with GW....

I've played 40k for a long while now. My freinds Bill and Mark sucked me into it back in 98-ish and we had alot of fun with it over the years. But sadly, all the changes have slowly been making it less fun for me. The last time I really had fun with it was with my Orks in 2004.

Granted, since 2005 I havent played much due to life getting in the way. But since then GW has made thier changes. My hiatus saw two new editions, and a variety of game changes, that really just look like the juggling of the meta-game in order to sell a certain type of model(like transports for 5th ed, or anything with an assualt cannon in 4th edition).

The last piece of GW stuff I bought was a BFM box in 2005, and a bottle of Devlan mud last summer. And I will admit they are putting out some great models, which we have to pay through the nose(and other orifices for).

Lets look at some of the things GW has done over the years-
2001- Online Price fixing- GW limits independent resellers to a 20% discount. Prior to this the norm was a 30% discount, and 40% could be found.
2002-2004 Price hikes. There was internet uproar-everyone was gonna quit. no one did. Reasoning from GW 'We need the funds to build our plastics plant in the US so we can keep costs down'
2005/2006 4th ed comes out. Only a minor price hike on a few kits.
2007 a few more kits get a price hike.
2008/2009 5th ed rolls out, Mech armies become king- first rhinos and drop pods are hard to come buy, then Chimeras as the IG codex comes out. Throw in a price hike for good measure- one that covers most of their ranges.
2010 Guess what....despite massive restructuring in GW-US, a move made for 'cost cutting and efficiency' we get yet another price hike. But with a clever bit of PR- they release Spearhead right afterwards- so the sheep get to think 'Oooh wow!! All tank games!!!' and they run out to buy 5 or 6 more tanks to use. Oh- and you have to buy the Spearhead book when it comes out too.

I should add into all that- the heart breaking decline of White Dwarf. The once noble dwarf used to be a useful read, hobby tips, chapter approved articles, short stories, painting tutorials, Army Spotlights. Then they pimped it out to some whorbits, er, I mean hobbits. After that it circled to bowl a few times before being flushed down the toilet into the realm of total crap.

I still like the the 40k fluff, and modeling. I have like 20 armies worth of crap to prove it. But Im going to whittle that all down to 4 or so. Pet project armies that may end up with no gaming value.

For gaming value- Im setting sail with Privateer Press. Thier prices may not be much better than GW's, but thier core product and rules are more functional and smooth. It evokes the sort of fun feeling that 2nd edition 40k did- but without the confusing complexity. Theres guns, robots, magic, and a variety of other goodstuff that make for plenty of eye candy and fun stuff to paint. And in all- the people into it seem to be more of a mind to have fun- the PP forums in general are much less tense than the 40k forums. A better vibe I suppose. And the artwork theyre putting forth in thier new books is impressive- along with thier sculpts improving over the years this makes me happy to see such progress.

Anyhow- for those that follow my bloggity goodness, you can expect to see Warmachine stuff taking precedence over 40k for the forseeable future. Something might change that, but Im really sick of GW so it seems unlikely I'll ever embrace thier game to the same extent I used to.

Finally- a tallarn with paint on him!

So, Ive been converting some tallarns(as anyone who reads the past posts should know!). But with my twitchy hands I havent been overly motivated to paint anything, as its just generally frustrating.

But, one of my fellow bloggers (http://akersminis.blogspot.com/) had a lil painting contest for May that got me motivated enough to paint up at least one guy!

Im probly going to convert up another 30 or 40 of these guys(have 25ish already) so I can have a super blob or a couple smaller platoons. I think the paint process I used will work well assembly line style- and the airbrush made for easy base coating with the VMC Yellow Ochre over grey primer. And it was really handy for clearcoating the model. For table top use I'll hit these guys with a layer of krylon gloss, then matte coat them with the airbrush. This will get me a good protective layer- and a nice flat finish I dont have to ever worry about fogging up on me!

C&C and questions welcome :)

Ultrasonic goodness. Or is it?

So, the health issues have flared back up. Notably a brief blackout last week on my way to the post office. I at least steered into a curb as it started- dunno if that was deliberate or blind luck, but it kept me from running through an intersection and possibly hurting someone.

This means no new tallarnish goodness. But- the post is not without nerdgasmic merit.

Now, after reading the description of Ultrasonic cleaners- I had these visions in my head of a dream machine I could throw a bucket of figs into and 15 minutes later whip out some cleaner than new shiny toys. Thats a bunch of crap.

Supposedly working with jsut water and/or special cleaner stuff(which I will admit I havent tried yet)- water did nothing. Made some bubbles. but thats about it.

But- lose not hope! The unit I bought has a stainless steel pan. So I thought- why not put my regular stripping solution- Superclean- in there? So, in went some super clean. A test run showed that it didnt foam up and cause a diasaster. So in went some figs. A variety of metal tallarns I got from several sources that had a menagerie of hideous paint on them. I also threw in a space marine and some drop pod pieces I got in a trade. And I topped it off with a chimera (the cleanr I bought will fit a land raider).

I flipped the timer to 6 minutes(the longest cycle it will run) and turned on the warmer. Now the warmer is a feature I hadnt thought about much- but it only heats the fluid to like 145 F, so no where near hot enough to melt plastics. But, then I rmember I used to heat up simplegreen on the stove to strip metal figs super fast.

Within a few minutes the figs were getting little clouds around them- and by the end of the 6 minute ultrasonic cycle- I couldnt see the bottom figs. I let it sit for about an hour then came to check, I pulled a metal fig out- one of my old ones that was based with krylon black and had a ton of dry brushing- and the paint wiped right off- no traces in the creases- nothing. It didnt have that silvery new look- but it just looked a bit aged(as Im sure many of us have noticed minis get darker with some handling and time in general). So, it doesnt look out of the blister- but it looked like it had never been touched by paint. The same was true for the rest of the metals- the paint came off with ease- a couple needed a brush or two. And of 10 random paint jobs- all came off spakly except for a blob of black that may be some sort of oil based paint- even with brushing it didnt budge out of the creases. No biggie really.

On the plastics- the chimera was based in krylon brown(from the camo line) and had a speckled camo on it- topped with a layer of krylon clear to seal it, and a coat of flat clear. I was thinkin it would take some work. But- alot of the paint just sloughed off and the rest came off with a light rinse in the sink. totally bare plastic O.o I will add at this point- chimeras really ARE AMPHIBIOUS. It floated for over a week(upside down) so theres a definitive line right where all the track hubs are where the paint didnt come off- but all the submerged stuff- gone- every bit without brushing.

The marine did ok. Its an AOBR guy and whatever it was based with seems to have stained the plastic a darker grey and needed some brushing- end result is it looks like its had some ink slobbed on- so will look fine once painted- no loss of details.

The drop pod parts. I was hoping the soak would kill the glue bonds(super clean NOMS NOMS superglue!) but sadly it seems to have been a solvent based plastic glue that was used with a low skill level- end result- a drop pod thats very likely conversion parts. But- the paint came off! It took some brushing, and seemed a bit oily since it stained the brush I was using. It came with the batch teh MS above did, and didnt seem stained but fine detail parts look like theyve had some black ink applied.

Im happy with the results- but was just hoping they would happen faster ;) Im running a test now to see if its the ultrasonic part that does the super stripping- or the heating of the solution and keeping it warm as often as possible( it only warms for about 30 minutes then shuts off- and the fluid stays warm for about 6 hours) If I hit the warmer button once a day I'll be doing good. And hopefully will have some results before next week. Im strippin a chimera identical to the first- so its sort of my 'control'.

Tallarn PICS!! 5-7-10 update

I found a way to hack the auto focus on my crap cam- so, we can has pics!

First up, some of the keffiyehs I did quick sculpts on:


Then onto some shemagh shots:



And here we have Omar Marbo, Sly's desert dwelling 54th cousin by marriage.









And here we have a very WIP Straken. He still needs his plasma pistol, headwear, and some detail work on his robe and a sash.

Fun stuff!

I got my stuff from Blick Art today. They were out of stock on the 2 oz dropper bottles, but other than that I got all the stuff to make a couple gallons of washes. Yes, gallons.

I realised though, I accidentally ordered Sepia instead of a yellow. So I dont quite have all the base colors to mix a full spectrum. But, that no biggie, I can make my own versions of Devlan mud, badab black etc etc. Can make blues, greens, and reds too. I made a quick test batch of the sepia and indigo, and having access to large quantities of washes is going to make me an incredibly lazy painter ^_^ Dippity dippity dippity!!

So, while Im waiting for the bottles to mix the rest, I started playing with the box of Super Sculpey I ordered. I've used regular sculpey years ago, and wasnt impressed much, at all. But the Super sculpey, I like it so far. I havent baked it yet, but the handling qualities are very nice. Using a layered technique I can see how some sculptors build up really good detail with this stuff.

Its really going to be useful for the tanks Im going to start working on very soon. I think I can use it to sculpt out armor plates & sections in the exact shapes and thicknesses I want. Im gonna do it on thin sheets if styrene to keep it flat. Then pop it in the freezer to temporarily harden it- pop the stryene off, then into the toaster oven for its 275 degree bake for 15 minutes (thats not counting thaw time). Tomorrow Im going to spend most of the day arranging my work area so I can work on the first tank design without having to continually clean little spaces out- I clutter up horribly when I get into a project....

And, a bid is in on a digital cam, cross your fingers that it stays under 150$ ;) Its way more cam than anyone would ever need for taking pics of figs, like a 24x optical zoom is a tad overkill....but my roomie can use it for landscape type pics too ^_^

Tallarn update: HW teams

So Im still waiting on my goodies to arrive, the tracking numbers have it getting here tomorrow, so we'll see ;)

In the mean time I decided to work on my heavy weapons. Last summer I traded for a pile of Cadian infantry, and in that trade was 15 weapon teams. ALL were frikkin ML's, but, fortunately I got the sprues for the spares ^_^

So, with the tallrn conversions Im doing Im trying to decide if I just want to keep that trend going, as in jsut slap the shemaghs or keffiyehs on the crew, or go with another idea I've had brewing for a while.

Idea #2 is putting my weapons on small tracked carriers, like a mini Thunderfire or old Rapier laser. I have the bitz for a bunch of them, Im using the tracks off the old ork warbikes, when thinned down a bit they fit nicely inside a short section of the newer IG track guards. Add a few bitz and it looks like a little ROV with a weapon on it, and has room for some stowage bits like water cans and ruck sacks. Since Im eventually going with upgraded tank designs, these lil platforms should fit in pretty well with the theme of my army and provide some more conversion and mini diorama possibilities. The only dilemma Im having, is if I do it, should I keep 2 men on the bases, or 1 man and the platform?