Paint-A-Thon WIP - Belial

Just a quick update on this work in progress!  I did some base color tests and decided to go with the green hood and cape.  With so many browns and tans in this paint scheme, the contrast will be critical to exposing the HQ on the table.  I'm working on the bleached bone and gold top coats now; photos to come after I've done a lot of washing.

"Deathwing" Paint-A-Thon on The Independent Characters

I recently joined a few friends in a "paint-a-thon" type event that The Independent Characters 40k Podcast is putting on called the 2014 Hobby Progress Challenge. It began in February and will run through November, with participants completing 2000 points worth of painted 40k minis in two equal portions. The first half is due to be complete by June 30, and must comprise a legal Zone Mortalis army list.

I've begun the challenge on that forum under the user name Daggerburg, but will be mirroring and adding content here on GDK as well!

Of course, this is going to be a great step toward completing the full first company of Angels Ascendant Pridesworn (Deathwing).

Here's my list 1000 Point Zone Mortalis List:

+ HQ +

Belial... 190

Sword of Silence & Storm Bolter

Librarian... 95

Force Weapon, Terminator Armor and Storm Bolter

+ Elites +
Deathwing Knights (5)... 245

+ Troops +
Pridesworn 2nd Battle Squad: Beta Pattern (5)... 245

Sgt w/Power Sword, LC, TH/SS, Assault Cannon

Pridesworn 3rd Battle Squad: Alpha Pattern (5)... 235

Sgt w/Power Sword, TH/SS, Heavy Flamer, Chainfist

Total: 1000 points

+ + +

As I note on the IC forum: since I'm starting a bit late, and am still recovering from my recent wedding and honeymoon, I'm going to go easy on myself and start with a sword and bolter version of Belial. 

As you can see, this version is a bash of Marneus Calgar's body and base with arms and a head from the most recent Deathwing box set. I may add some bits and bobs for flair, but this is the basic idea.

I hope to be back later today or tomorrow with a couple WIPs! I'm torn between a brown cape and hood (my usual theme) or green, so I'm going to base a color mock-up!

Deathwing Terminator Paint Scheme and Conversions in Progress

Ten months is an absurd gap between posts, but I’ve both bought a house and gotten engaged in the meantime, so it hasn’t been a complete waste of time. I’ve also been working semi-regularly on fluff and force organization for the Dark Angels successor chapter that I would like to create around my army, but that’s best left for a later post!

When last we met, I was working on the bases for a tactically generic squad of terminators. In the last few months, I've finally unpacked all of the goods and started making time to get down to business. My chief project is my next squad of five terminators as I work to build up an entire first company (clearly, I have a long way to go), and I've moved to more of a capture-and-control squad with a Cyclone Missile Launcher and no special melee weapons. This is basically a blip of an update to show some progress, but more will come in time.

The CML was actually finished early this year, so it comes from a different “season” of painting. I’m both pleased and disappointed to say that I’ve been able to make improvements in my painting since this guy was finished.

Along with that first squad, he lacks some of the shading that I’ve used more recently and has a few more white skulls on his armor than I think I’d like to have moving forward (I’ve been trending toward bronze). To that end, he may receive a touch-up before being sealed. Additionally, he’s an old pewter model that I’ve repainted a bit and never really cleaned up in the first place, so he’s a mess.

Next up, possibly my best terminator to date:

This guy isn’t quite finished, but reflects a lot of improvements in shading and some nit-picky color scheme choices. In order to inject some diversity into a fairly drab basic scheme, I’m “awarding” various members with bronzed powerfists, helmets, boots, etc to recognize certain acts of prowess or valor. I think there will probably be some green and red thrown in as well. Additionally, each squad will have unique insignia emblazoned across their right shoulder and/or knee. In this case, the progenitor chapter symbol has been retained on the shoulder pad, but the knee will soon reflect this squad’s red devastator-esque downward blast shown on the cyclone’s shoulder above.

When building an entire first company of terminators, it’s critical to make good use of low-cost models as can be found in the Assault on Black Reach box and so-on. The downside is that things can get pretty repetitive if you don’t or can’t kit bash a lot. The Sergeant below is a work in progress, but makes use of one of my favorite mods to-date.

As can be seen, he has a gorget that is not native to terminator armor. It is, in fact, the upside-down belt and lower abdomen of a spacemarine waste – I believe Mark VII pattern. Anyway, it distinguishes him from the other bald dudes, and gorgets are awesome.

Anyway, that's it for now, but I just got some "new" mordian guardsmen, ravenwing, and other goodies, so I hope to be back soon!

40K Miniature Basing For Beginners

After buying and painting miniatures for about fifteen years, it strikes me as remarkable that I’ve only bothered to make a handful of custom bases. Even more notably, I now realize I avoided it because I was a bit intimidated by the process—even the simple sand and glue approach. There’s probably no good reason for this, and this post isn’t about my psychological reticence to basing, so I’ll say this last bit and move on:

This is [yet another] brief tutorial describing an easy method to make custom bases for Warhammer [and other] miniatures, using simple techniques and easily acquired materials.

Right then. First, a picture, because you always need a “before.”

As can be seen, I have a Dark Angel army and I am now working to bring its Deathwing Company into full operation after a year of professional, domestic and social upheaval that has distracted me from the hobby. Part of that process involves establishing the fluff around my force – which I plan to mold into a full second founding, the “Angels Ascendant,” but there will be more about them later. For now, the point is that I’m building out force organization charts and establishing squad insignias, etc, so it’s high time that I belly up to the [kitchen] table and give these guys some legitimate bases.

In the vein of making this a comprehensive approach to building my army up, I want the bases to be an aesthetic test-run for the table that I intend to make next year. Furthermore, I want the bases to reflect – at least vaguely – the existing terrain I own and to look plausible when held next to other bases in the same squad, even to the point of coordinating features according to likely deployments formation.
Thusly, I will be creating a grayish-brown wasteland motif with some sludgy, polluted liquid in the lowlands, and dryer, blue sand and stone in the highlands. The Imperial cruiser below will likely have crashed into a highland section of my imaginary table:

BEGIN TUTORIAL: Supplies
I initially gathered these supplies for my endeavor. As I worked, I wanted to add different textures and decided to add some rough-ground coffee grinds into the sand and eventually bothered my girlfriend for some shiny, colorless nail polish for the polluted run-off. I did not end up using the corks this time.

STEP ONE: Planning

First, I planned out the sort of features that I wanted to include and roughly sketched with a pencil where my models’ feet would need to be glued.

Observation 1A: Accidentally letting glue and sand get into the spots where feet are supposed to be was unwelcome, but presented me with options to make a more interesting base by trouble-shooting the error. I don’t encourage winging it, because you want your mini to be secure, but a little flexibility moving forward may serve you well.


STEP TWO: Glue Stuff to Your Base

Next, I used a piece of wax paper for a mixing surface and created a solution of water and glue, with roughly 1 part glue to 2 parts water.

Observation 2A: This does not need to be an exact science; I continually added glue or water to this supply with general disregard for the ratio and found that it worked fine as long as some glue was involved. In fact, I didn’t even mix the two very much, choosing, in later steps, to use more or less watery parts of the mixture whenever I felt like it might strengthen a hold or let the glue seep into a crack more easily, etc. Ultimately, it seemed pretty fool-proof, so don’t over think it.

Anyway, in this step, I used a cheap plastic kids’ brush to apply the glue-water to the base where I wanted, and then sprinkled sand and grounds onto the glue. When I got more comfortable with how the glue was behaving, I began dipping the bases, or setting them into a container and gently shaking the sand and grounds onto them. Again, not an exact science. After the first coat, you can apply additional layers of glue and particles where you want to raise the ground a bit, and directly paint glue onto larger rocks or objects before placing them.

Observation 2B: White glue won’t dry as quickly as superglue, but it appears to take hold enough for there to be almost no wait-time between layers - maybe wait 30 seconds before you start painting more glue on and, as long as you are gentle, you shouldn’t have many particles pulling away. If you do, I guess you’ll need to use more glue in your solution, or use smaller particles, or find a better blog.


STEP THREE: Drying & Base-Coating

I’m not particularly impatient, but I’m close enough to death that I don’t want to be waiting for white child’s glue to dry all night. Thanks to my girlfriend and my past dalliance in long hair, a blow-dryer was on hand to expedite this process. While I’d encourage caution not to blow your bases across the room, 30 seconds or so under the hair dryer seemed effective enough for me to move on with the confidence that the stuff on my bases wasn't going anywhere without some convincing.

However, I’m risk-averse and decided that a moderate base-coat of primer would help to keep everything in place and provide a much better surface for painting – thusly I cannot speak to the absorbency of coffee grounds – specifically chicory.

Again, I did not want to wait for the primer to dry, so I brought the blow-dryer back out.

Observation 3A: Before anything settles too solidly, and before you base-coat, you’ll want to be sure that your miniature fits onto your base as intended. This is the last chance to make really easy changes to your base, so double-check before moving forward!


STEP FOUR: Foundation Colors & Surface Glue

Next, I laid down the foundation colors that I wanted in each base (for me this was mostly Citadel’s Charadon Granite with patches of Calthan Brown near my sludge streams). I also added a brown wash liberally at this point to establish depth and get a sense for the lighting that I wanted to simulate.

Observation 4A: I recommend using a larger, old or otherwise expendable brush for this. In many cases, the terrain you are creating will have jagged edges and be fairly rough on a brush, especially if you don’t want to spend too much time just getting a foundation paint onto it.

In addition to paint, I applied more glue-water to the bases where I wanted to create a smooth surface that would become my stream of sludge. This process sometimes involved waiting and/or blow-drying, as I wanted to apply several layers in order to raise the level of the liquid (as shown below) while still allowing the glue to dry quickly and colorlessly-if you use too much glue or don’t dilute it, you will likely get a white or very cloudy result.

STEP FIVE: Shading and Highlights

This is probably the least “new” step in basing for a person who paints miniatures. Use washes or darker paints as needed to create the shadows and crevices you desire while using lighter colors to create peaks.

Observation 5A: Experiment with white as a highlight. I was a longstanding holdout against creating lighting effects that veered too far into glaring white or shadowy black, because I figure miniatures are always going to have light on them to accentuate things for me. However, over time I've stubbornly come to recognize that light sources, which cast shadows or create glare on a life-sized thing, will provide a lighting effect that is too consistent to accurately impart these details on a miniature, which is diminutive compared to the light source. As such, shadows and glare should be created and fun should be had.


STEP SIX: Details and Finishing

Similar to step five, this is mostly about tweaking your base to look the way you want. I sometimes chose to add more glue at this point and ultimately decided to paint my streams with Tin Bitz, because the glue alone wasn’t creating the effect I wanted.

Below, you can see the changes in four different bases throughout the process. Notably, the bases in which I was using glue were a bit slower-going, so you can see that they were generally a step behind.

And here is a (poorly photographed) glimpse of the before-and-afters! In the next couple months, I hope to be moving to a new kitchen table and workshop, where I’ll make a new light box, so please bear with me for now!

That's all for now, I'll be back with some more miniature work soon!

Musings on Incentives and Profit Margins in the World of Dungeons & Dragons

Friend Jon is, by most accounts, a strange bird. As he has become increasingly more familiar with boardroom lingo, he has begun to offer some interesting commentary on nerd-stuff. Here is a taste, to hopefully get the old GDK juices flowing.

"So I've been thinking about it. The reward always ends up being 'friendship, or some shit.'

You know why?

By the time you finally progress enough to the point where you're going to score a bunch of cool shit when you beat the big bad guy, the bad guy encounter invariably always kills 1 person.

So, by heist mathematics, loot + 1 less person with whom to split the loot = win.

But no, you're adventuring bros, and having lived on the road you've done unspeakable things together (both inside and outside of the dungeon), so you don't say 'yea, f that dead guy, more for us' it always is 'aww man, that sucks, let's spend a disproportionate amount of money to bring them back.'

And then the merchants come along and say 'hey, you can't use any of that loot you worked so hard for, you know, the loot your best friend died for. I can help you sell that. FOR A 50% CUT.' Doesn't matter how much the item sells for, it's always 50% margin. Talk about wizards, I wish you could keep a 50% margin on EVERYTHING, now that's magical.

'Don't want to sell it? That's cool, I'll trade you, for an item 50% less than the cost of your item. Think you can do better selling it on your own? Wrong.' Somehow everyone in the world will only pay half price for anything. Except for you. You have to pay full price. Everywhere. Haggle? Congrats you roll a natural 20. You get a 5% discount.

So now you have half the amount (in gold) that your buddy died for. You go to the church and they say, 'No problem we'll help you out, we're the church and we're good. Ok 1 friend back to life. That will be 5,000 gold.' Discount? 'Magic fueled by an immortal deity doesn't grow on trees, dude.' 'What do you mean you 'only have' 6,000 gold to be split 5 ways? I'm not mean, I'm not asking for all your gold. Only what amounts to 5/6 of your already pilfered loot. That still leaves you with 1k gold. At 4th level. I mean, that's still 200 gold per person.'

So next time you want to go adventuring, just go and turn a couple of tricks out behind the back of the local tavern instead. You may still only make 200 gold after getting screwed twice, but at least nobody died.

Some other items (mostly old) - PHP

OKay so here we go:

below are a ton of non-eldar pics of various mini's. Some Vampire Counts I painted in days long since past, some tyranids i did up for our Dark Heresy game, a Beast Man that i used as a PC for a 4th ed D&D campaign, and an old fire elemental and mummy from Dragon Strike or Hero Quest (can't remember which). Just figured i'd share some of these with you. None are recent, and some (like the wolves, clearly need a good basing). Enjoy!

Fire Dragons

So as some of you may know, my Eldar army does not have much in the way of Elite choices. In fact, I have only one. And those are the lovely fire dragons. In time i would like to add Scorpions or Banshees, but for now it's just the Dragons. Here are a few quick shots of some of them (i have 6). They were the first miniatures i started painting just before we started this blog. All my citadel paints had dried up and i wasn't really sure i wanted to invest in a ton of paints. So i bought a $10 worth of $0.50 craft paints. These are the result. I Love how they turned out . . . but they are not amazing pieces. The paint could stand to be much thinner and the highlighting much more pronounced. However, i have no intentions of redoing them. I'm satisfied, and they have a great table appearance. Even if they didn't even net a 5 on Coolminiornot.