Where's my head @?

'Conspicuous by my absence' is probably the phase you're looking for. Obviously I don't need to apologise you'd all tell me it was OK, I'd normally say politeness compels me too and apologise anyway. I'll skip all that palarver and just explain what's been going on.

Number 1 - in reasons not to be posting is 'damn drop pods'. I knew as soon as I revealed I'd be working on them that'd put a jinx [not a jinks] on them. To be fair I now understand the effort involved and I don't think it's insurmountable, I just have no desire to do it. Therefore I did do some 'on list' diversionary tasks but not much and not anything worth sharing yet.

Number 2 - my head really has been in a weird space, been quite tired and headachy so given the option of an early[ish] night I actually took it.

Number 3 - and this is the big one, I saw a job advertised last Monday. It's a big deal and although it's a fixed term contract that fills me with bowel clenching fear [when Ive been 'happily' employed in my current post for 13 years follwoing a previous redundancy] in every other respect the job is ideal. Now I have to apply and that is considerably more effort than four 250 word responses to their questions, should take.

I certainly don't think number 3 has helped with number 2 and I'm spending a lot of time trying to gather my thoughts. I had a mini battle report but couldn't find the notes and will power to get it down. Fingers crossed it's momentary and once the application is out the way I can 'look forward' to an interview or not, in which case things will go back to normal.

Anyway, no need to wory, I'm still alive and Caledonian Highlander is this weekend so I should have Battle Reports for that and hopefully an update on Birthday Bash v2.0

Dark Angels - Drop Pod[s]

Although this new project doesn't [yet] fill me with dread I have already observed that monotony will be the biggest factor in how it progresses. You have the five pod fins, but you need to do both sides and when you're actually doing two pods that's 20 of these still to do and you haven't even looked at the door petals! No doubt the door will then split up into the top, middle and bottom left and right sections, again multiplied by 10!

Anyway, as you can see above I managed to do the highlights on the first five. I now need to do the shading on inner edges of the four newer ones, then it's the other sides. What's now apparent is it takes about a 60-90min session to highlight five [unbelievable but true for me] so I've three more sessions to look forward to - yay! At least by having that in my head the task seems more manageable but even so it's a good enough excuse to take a night [or two] off.

The knock on effect is progress is very slow [which does no favours for the blog] and I'm thinking that having this separated pod will feel easier to paint than the pre-built one. I'm also a little underwhelmed by the highlights. They've been drybushed Waaagh! Flesh for the most part, which doesn't really work on flat surfaces. I'm then drybrushing some more Caliban Green on to blend it a bit more and then I'll get round to the black. It's unfortunate that a lot of the original Orkhide and black shading are being over painted now but you live and learn.

Anyway, slow but steady. Fingers crossed I can get the next three sessions in without imploding. I'll feel much happier once the fins are done.

Dark Angels - Drop Pod[s]

I'm not sure but it may well have been nearly five and half years since I last worked on my Dark Angel Drop Pod but I first mentioned it in the February of 2011 as it was a Christmas present from 2010! My original plastic crack dealer Pete got it for me so it deserves some attention finally.

Not just because it's been so long but because it may actually be worth taking and even if it's not used in any list it'll make some nice terrain too. Having left it at a black wash stage in 2011 I thought I's add a bit more shading in all the cracks and crevices.

Mainly because I'd already done the same on my second Drop Pod that I got in a trade with [the other Pete] PeteB. As you can se ethis one is already built so I'm going to comparepainting them by components and as a whole. This had been primed, painted red and then re-primed black. I then added an Angel Green primer and then with the shadows.

A quick coat of some of the last of my Tin Bitz and it's getting close to Pod 1.

There's a lot still to do but this is my primary goal at the moment. I know how infamous they ar eat breaking people, notorious for their difficulty/monotony, hence why I was reluctant to jinx it. I'd started alongside the Acid Spray but now I can devote 100% attention to it. Lets get the out of the way and off my To Do List finally!

'nids part 205 - Acid spray and weapon options

A bit of a push and I'm done, except for varnishing. I did the claw highlights, fleshy bits and veins all in the same sitting.

I also did the Crushing Claws too. Prior to painting I decided to drill out the Acid Spray fo if I decided to make the spray. Typically that chipped some of the Chitin highlights and fleshy bits inside the gun which required fixing.

I've looked at it alongside the Tervigon/Tyrannofex and although the pink highlights aren't a perfect match for what is already on the model I'm pretty sure the difference is negligible and because the fleshy bits are 'framed' by the arms that does help demarcate them so direct comparissons aren't as obvious.

Even where the feeder pipes sit on top of the belly it's not noticable as the weapon casts a shadow on all the exisiting highlights so all the colours are altered anyway. I'll be having a little photoshoot when it's all varnished but clearly the big quesiton is what's next...? Well you'll just have to wait a little while to find out ;)

6+ Happy Blog Day

The best pic I could come up with to represent 6!

6 years young, I'd say this was becoming a habit but the blog is called 40kaddict, so the clue was in the title anyways. So we've gone beyond habit and become an 'institution'? Well I should probably be institutionalised that's for sure.

6 years, who knew I'd be going this long and to the same degree, near enough. It was only ever supposed to be for 12 months every other day and then scale it back. For sure there are fallow periods and it's much more difficult to do now as I blog pretty much 'real-time' with fewer scheduled posts. But I still love doing it, OK there are times when I don't - that it's a bit of a bind but there are still times where I wish I could just empty a stream of consciousness into the thing, have it explode, be bigger and better.

Not to mention the feedback I get from you guys, the support, comments, compliments and even the insults [Ben Houghton]. Despite my own advice that you should blog for yourself first and foremost, to satisfy your need to document your achievements, I really do feel obliged to the 300+ followers and remaining casual viewers to keep up the good work.

Thanks for sticking with it and being the motivation for continuing the blog, you're all ace!

Wouldn't this be a better representation of 6...?

'nids part 204 - Acid spray and weapon options

Moving on and it's the second set of bone highlights. Once again I'm reminded just how easy nids are to paint, I'm even painting in texture that isn't there to entertain myself!

Pretty much the entire scheme is this:

1. Bonewhite
2. Chitin
3. Fleshy bits
4. Claws and teeth
5. Special FX - blood, plasma, toxins
6. Base

I don't know why but this is so much easier than any other army I've painted. Obviously the monotony can be a little debilitating but I think I'd rather have that than all the extra fiddly bits a Space Marine has.

Anyway, Bone is done, Chitin highlights are next and given little is required of that step I'm pretty sure I'll do both sets of highlights in my next session.

Which will be handy [or 'clawy'] as the CCs are now up to scratch [pun intended] too, with their own second bone highlights.

You never know, I may even get the claw highlights done too, leaving only the fleshy bits to sort out, which will obviously be a big deal on the acid spray.

 AsaltoRabioso Lleidaasked for pics of it on the Tervigon/Tyrannofex. One thing that has struck me doing this is howm much I love that Mawloc/Tfex head conversion. Sure it gets lost and is hugely inconvenient in this role but I just love the end result in it's normal guise.

Ordinarily I might consider hardly any highlights to the fleshy bits but they really need to match up with what is on the beast already. Fingers crossed I can find a way to match it up, I just think it was someMechrite Red mixed with white, or Bonewhite.

I had considered making an attchment of 'spray' - a wire frame covered in flock and glue. Regardless the spray will have the same toxin green effect to tie it altogether.

It really is a big beast isn't it! I had such a horrible experience painting the first Tervigon and then a somewhat pleasant time with this one. I'd really love a third, even though I've no need for it as I hardly run two let alone three. Even if I did want three in a list I still have my Proto-Tervigon, which if it wasn't representative of my first big conversion I'd be stripping back to be a Carnifex now!

Alternatively I'd consider making a Dimachaeron of it. That seems to be the popular conversion route and it still amazes me how much this model is to buy compared to some of the newer, smaller models that just do so little in the game.

Still, ever onwards, I:ve plenty more to paint before that's even a possibility :)

Birthday Bash 2.0* - you'll ALL be welcome

Some of you may remember two years ago I had a little birthday tournament with my mates. As you can see Liam was the victor using his Riptide spam ;) If you clicked the link you may also have noticed my birthday is in February, at least four months away. Well it's usually around this time of year that Ben starts thinking about a trip to Warhammer World - something I'm a little too tight to contemplate this time round.

So, I had a chat with the rest of the gaming crew and PeteB was well up for a mini tournament as his birthday is just before mine too. In 2015 we borrowed Ben's kitchen but this time that probably wouldn't be sustainable and in a bid to have another fun birthday celebration/gaming session I went to my local game store Wargames and had a chat with the owner Martin. He was perfectly happy for us to rock up, pay our fee to use the tables for the day and leave things at that. Alternatively he suggested a couple of other options to turn it into a much bigger event, even to ITC tournament scale! Which gave us plenty to think about.

PeteB, Ben and myself had a bit of a summit last night to discuss options. We're all after an event that is fun, not really about winning. Ben was also keen not to have Lord Of Wars, he feels they can make the game too one-sided but I fought to have them included on the basis for some folk it's the only way they can run a list. So we made some restrictions for taking them, as I said the event will be very much 'don't be a dick', we may be shooting ourselves in the foot for interested parties but we just want to have a fun days gaming. This was the interim plan [subject to change]...

Which leads us to the current knowns:

• 1500pts
• 3 Maelstrom Games
• Saturday 25th February
• Wargames, Southport PR8 1NH

There's obviously other stuff on that sheet but we're not confirmed yet. Provisionally it'll be £20 but how that translates to prize fund, food, potential painting competition is yet to be decided. Wargames usually does quite extensive prize support but much like the principles [and part of the success] of Blog Wars we agree that big prizes for the winner will not be in the spirit of what we had in mind. We'll fix costs and prizes in time.

Currently there'll be myself, PeteB and Ben, with Otty, Liam and Throne of Skulls winner Scott potentially on board. Bottom line is we only need 10 people minimum to make this happen and Martin is convinced he can double our numbers from local players but I wanted to offer an open invitation to folk who follow the blog to see if they'd be interested in joining in, the more the merrier.

So what do you think? Let me know in the comments below.

* Birthday Bash 2.0 is a provisional title, feel free to offer alternative 40kaddict related names :)