2013-01-31: M1 D31 Helblaster is Done-ish

The helblaster and crew are done.  Mostly.  I still need to base and seal them.  Oh, and I think I do want to go back and get the lenses on the telescope to look better.

I think I will chip away at the 40ish halberdiers a little bit each month, say 5, while having something else as the objective for the month.  The idea being that not only will it not be se monolithic a challenge, but I will also be able to paint each 5 like each other but differently from the others.  Hence, I can get a nice motley look (appropriate for Stirland) at the end when I combine them all without having to spend the extra brain energy making each guy in a block of 40 look different.

Now I just have to decide what to do for next month.  I have 20ish swordsmen assembled.  But part of me wants to paint either a steam tank or a war altar (or a steam altar) now that I have got the bits in the mail.  I also have my demi-bear project I can work on now that those bits have arrived as well.

I will mull on it over the weekend and post when I have made up my mind.

2013-01-24: M1D24

Last night I worked on base coating the yellow sections on the HB and added highlights to the green.  I am so used to dry brushing or using other fast and dirty methods to get highlights and shading that I really enjoy it when I apply highlights with a brush, at least when it actually works.  At the end of the evening it was looking pretty good.  I gave the crew some attention, but they need a lot more TLC.  I will chip away at them over the next few evenings.  I got to wrap this project up since the end of the month is coming and I need to spend some time on my Firestorm Armada Directorate fleets as I need to come up with an additional 140 pts of painted ships before the next phase starts in a few weeks.

2013-01-13: Hobby Challenge M1D13 HSB

The base coating is almost done.  The HSB needs some Stirland colors added and touch up painting, but it came together quickly this weekend.  I think I made the correct decision in painting it in its components, especially the barrels.  The crew need much more work, but I think they will come together quickly when I have some time.  That will be a rare commodity as I will be traveling this weekend to a Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Gaming convention where I will be playing Game of Thrones 2nd Ed board game and showing off my home made Settlers of Catan tiles.  I know, its a rough life.

2013-01-11: My Birtthhhhday Presssssent…

I primed the Helblaster Volley Gun and and a crew member.  I used brown primer (Krylon) on the crewmember and parts of the HVG that were ‘made of wood’.  I used silver primer (Armybuilder) on the ‘ironwork’.  I also primed up some destroyers and frigates (again the silver primer from AB) and a carrier (black auto primer) for Firestorm Armada.

This  was the first time I used the silver primer and I am curious as to how it will turn out.

In recognition of my birthday, I also picked up something for myself :

2011-01-11: Volleyball gun cleaned and other ideas

Over the last few nights I prepared the Helblaster Volley Gun by clipping it out of the sprue and cleaning mold lines.  Its been a long while since I actually did that since most of my miniatures are bought off of Ebay and are usually assembled, though I still have to do clean up… sometimes so much clean up and fixing mistakes that I think that I should have just bought them out of the box and saved myself some time.  Anyways, it is with a crew (2 of them have already been primed at some point in the past) waiting priming.  I will prime the metal bits on the right silver and the rest brown. 

 

Here are some archers I did a while ago and represent the color scheme I will be going for.  Note the snow basing and snow shoes.

Here is a metal magic mage (Mmm… M&M&Ms!) that I will get to at some point.

Here are concepts for future work.

 

2013-01-05: Month 1 Day 0, Surveying the Legions

About 6 years ago I got back into the Warhammer hobby after having drifted from it during college.  I picked up some Bretonian and Skaven models and slowly started painting of them.  I suffered from the "Ohh! Shiney!!" affliction for the intervening years and flit from army to army as the muse strikes me, often getting models to 90% completion before picking something else up. While I have a mostly complete Skaven army, or it was mostly finished before 8th Ed generated the need for a metric rat-ton of additional slaves, I still have ranks upon ranks of primed or bare plastic troops waiting to be painted.

When Ben Curry of the Bad Dice podcast announced his idea for a Hobby Challenge where participants committed to paint a unit a month for fame and fortune, i.e. a chance at a prize drawing and a few comments on a blog, I decided to jump in in order to get one more army completed.  And while I was at it I thought I would make a hobby centric blog to record all my hobby efforts.  Hopefully, these will provide me the incentive to be more regular with my painting and to actually do the last 5% on some of my projects.

For the Hobby Challenge, I decided to try finish an Empire army.  I have finished some test units in the past for Stirland army. The theme being a force of Stirland troops pushing into former Sylvania territory to purge it undead and beastmen and make it habitable for colonists. I was drawn to Stirland since I like the fluff and the colors match that of my home state of Vermont. With my home state as an inspiration I decided to use snow bases and snow shoes.

The army list will likely be a big unit of halberdiers , inner circle knights (Knights of Morr/Order of the Black Rose), a stank or two, some demigryphs (using bears instead), and lots of archers.  I might also do a unit of great swords.  While the internets tell me that I should be running one big horde of either the halberdies or great swords, I will probably do them in more manageable blocks to give a better chance of completing a unit in a month and to prevent boredom.

While tracking down the great swords, I came across a loss box of ogres.  Mmm…. ogres…. I was tempted to get onto the Big Gut Bandwagon tm, but I decided I like the Empire more.  Also, the Ogres seem a bit of a cop out since a unit could be a whole 3 models.

Here are some of my works in progress that are probably too far along to count for the challenge.  The first photo has an engineer, a death wizard, and several artillery crew.  The second photo is a unit of outriders.  I started that unit a year ago and got to the mostly done stage and there they have languished.

 

The next three photos document some of the units I do intend on painting for the challenge.  The first photo has a cannon and crew, a warrior priest on foot, and a warrior priest mounted.  The second photo is 20 swordsmen, and the third is a ‘volleyball gun’ ;).  The later will be my entry for January as I think it should be easier to complete in the remaining time for January.

 

Going forward I will also be posting photos as projects are worked on.