Been a while.

Since, my last update on working on Wargaming stuff, I've moved twice and started working Full-Time again.  Unfortunately, I've not been productive.  I have managed to partially assemble one 40K drop-pod, with the intention of making it an Imperial Fist Drop-Pod.  I've actually come close to mastering my yellow recipe.  Partially assembled, not even primed.

When I was still in Virginia, I had the intention to get a 40K force built, painted, and fielded.  Now, I'm in rural Tennessee and there's no nearby gaming community, so I'm quite rapidly losing interest in my meager beginnings of the IF army; and switching back to simply buying models I find interesting to paint.  For you 40k'ers on here, here is my pre build WIP's on the drop pod. 

Amazing, huh?  Ok, so a little lackluster.  I've found my way to the Soda Pop Miniatures Forums.  A year ago I painted the Super Dungeon Explore Dwarf and Human Mage.  Here's a link to my entry on their forums.  My goals with painting, which I need to practice, is to get better with thinning paints and smoother transitions.  I plan on picking up some more of the SDE in the near future.  They catch my eye b/c they make we want to paint bright colors and not so realistic as the Space Marines or Warmachine minis I usually work on.

On a side note, I did pre-order some Knight Models Batman figures for the new game Arkham City from Fantization.  I'm a sucker for Batman...well, the more "dark" Batman and not the original Batman, even though they're all cool.  I pre-ordered the whole set, and should get them in a couple of weeks.  Then look at them for a couple of months, then blog on why I haven't done anything.  Thanks for looking, and maybe I'll post much sooner than later.

Imperial Fist Dreadnought WIP

So I'm finally getting an acceptable yellow down.  Here's the quick run-through:  The Army Painter Daemonic Yellow primer over a P3 white primer.  This brightens that yellow up!  Vallejo Sepia wash plus a drop of matte medium to get the brown shading in the lowpoints.  Then a quick dry brush of Vallejo Game Color Moon Yellow.  Yellow done.  For the metals.  Base coat P3 Thamar black, hit up with another base coat of Pig Iron.  Wash with straight from the dropper P3 Armor Wash.  Metals done.  (ooh, just noticed/remembered I need to do the cabling underneath, I'll hit with a red base coat, wash, drybrush back up to base and be done there too.)

On the base, I painted some hammerfall khaki mixed some water and PVA glue then dipped into tupperware of basing sand.  Small patch of green was dipped in flocking.  Then some spots hit up with Superglue and static grass.  I'm not huge on EPIC bases for gaming purposes, but would do more if I was attempting to enter a painting contest.  (I know, I know, no Golden Demons for me.)

The rusty pieces were base coated Thamar Black, then Pig Iron, then spotted up with RMS rust red.  Then I hit them up with GW Devlin Mud wash, Vallejo Sepia Wash, P3 Armor Wash, GW Badab Black.  Dry brushed some Pig Iron, dry brushed just a bit of Mithril Silver, and dry brushed some Rust Red.  This was my first attempt with weathering powders too, so I used Vallejo Pigments Natural Siena.  It gave it a dusty feel and covered up my "rust" so I need to retouch the rust.  The technique I followed with the pigment was put it on dry (I went overboard.)  Then, used isopropyl alcohol to "set" it.  Prior to the pigment, I did put GW 'ardcoat to seal in my paint...which made it shiny and when I'm done touching up here and there, I will hit it up with a matte spray.  Thanks for looking.

(Oh, and I'm going with "first company" thus the crappily painted "I" and the white on the hip areas.)

Side Project #2: Doll Bed refurbish.

This past weekend, my mother-in-law gave us a pair of bunk beds for the little one's dolls.  MiL and her sister bought these at a yard-sale a few years back.  I'm guessing based upon the fiberboard material (I think that's what that stuff is called, it's similar to the material basic clipboards are made.) and the pattern on the "mattresses" it's quite a bit older than a few years.  Here's the before pictures:

My first inclination was to paint them white and update the mattresses.  So, sticking to my go-to spray paint, I ran over to Lowe's and bought some Valspar Gloss White.  I liked the flower on the foot of the bed, but it too looked dated.  My next trip landed me at Wal-Mart, the bastion of low prices and even lower wages.  I bought some butterfly transfers to decorate the head-board and the foot-board; and bought 1yd of fabric...and some fabric/leather glue to fix the fabric to the mattresses.

I took the beds a part and I used an entire can of white primer on one bed to get a good base white.  (Skipping the priming would end up with using multiple cans of gloss-white to cover up the wood to get a good clean finished look.)  I just bought some basic Krylon white primer from Wal-Mart.  I didn't take any pictures of the painting.

I then took the mattress, didn't even bother removing the old material and covered it with the new fabric.  Essentially I cut it slightly larger than the mattress, folded the edges under like I was wrapping a present, and glued liberally.  Here are pictures of the old mattress and the new mattress:

 Picture above shows the top of the new one and the bottom of the old one, I mimicked folding the edges over and glued them down.  Bottom pic is bottom of new mattress and top of old.  Now, the thin wood on the new mattress had been broken in half sometime ago and repaired with some additional wood beam going up and down, that's not my handy work.

The humidity here was off the chain, so it took a while for the paint to dry, a few days to be exact.  I took the head and foot-board, transferred some butterflies onto them.  I then felt like the foot-board needed a little more (now maybe too much) so I took sharpies and drew a flower onto it for the butterfly to "flutter by to".  I thought about painting with acrylic paint, and may still do that, but painting large flat areas smoothly with a brush is not my best skill.  Here is the finished bed:

One bed down and one bed to go.  I'm out of white primer, and low on my gloss paint, so it'll be a bit before I finish, but I'll do the second bed the same way.  Enjoy!  Questions/comments/suggestions are welcome.

Side project, not Wargaming related.

I found a picture of an old milk bottle, with love written on it with a hot-glue gun, and spray painted white.  I thought it'd be a fun project for my wife, so I did one.  Painted it green with "love" and a heart glue-gunned on it, then painted the heart white.  Did another one, this time blue with "dream" and a cloud, painted the cloud white, and made a how-to complete with pictures.  Here you go:

Supplies:  

• Old vase, bottle, candle jar, etc....  Something with plain smooth sides, anything with “designs” on it will take away from your created accents.
• Spray paint.  I’m using Valspar from Lowe’s.  They’re $3.98/can.  I’m also using Satin finish, just because I like it.  
• Hot Glue Gun.  Hot glue is forgiving too, so if you don’t like how you wrote the word, peel it off and do it again.  Also remember that it probably won’t stick with a dishwasher/scrubbing from hand washing, etc....
• Acrylic paint.  Only if you plan to have an accent color.  Any kind from Wal-Mart.  I’m using Privateer Press, simply because I have it readily available from my other nerdish hobby pursuits.
• Some cheap paint brush for the acrylic paint.
• Xacto knife/razor.  (Not pictured.)  This is to remove those stringy things from the hot glue.
• Non-permanent marker to “sketch” the words/designs/whatever onto the glass.

Optional Supply:  

• Krylon Matte Sealer.  I’m only using it to try to give an extra thin layer of protection to the paint.  If you do use this and you bought gloss spray paint, the matte sealer will render it matte.  If you choose to go the sealer route and want it to look glossy, pick up some gloss sealer instead.

• Wash the glass.  Sometimes oils from your fingers will keep paint from adhering.  (I’m choosing not to prime the glass prior to painting which could or could not increase the durability of the paint...most times it helps.

• Take your marker and sketch/draw out your design.  Keep in mind writing with a hot-glue gun is less precise than your marker so make the letters larger than you think you should write them.  For this project I’m writing “dream” onto the glass and I’m putting a “cloud” accent.

• Do your best to now put your design down onto the glass.  Once again, it’s hot-glue so it comes off easily if you jack it up.  Also take note that you are leaving those spider-web string things all over the place when you lift the hot-glue gun.  After you’re finished give the glue a few minutes to set.  Now remove the strings and any other offending errors.  Sometimes you can roll up the stringy things with your finger, sometimes that pulls the letters up off the glass.  For the more tricky parts use your xacto razor carefully.

• Once you’re satisfied with the design, paint it.  For the “dream” project I’m using a light blue.  Note:  there will be overspray, so paint outside, or set up a home-made paint booth made of boxes.  I still have lots of cardboard from moving so that’s what I have.  Don’t forget to shake the fool out of the can before beginning and give a test spray onto the cardboard or your neighbor’s fence.  Be light with painting.  We are going to do MULTIPLE light coats, not one big thick coat.  One coat will leave you with drips and puddles.  Light coats gets it more even.  I rarely ever stick my finger down on the can and paint without letting up.  Use short bursts and keep your arm moving side to side.  Paint a bit, not too much that you get drips.  Let it dry, do it again.  Let it dry and do it again if needed until it’s all covered with your primary color.

• After you’ve painted the glass and it’s dried, paint the accent with your acrylic craft paint.  I’m painting the cloud white.  Thinning the paint with a bit of water might help with smoothness, but I’m painting straight from the pot on this one, which resulted in quite lumpy/clumpy paint up close.

• After you are satisfied with your results and if you choose to, put a light coat or two of the matte sealant onto your project.  I threw the coat of sealant on there and there is no discernible difference with the finish.

•  Now it’s done.

I have no clue as to what I’m going to do with these other than decoration.  Make yours the way you want to.  Copy this idea, which I found a picture of somewhere online, sans the how-to.  I will say that I don’t recommend washing these things in a dishwasher and if you “need” to clean them, be careful not to break off the glue.  Either way, if you’re feeling crafty, I’ll share my antics.

Magnets. How do they work?

I don't care how they work, just that they do.  I landed a Dreadnought from Zombywoof on the SPR forums, complete with multiple weaponry.  I've read the pros and cons about magnetizing certain models, and while I don't give a rip about "model pose-ability," I did become intrigued with the "one model, multiple set-ups" idea.  You see, I'm not new to painting, just gaming.  I'm attempting to collect, paint, and eventually field a 1500 pt Imperial Fist force.  I'm going by the basic Drop-pod army list posted on GW's webpage for sample armies.  This particular list calls for one dread with a multi-melta and heavy flamer.  Just listening to Zombywoof explain the differences in weaponry, made me think about trying the magnets thing.  So, here's how and what I did and the final results.

First, there were some tiny tiny weak magnets on the chassis and some of the weapons.  The result was droopy non-sturdy weapons.  I had some magnets I picked up from A-Games for no reason a few months back that are 6mm in diameter.  I dug out the old magnets which were green-stuffed and superglued in place.  (There's magnets between the chassis and legs, but I glued those pieces together giving the dread the appearance of twisting to take on a new threat...I don't know if it'll affect game-play or anything as in, where is the front of the model...for me WYSIWYG so the front is the direction the "head" is facing.)  I then took my standard Black and Decker cordless drill and a bit the same diameter of the magnets; and drilled the holes out of the arms/weapons and the chassis, being careful not to go through the pieces.  (If the hole was too deep, I kept the magnet from glueing in too far by using a paperclip.  I did ignore the polarization of the magnets for the chassis and paid attention when I worked on the weaponry.  Note:  I am, indeed, now aware that the legs are on backwards.  Thanks to Grey-Clad Stranger and itmademeregister with SPR.

Next was glueing the magnets on the arms.  Now polarization is pertinent.  Fortunately these magnets were strong enough to pull through my finger and I could figure it out pretty quickly.  I did the paperclip trick again to keep the magnet flush with the model so as not to set it too deep in the arms.

I know, no multi-melta, but another SPR fellow, Master Shake, is going to hook me up.  Here is the model with two different weapons set-ups.  The magnets are actually strong enough to pick the whole dreadnought up by one of the arms.

Now to prime this badboy with TAP's Daemonic Yellow, let it dry, then pack it and everything else up for the impending move.  Thanks for looking.

So, I did find a bit of time to work on my Retribution scheme.

All I've done is attempt to do something with the blade.  So I can't exactly do NMM, nor a good metallic blade that doesn't look flat, so I went "different."  I've taken the main Ice Blue I'm working on the armor and have done an extreme highlight on the raised edges.  I like it.  I'm not too steady so I have to take it even slower than I typically am at painting.  This is the first go.  The line needs thickening in places, and thinning in others, so I'm going to look at it and overanalyze it a bit before I hit it again.

You can't tell too much either, but the "bas-relief" carvings.  (I probably didn't use that term correctly.) I've thinning down Reaper Pro Paint Mandarin Orange (metallic) with Vallejo Glaze Medium to get it into the depths.  My aim is to then go over the raised round pieces in a deeper orange, and touch it up with the Mandarin.  My skill also isn't up to the level of doing Object Sourced Lighting either, but I might have stumbled into a semi-state of it by not cleaning up the edges of the Mandarin Orange.  That'll be a WIP on the WIP.  Here's another pic of the orange.

(Does anyone know how to make the pictures larger using Picasa and hosting them through Google?)

Brief respite to move the family.

To the few folks who stumble upon my blog.  I've finally procured my dropper bottle of The Army Painter Daemonic yellow to jump back on my Imperial Fists.  Also landed an awesome box of SM bits to build more marines for it, am waiting on a drop pod, and should pick up a dreadnought and codex this weekend.  I'm still stagnant on my Cygnar, and I've picked up more Retribution to continue this alt. scheme.  Why am I telling you this?  Well to keep you checking back every now and then, that's why; and to inform you that I haven't been painting due to an upcoming relocation of the family (packing stuff up) and working my tail off to off-set the costs of moving.  I do thank you all for your looking and will get something updated mid-July.