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

As per usual on my birthday it's time to give a present away to the readers and what better than the next installment of my Generatorium design for my Print & Play building. It's also timely in that this could form part of your Google AdSense competition entry. Still not quite pinned down the deadline date, I'll have a better clue at the beggining of March based on the earnings in Feb but please start thinking about your entries as it'd be a bit of a damp squib if there were hardly any entries. obviously not for the winner, but y'know.

To access the full STC please point your Cogitators here, be fair warned it is 4MB 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-BalgZbZXQ2RTdMZ20wWlk

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    

P.S. let me know if there are any problems with the download, it's a bit difficult for me to check

'nids part 188 - Termagants - baker's half dozen - the other half

A quick one, following up on the first half of the baker's dozen I completed the second half, still to do:

• Bonewhite highlight 1
• Bonewhite highlight 2
• Claws and hooves
• Adrenal glands
• Tweak any fleshy bits [ie red bits and tongues]
• Eyes and teeth 
• Eyes on the Fleshborers too!
• Bonewhite chips on base
• Edge base
• Varnish
• Glossy FXs and any blood
• Yellow flock

I think that's everything with a deadline of 10th March

While I was at it I finished off the arms and torso on these five Stealers, just one brood of five left to basecoat with Bonewhite. On the plus side I've shaved off a day/session for each brood  - a 33% time saving. Of course I didn't allocate time to some things and I've doubts on my estimates for others but we'll see how it goes.

I know this is more like a production line,  that it's quantity over quality but progress has been so slow on all my other projects [or at least seems that way] it's great to switch it up a bit and crank these out. Hopefully I'll return to the Dark Angels with renewed vigour upon their completion.

'nids part 187 - Termagants - baker's half dozen

Oh wow, I could feel the Hive Mind calling all day and I had visions of cracking on with these in short order. I managed to start painting at 9:45 and carry on until 11:30, just finishing up the first highlights on three of them and then onto the second highlights. But I managed to complete just 7 of the bleeders and reminded myself that sometimes I actually don't like painting them because although it's straightforward, I know what I'm doing and the results do show up pretty quick it's damn tedious!

I did do some other bits on the remaining 6, tails and some edges it helps break up the tedium and means when I reconvene they'll take that little bit quicker to complete. Of course I could have not done that and maybe completed an 8th or 9th model but it's the mind game and production line-wise I find this works for me.

Still to do heads, shoulders, backs and some Fleshborers but it's a bizarre feeling to work solidly and still not complete what you intended to do. Immense satisfaction for a good nights work coupled with disappointment that I did not get more done. And with that as my last thought as I went to bed and my first thought as I got up the addiction is really strong at the moment

But with less than a fortnight until Throne of Skulls there's an urgency here, even if I may not need them afterall...

'nids part 186 - Termagants - baker's dozen

Renewed vigour - there's nothing like throwing these queue jumpers into the mix to make me feel guilty and desparate to get them done so I can get back to honest work. Funny thing is I'm no less busy than I was before it's just a sense of urgency as I put the first coat of Vermilion on the bases.

Whilst I was at it I did the Deathwing Knights, no harm in getting these past the basing stage so I've a head start when the gaunts are done.

Two sets of highlights later and they're all based. I also threw in some more work on the 30 Genestealers. I figured I could carry on bits and bobs there alongside the Gaunts and that might help speed things along too. It'd be really cool to add 30 Stealers, 13 Gaunts and all the other things on my table to my TO DONE! come August so that's my arbitrary deadline in getting all these things achieved by then. It may change but if these, the Knight, the Deathwing, the Bikes and the Jetfighter got done [not to mention the VSG] I'd be a very happy bunny.

I followed up the bases with basecoast of Bahama Blue on the Chitin and red on the fleshy bits/weapons. Interestingly I realised while also adding blue to the Genestealers that I never allocated any time to the blue, just the Chitin highlights - 2 days/sessions which may have been ambitious. Still I've 10 Stealers to but the Bonewhite base on, 5 are untouched and the other five are half done. I may be able to do that in 3 sessions, bringing them along nicely too.

Another night and they all got Soft Tone washed. I actually think this is a fair bit darker than the old Gryphonne Sepia but it'll do. The following day I managed to spend 15 minutes adding Strong Tone [Devlan Mud equivalent] ot all the Chitin and fleshy bits to make their shadows darker.

And now they're ready for Chitin highlights. Once again I used my Anitas Craft Acrylic Turquoise but this time I tried to use one of the 3 bottles Evan got me and there must be something different in their formula as although it's thicker the paint just does not have the same coverage as my 6 year old bottle, now down to 20% left.

So I switched back to my old bottle but may now consider the Miniature Paints Aquamarine. I've found my second highlight in the Decoart Turquoise often obscures about 80% of the first highlight anyway so colour matching is not the most important part, it's coverage. If the Miniature Pants covers well it may work as a switch, and I can see if mixing it with the new Anita's will make a closer matched but more opaque hybrid...

March 2nd is Old Stuff Day

Just a heads up March 2nd is Old Stuff Day A few years ago now warhammer39999 wanted to join a movement to rediscover lost gems from the world of hobby blogs and it's still going strong today. To choose one or more of your own blogposts that you're most proud of, or may not have got the attention it deserved or any thing that may warrant some necromantic blogpost bothering. On top of that you are to share blogposts from other bloggers which you think deserves the same spotlight of attention before they're returned to their dark nightmare infested slumbers.

So if you have a blog don't forget to root through your old posts and rediscover those hidden gems. Feel free to use the Old Stuff Day poster by Firstkeeper from DeviantArt.

40kaddict.uk

Just a little note, you may recall a good few months ago I was having difficulty accessing my blog [and a number of others, but not all] that featured 'games' or 'personal blogs] due to a change in IT security policy. Thankfully the Monkeychuka protocol was discovered when I noticed that when my blog was referenced by his blog it arrived via blogspot.co.nz. So a non-localised URL was able to bypass certain problems and I could respond to comments with a little more regularity.

That said the policy has changed once again, I'm not sure if it's adapting to me or it's just standard procedure so I had to find another solution. I have achieved this on two fronts, the first was to find a way to force blogger not to localise my website and it turns out that you can do this by typing in your URL as .blogspot.com/ncr This worked for me, it may never be an issue for others, it really depends what policies are in place by the 'powers that be'.

The other option, and slightly more drastic, was to actually buy a domain name. I'm not sure if this was a kneejerk response but it's also worked to cloak the blog under a shadow of 'respectability. Nick at theburningeye mentioned the importance of blog names in a recent post. Often you won't think of that when you first begin blogging, although my mate used to have wysiwyg-art.co.uk and told me it was a nightmare to explain over the phone.

I always felt I was ridiculously lucky to get 40kaddict and was really excited when 40kaddict.uk was only £1 on godaddy. For some reason it ended up at £3.50 at checkout but even so, aside from folk assuming it'll be .co.uk and not just .uk I'm really chuffed to have a dedicated URL. It may not be for everyone, but it's definitely a way to overcome a blog name that doesn't roll off the tongue and it may make other avenues of promotion available.

Anyway, it's a new step for the blog [although no plans for Wordpress just yet] it's a little fiddly integrating the redirect into my godaddy account and blogger so I can't honestly advise anyone how to do it as even with a couple of walkthroughs explaining it on blogger help I'm still not sure how I did it. However, I've done it now so I doubt I'll ever have to do it again.

BASE - in your face

The queue jumpers all got based, tried to get some pieces of slate on their too so the notoriously unbalanced Hormagaunts were less tippable. Funnily enough I've just been looking at some of the other formations and realised that I need a few more Hormagaunts so I can try out the Endless Swarm formation and I may want to investigate more Gargoyles too, it's about time I gave them another shot.

As mentioned though I did not completely abandon the Dark Angels, the Knights all got based too as I made a decision and chose not to add any stealer limbs on the bases, although the Thunder Hammer dude does have a Stealer skull.

I primed them all with Army Painter Skeleton Bone Primer which is really good, because it doesn't pool in the crevices. In this lighting the coverage looked great but closer inspection did show some of the darker areas from the badly stripped old painted models. However, in this instance I'm happier with a thin prime than some thick blobby coat. Afterall there are going to be successive coats of paint on top too.

I started my Red Planet Basing with a coat of Vermillion, which wasn't dry by the end of the evening. Army Painter Strong Tone is next but it seems like that's going to be another night before I can begin to base them proper