40kaddict Terrain Competition 2016 winner

The end of the month and voting is now closed on the 40kaddict Terrain Competition. Firstly I'd like to make a few 'thank yous'. I'm not sure who should take priority but in no particular order:

• thanks to all those who find something worth clicking on your support really made this a reality
• thanks to all those who took part, there was a moment where I thought I wasn't going to get any entries but I think 11 for a first time, untested competition was really good going. Not to mention the inventive ways everyone interpreted the templates. Hardly any of them were 'stock' recreations they all added something unique from the builders perspective which I absolutely loved.
• thanks to all those that voted. I was a little apprehensive about the poll, but poll-maker was super easy to use and its streamlined nature has made all my concerns disappear.

So all that's left to do is announce the winners, as was mentioned in the rules the first prize was for an Imperial Knight [or equivalent value model] and the second prize was £10 in vouchers for a local independent game store

Second prize goes to: Alun Heseltine and 'awww!'

First prize goes to: Marc van Holst and 'Thermoplasma Generator'

You can see all the voting here, it has made me think next time it may be wise to combine voting by all entries, as combined it looks like Alun might have won by one vote. Although I don't know if both pictures together might have reduced the cute factor of awww! on it's own, hopefully he won't be too disappointed with second prize, but please feel free to comment on whether you're happy with separate votes or would prefer combined, I know a couple of entries were specified as separate...

Now hopefully Marc wants the Imperial Knight because GW only went and released Imperial Knights: Renegade this month. Liam had asked me to go halves on a box, which initially I said I couldn't really afford at the moment as I was thinking of the Knight for myself. Then I remembered I'd promised one in my competition, duh! Anyway I agreed to go in with him and got dibs on the Warden in the set, because that's what I'd kind of been promising and Liam's got 5 knights anyway so he's probably got all the load outs.

Initially I'd thought to shop locally for the winner and have it delivered direct but everyone knows Australian prices for GW are insane and this worked out better all round for everyone. So the order is in with Wayland games, when they have new stock in they'll be sending it out and I'll then forward it on. Anyway I'll be sorting all the details out with both winners individually but I think everyone can consider themselves a winner, as they've got a cool piece of terrain out of it.

As for the other reasons for holding the competition I think I've proved AdSense competitions can work, within only 9 months I was able to reach the goal that previously had taken 4.5 years. Now it's doubtful that momentum will continue as I won't be holding a competition this time round and I won't be updating the blog with the totals each month, which usually prompted a spike in clicks. But then the quicker I reach my next target the quicker I can get round to running a new competition.

That said it will be more useful insight to see how the clicks have evolved compared to pre-competition. One interesting aside was that I did manage to link my YouTube account to my AdSense and last month made 13p from YouTube alone, so for all those bloggers with AdSense and YouTube videos it may be worthwhile joining those up.

Hopefully there'll be less stigma involved for bloggers using adverts in the future and we'll see more people taking them on and more people clicking. I'm regularly clicking on From the Fang and The Burning Eye's adverts that are relevant to me. Interestingly this last month I got this 'achievement' in my AdSense account celebrating over a million impressions on the adverts. If Google are telling me this then I'm guessing its a big deal so I'd recommend if you've got a blog just add an ad, it's not difficult and it may take four or five years to make anything from it but you never know...

'nids part 197 - Deathwatch Overkill update

Not much to see here I did make a spray stick though - a small piece of wood I had in the garage for years, some double sided tape and the Aberrants, heavy weapons hybrids and a few other first and second hybrids.

So much easier to spray, although next time I'll ensure I don't put one so close to the end as being able to hold it from both sides helps with the spraying.

Since this I've managed to build all my other Hybrids and the Deathwatch team members. All I need to do is base them ready for undercoating and I can have them all ready and waiting - put them in a box until I have chance to paint them that is!

Dark Angels - Ravenwing update

Painting the feathers on the Ravenwing should not be my priority. I seem to be saying that a lot actually. The bikes themselves are but the wings should really be done after I've finished the metals and the black because I'm clearly going to screw it up in places. However I'm having a lot of fun with it so I just carried on.

I'm playing with the paint in places. The 2nd generation Anita's turquoise looks quite opaque but goes on almost transparent so it's almost like it's been pre-thinned. I apply it and then do a second pass which makes the colour more pronounced and a third pass really gets the highlight. I also chose a different technique on one bike and subsequently applied it to two other so if there was a difference it could be contained within units. For this I did a first highlight using Army Painter Hydra Turquoise. Now this is slightly darker and bluer meaning when I applied second and third highlights with the Anitas I got a subtle shift in tonal range. Then added a black wash and a final pick up of highlights. Whether it's noticeable now and therefore worth doing I'm not sure but it was enjoyable at the time. Metals and black next...

I also moved on with the resin base for the Nephilim/Dark Talon, washing the Red Oxide Primer with Army Painter Strong Tone.

Then it was Vermilion craft acrylic for the highlight.

Followed by my first pass Vermilion and Pumpkin highlight mix, just about evident from these pics.

2nd pass highlight and then pure pumpkin edge highlight and bonewhite chips to do and then I can varnish this.

Denied

This happens regularly and I usually find a work around but this time nothing works. It seems the 'powers that be' have manged to deny access to any sites that are related to 'games'. So I will not be able to keep up-to-date on some of the things I normally would. I can currently still make blog posts but I can't review them afterwards or cross reference older posts or other blogs as I would normally like.

Its really very frustrating but there's not much I can do at this point and I'll try to continue on within the confines of these limitations, thanks for your patience.

Imperial Knight - in manufactorum pt 12

Its a bit difficult at the moment to actually collate what I'm up to as I'm doing three or four things in any one painting session. So it's difficult to show progress and we're already at part 12 of this Knight. Anyway, I moved on with the chest plate for Euronymous. All the green has been done, I could probably use this piece as a test bed for the battle damage too. The scrollwork has been base coated and washed.

I then went in with some more highlights on the scroll and picked out the rivets in bonewhite, which matches my greenwing.

I'd pencilled in the name beforehand so I knew it could fit. With these sotrs of things it's always best to start in the middle and work your way out unfortunately I still managed to cramp up the end with a large amount of space at the beginning! It's not pretty but I surprised myself by achieving it so I can live with the less than stellar penmanship ;)

In another session I added some extra highlights on the bronze on the carapace, I also did the shoulder panels too but need to do the rest of the metallics and also on the Ravenwing. If I can get all these metal highlights done that will be a massive step forward. Having completed some of the panels it would join up with those elements still to highlight and the end would almost be in sight, it;s very exciting.

I also spent a session blocking in the chevrons on the Gatling Cannon and fist, I may well wish I'd gone orange and black at some point but these will ultimately be yellow and black, with the frotn of the cannon being all black which I'll decorate with decals.

Again, this shouldn't be my focus as it can't feature in my Double Trouble list but I'm just going with the flow and with it not being the sole thing I'm painting in any given session I don;t feel too guilty about it's inclusion in my schedule.

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

Incoming! New Space Marine and Ork flyers

Just saw this on Bolter and Chainsword the Ork Wazbom Blastajet and the Space Marine Stormhawk Interceptor. They both look like upgrade sprues for the existing Dakkajet and Storm Talon, which I think is a cool way to get expansion opportunities off existing kits and it really shows a bit of ingenuity by GW in making these upgrades work. Check out the link above for moar pictures from White Dwarf.

This also looks promising based on recent rumours about a Flyer game in the summer...

MOAR Vortex Templates

Despite the arm pain I actually managed to do some bits. In fact because I took the day off to see the doctor I had some free time and in a moment of madness I just decided to knock out a couple more Vortex templates. Having enjoyed the fun of them in my last game I'm hoping for a number of doubles in future games and I though three would be sufficent. I originally completed the first one in July last year and had put aside a couple of the Christmas baubles the other day.

Sadly I didn't take any pictures this time but I did adapt how I made them, without considering the original tutorial:

• I used masking tape to attach a tissue round the outside to avoid overspray
• I bunched the tissue up and this formed a support to hold the bauble in a plastic cup
• when I did the colour spray I rolled up some card into a U shape so it would fit inside the bauble - when I sprayed I could get more defined lines and edges inside the bauble while masking off other areas

Having not referred to the original bauble first  I also noted:

• my spots were more uniform, bigger and more of them
• I also switched in a green spray for a bit of variety
• didn't really do any streaks
• could have done to do:
•  less spots, 
• a spray of colour,
• then some more white spots for added depth,
• a light spray of black, 
• more spots,
• final coat of black

 I'm really pleased with the two extra templates, the uniformity is a minor irritation but for a 20 minute job I was really chuffed. Should I need any more I know I can get them done in a jiffy :)