The 2011 big project...D&D arsenal v.1

As part of my "Shit or get off the pot" initiative for 2011, I'd like to introduce my big personal project...D&D arsenal v1. It is the first part of what I hope grows into a large collection of PCs, NPCs, Monsters, and such for playing D&D.

Why a large collection for D&D? Well, for starters I'd like to get back into playing some every now and then. The other is I have always been envious of the collections of people like the Perry Brothers (saw it in an issue of Wargames Illustrated) and a ton of other people in the hobby.

So this is my starting point on a large collection...one that will hopefully span the decades to come and require it's own room for storage alone.

Adeptus Arbite...Day 2ish

Day 2 I guess....or at least I figure I've been working on it to qualify as the second day on it. I painted the base and mounted the Arbite on it.

The concrete color was achieved using Ceramcoat Quaker Gray and adding a little black to it. From there, it's just a simple matter of drybrushing and glazing with greens and browns.

I'll probably end up using some snow flock sparingly on the base as I'm sort of using the setting from a Caiphus Cain book as the inspiration for the base. In that story, it was a vast urban setting that had just entered into the winter cycle. I guess I could also even say it was the city from the Blood Pact novel as well...both had a sort of snowy urban landscape in it.

Hope to get back on this guy this weekend...I have to layout a book for a freelance gig tonight and it kinda ate into the time I had to work on this guy.

A quick note...smart phones are great for in progress shots for blogs. I just wish I had photoshop on my PC so I could color correct them....and its a hassle to run into the next room and just use the Mac for just that.

Day...1.75 I guess....

Progress thus far on the arbite's base. Plasticard, Putty, and Patience are the materials used...okay, there is some of my gravel mix on there too.

Once the epoxy putty hardens, I'll sand it smooth and hopefully the end product is a sidewalk section with a curb edging out some sort of planter in an Imperial City square...or something.

I'll probably add some spots of gravel on the pavers to give it a more "urban battle" look.

Arbite...day...meh...1.5

Chugging along at a slow pace, but still happy with him. As you can see from this shot I've started on the front of the torso, the left arm, and finished the head.

The flesh in that helmet is pretty difficult to get to...and the eyeballs are damn near impossible. It took a very fine brush and a lot of patience.

The Orange/Yellow still working out surprisingly well...and for the record this IS NOT GOLD NMM. Not even an attempt at it.

Next up is to finish the left arm (except the hand) and possibly the heavy bolter and some more of the torso. I have to be careful in what order I paint him as some of the model is obscured by the bolter and other parts of the conversion. I generally paint a model like this in pieces....example I would have painted the bolter and left arm as a subassembly and carefully mounted it after it was painted. But as this is a conversion by a customer, the option to pull it apart and assemble it into subassemblies is a no go.

Adeptus Arbites Commission

Day one on this one. I am "modding" an existing paint job...or painting over it. The first thing I hit was the shoulder guards and the helmet. The "yellow" areas were started with a mix of Mecharius Orange and Iyanden Darksun. That was then mixed with more Iyanden Darksun and Sunburst Yellow. The final layer was done by adding some Bone White into the mixture.

The red on the helm and the fist symbol started off with Reaper Crimson Red and then had Mecharite Red and then finally Blood Red added to it. The final highlight was done with Apple Barrel Bright Red as it is a very orangey red.

The black was highlighted with Deadly Nightshade and then built up by adding Space Wolf Gray to it.

New Year's Progress

Some stuff I'm working on this week whenever I find time between freelance gigs.

From left to right:

Commander Stryker from Privateer Press. He's going to be getting a very non Cygnar paint scheme as he is going to be used as some sort of Fire Wizard in D&D. I'm contemplating doing a NMM approach to him along with a glowing blade tip on the sword.

Adeptus Arbites from GW...or most of him is. This is another commission piece that has been heavily converted by it's owner. This one was actually started by the owner and I'm going to go back in and spruce it up. This one has the potential to be really cool.

BB Zombie from GW. I'm hoping to start a Blood Bowl league again at work that isn't using the video game of the same name. I also plan to have a fully painted team if the league actually happens.

The first mini I will no longer paint....

Yeah...never say never. However, after painting no less than six of this guy, I am done with him...at least commission wise. I still intend to paint one for me in the catalog color scheme for my Hordes collection, but that will be it.

This is actually the first one that i have made this decree for...although the LOTR Fellowship is a close second right now.

But why would I "ban" this particular mini? Main thing is that I catch myself doing essentially the same color scheme and approaches to him...that and painting the same "personality" over and over again sort of kills its "specialness" for me.

Thanks for reading my little rant.....

Oh yeah...the last mini of 2010

So I had an awful urge to paint historicals over NYE weekend. Instead of working on some GW or Reaper stuff, I opted to paint one of my Fallschirmjager from West Wind...I know...West Wind isn't the greatest. However, I am still happy with the end result.

Will he earn me a painting award or something like that...no. I do think he looks pretty good and I might even mix him and his buddies in with my Blacktree WW2 stuff....the scales on those are a little off, but if you do units from the same manufacturer it isn't as big a deal.

I'll eventually do a glamour shots version of him once the entire bag of 8 (techincally 9 as there was an "extra" in there). Depending on how they go, I might end up collecting a second german army composed of nothing but Fallschirmjager.

Looking toward the future with pessimistic optimism!

2011 is here....and that means big plans for big projects (that will end up in utter failure as I lose interest pretty quickly, but hey there is always the exception). What kind of plans have I pulled out of my ass in some sort of whimsical way?

Well for one, this year I intend to complete more than 12 minis. Yes, that's all I painted last year. Between some long hours at work, long hours searching for a house, long hours moving into the house, the loss of my best friend, and the random other stuff that always seems to come up... I got almost nothing done. But to refresh your memory, these are the greatest hits of 2010.

Yeah..we all remember Zombie Hitler.

And his friend the leprechaun...

And some others that I posted now and again...

Yeah...Catachan guy is in dire need of glamour shots. There are some more, but they are a couple of entries down on the blog, so you can just scroll down a bit and see them. But long story short, this is it. A lot of started projects that got horribly derailed by events so crappy and random it would make your head explode. But its time to put that behind me and forage ahead to miniature painting glory. And so I present my painting resolutions for 2011 in no real order of importance:

1. TO PAINT MORE THAN 12 MINIS THIS YEAR! Already covered the story on that.

2. Set up a permanent photo area in the garage rather than using an improvised one on my desk. This is a biggun. I have always taken pride in my photography skillz when it comes to my minis. However, with the addition of my new desk in 08, I lost my photography set up and have had to make due. Time to make that garage into something more than a large storage room.

3. Return to my former glory. Back in the day, I used to write painting articles (how tos, step by steps, painting philosophy, etc), post on several forums, do tons of commision work and make decent $$$ on Ebay. Now, I occasionally go to several artists' sites, but that's about it. Time to be more social with my hobby again and preach the gospel of mini painting.

4. Clean my desk more than twice a year.

5. Ween myself away from Ceramcoat as they changed their formula and it is shitty. Reaper Pro Paint is back out...and so is Partha's paint....time to reacquaint myself with some old friends.

6. Paint more independent and boutique minis. I have stuff from Hasslefree, Copplestone, Darkson, Olley's Armies, Wyrd, and Impact just sitting around. Time to primer some of those and let them get a priority spot in line ahead of whatever GW mini that I discovered I had.

7. Instruct the wife in my ways of Paint-fu so that she may paint her Blood Angels...even though the Blood Angels are inferior to the Dark Angels in every way.

8. Paint up a full squad of historicals for each historical line I have. I've got one Fallschirmjager done....and only 7 more to go to finish out his bag. My russians will take a tad longer as there are 20 of them.

9. NMM...Either master it or abandon it forever.

10. Get back up into the top 500 on CMON.

I think that's enough as it will take all year. Let's just hope I can manage to get to half of it.