What GW should do - Listen to me

In case you didn't know I've bought Citadel Miniatures and GW products since the late 80's. I also have a blog, it's quite cool you can view it here. Those two facts alone qualify me to make 'suggestions' to Games Workshop and their subsidiaries in how they can grow their company/improve their products. So, free of charge I will be sharing some of my sage business advice to them and just you wait as 'we're bound to see them take forward my ideas with gusto. I recently posted an article on GW rebranding it was one of a number of articles that I've started only to not do anything with and then GW only went and did something that failed to exhibit my Nostradamus levels of Prescience because I didn't end up posting the article. Only this time I bloomin' well did and then this happened:

And this:

And this:

It's a nice start, but I bet it's exactly the same inside, the logo is OK although I'd have tightened the kerning up a little bit especially between the A and the R as it currently a bit WA RHAMMER.

Faeit212 has the full story and BoLS also has a thread on it but clearly when it comes to having the finger on what GW should be doing it's the 40kaddict who has the inside scoop. Now apparently they've also got a new CEO... ;)

Terrain is everything - Project Ω - Frost me I'm an idiot!

With the last of the nice weather I thought I'd intersperse DiY duties with coating my Realm of Battle boards with my brothers dodgy floor varnish. You'll see a couple of upcoming posts that revel in just how pleased I was with how this was going but be sure 'pride comes before a fall' and the Polyvine Dead Flat Floor Varnish did indeed behave in exactly the same way as it did when first we painted my brother's vivarium. At that time we thought it was due to the cold conditions but there was some warmth in the air today, personally I think its not a product to be used on rough surfaces.

Anyway, I'll not share the full extent of the damage just yet, but I felt I had to offload this so I can move forwards. I'm disappointed but more frustrated. I'm going to struggle as the weather turns to get out and repaint the boards in the same way I did them first time around. It's only a few hours work but it's fitting it in to daylight and weather conditions. I'm hoping to start again with the shadow wash and not need a full respray but we'll see where we're at afterwards, Hopefully I can mask off the skulls, they're not too bad considering.

Lesson of the day - do not use products you know are dodgy, unless you want to ruin all your hard work.

Meanwhile I can't bring myself to edit the upcoming posts so just read them and enjoy the pictures before it all gets mucked up!

Terrain is everything - Project Ω - Realm of Battle Board - the highlight of my day

When you left me last I was debating just how cool my Realm of Battle Board was without any further highlights... well I think the first picture alone illustrates just how much they add. It's far from perfect and I know I foolishly rushed it in some places, which for a board I'm going to be using for a long time is madness. But I think it's as good as I hoped for. 

I think I managed to make it textured enough, add definition with the highlights where appropriate. The cracked slabs leading up the hill are more worn through traffic, therefore more highlights. I'll go back in with some Army Painter Washes to pick out the cracks a bit more but overall I'm really chuffed.

      

 I probably should have done step-by-step shots but there's nothing different here than what I do on a normal base. I mixed Vermilion craft Acrylic and PVA [once again for added stickiness and perceived durability] did quite a few drybrush coats with that because the Vermilion goes on like a polish. This means you're only ever getting a semi-opaque coat, so multiple coats will build up the colour which is more hard work but you do get to control how much tone you're adding to the board.

One concern is that I had the hill in this configuration as I highlighted, obviously you try not to highlight the edges of each board because that emphasises each board piece, not the terrain but I still have to see how the terrain highlights interact in a different configuration. I had seen a blog a while back that had diagrams of how to do it but I couldn't find it for this.

Following on from the Vermilion I added a small amount of Pumpkin Craft Acrylic and did more highlights. In particular I felt that you have to make sure not to brush too hard in straight lines or else it'll look unnatural. That's not say I didn't, you just have to be very careful and when you do pick up too much paint or lay down obvious streaks it's all about working the paint with circular motions to defuse the 'shape'. Of course there are now areas that look like faded spots but I think they're more natural looking at least.

Finally I went straight to a Pumpkin highlight which was quite a step. With my Crashed Aquila Lander [which I just noticed I've not done any pics of, so I'll have to rectify that] I got a bit excited with the highlights on the Red Planet Basing and it's very orange. So what I did here was do more coats of Vermilion, a 3:1 [or even 4:1] Vermilion:Pumpkin and then extremely light Pumpkin on edges. That way it remained Red Planet and not orange.

So I was well chuffed, after about 2-3 hours I had pretty much done my board, now to do some Bonewhite flecks and then pick out the skulls and add in some shading in the cracks.

Terrain is everything - Project Ω - Realm of Battle Board gets Shadows in the Warp

Now if I wasn't completely obsessed with doing things 'just so' then I'm pretty sure there's another me in a different dimension who is perfectly happy with the Realm of Battle boards as it currently stands. But if you remember I had exactly the same feeling back when I did my original  Armies on parade board.

I could indeed leave well enough alone and it would be perfectly acceptable, but I could have left my nids at basecoat and wash stage, but I didn't!

Once again I mixed my wash of Satinwood Black wood paint, water and a dose of PVA. I think PVA may add to the surface tension properties of the wash which did mean a lot 'working' the paint so it didn't always pool on the raised areas. I believe a drop of washing up liquid helps reduce the effect but I was loathe to add a substance that would reduce adhesion as I hoped the PVA would add another layer of protection and help 'stick' the wash to the paint.

A lot of dotting and dabbing also helped create a mottled effect which adds variety to the ground so it's not a flat expanse of red.

And here I think you can make out that the stone texture paint has indeed added some finer detail and texture to the board.

It is still susceptible to damage though as you can see the small paint chip in the centre. I managed this with my fingernail alone, cutting through the paint layers to the plastic. I'm hoping the remaining paint and varnish will protect it but clearly I'll have to keep track of remedial work throughout it's long [hopefully] lifetime.

Have to say I don't often see this configuration but I like it, further emphasising the versatility of the Realm of Battle board. GW got this one right for sure.

I may use this image to try and mock up my potential skull pit colours for the ultimate poll...

Another close-up of the board.

And War joins the fun to see how it's base fits the colour scheme. Nearly there, I think the highlights will tie them in even more. One thing of note, in both this and the next shot, can you see some white specs on the board? There's one in front and to the left of the Carnifex and on the left underneath his Devourers.

There are some more dotted about this pic too, in particular the bottom right in the middle of where some wash was. For the life of me I don't know what they are or how they got there. I can only suppose that while drying in the garage specs of dust landed on the board, but they're not just specs and seem bonded in with the paint, moreso than just casual floating transfer.

Whether it is the texture paints somehow eschewing the surface paint to burst forth I'm not sure but to have white flecks appear randomly on the board before I add Bonewhite flecks on the board, well, it just feels like Ferron Proxima is bringing itself to life!

Terrain is everything - Hail the Omnissiah a new Print & Play building

Therefore I give you the tall tower version for my new green marble 'Print & Play' terrain scheme. If you've made the first beige or black building then it's exactly the sayellow grid leaded effect. So the building is the same, but wider with just a different colour for variety on your battlefield.

These would ideally be suited for the foamboard that has the black foam core. I was going to make one but didn't get round to it, sorry. However, that black foam would make these easily playable from the off, without looking too much like a quickly knocked up bit of terrain.

To access the full STC please point your Cogitators here, be fair warned it is 10MB in size [I make no apologies for this, I could probably render it as a .jpg or spend hours trying to reduce the file size, I tweaked it a little bit and got it down so hopefully it's less of an issue now.]:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B97Rk-BalgZbSlJGbDU5bmdsUnM/view?usp=sharing&resourcekey=0-PtjxlRJkNj6eSLlvFeByLg

Meanwhile all the other Print & Play and standard terrain templates are available here:
http://40kaddict.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/terrain-is-everything-hail-omnissiah.html   

Terrain is everything - Project Ω - Realm of Battle board gets Red Planet Ferron Proxima

We have Red Planet! the Birth of Ferron Proxima! One and a bit cans of Red Oxide Primer gets me around 80% coverage so hopefully I'll have some left over in my new can that just arrived from eurocarparts [still the cheapest I can find for spray primers, and I got a litre of engine oil too ;) ]

As you can see the spray on stone texture paint is still evident. If you compare looking at the small picture with the zoomed version when you click on it you should be able to make out what is the texture that was molded into the board by GW and what is the finer texture I sprayed on. At this stage I'm glad I did it but we've still got to see how it reacts to the drybrushing.

The skull pits currently look OK. When I've finished all the painting I'll photoshop the three options I thought of for my pits. 

1. Green - the new digestion pits I do
2. Yellow - the old digestion pits
3. Black - a lot of Ferron Proxima watercourses are contaminated by a black viscous sludge. St this point in time bio-analysis has found no reason for this contamination, no indication of what it is or if it has any lasting effect after consumption. The rivers/ponds are just thick and black...

Another close up of the texture.

Ditto.

Ditto again!

And the lighting changed but if I can capture some of this range of colours on the final board I'll be a happy man. You should also be able to make out areas around the skull pit where I was less generous with the texture spray which I think shows just how smooth the board can be. This will definitely add more grip to the table, without adding an abrasive material that will damage models, should they fall over.

Can't wait to get the next coat on and start the shade washes to pick out all this texture.

Then I get to do all the highlighting but will have to read up on it a bit because I know there's ways you can paint these that luuk unnatural, thanks to highlights accentuating the edges of the boards and not edges of the terrain features.

Gotta love how the lighting changed on this one, it's got the oranges and dark reds. Can't wait to see this completed.

Todd Sherman at sincain40k did this awesome orange/red planet board I love the colours he managed to get, a bit lighter than I'm after but fantastic. I'd originally intended to do the highlights on the cliff edges but seeing how Todd did darker edges as thrown me a little bit, we'll see how it goes.

What price a blog?

Another of my occasional rambling editorials about blogging and this time MONEY! None of us start blogging and think we can make money out of this. Sure there are bloggers that do, I think more in different fields than our hobby community but no doubt there are a few that make money through advertising, donations or affiliate schemes.

I looked at Affiliate Schemes back here: Wayland Games Affiliate Scheme there's a lot you can read there about what I believe about 'monetising' your blog. In this day and age where personally I'm using so many free apps that have adverts built in I'm less concerned about the minimal advertising I actually have on the blog. I took the decision to remove the Wayland Advert because the link it was pointing to became broken and there didn't seem to be replacement graphics/links at the time that fit the same dimension of where this advert was placed.

Additionally I was sure some friends had ordered through my link and I could see no record of it in my account. Whether they did buy through it, the link allocating my referral was broken or the system just didn't work I'm not sure, but I felt it more appropriate to add more prominence to the Followers link and blog archive as that was more important. Maybe others have had better success and can chime in on that. Of note is that it looks like Wayland have revamped their scheme recently so I may consider adding it back at some point because it's hobby related and much more appropriate than my google ads. I've absolutely no hesitation in using other's affiliate links if it helps someone out so if you do have a successful affiliate story, share your blog link and I may look to endorse it with a purchase in the future.

Donations is another way to monetise. Alex, Blog Wars organiser and From the Fang blogger discussed this in his blogpost Donations Welcome. I'm a firm believer in this but not a practitioner. I get the impression that it can be seen by some as perhaps rude but writing a blog takes time and creative effort and like most enterprises that has a value. Some folk are more than happy to donate a $ or a £ here and there but the great thing is you don't have to, the option is yours to donate or not. I remember one blog I used to frequent had a donation button that had options ranging from buying the blogger a coffee to a Bento box sushi lunch, which I thought was cute [but not cute enough to donate, ha, ha!] It's an innocuous way to do it but it still takes a certain amount of bravery to put a donation link up. I'm not entirely sure why one should feel bad about this and because it may be considered a 'taboo' subject it was one of the main reasons I wanted to write a post about money and blogging - to encourage debate and discussion and hopefully overcome the stigma of it.

When I started the blog back in the beginning my main aim was to record what I've done but also provide terrain templates and later free markers for those just starting in the hobby, or those with limited budgets that were being priced out of it. Reminding people you can build your own terrain and making freely available quality templates to populate your battlefield has always been rewarding in itself for me. Have I thought that these items should have a financial value? You bet ya! I've seen a few sites selling templates or terrain templates that are of a similar quality. Even if it's just one sale, that makes the effort financially viable. But that goes against the spirit of what I set out to do and even a Donate button, though I agree with them in principle, would feel disingenuous to what I intended for the blog.

Things may change, all things do but right now I'll stick to my Google Adsense adverts. Some may believe this contrary to my statement on the Donate button. Personally I see them as the least hardship to a reader, they don't take over the blog, the offers are targeted to your browsing history [although Alex at FtF finds that disturbing] and a click costs the reader nothing, except a milli-second to click and go. I've made around £48 in my four years of blogging and I've promised myself an Imperial Knight with the proceeds once it hits the magic £60 to unlock the first payment. For me it's the least obtrusive of the options and I've taken to clicking on any Adsense I notice on other hobby blogs because I know how every penny adds up.

Anyway, hopefully this will start a debate, maybe make the decision to advertise or monetise an easier one for other hobby bloggers. We all look at this hobby differently and there should be no shame should one feel the need to support their further contributions to the community with some 'fiscal stimulus'. So let me know of your own monetising successes, thoughts and opinions I'd be really interested to hear your take on the matter.