Brass, Bronze and Brassy Bronze Brass

Having done a fair bit of the metallics on the Knight I spent my next hobby session bringing other elements to the same finish. In particular the Reaper Chainsword needed highlighting. It's one of the main weapons for the Knight so it deserves priority status.

The Power Fist is not a 'primary' weapon but for some reason I was compelled to spend some time on it instead of focusing on higher priority items. The actual finish turned out really well so I'm glad I did spend time on it.

OOH, now this is exciting, actual Ravenwing! All but the bolters, front wheel trim and the trim on the wings have been highlighted. More significant progress even if the bikes aren't completely finished at this stage. The very nature of these are a stumbling block so to have achieved 65-75% of this stage is huge for me. The next lot of highlights should be easier to do as there'll be less of them, I don't want to go too bright on these afterall. Then I can get onto the real challenge of the black and then the 'not-white' wings... now those will be hurdles to overcome.

While I was at it I also highlighted the Dark Talon ornaments. Despite the pans to use it as a Jetfighter I think the Dark Talon may be my preferred flyer, who doesn't want Vortex templates dropping all over the place?!

 I also did the Balthasar gold highlights on the rest of the jetfighter. While I was also putting Tamiya Clear Red X-27 on the canopy I had my printed acetate to test the look of. It's a shame they didn't do a straight canopy, it's much more streamlined because of it.

Another good hour or so of effort.

40kaddict Terrain Competition update and tips for bloggers

Hopefully you will have noticed the Competition Fund totaliser has changed, we are now at £42.79 having made £16.73 in the last 28 days! So that's great news, your efforts are certainly making the difference. Actually lets just take a minute to point out that's £16.27 in one month, something that previously has taken over one year! I'm not going to do a break down of which country did what because I'll be looking a little more into traffic and how that may have influenced the balance.

It does however suggest that as we're less than a quarter of the way to completing my target the competition will have to begin in earnest. Should I have another bumper month we could well have reached the £60 mark by my birthday which means entries for the competition really need to start coming in. So, as things are advancing quicker than expected I'm going to formalise a couple of things. I will keep checking the balance but given it could reach target at the end of February or more likely March I am going to provisionally state that competition judging will begin at the end of March and take place over April with the final decision being made then.

If funds are not sufficient I will adjust the dates. Equally if the deadline for submissions seems too tight please let me know and I'll push things back. But with things progressing so fast I wanted to start seeing entries and set some end point for folk to work toward. I'll take stock again midway through Feb and then promote this wider, which may well increase the click through [£3.78 got added to the fund on the 7th Jan, the day of my last  update so that's definitely a catalyst]. Whatever extra is made I will put towards a second place prize which will be a £10 voucher for the hobby shop of your choice, I thought just a winners prize was a little unfair so maybe that sounds like a nice idea.

Now, tips for bloggers, hopefully this doesn't come across as egotistical, I know there's a lot of readers with their own blogs and these observations might be of use. This last month you can see from my stats below I broke my record for page views, finally smashing through the 30,000 page views in one month, sadly it then reconfigures the graph so it looks less impressive but it is cool to see 40,000 up there permanently though. However, you can see that there was a period prior to that where my page views weren't comparable with January or even my most popular period back when I was making my Skyshield and pimping the blog as much as possible on forums and social media. So my average fluctuates quite wildly and therefore you're probably interested to know what changed.

It was a combination of factors really. Predominantly is was the publication of my last Print & Play terrain template. These are always hugely successful and something I'll always endeavour to update the respective posts on forums to bring in traffic [and hopefully more entries to the competition]. So that added exposure on forums and social media really drove more traffic to the blog. On the day of publishing I got 900+ hits then the following day I shared it wider and got 3,236 with a further 2,570 the next day [you can also see on the map Rob Barnett clicking furiously in Alaska ;) ]

Having a unique feature in your blog is always good and if it's something like a freebie or a really solid tutorial then they can gain traction on their own. But the main driver for these figures was a random decision to engage with reddit you can see over 3000+ hits came from there in the last month. If I'm honest I still don't know what it is or how it works, they suggest you should operate a 1 in 10 posting formula where you post 1 item of your own for every 10 posts you debate other people but that doesn't seem the case, everyone's - 'look at my stuff'. Again I don't see it as a be all and end all, the traffic dissipates pretty quickly and I've only added a few extra followers since then so it's not going to continue at that level either. As an exercise in supporting the blog it was definitely worth doing. I was initially amazed at that first days stats then immediately realised how ridiculous chasing numbers was until midway through the month when I though you know I could break my record here, so I did but I'm over it now. As a test I even used reddit to promote Liam's blog and he went from a 100 hits to 809 in one day and he hasn't posted in 3 months!

So, if you're chasing numbers it may be worth giving it a go, whether it translates to regular followers or moves you up a level is debatable but I'd advise using it sparingly as I could see myself spamming it otherwise. Far better to grow your blog organically than constantly force-feeding it. Hope there are some interesting observations in there for you.

Imperial Knight - in manufactorum pt 10

Moar Balthasar Gold, as I'm totally confused about my feelings towards this and my other projects I should probably keep my commentary to a minimum. I'm flitting between frustration at the slow progress, desire to tackle each and every project and pleasure that I'm still achieving something that meets my expectations. Some positives, some negatives so it's very confusing even if overall things are going well.

The balance is definitely in my favour, it's just tought trying to reconcile that in the light of day sometimes.

Next up was to mix the Balthasar Gold with my Valejo Gold, I probably need an intermediary paint for this instead of constantly mixing this up.

The texture is definitely there, so even if I can't remember the exact process for previous attempts I;m still able to egt the results I'm aiming for.

Some more highlights yet to come though, while spreading myself thin...

Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |

GW Manchester

I was in the Arndale in manchester the other week and I thought I may as weel pop into the GW for some Warplock Bronze, as a I'm running low - all these metallics! While I was in there I took this picture of some frankly awesome set of terrain tables. I love the height to these, allowing battle on different levels. What's even more impresive is by the looks of it once the sort the city tiles out in the right hand picture this could very well be a complete board, possibly 18' long!

Also of note is the scratchbuilt ship in the picture on the right and the Age of Sigmar floating rocks in the picture on the left. With hindsight I should have taken more pics of these but I was in a hurry, maybe next time.

Imperial Knight - in manufactorum pt 9

Onwards and upwards. Although the he knight seems to have become my majority focus, I'm still flitting between projects. Here I started to add in the texture on the bronze. I never quite know how I feel about this, the layers are pretty simple to do but the amount of it does make it a bit laborious to do so I end up wanting to just get it done. I also was a bit forgetful over the exact process, so I have the cerastus on hand to try and match up [of course I could try reading my own blog right?]

Although I'm not sure the technique is too important as I'm pretty sure successive stippling and a variety of washes will result in an impressive finish regardless. And any verdigris will most doubt cover up anything I never intended anyway! So at this point I add a little extra stipple/drybrush of Warplock Bronze to the shadow washed metal, sometimes I wish I could just stop here...

Next up was Balthasar Gold, that's the one on the left, the right is still to be done.

I then continued on the legs. Where I wanted a Brass colour I was more liberal and applied it neatly, elsewhere it's just a weathered highlight of the bronze so it was just drybrushed so it enhance the look instead of overpowering it.

Legs and shin guards were done.

The real advantage fot doing this aspect of the paint is it feels like you've reached quite an important milestone. Once the metallics are done that feels like at least a third has been dealt with, despite having not yet completed this part. But it feels like an accomplishment anway because I know it's such a big part of the painting. Once that's done it'll be

• picking out the pipework, 
• armour plates
• heraldry markings
• bronze weathering
• battle damage
• plasma glows

Which covers most of everything, no doubt I'll have to fit some other bits in and certainly some mettalices are still to be done - like handles round the cockpit but they have to bedone late rin the process.

Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |

Tidy mind/tidy workspace

With the Man Cave's case of Nurgle's Blight [which I've been keeping on top of and preventing outbreaks with judicious anti-mould spray applications] I've been a little down on the whole hobby room enjoyment but I realised in part it was becaus of how untidy my workspace was. I'm untidy at the best of time but the apathy and constant shifting of the paint table meant I just didn't care. The fact is I sit facing the computer anyway so the paint space is irrelevant. It was annoying me though and depsite not wanting to sacrifice a good deal of hobby time rectifying the situation I arrived at a moment where that was possible, because there really wasn't very much else I could do in that time.

Now some would say this isn't much better, and I admit since this picture it's begun to deteriorate yet again. However, I cannot underestimate the feeling I got from this experience. I'm sure there's a single word, like schadenfreude, untranslatable from another language that would explain the feelings I had whilst doing it. It's a sensation I've had numerous times before of 'rediscovering something long lost, like a memory from childhood', it's a peculiar mental process that then evolves into an emotinal one, not unlike losing The Game [Tom Widdows]. It's quite a nebulous emotion that when I feel it I keep reaching inside to capture why it make me feel that way.

Of course that all sounds like a whole load of nonsense but this is the hobby slump time of the year and I'm trying to harvest positive feelings when everything else is seeking to drag me down and stop progress - and yes I've been struggling with that due to:

• Numerous tasks at hand
• Sheer amount of dull and tedious jobs that are the priority
• Lack of completed To Do items
• Man Cave mould
• Bad weather
• Fatigue

They've all combined to sap will and its worth me noting that a simple tidy up has done wonders to my psyche, so I best keep it up and not leave it so long next time.

'nids part 182 - 6 Stealers

There was me bemoaining the slow progress of my forces of the Imperium and then I take a little detour to do Genestealers! What the flip?! Rest assured I pretty much loathe doing them so I takee no pleasure in scampering off to the Hive for a bit. These 6 were done over three nights btu in concert with my Imperial bits too.

I managed to paint all the legs and chests in one night, they're the easiest bits really. Then the next night I did the arms, back and head on one and the head and backs on the remaining 5. Night three had me finish of the 20 arms, which of course are split in two parts and I have to rotate them to get top, right, bottom, left sides - this is why I hate Stealers! Of course I was riddled with doubt prior to this on whether to go full bonewhite or add in some Chitin colouring on the back. I haven't gone full bonewhite since my first Stealers so snap-decisioned to see how they would look. Of course a better decision would have been based on disposition of miniatures so I could find ways to group them safely into broods but we'll go with it.

That currently gets me 16 of my 31 Stealers basecoated in bonewhite. I'm really regretting not using a Bonewhite primer now. With hindsight the bases and all the red fleshy bits could have been added quicker than using that as the undercoat and cutting in all the bonewhite colours. That realisation, alongside the reminder I hate painting them was one of the reasons they've been stagnating for a month or two but now I'm over half way I feel a little more relieved.

Of course this is only the basecoat of one colour. I still have the blues to do and then the washes and then it's the highlights - which for each coat will take just as long , if not longer than the they did to basecoat. I've just done a quick estimate of time

• 9 days - Bonewhite base coats [15 models at 3 days per 5]
• 2 days - shadow wash
• 18 days - Bonewhite highlight 1 [31 models at 3 days per 5]
• 18 days - Bonewhite highlight 2 [31 models at 3 days per 5]
• 2 days - Chitin highlight 1
• 2 days - Chitin highlight 2
• 3 days - Claws
• 1 day - teeth and eyes
• 1 day - wraithbone chips on bases
• 3 days - varnishing

These are rough estimates and may be speeded up or delayed but that's  59 days of work right there! Ho hum! Will have to measure that to see how accurate an estimate it is [once again I don't like to keep track of time spent so why would I be doing this?]

Imperial Knight - in manufactorum pt 8

Aah, the opportunity to get back to some nid, welcoming me inot the Hive Mind's warm embrace!If I'm honest though, those chitin striations are pretty ropey though! Not to worry I'll probably be covering this with a lot of blood and gore so it doesn't really matter[unless it's brain matter!].

I did rather like the darker soft-tone washed bonewhite but it doesn't fit with my current lighter version of my colour scheme and the subsequent highlights do work much better. I've got to pick out a couple of those fleshy ridges on the legs and then a few fine highlights, pick out the hooves and any other odd thing but it'll probably all be covered in blood splatter anyway...

With the base almost finished things feel like they're progressing. However, with so much still to do and by simultaneously doing the same elements on various projects it's also a little overwhelming. It's a pretty bi-polar affair at the moment, pleased to have got everything shadow washed then depressed at the thought they then have to have all the metallics done - three or four lots of highlights with washes too, then weathered. Then I paint the coloured panels then add the battle damage and I have to do that for all the weapon options too!

And all the time I'm doing this on the Knight the bikes and the jetfighter I'm thinking about my Tyranid VSG and the Dark Angel Tac squad that should be my number 1 priority. I mean I've finished my Azrael conversion and Dark Angels Company Captain but not varnished them - two To Done's just waiting for ten minutes of attention! To help combat this I've resorted to session planning - actually writing down tasks I hope to achieve each session. Actually achieve isn't quite right, these are just things I want to focus my attention on during the next session, just get my efforts in order. Which can be a bit odd for someone who refused to 'keep score' of their progress. Still, ever onwards.

Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |

Dark Angels - Jefighter!!

The vast majority of my projects at the moment are at mundane but necessary stages so sadly my posts will reflect this. The Jetfighter is now magnetised and ready for painting, I'm not 100% happy with the magnets on the antennas, they don't hold it as steady as I'd like but hwne I put a 2nd set on I should have used a 5x5mm Magnetix on the fuselage, instead I went with 3x2.

I need to prepare the cockpit but as the windows will be Tamiya Clear Red X-27 I'll probably not need to do too much in the way of highlights. I've even printed off a red box onto acetate so I can see something similar to my eventual vision of how it will be. As you can see it may not require much painting, the Tamiya Clear Red X-27 will opefully be a little more tranpsarent but a lot of the interior will be obscured.

  I'm doing the metals bronze - so no problems there, but the black is the issue. There's no texture on this, like the black on my Cerastus, so I'm apprehensive about. I'm apprehenisve about all the Ravenwing, which is why they're languishing, still I'll get round to it.

Games night at Ben's

Ben invited us roundfor a games night, sadly it was just PeteB and I that could make it but we had a pretty fun game of X-wing. He wanted to do something different to the usual 40k so Pete brought his new Force Awakens expansion and went Rebel/Resistance scum and Ben and I upheld the might of the Empire/First order I controlled the Tie Interceptors, Ben was the Tie Fighters. My Obsidian pilot was obscenely good, putting two damage on the A wing. He eventually blew it to pieces [do I get First Blood?]

 

As the game progressed we all had to navigate round this group of asteroids in the centre of the board. The B-wing took aim at the Tie Fighter and would subsequently destroy it.

Mid way through the game and my Red Interceptor has just pulled a U-turn, which in all my experiences so fa has always proven costly...

and so it was again as he was blown to pieces by Poe Dameron [well he has to have done something to jusify that 'best pilot in the galaxy' title!]/

Ultimately it came down to Poe and one of the First order Tie Fighters, which was blown up giving PeteB the win. We then followed up with a game of Ticket to Ride Europe, which Ben won, all good fun, hopefulyl we'll do it again.

I also got to check out Ben's Red Planet BASE! for his new Mechanicum army, mmm looks like fruit cake.

He'd been debating the design and eventually got there after looking at lava planets and the like. I suggested he just tone down the black, just use it as an accent colour to break up the surface - obsidian chips on the martian Earth. C'mon it worked for my wraithbone! I really love them and the resin bases look so cool.

Here's his test model Skitarii to go with it.

Imperial Knight - in manufactorum pt 7

I followed up the undercoat by putting the Red Planet Base layers down. As you can see the additional medium sized sand grains are much more obvious now compared to the area at the front just to the right of the large vertical pebble shard. The PVA really did a job on moulding the sand together, I had to add the second pass of sand to get any decent definition.

I also went about bronzing the legs and I've obviously got two Termagants on the base to paint as well! Bonewhite chips need doing but I'm debating the colours of the cockpit interior so may Bonewhite that, even though I've not built that into anything. I'm just hoping the resticted view, dark interior and a mix of washes and a little trompe l'oeil might make it look like a detailed cockpit.

Here's most of the other bits having been bronzed or awaiting Warplock Bronze - good stuff.

While I was painting the knight base I also did the base on a small corner section from a Sanctum Imperialis kit I have knocking around. This is actually one of my random terrain pieces to do in my Hobby Season along with the main structure that doesn't have a base. They'll both be red but with bronzed 'skirting boards' and then the interiors will be a distrssed light colour, as if they'd actually painted the interior a different colour! It'll most likely be bonewhite to try and keep things consistent throughout but I'll try and twist it a bit so it's not completely the same as always

Of course all that extra detail means it's not the quick job it could be and I have to get the painting order right in my head too - which colours will cause the most mess so I do them first allowing the more controlled applications to cover up the stray brush strokes and to ensure I only need to add washes a couple of times intead of repeatedly.

Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |

1500pt NOT a battle report - Dark Angels v Orkses

I had a game with Ben just before Christmas and before I knew it I hadn't actually taken any pictures so there wasn't much point trying to do a battle report thereafter. I did take few pictures, just because they looked pretty cool and sadly I can't remember much of what happened anyway. I thought I'd share the pics and try and recall some observations [such as they are]. We played a Maelstrom game, the one with ever decreasing amounts of objectives - from 6 down to 1 I think. The Orkses pulled out an overwhelming victory with VPs in the teens compared to my single digit score [or 11 at the most, I don't recall]

Ben drew some very helpful objective cards, usually the objectives already in his deployment zone and then compounded his success with cards that rewarded holding more objectives than me, which early on in the game was eminently doable. Typically my Bastion was destroyed once again, it's becoming par for the course now so I actually look forward to seeing it come tumbling down [I'll have to ensure I always take a crater with me].

The Cerastus was a beast, he did almost all of my damage, loping about the field stomping on all and sundry. Ben's a bit down on the whole issue of Knights, in particular the way Stomps can remove swathes of models in one go. That said he did put 5 hull points on the Lancer [I managed to repair one with my Techmarine] so he scored an additional VP alongside his mission cards and was close to destroying the knight outright. As he'd destroyed almost everything else I don't think in this instance it caused an imbalance in the game but I can appreciate given it caused most damage to him it can be considered over-powered, although it needed it to balance the lackings in the rest of my list.

I did have one mission card to make 3 challenges, which I achieved but in the process lost a Tactical sergeant, drew another match up and killed and Ork with my Techmarine - win, lose and draw. And additionally my Ravenwing Sergeant was once again armoured with some mighty damage defying power armour. He saved out of his skin, much to Ben's annoyance, but I think did eventually fall to wait of Ork numbers.

I'm pretty sure I had very little left on the board by the end, mainly the Knight and a few other models, I'd been overwhelmingly beaten ['crushing victory' I believe is the official term, aka twisting the knife!] but it was a good game and I really do like moving just one big beast around, it even makes me look at the Knight Gallant with Thunderstrike Gauntlet and Reaper Chainsword with fresh eyes. The weaponry doesn't seem to do half as much damage as when they get down and dirty and although Ben dislikes them in your face he did the most damage when I brought the fight to him. There's definitely a level of honesty about going all assault with your knight, although for the most part the Lancer fulfils that role too, without the shenanigans of a stubber and a big gun to line up different choices to assault.