236: 2014 - the year that wasn't

The year is essentially over and as far as this blog is concerned, 2014 was effectively a non-year.  Including this post, and my post setting out my 2014 new year resolutions, I've managed a mere 9 posts, and of those, only 5 actually connect to anything particularly hobby related.

Its not so much that I haven't done much hobby, I've been somewhat productive (time permitting) but have had to sacrifice time that I would normally have spent blogging so that I've had time to do the actual hobby required for blogging.

Anyway, looking back over what I've been up to this year while not blogging, it turns out I've painted up quite a bit. 

235: 6 years old - but only just

It's been 6 years since I started this blog. Its waxed and waned, definitely all of the later recently as Life (TM) has completely taken over my life, and what little time I have for hobby has been all spent actually doing hobby, sadly at the expense of blogging. I still follow plenty of blogs, and love to see what everyone else is getting up to. Perhaps in the new year, I'll be able to return to this, but that'll have to wait and see. Anyway, I couldn't let 6 years go by without marking it.

234: Converting a Treeman Avatar of Khaine

As soon as I saw GW's new treeman kit, I just knew that it would make an absolutely fantastic alternative model for the Eldar's Avatar of Khaine.  The old Avatar model, despite being quite a good model when released, is really showing its age compared to the newer items, and for a simple painting project, the Forgeworld model is a little more money than I can afford/spare.  Conveniently, the model was released just before my birthday, so Mrs. G., being the superstar that she is, picked me up a kit.

233: 33 today

Well today I turn 33, and it just happens to be my 233rd post on this here blog (when I do get around to blogging).  As I haven't managed to put together another post since last week, I thought I might just dump some of the randomness that floats around in my head for you all to ignore to your hearts content.

Its not quite the big date for me this year that I'm definitely looking forward to, that's the 21st September when I hit one third of a century!  In some ways I never thought I'd ever get that far, not because of some morbid expectation of death, but more because I really don't feel all that old, I still play with man-dollies and toy soldiers for pity's sake :D 

232: A slinking return

Hello again...

It’s been too long, no excuses, life and all that.  I’m sure you’ve all experienced it at one time or another.  Anyway, I haven’t exactly been dormant on the hobby front, just not got around to blogging about any of it.

What have I been doing?  Well I’ve been getting involved in a fantasy campaign with some of the guys over at the Beard Bunker which has been a lot of fun, and I’m getting well and truly into the more narrative side of the game.  To whit…

He’s just one of the models that I’ve been converting to fill out my force.  I built him to be an assassin what with the “cloak and dagger” and all, and the skull helm I had the idea of being a kind of death mask that he wore.  He is of course pointing to his next victim.  Problem is, now he’s built I have to admit he’s looking a lot more like a Grey Seer to me than an assassin.  I’ll just have to see where things take me.  Nothing to say he couldn’t be an assassin who gets a little too enamoured of his warpstone and ends up heading off down the path to becoming a Grey Seer.

Anyway, I hope to be a little more regular, and have some ideas for a few special articles for the Hochland Gazette, namely from the letters section, making wild claims about the infestation of the Darkwald forrest by what appear to be giant bi-pedal rat men.  There may even be references to Albrecht of Nuln and his heretical proclamations.

Toodles, Andrew

231: A 40K Imperial Date Blogger Widget

• Have you ever wondered what todays date was in the Imperial Calendar?
• Are you ever writing a battle report or bit of fluff and want to include some Imperial Dates but don't know how it works?
• Are you bored right now and interested in seeing a little bit of javascript?

If you answered "yes" to any of the above, read on, if not, well this isn't the post for you - sorry.

So the other day I got curious as to whether it would be possible to produce a little widget on my blog that would display the current date, but in the Imperial Calendar.  I've done some light web design and programming before, so I thought it should be within my ability, and if not, then I could always stitch together other bits of code to do what I wanted (which by the way, is pretty much how all code is produced :D ).  In case you hadn't noticed, if you look at the top of my blog on the right, I met with some success and was able to produce just such a widget.

As an offering to the community, in the same way that Dezartfox from The-Vanus-Temple did with his rotating image tutorial, I thought I'd share the code with you all in case you would like to add a similar widget to your blogs.  To add this, all you need to do is insert a new html/javascript widget into your blog, and copy and past the code below into the box, simple as that.

230: Tau paint scheme

I've managed to snatch the odd half-hour here and there recently, and as well as finishing building my Riptide, I also sat down last night and painted up two Tau Firewarriors to test out my colour scheme.  I'll go through it step by step here so that its always there as a reference should I need it in the future.

Base coat is Fortress Grey, applied in two thin coats to get a good smooth coverage.

Next I block in colours.  Codex Grey for the cloth of their fatigues, Boltgun Metal for parts that I think should be metallic, and Ultramarines blue for armour plates that I want to be blue to give some colour to the scheme.

Next up is an all over wash with my own recipe "Soft Body Black" wash.  It consists of equal parts Badab Black wash and Water (distilled if you have it (I don't), or tap water that has sat for a day or two), and the 1/10th of that volume of washing-up liquid.  The washing-up liquid helps to reduce the surface tension of the water so that the wash flows more easily, its a poor mans version of Flow-Aid or Lahmian Medium.  Be careful not to shake it too much, or be too vigorous applying it as otherwise it'll froth up ruining the finish.

Cover most of the armour plates with a 50:50 mix of Fortress Grey and Skull White, this is just below white to allow for a final level highlight.

Final highlights, Skull White and Enchanted Blue edge highlighting of all the armour plates.  Not pictured here is also an edge highlight of the metallic areas with Mithril Silver.

I used a sponge technique to apply some battle damage with Boltgun Metal

I used the same Calthan Brown and Yellow as my Marines to paint the bases.  At the same time as painting the bases, I use a very watered down Calthan Brown to apply a little weathering to the lower parts of the models, and then when drybrushing the Yellow, I deliberately get it on their lower legs to make it seem as if they are muddy and dusty (oops, took the photo before that stage, but I'm sure you can imagine it).

That's my first painting points of 2014, and its only 2 weeks old!

229: Riptide under Construction

I really should have posted about this guy earlier as I've been working on him for a while now, but for whatever reason I've always forgotten to take a picture, so here he is, almost finished and ready for painting.  It's not entirely evident from the picture, but he's pinned and magnetised to his base, which uses spare parts from my Storm Raven.  The toothpicks are there to build up tracks either side of the main vent part to make it look like its crashed and skidded along the ground.  Once its covered in basing material and built up, I'm hoping it'll give a nice effect.

You may also be able to see the disc of a magnet on the underside of one of the arms, I've placed them in the same place on the other arm, as well as in a place so that the shield/sword thing can be magnetised between the two arms depending on how I feel he should be armed.  The arms will be glued to the body though in a fixed pose.

You can just about make out the squad of Firewarriors behind him that'll form the minimum Troops and HQ component for this allied detachment.  Looking forward to getting these guys painted up with a quick and lightly coloured scheme so I can test them out on the board.

More updates on this one should be coming soon.

 - Andrew

228: 2014 resolutions

Howdy everyone, welcome to 2014!

As I'm sure many of us are at the moment, we're thinking about what we'd like to achieve in the coming year, and for the last few years I've set out myself some resolutions for the upcoming year to see whether it can encourage me to keep my hobby going, and to keep myself updating the blog.  In the past I have made:

2013 resolutions and 2013 in review

2012 resolutions and 2012 in review

2011 I didn't make up any resolutions but I did do a 2011 in review

So what do I hope to do this year:

• Complete the core of One Force:  I need to complete the last of the core force, battle damage and weather all the models painted so far.
• Expand One Force:  I currently hope to add an Elites unit (most likely in MkIII armour and the Iron Hands special troopers), heavy weapons for all of the core units and a Scouts unit (probably the HH recon squad).
• Paint my Skaven:  a repeat of last years resolution to paint, base and generally finish the Skaven I have so that my force is a more reasonable size.  I'd also like to make some unit fillers as I think that'd be quite fun.
• Build a small Tau detachment:  I've had a squad of Firewarriors for ages, ever since I returned to the hobby, and they can now be taken as a small allied detachment, so along with a Riptide, I hope to add some serious hitting power to my armies.
• Have a clear out:  I've got a lot of models sat in boxes/crates that I really need to go through and get rid of those that I don't need/want/use.  I live in a small flat, so don't have more than a single small cupboard for all my gaming paraphernalia, so I have to be ruthless.
• Independent Characters Hobby Progress Challenge:  This will be this years new army, and I want to paint something bright, colourful and fleshy to break from all the armour and metal I've painted in the past.  I'm flip-flopping between a Deamon or Tyranid army, and of course the Tyranids are getting a new book soon so they are tempting, but there's a lot of cool models in the deamon range, I just can't decide.

So that's it, should keep me busy this year.  As well as all these, I'd still like to keep the blog going and hope to keep a more regular posting schedule than I have at late, and to attend the odd weekend event to keep in the gaming, but I just don't know what the next year will hold for me, so I'm not going to commit to any of those things.

Drop me a link if you are doing something similar, and a very Happy and model/painting/gaming-filled New Year to you all.

 - Andrew