Exponent wargames

A year in review

2011-03-27T15:47:00.001+01:00

Well, its been nearly a year since i last made a post to the blog!
The last year has been so hectic for me that writing the blog was often the last thing on my mind - major projects finishing at work, moving house (and the roof promptly falling in!), illness in the family and all the other little things in life have combined to mean that I often don't have time for much at all.

Anyway, I thought that i would put up a "year in review" post, so that you guys can see what i've been working on since my last update. Bear with me, because there are quite a few models to show - In fact, because of the number of models, I've only included one or two shots of each. If you want to see them in more detail, head over to Heretics Playground where there are more detailed photos of each of them...

Before we dive in to the pictures, I wanted to say a big thanks to all the people who emailed me with encouragement to getting back to the blog, but specifically Mike and John @ Santa Cruz and Mike from TerranScapes - Your words of encouragement were touching and meant a lot; so thanks to all of you :D

Now, models! First up, we have my pride and joy - The Forge World Macharius Vulcan. This model was heavily modified within the spirit of the original. The body is unchanged, but all of the gun barrels were replaced with etched brass barrels, the tow hooks were replaced with cast examples, the tow chain was replaced with jewellers chain and the handles (were appropriate) were replaced with more "in-scale" fine wire. I'm very proud of this model:

Unfortunately the casting was not of the quality that i usually expect from Forge World - the hull was severely twisted, necessitating significant re-shaping using hot water as well as a significant rebuild of the rear end. However, it all worked out in the end!

Next up we have the Tamiya Jagtiger Mid Production with Commander Otto Carius. Over the last year i've been becoming very interested in modelling WW2 tanks and this was the first proper example that i've put together. Whilst the colour scheme is not exactly right for the period I think that it basically captures the correct feel of this large and imposing tank. The tracks are Fruilmodellismo cast examples - they were so good i wont use anything else now. Because they are cast as individual links (which are then joined with wire) they are fully articulated like the real thing - they also have significant weight meaning that they sag like the real tracks as well!

Next up we have several models from Studio McVey - what can i say about these models that i haven't already said - they are the finest resin models anywhere in the world. The casting is amazing, the designs are sublime and Mike and Ali are wonderful people to deal with. If you havent
checked out their models yet, head over to the shop now and buy some! You wont regret it...

Finally we have a small mini from Hasslefree - Once again Kev White's sculpts are very fun to paint and provide a great "wind down" exercise after a longer job. For this model, I painted it after doing the Macharius and boy was it needed! Going from a project that took several months (oil paints take a long time to dry!) I needed something that would be quick and fun to paint - this is the reason i have a big stash of Hasslefree mini's in my cupboard!

I hope you have enjoyed this brief foray in to my work - I cant promise how often I will be back with updates, but Ill try to keep it updated as often as real life lets me. Until then, keep your brushes wet!

Salute 2010

2010-04-25T00:01:00.001+01:00

So, today was Salute 2010 down in the London Docklands. And as always, Chris and I headed down to check out what was on show...

In general, the show seemed a little less hectic than previous years; Obviously i don't know the exact figures, but there seemed to be fewer visitors and stands - possibly because of the Volcano that has been affecting UK airspace in recent weeks? However, it was still a great show, with lots on display and some excellent participation games being played! So without further ado, I'll run you through my "highlights" of the show!

First up we have Studio McVey - This was Mike and Ali's first show, and it was great to finally meet them. On display they had all of the Studio McVey range, as painted by Ali and Mike as well as couple of new models. The quality of this range of models stuns me every-time I see them, seemingly getting better with each new release. If you haven't looked at their models yet, I highly advise you to head over to their website and take a look; There are no finer models out there IMHO. (Tell them Paul sent you ;))

Next up was SmartMax. Unfortunately I only found SmartMax right before leaving the show, cunningly concealed right by the entrance - but once again I was floored by the quality of their models. I didn't spot anything new, but their models are great quality and i would recommend them to all. The had on display their model ranges (painted and unpainted) as well as some very cool 3-up versions of their range - I'd love to paint one of those!

A model range which i hadn't come across before and which was a lovely surprise to discover was Black Scorpion Miniatures. They had miniatures covering an interesting cross section of Pirates / Wild West and Fantasy Football! All the models appear beautifully sculpted in true 28mm and would be useful for both dioramas and gaming. Prices were very reasonable.

Games Workshop was out in force with 2 stands as well as a Forge World stand. Nothing much on display of note in GW's stand (Just the stuff you can get in any store), and Forge World seemed surprisingly lacklustre, having none of the big display cases with Titans that they usually have (infact, oddly i was able to walk straight up and take pictures, rather than having to fight through a scrum!). They did have one case with some Ork heads and a couple of pre-release items, but other than that it was very bare... GW did have a big Space Marine tho ;)

For the rest, a quick round up:

Heresey Miniatures seemed to have finished the Dragon that has long been discussed. Lovely model, didn't see a price anywhere tho...

Hasslefree had their usual great range on display. I highly recommend this range to anyone who like great sculpted models!

So, the rest of the show. Well the painting competition was being judged when i got a chance to see the models, so most of the cases were empty - but one model that did catch my eye as a fan of Manga was this little beauty:

What a genius use of an ork, and very well executed too!

As mentioned, there were also a lot of participation games being run - I've included a selection of photos of the games to give people an idea of the scale and effort put in by the organisers.

In summary, it was another great show, congrats to the South London Wargamers. If you haven't attended a Salute yet, I encourage you to make the effort next year, its a very enjoyable day out

Heretics Playrgound

2010-02-20T04:31:00.001Z

I've just posted a new version of Heretics Playground! Included are pictures of models that I've never posted to this blog. Let me know if anything is broken...

BTW - W00T!, I made the FtW top ten!! Ryans FtW top ten!

Valkyrie

2010-02-15T01:58:00.001Z

Was sorting out the new version of the Heretics playground website and I realised that I had not put my Valkyrie up on the blog. This was my entry for the Dakka-Dakka weathering competition. I came a respectable fourth, which given the other entries I was reasonably satisfied with. In hindsight, I chose totally the wrong subject for a competition based around weathering! Anyway...

This is the stock kit, painted using acrylics, oils and some enamels for the washes. Hope you like it!

The Wolf Lord

2010-02-13T17:13:00.001Z

The moment that i saw this giant lump of resin on the Forgeworld website, I new that I had to paint it! An amazing sculpt (does anyone know who the original artist was? I'd love to get more of their work...) cast as a single piece in the usual grey Forgeworld resin, the piece cleaned up well with few mould lines and then the epic paint job started. In terms of both time scales (it probably took me more than 30 hours to paint!) and difficulty this has been one of the hardest miniatures I've ever painted. At times it felt like I was being punished for some previous wrong (!) but I am very happy with the final results.

I wanted to represent a Space Wolf Lord who had been away in combat for many months, surviving in a hostile environment without access to maintenance for his Terminator armour. He should look battle scarred, weary and yet still ferocious.

The wolf lord was painted with a combinations of acrylics, applied by both airbrush and by brush, and several oil colours. This is the first non armour model that i have used oils on for anything other than weathering. Usually, i use oils for any grime streaks, oil leaks etc, but on this model I used lots of oils for the shadowing work, detailing on the face and the metals - every time I use oils, i realise how much i love to work with them, mainly due to the working time being so long. This lets you correct mistakes in a way that you just cant if you are using acrylics. Anyway, on to the pictures, as always, let me know what you think!

Paints: A review

2010-01-19T01:44:00.001Z

Well, seen as how I'm once again awake with insomnia, I thought i would take the time to do a review of the different brands of paint that I use. Kind of a compare and contrast between the differing brands. Mainly this is aimed at the people who use only GW's paints, which for the most part are not bad, but lack in a few key areas!

I've first of all reviewed each paint by brand, then a bit of a "summing up" at the end, to give you my feelings on them overall. Please note, that i haven't covered every brand that I use in total - some of the more esoteric ranges (Howard Hues, TensoCrom etc.) are very specific to certain jobs and hence would not really be of interest to most modellers. The ones i have covered are the main brands that should be available in most FLGS's.

Games Workshop

Well, these are the paints that I'm sure a lot of people started with! They come in flip top bottles, with each one containing 12ml of paint. They average £2.25 a pot (they can be found cheaper in bulk packages or from your FLGS). The range has been expanded in the last couple of years to include the "Foundation" ranges, which are highly pigmented colours designed for base coats, as well as the "Washes", which are highly thinned paints that replaced the old ink ranges; these are designed for washes over the miniature giving quick shading.

Mostly the standard range of colours are bright and highly pigmented; obviously designed for fantasy subjects!

I should probably get this out of the way the beginning, I hate flip top bottles - they are far too easy to knock over, they tend to dry out and worst of all, i get sloppy when using them and dip the brush straight in to the pot! (This is my number 1 tip for painting - always put your paint on a palette before using it).

With GW's colours (and other brands that use flip top bottles) I tend to decant the paint in to an empty Vallejo style bottle that I get from Sean over at SnM-Stuff. These is some wastage during the transfer process, but i find the dropper bottles much easier to control when painting, and they tend not to dry out anywhere near as quickly as flip top bottles.

In terms of quality, the GW paints are reasonable for the price. The coverage is generally good and they thin well with water. They are obviously readily available from GW stores, although they tend to be more expensive per ml than other brands. The foundation paints are nice to work with and I really recommend the washes to everyone, they made a big difference to the way that i paint.

Vallejo

Vallejo make 2 ranges of paints that I tend to think of (and use) interchangeably - they are the Game Colour (VGC) and the Model Colour (VMC) ranges. They also make the Model Air range designed for airbrushing. I will not be looking at this latter range, although i do have several in the range and they are very useful for airbrushing.

The VGC range is a more brightly coloured set of paints, mainly designed for painting fantasy models. It closely matches the GW series of paints (indeed many of the names are very similar). The VMC range is generally more designed for painting of scale military models (1/35 tanks etc) and hence has more muted colours; However, both ranges are sold in identical bottle sizes and they mix together with no problems at all. The bottles themselves are dropper types meaning you can control exactly the quantities that you want.

Both ranges are sold in 17ml bottles, with an average price of around £1.75 - as you can see, you not only get more, but it is cheaper than GW (5ml more for 50p less!!). They brush paint extremely well and mostly thin very well with water; The one exception is the black which splits horribly with water. For this I tend to dilute with the Vallejo thinner.

Tamiya

Tamiya paints are probably one of the most ubiquitous model paints outside of the fantasy miniature realm. Go to any model tank / plane / train shop and you will see racks of Tamiya paints next to the Humbrol enamels.

The Tamiya series of paints are of a different type of acrylic to both the Vallejo and GW. Whilst the VGC / VMC and GW series of paints can be happily mixed together with no side effects (in fact, the Vallejo and GW paints are almost identical in composition) the Tamiya paints will tend to curdle GW / Vallejo paints if mixed with them - however, they can be mixed with other Tamiya paints.

They need to be thinned with alcohol for painting and whilst they are indeed acrylics, they tend to be very poor for brush painting - they go "sticky" after only a moment or two! (As a side note, this can be used to create great blood effects; mix 1 part X-19 (Smoke) and 2 parts X-27 (Clear Red), leave for two minutes then brush paint for the best blood you will ever see!).

Tamiya paints come in 10ml screw top glass jars, for around £1.50. The jars are an absolute nightmare. Not only are they terrible to pour from due to the thick glass rim they also tend to get jammed immediately after the first use. Decanting immediately to vallejo style bottles is a must in this case!!

All the above makes it sound like i don't really like the Tamiya paints - but nothing could be further from the truth. Where they come in to their own is through an airbrush, where they become wonder paints. The finish is absolutely perfect flat finish, and the tones of the colours are very closely matched to the AFV I tend to use them for.

Privateer Press P3

Privateers P3 range is a fairly new range of paints. They are sold in packaged "faction" sets to match Privateers game ranges. Each pack contains six paints, sold in a pot very similar to the old style GW flip top paints.

The P3 range tend to have paired colours. Usually this will be a "base" colour and a "highlight" colour, so for example, you get Menoth White Base and Menoth White Highlight. In most cases the colours will tend to be very well matched together, although obviously using colour blends between the two will give you the best results. This is a very nice touch in the P3 range.

The colours are also amazingly well designed in terms of their balance. Every time i open a new bottle for the first time I tend to be surprised how well it works on the model - the pigmentation is thick but thins very well with water without separation. This is less surprising when you learn that the range was designed by Mike McVey (who is one of my painting heroes!).

Individual pots cost around £2.20 (for about 15ml) putting them up with GW in terms of cost per ml.

Overall

So, how do these paints compare to each other? Lets deal with Tamiya first - to be honest, unless you are airbrushing the only paints from Tamiya you need are the two for doing blood. In general they are not great for brush painting and they can be frustrating to work with.

With that out of the way, we are left with GW vs Vallejo vs P3 - all of whom sell a creamy workhorse acrylic paint that will mix well with any of the 3 brands.

Vallejo are my work-a-day paints. I have a near complete set and would not be without them. I find that they work out a lot cheaper than GW pot by pot and given how slowly i use most of them, doing internet ordering is not that much of a problem. The bottles are much better, being droppers from the start and the colours are rich and give reasonable coverage, even when thinned. In many ways other than the cost there is little to differentiate the GW and VGC ranges and hence GW loses out. Having said that, the GW washes are not to be missed - they are a very useful addition to any painters tool kit, and can general some very nice effects, especially Devlan Mud and the Black.

And so we come to the P3 paints. These are my current "Go-to" paints. I absolutely love them! In fact, i can see the day where i use them nearly exclusively. They feel like the gold-top of paint; the colour choices are excellent (and blend well together), the nice touch of base/highlight combos and the highly pigmented paint itself all contribute to making these (IMHO) the best miniature paints on the market today. If you haven't tried these yet, I highly recommend you grab a pack (my suggestion would be "Protectorate Colors" for the wonderful Menoth and Sanguine combos).

Hopefully this review will encourage people to step outside of the GW realm and try some other brands of paints - there are some wonderful products out there than can add a real splash of colour to your models!

Problem Child Alice

2010-01-14T22:59:00.001Z

Sorry for the long time since my last blog post. Unfortunately I've been having problems with my blogging client / picasa, meaning that i couldn't upload any images (Sidenote, apparently Picasa cant handle colour profiles being embedded in PNG files, thanks to Ben for letting me know!)...Anyway, on to the mini!

Another classic Kev White sculpt. This one is from Hasslefree Miniatures, who always provide great quality and enjoyable models to paint. If you don't know their work, I highly advise that you check out their website.

Alice was painted using Vallejo acrylics plus some Tamiya colours for the blood effects. I was aiming for a saccharine sweet, almost "candy" look to her, which I think i've achieved (to a greater or lesser extent!)

On an aside, I would be interested to hear comments about the quality of the photography. I've been doing a lot of reading and learning about taking photos, and I think these are some of the best photos of my models that I've taken so far. At some point i plan to go back and reshoot all of my other models, to improve the quality, anyway I hope you enjoy the pictures...

For Sale (Pt 1)

2009-09-13T21:45:00.001+01:00

Hi guys,

So, I've finally reached the point where some of my wargaming stuff has to go. We live in a very small flat, and filling it with lots of wargames terrain (especially when i only play 40K a couple of times a year) is more than my (long suffering) other half can stand any more!

So, Ive got quite a few bits and pieces for sale - Anything that doesnt sell through the blog will end up on eBay eventually, but probably at a slightly higher price. Anyway, prices are listed along with photos for each item. P+P will be at the cost - or if you are in London, UK and want to pick up any of the items, just let me know and I can arrange something. Once you have let me know that you want something I will check with Royal mail how much the exact postage is. I'm happy to ship to Europe or the USA, but postage will obviously be more expensive.

Payment via bank transfer or Paypal, which ever you prefer.

If you want to ask any questions, please leave me a comment or email me at paul [at ] expdigital [dot] co [dot] uk

More items to be listed in the next few days, once I've sorted through and determined what i actually have!

Foam board building 1, painted - £7.50 [UNDER OFFER]

Foam card building 2, painted - £7.50 [UNDER OFFER]

~~Cities of Death building 1, unpainted - £7.50~~ [SOLD]

~~Cities of Death building 2, unpainted - £7.50~~ [SOLD]

High density foam defense perimeter. Consists of 4 straights (1 smashed), 1 center point, 4 angled sections, painted, flocked - £30 (for the set)

Resin barricades / tank traps + 2x razor wire lengths, painted, flocked - £20 for set or £12.50 for half sets [UNDER OFFER]

High density foam rock outcrops + 3 craters, painted, flocked - £10 for the set [UNDER OFFER]

Citadel plastic hill, painted, flocked - £10 [UNDER OFFER]

Or you can have the whole lot (everything listed above) for the grand sum of £60 (a total saving of £40!)

Space Hulk... cometh...

2009-09-04T09:04:00.001+01:00

So, I caved and bought Space Hulk. Even after my complaints about it (in this post). What can I say - I'm weak, and after reading through the stuff GW was putting online each day I decided to take the plunge and place a pre order.

On arriving at work yesterday I found a large box sitting on my desk. Somehow i restrained myself through the day, and then spent a pleasurable evening popping card sections of board out of the packaging!

Some pictures of the "un-boxing" (have i spent too much time on Engadget??!)

So, now that I have Space Hulk, have i changed my opinion about the price and the idea of GW doing a limited edition. Well, yes - GW have done an excellent job with this reissue. The entire package oozes quality from the moment you pop the box lid.

For a start we have the quality of the actual box - its substantial thick card and very heavy. Unlike the older boxes (blood bowl, I'm thinking of you), I have some confidence that this box will withstand being taken to friends houses, on trains and chucked in to cupboards!

Next up we have the models. Im sure by now you have all seen the pictures on the web. Well the models are even nicer in real life. The sculptors really did an excellent job with these models.

Then there is the part that i was the most impressed with - the card components. My experience on GW card components in the past has never been good. I was expecting the card components to be like the old Warhammer card templates, thin card, no thicker than cereal card. But GW have actually done really well on this one using card that is very thick and lustrously glossy for the board pieces. I've included a picture below to show the thickness - That's a 1p piece its sat next to, and I'm sure you can see the thickness of the card!

All the extras are nicely presented and its nice that you get zip lock bags in the box for storing the counters!

The rules are (as far as I can see) the original rules with all of the expansions rolled in. This is good news as it means all the user generated missions available online (of which a lot are available) can still be used! They are presented in two lovely soft booklets (A4 size), one for the main rules and one for the mission book.

I'm not normally one to congratulate GW (indeed sometimes it seems like all I do is complain about GW!), but credit where credit is due, GW have produced an excellent product here, one which I feel is worth every penny of the £60 I spent on it. Every part of the packaging and game appears to have had much love lavished on it, and this comes across. I would even go so far as to say that this is the best "standalone" boxed game that GW has ever done (possible even best presented game all round). So well done to GW. Other manufacturers should take note!

The Raven Priest....

2009-08-24T19:46:00.001+01:00

Hi guys,

New model to show you - The raven priest. This is the first of the new Studio Mcvey range of miniatures, and what a model it is! I haven't enjoyed painting a model this much in quite a while.

My model was number 40 of the limited run of 750, cast in a smooth grey resin. The casting was excellent with no defects and only minimal flash (Forge World could learn a few things here...). The only problem that i found was that the sword was so thin that every-time i used my hairdryer to speed up drying time it would bow slightly and would need reheating and pushing back to being straight! In short, this is the best resin casting I have come across, beating my previous favourite resin caster (SmartMax) by a good margin.

I decided to paint the model in very natural colours, and placed the model in a "woodland" scene. The tree was scratch built to go along with it, with the aim of making the tree look wizened (if its possible for a tree to have human qualities!) . I was aiming to give the character the impression of being some sort of native american shaman (well, a fantasy version of...). And yes, painting all the feather tips was an absolute nightmare!

In summary I would highly advise anyone who loves high quality models to pay a visit to Mike and Ali over at Studio McVey - hopefully there will be many more models of this quality. From what i can see on the site, they still have the Raven priest available, so grab it now before they are all gone.

PS - I have to apologise for the quality of the photo's for this model - I finally got a new camera (Nikon D60) and I'm having real problems getting images with natural colours on them - everything ends up bleached or over "coloured". I'm still learning about the photography side of the hobby, so please bear with me! Hopefully you can still see the model through the awful photos ;)

Space Hulk

2009-08-17T11:39:00.001+01:00

So the mystery box was announced, and as everyone had been predicting, its Space hulk!
I'm in two minds about this release. The new models look nice, but the price is quite high (£60!). Can anyone confirm if the rules have changed or are they exactly the same old rules? Not sure i can be bothered to buy if its just the same old rules (£60 for some terminators and a couple of genestealers???!).
If they are new rules then its a totally different case and i need to get my order in!

Is anyone else getting excited about this? I've not seen a massive buzz about it amongst the bloggers, which is odd, especially given the "limited" nature of it. Also, is there only me that thinks its a little odd to do a release of a big box like this in limited numbers?

GW, a question of value...

2009-08-09T18:57:00.001+01:00

So, I wanted to talk today about Games Workshop. Not focussing on a single product, but on the whole GW ecosystem.

First let me give you a bit of background. I am a long time fan of GW; I've been playing their games since i was 6 years old (some 23 years ago now!). I've played all of their major games systems and owned most of them, as well as building large armies for both 40K and fantasy. I also kept up with all of the smaller systems that they produced (with the notable exception of Dark Future - if anyone has a copy they want to sell me for a reasonable price, please email me). I'm also an ex-staffer of GW, I worked for several years at the Manchester store, then the Warrington store and finally the London Ealing store. I had a lot of fun working at GW, and I've always felt (whether as a customer or an employee) that GW was basically a company that i respected.

Recently though, I've been feeling more and more that I'm no longer the target base for Games workshop, and that the money gouging has got to be too much. I can fully understand why GW has moved over to having plastic armies, in many ways its utterly sensible - no more replication of models, easier to assemble and with the improvements in the plastic moulding process the models have become a lot better than the ones I remember from my youth (anyone else remember the plastic gretchin from the 3rd edition of 40K?). However, in my mind I've always felt that the plastic kits should be a lot cheaper than they actually are. For example the new Cadian squad box has had its price reduced to £11.75, but the number of models in the box has also been reduced, by half - but the price has not been reduced by half (It used to be a box of 20 models). And worse still, to make a full squad with proper weaponry (i.e. without the rubbish grenade launchers!) you still have to go out and buy a special weapons pack at £7.85. So a total cost £19.60 for a single squad. And you need 3 to for a single troop choice.

I also have a bit of a problem with their armour models. For example the new Leman Russ is quite a nice model. But its £30! Now given the cost, I would actually expect that the moulding and construction would be a lot better than what i saw in the store the other day. For example the image to the left - notice that the glacis doesn't fit properly and the two halves of the gun barrel don't join properly. When you compare this to (for example) some of the recent Tamiya models that are roughly the same price, you start to wonder what exactly your £30 is going on. For example, the Tamiya kits generally include etched brass, some include turned brass barrels and many also feature bonus figures or accessories. I understand that there is an issue of scale here (as in I assume Tamiya sell a lot more kits that GW), but even so, I do feel that the value in the Tamiya kits is much higher per £1 spent.

Now don't get me wrong, GW still produce some products that i think are very well priced and worth their cost. Black Library produce some excellent fiction works and Forge World (whilst pricey) sells products that, for me, correspond in quality to the price charged (well, some of the models do. The Titans and a few other things are ridiculous prices!). Some of the paints (washes / foundation) are excellent as well and well worth the money, I just feel that the vast majority of GW's products have lost their value, or rather the price has increased to the point where the cost out weighs the quality.

As a more detailed example, I wanted to talk about the new brushes that GW have started producing. Its been a long time since I purchased GW brushes. I always found that they split, mainly due to the fact that they were synthetics. Over time i found other manufacturers that used Kolinsky sable (such as the Prince August brushes, Windsor and Newton and my favourites em4). However, when I was in the store the other day, the staff told me about their new "hand tied, Kolinksy brushes", which he promised me wouldn't split. I took a look and they looked like reasonable brushes, so I purchased a few to test with. Its a lot easier for me to nip in to GW when i need a new brush rather than the usual internet order, so I really wanted them to be good quality. Again, they are more expensive that the competitors. I got home and started to work on the new McVey miniature. Twenty minutes in, and what do you know, I've got a split brush! Now I'm a painter who takes very good care of my brushes. This brush had had very light usage and already its starting to fray. Given the cost, I would expect better.

Now I'm sure that a lot of people are going to be saying "Well if you don't like the cost, don't buy the products". And I would agree, that's a sensible position to take, and where possible, I try to buy from other companies. But I do fear for the future of GW when it scares away players with 20+ years of gaming experience. Surely we are the lifeblood of the gaming scene? Sure, the hobby needs the younger players coming in, but not at the expense of the old players. I also worry that GW has finally given up any pretence of actually caring about its games, and its all about "the bottom line" these days. It probably sounds very cynical, but I definitely noticed a change at GW when it was floated on the stock market; and that change seems to have continued the drive to the bottom of quality over the years.

Maybe I've just grown out of the GW spoon fed ecosystem and have realised that i can get better quality at a cheaper price elsewhere? Maybe GW has actually changed? I'm really not sure, but i do know that GW will now be getting less of my disposable income, which is a shame as they are a company that i have had a long association with.

As always comments are welcome! I'm really interested to see what other people think on this subject. Am I just becoming a grumpy old man?

PS - Just wanted to add this small point. I think a great example of the GW "rush to the bottom" is White Dwarf magazine. When I started buying White Dwarf (around issue 100) it had a lot of articles about gaming in general, there were small games published (Confrontation anyone?) and was generally an interesting read. Now WD seems to be nothing more than a catalogue that i pay £4 for. I can read it in a single tube journey back from work, and with the exception of Jervis' Standard Bearer article has little of interest. The main focus seems to be selling you more plastics now, and I for one, find this a real shame

Im back!

2009-07-29T23:04:00.001+01:00

Well, its been a tough few weeks. On top of everything else, my wife managed to prang the car (in to a stationary metal gate of all things!) and then i broke my airbrush. In the same day the valve went on my double action brush, i broke the feed on my suction feed single action brush and my compressor packed up! All in all it was a bit of a disaster!

So, I've decided that its time to get a new airbrush. My original airbrush (the one that packed up) was a cheap Chinese clone - it came as a set with a double action, a single action and a compressor in a box for about £50 on eBay. Whilst it was good for learning how to airbrush, I did become annoyed with the amount of time I have spent fixing it since i purchased it a couple of years ago. By the end i would avoid airbrushing things because I would have to spend an hour or so taking the entire thing apart to refit parts that would become stuck or would not clear properly.

Although i've been airbrushing for a few years now, I'm not really "up" on what i should be looking for in an airbrush. I know that I want a double action gravity feed brush, but beyond that I'm at a bit of a loss - so I'm asking about for advice from any experienced airbrushers out there.

I've been looking at the Iwata Hi-Line HP-CH airbrush after seeing it on a modelling video - the MAC valve looks very useful, especially given the amount of Armour that i airbrush. Does anyone have any experience of this brush? The other option that i have looked at is the AB-180 Professional Precision Double Action Airbrush Kit (about half way down the linked page). This looks like a cheaper version of the Iwata brush - its about 1/3 of the cost. But I'm a little worried about buying another cheap "knock" off again! Again, does anyone have experience of this brush?

On to a compressor - here is where i am totally lost! My only real requirements here are that the unit is small and *very* quiet. Given the small space available in the flat and my working hours, I often want to airbrush at night, so a quiet compressor is definitely needed! The two models that i have looked at are the AB-AS176 Finespray Pixie Mini Piston type Compressor and the SilentAire Scorpion IW-C. Both provide about the same pressure levels, although I'm not 100% sure what the CFM scales are about (can anyone advise on this one?). The AB Finespray unit is slightly quieter at 47dB (although they dont specify if this is A weighted), but either should be fine given they are both below 60dB. Can anyone suggest a small, cheap compressor that is quiet that would suit me for occasional armour airbrushing?

It's good to be back. Hopefully i can get some more work done on the Tau base for you guys to see!

An update

2009-07-08T23:16:00.001+01:00

Hi guys,

Just wanted to let everyone know that the blog is still active, but unfortunately recent family events have meant I haven't had any time to write. My wifes mother has Alzheimer's and unfortunately she has take a turn for the worse in the last few weeks.
Please bear with me whilst we deal with these events. Normal service will be resumed soon :)

Tau Hammerhead Step by Step part 6

2009-06-24T21:19:00.001+01:00

So, work begins in this step on the base. In my mind, I imagined the hammerhead emerging from the wreckage of a building that had been destroyed. One thing that i always find with 40K scenes is that there is never enough wreckage! In general WW2 models get it right - lots of rubble and wreckage - for example, just consider how much plascrete and other materials would be in even a simple small building.

Step one was to cut a piece of thick blue foam to the right shape. I wanted the front left to be a shell hole, with the wall / sidewalk and road and a slightly open area towards the back. The highest point was going to be the hammerhead hovering just above the ground. This gives a nice 3 level effect, which, again, is a technique I've learned from the WW2 modellers. The aim is to get three progressive levels of height moving backwards as the eye moves.

Once the blue foam was cut to shape, I then moved on to marking out the back of the building that had been destroyed. This was added with pre printed plasticard. The sidewalk was then added using a piece of scribed plasticard. Dont worry about the fact that there is a gap in the sidewalk, this area is going to be covered in debris!

Next the main wall sides were added. These were made from some off-cuts of plaster that i had left over from when i last tried casting. See here for more on that failure! Once they were stuck in place i stuck on some off-cuts of blue foam to bulk up the areas of rubble.

Finally I started to add the rubble. This is made from again the same plaster as the wall. In this case, I spent an evening in front of the TV breaking up blocks of plaster! Once i had a big box full of broken plaster I started to apply it to the base. Woodland scenics spray PVA was used to fix the plaster in place. I added the plaster in multiple layers spraying the area first, then applying plaster parts, and then spraying again. So far its had about 3 coats, I think it will need five or maybe six.

Check point

2009-06-21T03:06:00.001+01:00

Hi guys,

Just a quick post to let you all know that I've just posted the first photos of armour on Heretics Playground. This one is off a Imperial Guard sentinel patrolling a checkpoint. I wanted to give the impression that this particular sentinel has been in service a long time. First model that i've really been happy with the scratch built components (in this case, the sand bags made with Pro Create and the barbed wire, made using the tutorial on Cool mini or not. The barricade is from a set I picked up at Salute a few years ago. I'm afraid i don't remember who made them tho.The sign is custom built from evergreen rods and a sign printed on my computer. The whole lot was then weathered with oil paints, pastels and acrylics until i was happy.
The sentinel itself was painted using an airbrush and Tamiya colours, then weathered with oils, pastels, powders and acrylics.
Enjoy the pictures - there are more over at Heretics Playground!

Tau Hammerhead Step by Step part 5

2009-06-09T19:50:00.001+01:00

So, lots has been done for this posting, mainly because I got ill this last weekend and couldn't manage anything more than gently painting!

So, finally the oil washes were dry, so I moved on to doing the black lining - each recess line was fine lined using black oil paint. I find that acrylics are terrible for lining; They dry far too quickly and it means that if you make a mistake, you either have to over paint it, or you are stuck with it. With oil paints this isn't a problem, as the working time is so long. My normal working procedure is to very roughly put the black on the lines - being neat, but not worrying if i slip in the odd place. Then using a cotton bud and some clean turpentine i then run along the lines. If you are careful and have only a small amount of turpentine on the the cotton bud, you can generally get the line perfectly crisp - See the photo to the right for an example.

The main problem with Oil paints (and I urge everyone to go out and get some oil paints and have a play, they are truly wonderful materials to work with) is the drying time. Oils need to be left to dry for 48 hours once painted on (unless you use a drying accelerator, although i can't recommend this method, having never tried it).

So, returning to the hammerhead a day and a bit later (yeah okay, I'm impatient!) the next stage was the application of ink washes to the metallic parts. I use Dr. Ph. Martins Inks - I believe they are meant for calligraphy, but i find they work really nicely on models, especially for the effect i was trying to achieve, as they "crack" slightly giving metal a nicely worn appearance, see photo to the left for an example - here the aim was to make the metal look old, worn and pitted - almost as if the top layer of the metal was wearing away. Generally I mix these inks with Kleer to give a very high reflection finish. Sometimes I find i need to add a very small drop of washing up liquid to get a smoother finish.

Another short amount of time for the model to dry again and it was out with the pigments. As people probably know by now, I'm a big fan of Mig pigments, and they were used liberally for this project. First i dusted all the metal areas with a dark rust, and once that was blended in, I then hit them again with a lighter rust colour.

All the metal areas then had a graphite pencil (2B) rubbed along any prominent surfaces to give the impression of the metals wearing through the rust. Finally I gave them a gentle rub with my finger to bring it all together

The underside was treated with four or five shades our earth pigments, to give a dusty feel - this was carried over the edge and slightly up the sides, as well as the tops of the door hatches (because they fold down and would end up in the mud!). I made sure that the "mud" was firmly embedded inside any seams or hatch edges - these exposed openings just live to collect dirt! The flight feet were included in the mud application and then again had graphite added to them.

Lastly for this stage I painted in the rear lights and the front view port. Again this was done using P3 heart fire. They were painted the same way that i paint gems, shading on the bottom right and lit from the top left

So, at this stage I'm gonna put the hammerhead aside and start to work on the scenic base, which is gonna involve me learning how to create a mold and cast it in plaster! But that's a story for another day!

Tau Hammerhead Step by Step part 5

2009-06-02T19:00:00.001+01:00

Small update this time. Once the model had dried thoroughly from the last stage (I always like to give Kleer a long time to dry), I start to apply the "flashes" and colour blocks. Any "light" areas were painted using P3 Menoth White Base in the normal way with a brush. Then i masked off the nose cone and painted the stripes using P3 Heart Fire.

Once these sections were dry, I used a sponge to apply chips in Chardon Granite. There were applied lightly, and once dry, I corrected some parts by using either more granite (where the effect was too light), or the base coat (where the effect was too much). Finally the granite marks were highlighted with white.

For the next stage, I then washed the entire vehicle with various oil colours, but starting from a base of Burnt Umber. These washes were very thin - Basically they were coloured Turpentine. This kind of wash is often called a "Filter" in AFV modelling. The next thing to be applied (once the washes had been left to dry for a couple of hours) was "spotting" - this makes the final surface much less even, and gives nice graduation to the colours (I'm planning on doing a longer post about these techniques in the near future).

All metal parts were then drybrushed with Tin Bitz (or whatever the vallejo equivalent is called), followed by a dry brush with Chainmail. Once those layers were dry, the metal areas then got a dry brush of neat Burnt Umber and Black oil paints, to bring the metallic effect down a bit and to give them a "harder" look. Finally i recoated any areas that wold be solid black on the final model - The intakes for the boosters as the under carriage / landing gear.

The model was then set aside to dry for at least 48 hours before the next stage of weathering could take place

Tau Hammerhead Step by Step part 4

2009-05-31T01:09:00.001+01:00

Lots of progress for this step... First, I fully finished the assembly of the model. The Tau vehicles never seem to go together easily for me, but with a lot of sanding it started to approach an acceptable level. I then mounted each of the separate parts on to styrene rods, for easier handling.

The next stage was to spray all the parts in Citadel black undercoat. I only have one hard and fast rule when painting - White undercoats for soldiers, Black undercoats for tanks! I find that by using black as the undercoat you can get great effects easily when using the airbrush.

I was aiming for a look of a Bull shark with this model , lighter grey underneath, getting darker on the top, and with a black "spike" on the "nose". Unfortunately the photos of this part didn't come out particularly well. In Real Life (tm) the blending is much smoother between the light under belly and the darker top. The darkest section is Tamiya German Grey and the lighter part is Tamiya Neutral Grey. These were airbrushed on in many light coats. Finally the black spikes were added. To finish the airbrushing stage the entire model was given a coat of Johnsons Kleer, to give a nice satin finish for the next stages - the weathering...

An (new) Imperial Guard List (900 Pts) and some questions

2009-05-29T18:30:00.001+01:00

Okay so I finally got the new codex. I have to say I'm really liking it, GW seem to have done a good job on this one. The new layout (whilst a little confusing to start with) is much better when actually building lists, and the new guard seem much easier to manage that the old lists.

Anyway, I've put together this list, and I'd really appreciate it if people could take a look over it and point out any changes that you think would be needed - I mainly play against Chris' Space Marines, so I need something that can take Marines down! At the moment its just the standard HQ + 2 Troops - in the future I plan to add vehicles to it, but for the moment, I want to concentrate on the core of the force. As I've decided to re-do my army list, I figured that now would be a good time to repaint my Guard - A completely fresh start, if you will!

Here is the list:

Company Command Squad (212 points)

Company Commander: Bolt pistol, Power weapon
Veteran: Medi-pack
Veteran: Regimental Standard
Veteran: Vox caster
Veteran: Meltagun
Master Of Ordnance
Officer Of The Fleet
Bodyguard
Bodyguard

2 x Infantry Platoon (343 points each, total of 686 points)

Platoon Command Squad

Platoon Commander: Boltgun
Commissar: Boltgun
Guardsman: Platoon Standard
Guardsman: Vox caster
Guardsman: Medi pack
Guardsman: Meltagun

2 x Infantry Squad

Sergeant: Bolt Pistol
Commissar: Power weapon
Guardsman: Meltagun
8 x Guardsmen: Lasguns

So... what does everyone think? Its a little vanilla at the moment, but like I was saying at the beginning of this, I want to get the core parts right. I've focussed on taking things that either:

Prevent my guardsmen from running away. Basically I've given them all Commissars
Give the units a little bit of an extra kick! I went for Meltaguns in this army. My previous one was heavy on Plasmaguns, but I've got tired of always rolling 1's and losing my guardsman!

I also have a couple of questions about the new codex that I was hoping someone can help me with.
First, in the wargear section for the Infantry Squads it says "Close-combat weapon". Does this mean that all my guardsmen have CCW's? I figured that it only applies to the Sergeant / Commissar, but reading it again, I'm not so sure.
Secondly it often says that the commander "may exchange his laspistol and/or close-combat weapon for:" - where upon it then lists items that i didn't think could be combined (Bolt gun + Power fist??). Am I just reading this wrong? It doesn't seem to say anywhere that they are exclusive - but I'm pretty sure that there is a rule in the main rule book about two handed weapons....

Space Marine game

2009-05-28T20:13:00.001+01:00

Just spotted this over at Game spot - The first non RTS 40K based computer game (well since Space hulk!). Looks quite good, although im a little dubious about how much replay-ability it will have.
So, the only question now is - when does the film of the horus heresy come out?

Tau Hammerhead Step by Step part 3

2009-05-28T00:04:00.001+01:00

Not a vast amount of progress over the last couple of days, unfortunately. If I'm honest, its the part of modelling that I really hate - cleaning up and filling the gaps! I end up getting distracted and painting other models in the meantime!

Anyway, over the last couple of days, i managed to fill and sand the two side pods, quite a bit of the back and the nose. You can see this in the images included. For filling on vehicles i find that green stuff / pro create doesn't do a very good job, it doesn't sand very well. For tanks, i usually use Polyfilla Fine Surface filler, because it sands down well and becomes very smooth when sanded down.

In the image to the left you can see the contrast between the areas that have been filled and sanded - it is circled in red. The unfilled area still has an ugly misalignment, which will eventually be smooth. Just below that is a small area that still has a slight line in it. Although this looks in the photo as if it will cause problems, when the undercoat is on this should disappear.

The final image shows the side pod that in a previous post i pointed out still had scrape marks from the harsh sand paper i had used. In the new photo, it should be obvious that this roughness is now gone. Only about another 10 hours of sanding to go, at this rate!

On the rest of the vehicle I've put together and sanded down the turret and Rail gun, and the "boosters" are now glued together. The fit is really not great on the "boosters", which seems to be the same as every other Tau vehicle I've made. Is there some secret to putting this together that I've missed?

Citadel washes (and how to make your own!)

2009-05-26T20:27:00.001+01:00

So by now, I'm sure that everyone has heard of the Citadel washes. They are similar to inks, except they dry with a very soft satin finish, rather than the annoying gloss finish of the old inks. They only require a small amount of thinning to use in most cases, and they are almost exactly the right consistency for detailed painting. All in all, they are one of the few GW products that are genuinely worth every penny of the cost!

But what do you do in those cases where you want a wash that isn't in the range? Well, here is how to create your own "Citadel washes"! Unfortunately, it does require the purchase of some specialised paint items, specifically:

Liquitex Flow Aid. ~~This is an additive that stops the formation of "tide marks" (well mostly). It also extends the drying time of acrylic paints.~~ Please see later for a correction. I paid about £8 for a 110mL bottle. That will be enough to last me a long time. Make sure you read the safely warnings, and only add a tiny amount. Ill talk more about amounts later
Liquitex Glazing Medium. This, again is another additive for normal acrylic paints. Essentially it is the medium that normal paint is suspended in. In a normal acrylic paint you have glaze medium with particles of paint suspended in it (that's why when you mix water with paint, sometimes it will split - the paint particles become suspended in the water rather than the glazing medium). Please see later for a correction. I paid about £10 for a 230mL bottle. Again enough to last a long time. One thing to remember is that by itself this glaze medium has a very satin finish (its almost gloss).
Vallejo Game Color Glaze Medium 69. This again is another Glazing medium, but with slightly different properties from the Liquitex one. It almost acts as a drying retardant in my experience. Don't add too much! You can pick this up pretty much anywhere for usually a pound or two.
Revell Aqua Color Clear Matt Varnish 361/02. This a bog standard matt varnish. I just happen to like it's consistency. This is the only varnish that i have used in this technique, so i can't vouch for any others...

So here is how the technique works. First, take the colour you would like to turn in to a wash. Remember that the final colour will be slightly darker than the original colour. I also usually find that strong colours work the best for washes (Orange or strong yellows are good, but colours like Bad moon yellow generally don't work as well). After a while of working with this technique you will find that you learn intuitively which colours are going to work and which wont!

Once you have your base colour you can begin to mix your medium. The first thing to do is to decide how much you are going to make, then make a mix in the following proportions:

4 parts Liquitex glazing medium
0.0001 part Liquitex flow aid (basically it should be a tiny spot of flow aid. For me that would mean if I was making 3 drops of glaze I would add one pin heads worth of flow aid. Its not a total disaster if you add too much, but your paint will be wet for a long time - The first time I experimented with it, I added it to black, 50% mix. The black stayed wet on my palette for about 3 days!)
2 parts Vallejo glaze medium. This is purely to tone down the very satin finish of the Liquitex glaze. Experiment, because in certain circumstances this satin finish can look very nice
1 part Varnish. Again, this just adds a toning down to the final result. Be careful adding the varnish. Too much and the glaze will pool in an ugly way. Less is more in this case.

Mix that concoction with your paint. I normally aim for about a 50:50 mix, but depending on what I'm painting that can change. You should be left with a lovely thin mixture that flows in the same way a glaze does. I would always recommend thinning your final mix 75% with water (that is 75% water, 25% paint / glaze mix). It makes it flow nicely from the brush and makes doing blending very easy, as the paint has a nice transparency.

Whilst playing with this technique, remember to experiment with the ratios above. They are not hard and fast rules, but merely a jumping off point. In the same way you learn how much paints need to be thinned intuitively you will soon learn how much glaze / varnish etc. to add for the effect you want. The only thing i would recommend keeping to a minimum is the Flow Aid. Unless you like waiting for your model to dry, that is!

Edit: AoM Posted this in the comments section, and I thought it was important enough that it should be included in the main text. It includes corrections for sections that i got wrong. Many apologies for getting this info incorrect...

"Matte medium is uncolored binder, not glaze medium. while flow aid helps the paint flow smoothly off the brush, the glaze medium is much more useful in avoiding the drying rings with washes.

They each have their uses, and work nicely together, but they are for different things. For regular painting, try a drop of flow aid with your paint, and then thin with glaze medium instead of water. I think you'll like the results."

Cameras

2009-05-25T01:17:00.001+01:00

Hi everyone,

Just wondering if anyone has any experience using either the Olympus E-420 or the Olympus Zuiko Digital 35mm f3.5 Macro Lens?

Basically, I've run in to the limits of my small digital camera (especially on pictures like the Pint Sized Slasher ones - Without a better macro mode, images of models only 1cm tall become very hard!). So I've decided to get myself a new DSLR. I was going to get a Nikon D40x, but unfortunately its now been discontinued. I knew i should have bought it when it was on sale at Jessops!

Given my budget (about £300+/-), I've basically come down to the Olympus model mentioned with the Zuiko macro lens in a few months once I've saved up.

Does anyone have any alternatives they can recommend? What do you guys use? This camera will only really be used for taking pictures of my models, and although I'm not an advanced camera user, I am willing to learn - hence I would like a camera that will not need to be replaced in the near future and which will "grow with me"...

Heretics Playgound

2009-05-23T23:55:00.001+01:00

Hi guys,

Just a quick post to let you all know about my new website...

Heretics playground

This is a website to spotlight my models / armour and terrain. There wont be any discussion, comment or insight in to the models, just photos of each of the models.

At the moment it just has images for the models that ive shown on this blog. The plan (when i eventually get a good camera) is to re-photograph all my models, including several that are not on the blog...

Anyway, hope you all like it, let me know if you run in to any problems

Planetstrike...

2009-05-22T19:51:00.001+01:00

So, i was wondering if anyone else had noticed the new items listed on GW's Advance order page? Specifically the Planet strike sets. The new terrain looks ~~quite nice~~ like cheap rubbish (and, as usual with GW, its massively overpriced!), but i have to say, it reminds me a lot of the Platformer series by Urban Mammoth. Something about the scale seems wrong. Compared to some of the other terrain sets you can get out there on the net, they dont cut it for me. Especially given the price (edit, see below for prices)
Ive never understood why GW dont just do plastic casts of the forge world terrain, its awsome!
Anyway, I grabbed some pictures, here they are:

PS - I just spotted this at B-o-L-s. Guess that means i dont have to spend ages converting a Mighty Empires set then....

EDIT: Figured that i should put some prices up, as listed on the site:

Planet strike: £15
Landing Pad: £23.50
Bastion: £17.60
Chaos Bastion: £27.40
Mines, Bombs £11.75
Aegis Defence Line £11.75

Tau Hammerhead Step by Step part 2

2009-05-21T17:36:00.001+01:00

So continuing the Hammerhead walk-though. Not a vast amount of progress today, but a very important stage - Part one of the cleanup process.

Now that the hammer head had dried over night i visually inspected the body for where mould lines were very visible. Often i find that these only become truly visible once construction has started (as they end up being disconnected in odd ways, making the effect even worse!

In the two photos shown here i have circled the main areas of mould lines that needed to be removed. I never use a knife to remove mould lines on vehicles, the scratching leaves a very telltale mark! So its back to our friendly 800 grade wet'n'dry, and an hour or so of slowly buffing away the lines. I find that it helps to do this whilst watching TV, or chatting to the wife etc! Take your time, moving slowly through the affected areas.

The aim is to achieve a smooth effect, without damaging any major surface detail. I normally dont worry if there are a few lines showing where the sand paper has been (as generally these areas will be re-sanded later, once any gaps have been filled, but I always try to move the paper in the same direction if at all possible.

Here you can see the result across the nose of the Hammer head - notice that the major lines are now gone, and that the sanded section is fairly smooth. On the side "fins" it was much harder to get a smooth finish to the plastic, because of the difficult shape.

However, there is a large gap in this area that will need to be filled in later, so I'm not too worried. (As mentioned this will be filled and then re-sanded).

More progress reports soon. For the moment I'm off to prepare the Bad Bay Hackers for another defeat on the Blood Bowl field!

Tau Hammerhead Step by Step part 1

2009-05-20T20:40:00.000+01:00

So after my last post, i wanted to start a new post with something 40K related - i opened my cupboard and what did i spy - The hammerhead that I've been meaning to paint for a while!

I'm going to present it as a series of linked posts, each detailing a small part of the project. Hopefully that way you guys can give me suggestions along the way, and so that i can have something to write about on the blog!

So today, im covering the basics of construction...

The first thing that i did was to remove all the parts from the sprues and ditched them all in to the box lid. Do not do this unless you have built a tau vehicle before! Its sad that ive made so many devil fish now that i dont need the instructions any more!

Once i had all the pieces i started to clean up the major components. This is quite a long winded process. First each piece has the moulding lugs trimmed down carefully using a sharp craft knife - making sure not to mark or "dig-in" to the plastic. The aim is a smooth finish, but if there are some small marks there, dont worry...

Then 800 - 1600 grade wet'n'dry sand paper is used to smooth off any bumps. When doing the sanding, you will never get all of the injection points completely smooth, usually I find that I get down to a small indentation. These are taken care of later with the help of some model filler.

One of the big problems i have with the Citadel flyers is the pitiful bases they supply them with, especially given the tiny lug they expect to hold the weight of a large plastic model.

For this model i wanted there to be a large stand for them to be mounted on - the final aim for this model is to place it on a small cityscape terrain base, so something solid would be welcome. In the end i decided to use a piece of Evergreen strip styrene. A hole was drilled in the base piece of the Hammerhead and the strip was then glued to the inside of the chassis (is that the right word?)

From the photo, you can see quite how far in to the model the stand extends - hopefully this will give extra sturdiness to the model. I have a feeling that more support may be needed in the future... but for the moment it at least makes it easier to work with!

So at the end of the first day, i have a partially constructed hammerhead. Next stage is the gap filling, which will be tackled on a future date...

On a slight aside, im testing a new blogging client, so if anyone notices anything wrong with this post (beside my usual awful spelling!) please let me know.

Blood bowl team sheet and blood bowl league match reference

2009-05-19T17:23:00.000+01:00

I wanted to post this up for any Mac Blood bowl players out there - Its a template for numbers that allows you to track your team throughout the coarse of a league. It includes graphs showing the number of SPP each player is on and will auto calculate your team value, as well as showing the basic rolls that each player needs.

You can download it here. The download includes usage instructions

Ive also uploaded a match reference sheet. Its an alternative version of the GW one.. It includes all the pre match, post match, improvement rolls etc. Hope you find it useful

You can download it here. Its in PDF format

Blog struggles, amongst other things....

2009-05-19T17:16:00.000+01:00

So i've just read Ron's post over at FtW about writing blogs and i wanted to put up a longer post about my own blog writing problems, and where the future of this site is headed...

When i started my blog, it was during a renewed interest in 40K - Ive been playing since first edition, but i had finally convinced a friend to start playing, so i actually had someone to game against. Full of 40K fervour i figured that i would start a blog to encourage myself (essentially so i could look at it on the dark days when im stuck in a room with only XCode and a cup of fresh coffee to see me through!).

Unfortunately, we dont seem to be able to get many games of 40K in, generally we get to play about 3 or 4 games a year! There is also the small problem that ive realised that i totally hate the whole process of actually building and painting an army.

Let me explain a bit further - Im first and foremost a painter, that is where my true passion for the hobby lies. I think im okay at it too (Im not gonna win golden demon any time soon, but im happy with my abilities on the whole). On the other hand, whilst i enjoy playing the games, ive never been very good at them. My current record is one win at 40K (out of maybe 20 games)! I can accept this fact, and just look at games as being a cool alternative to playing video games with friends - as i see it, its no different than meeting friends for a game of poker.

But this all relies on me having an army! And guess what? We are back to the hating building an army. My problem is that I try to paint all the models in the army to the same standard - my display standard. Eventually (about 1/4 of a squad in) i realise that wont work and skip some steps. Then i get annoyed because the unit doesnt look consistent, so i try to simplify the paint job on the next unit.... Eventually ill have a couple of units, but they dont work together because ive changed the painting style so much. So i'll then scrap those models and start again! Given that im essentially a guard player (with the occassional foray in to Tau) I end having no where near the number of models that I really need to win a game... and the cycle continues...

So my first question for this post is:

Does anyone have any good solutions for this problem?

I read lots of other 40K blogs (especially the FtW group blogs), and im in awe and wonderment at the progress you all make on your armies - You seem dedicated, all your models look consistent and form great looking armies! So how do you all maintain the energy?

Anyway, i digress... I was talking about Rons post on FtW. Ron was commenting on how hard it was to keep the blog going, and this was mainly what i wanted to talk about - essentially the lack of Warhammer / 40K related posts on my blog. Essentially i read other peoples blogs and they are (as i said) full of great posts about army progress, or filled with really interesting tips; Then i come back to my blog to write a new post (for example i was going to post about stripping miniatures, but as soon as i looked on the net i found hundreds of other posts about the same subject) and I lose the will! Often what stops me from posting is that i feel that I have nothing original or interesting to say about the subject. So that leads me to my next question:

How do you guys learn these new and interesting techniques if not from other peoples blogs?

So anyway.. thats my little discussion about writing a blog... Its much harder than it seems; i now understand why so many blogs start up and then dissapear. Even discounting everything i said above, there is still the problem of actually finding the time to write a post!

In the meantime, dont worry, Exponent Wargames isnt going anywhere, but please forgive the lack of 40K content. I promise that ill get something together soon (the new guard codex and plastic valkyre should get me going again ;)).

Artemis

2009-05-19T16:54:00.000+01:00

New model to show y'all - Artemis by Hasslfree miniatures, who rank as one of my favourite miniature vendors! Not much to say about this one, other than she was lovely to paint, Enjoy!

Subject X1

2009-05-12T20:12:00.000+01:00

I came across this bust on the JMD miniatures website. They make some of the nicest models ive come across and the moudling is superb, very little cleaning up required.

He was painted using a combination of vallejo, citadel and newly for me, some Formula P3 paints. These are made by Privateer Press, and i have to say, ive been very impressed with them. Unusually for the fantasy miniature world, they dont just ape the GW colour range, and their whites in particular are very nice to work with. In general the paints are more opaque than the vallejo or citadel ranges (the closest is probably the citadel foundation range). The thin extremely well, even with just water and the whites dont become chalky. I would highly recommend trying them out, especially Menoth white base and highlight and Sanguine base.

With Subject X1 I was trying to achieve the look of something that was, at one stage, human, but the experiments that have been performed on him have changed him inside and out! I also wanted to give the impression that he was a test subject, hence the shaved head and barcode on the back of his neck.

Hope you like him!

Dirt Diver

2009-04-28T20:43:00.000+01:00

Sorry for the long time since my last post. Unfortunately Real Life got in the way (along with the Bang Face Weekender, which was awsome!). I have had time tho to paint up a new mini! This one is a conversion based on a Smart Max model that i picked up at Salute. The original had a cool claw thing, Ive replaced this with a new banner. I also removed the horns and replaced them with sun glasses / dust googles.
I had such fun painting this model, that i thought i would write up a new character sheet to use this character in 40K. So I present you with Master Sergeant “Dirt Diver” Arak! Hope that you like him. (And yes the name does come from "The unit")

And here are the 40K rules for using Dirt Diver

The humble guardsman

2009-03-31T17:41:00.000+01:00

Hi guys,

So it occurred to me that its been a while since i actually wrote anything about 40K! Most of my posts these days seems to cover my miniature painting exploits, so i figured it was about time i got back to the nitty gritty of 40K gaming. Handily, Ron has just sent round an email asking for articles about the Imperial Guard, so i though i would use this as an opportunity to write about gaming with the guard, and my tips and techniques to win with them! So lets get started with a few bullet points about playing with the guard...

Always remember, Imperial guardsmen are the worst trained bunch of cowards in the universe. Their weapons are poor, their marksmanship even worse and they run away at the first sign of danger. So take lots of them! For a unit of 10, you have 66% chance of missing. Once you have hit, the likely hood is that you will fail to wound your target (especially when playing against well armoured troops, such as, well pretty much everything else in 40K!). So rather than firing with one squad at one target, make sure you do your shooting en-masse. Generally i will fire an entire platoon at a single target, and will keep doing that until the enemy breaks or is destroyed. The same applies to combat. Never commit a single squad to combat (well maybe against gretchin, but nothing bigger than that!), as they will get slaughtered. But if you commit an entire platoon, they stand a much better chance, plus it looks ultra cool to have 50+ models charge another unit!
Given point 1, make sure that you always take the heavy and special weapon options for infantry. Especially the special weapons will make an enemy think twice about getting too close. Personally im a big fan of Plasma weapons. They tend to turn expensive enemy units in to molten slag! Especially when you fire six of them at the same target...
Remember the way that real soldiers move - they dont just charge in blind (no matter what you read in a 40K book, thats not the way people normally do things!). Make good use of squads to cover other moving squads. Remember the rules about Rapid fire, and make use of them. In the example diagram below, you can see how as one squad moves the other covers it, then the favour is returned. Leaving your guardsmen sitting in one place is an excellent way to have them killed very swiftly by well placed mortars or other guess range weapons (yes i know there are no more guess range weapons in 5th ed, but i still think of them like that!)

Orgyns are underrated! Nothing else in your army has S6 / W3 / Ld8 (Ld9 if you take a Bone'ead), so make use of them! I usually take 2 squads of five, and use them mounted in Chimeras to harry my opponents shock troops. Generally they dont win, but it holds up the shock / elite troops in my opponents army for long enough either for me to get the big guns trained on them or to move precious troops to another location!
Tanks! Now we come to the meat of any discussion about Imperial Guard, namely the use of tanks. Tanks are every guard players best friend - make sure you take as many as you can. By using them to screen your troops (i.e. have the tanks at the front soaking up fire and move the troops up behind them, effectively blocking line of fire to the troops) you can get much closer to your enemy than you normally would be able. Make sure when moving tanks that you always orient the vehicle so the tougher frontal armour is pointed at an enemy and never, ever expose the rear of the tank to the enemy!
Dont waste valuable points cost on snipers. Generally, unless there is a specific objective that requires snipers they simply end up taking pot shots and not being effective. I usually prefer to spend the points on more standard guardsmen.

Now all of the above may change in the new codex (I've not seen it yet, but i have high hopes given some of the rumours floating around the internet!), but in general the key point to remember is that the humble guardsman when used en-masse will often outmatch opponents much better equipped. Never forget that a guardman is much more expendable than for example a space marine!

I thought i would finish by showing you my current guard army - The 101 Mobile Infantry, 2nd Company (101MI/2c). The army was a test for myself to paint an army quickly and enjoyably, hence the use of dipping as a technique to paint. Hence the models are not up to my usual standard, but it does allow me to have a reasonably large army in a very short period of time (the entire army was about 6 weeks work, painting a couple of hours a week). Hope you like them :)

Pint sized slasher

2009-03-30T23:21:00.000+01:00

Spotted this mini on Wyrd miniatures website and new i had to have it! Sorry the photos are a little grainy, i think i reached the limit of the macro zoom on my cheap compact camera... I really do need to invest in a DSLR!

Salute 2009

2009-03-29T10:04:00.000+01:00

So, yesterday was Salute 2009, down at the ExCel center in London. Here is my "after the fact" photo blog (and apologies in advance for some slightly blurry photos!):

The atmosphere as always was great fun - this years theme was "Zulu"...

GW was out in force this year, with a large black library section as well as previews of the new guard models - the bottom photo is the sprue from the new Valkyre plastic kit...

Forge world also had a large and busy stand, with new resin models - chaos themed mostly, including a new brass scorpion, chaos lord and plague demon...

Offensive miniatures had some interesting new modern riot police as well as WW2 figures

Dark realm miniatures were showing their 6mm models - they look like excellent and very reasonably priced models (definately usable as cheaper replacements for Epic 40K). Sorry about the really bad photos here - the display cases and white base made it incredibly hard to get good images....

A new company that has been started up recently is Smart Max - they do some excellent Steam punk models, which although a little pricey have some of the most dynamic poses and excellent casting ive seen...

Perry miniatures had their usual collection of exquisitly sculpted napolionics

Several demo games were in operation as usual. The most impresssive (to my eyes at least) was the "Storming Of the Reichstag" display...

Other interesting games on display were an unnamed ice field WW2 battle, and an unnamed medieval battle

Finally in the demo games there was "Assault on Innsmouth" - which had some impressive lighting effects

The painting contest had some excellent entries as usual, If any of the artists recognise their work, please let me know and i will add a credit (no credits were placed with the models in the cabinets, so i have no idea who they were painted by).

So all in all it was another great event put on by the South London Warlords. If you havent been to Salute before i really recommend checking it out next year...

Necron Lord

2009-03-25T23:56:00.000Z

New mini to show you - its a necron lord. I was inspired after reading one the ciaphas cain books (check black library for more info). Painted using the usual Vallejo / Tamiya and Citadel paints.

Una Fire Toad

2009-03-14T03:36:00.000Z

Quick post to show you my newest model - A Una Fire Toad from the game AT-43. The models come assembled and pre-painted, which made cleaning up the mould lines and painting certain areas very tricky. Fun model to paint none the less!

Emperors Champion

2009-03-10T20:50:00.000Z

New model, painted to get me through whilst I wait for Salute to roll around. Mainly i painted this miniature to try out the chipping technique described in the Cool mini or not techniques PDF. TBH im not 100% convinced. It just doesnt look right. Maybe my colour choices were wrong?

Adobe Kuler

2009-03-08T21:53:00.000Z

I wanted to draw peoples attention to a free web based app by adobe. Its called Kuler. It allows you to enter colours and it will then generate a swatch for you based on this colour.
You can choose to use different colour matching schemes (analogous / complementary etc). There are also community themes that you can access. Saving your scheme requires you to register, but ive found that "print screen" works just as well!

The starting colour can come straight from an image, so i've taken to use web based vallejo colour lists as the basic image. I choose the colour i would like to use and then find it on the colour swatch - if you use google image you can generally find most brands of paint.

For those of us who are "colour-challenged" its a real boon! Suddenly my colour schemes work!

Riveting stuff

2009-02-26T20:17:00.000Z

So i thought i would write a tutorial about how i do my rivets. A few people have asked me about them recently, so i figured other people might be interested. This technique was originally presented in the Forge World Model Masterclass book (a book a definately recommend). The text and images are my own though.

Let start with the tools - this technique needs a very specific set of tools

As well as the usual super glue, pencil, ruler and the plasticard that you want to rivet you will need a pin vice with a very thin drill bit (the one i used here was 0.5mm) as well as some very fine tweezers.

On the right of the picture above you will notice a container. This holds the contents of a Brita Classic Water Filter Cartridge. Water filters are essentially made up of small plastic balls and small shards of charcoal. Simply get hold of a water filter and carefully cut the top off it (I used a small razor saw). Empty the contents in to a suitable container and you have a supply of rivets that should last a long time!

Here is a closer photo of the plastic balls that are inside the filter. It is these that we are interested in

Once you have collected your tools and have a suitable piece of plasticard to work with we can begin the rivetting work. First stage is to mark out the location of the rivets on the body work. Care must be taken at this stage as poorly aligned rivets looks both awful and unrealistic.
I find that for 28mm or 1/35 scale a spacing of about 5mm looks good. But you may find that others work for you.

After the positions have been marked out you can begin the drilling. The aim here is to make a small indentation where you want the rivet to be. You definately dont want to drill right through the plasticard! (Note in the picture below i would normally have a ruler placed so all the rivets are aligned, but i ran out of hands to hold it with! hence the wobbly rivet line!)

Once the holes are dilled, take the drill bit out of your pin vice and replace it with a short piece of fine wire. I use florist wire for this work. Put a blob of super glue on to a scrap piece of plasticard. Then dip the wire in to the glue and quickly transfer some glue to one of the holes you drilled.

Once the glue is in place grab your tweezers and pick up a plastic bead from the water filter. Place this in the super glue (the capillary action will draw the bead in) and then quickly wipe down your tweezers. If you dont wipe down your tweezers very quickly they will become a gluey mess! Here is what you will have at the end of this stage

Now simply repeat the whole process for all the holes that were drilled. Generally i try to work on groups of rivets in 10's, so gluing 10 in one go. Once you have got the hang of the basic process you can quickly speed up. I would also recommend choosing a whole load of size matched plastic beads before you start - the beads are many different sizes and some will fit the scale of your model better than others.

Here is a door i am working on at the moment for a diorama that shows lots of rivets in place pre painting

And here are some rivets in place and painted (in case anyone is wondering... its the inside to a chimera for a diorama based on krieg that i am doing. All parts were scratch build)

New Blogspot "Follower" box

2009-02-26T09:17:00.000Z

Just noticed that Blogspot has updated the "Follower" box - am i the only one that thinks that the new design is horrible... Fonts that dont match, horrible big images and an advert for google at the bottom :(

Oh well, i guess i'd better put some time aside to adjust it as best that I can...

Black Rose

2009-02-25T23:06:00.000Z

Not much to say about this one. The model is "Black Rose" by Freebooter miniatures. I always expect to enjoy painting FB mini's more than i actually do, Rose especially had a face that was a nightmare to paint...

Video tutorial reviews (Warning! Long post!)

2009-02-22T18:39:00.000Z

Recently ive been buying a lot of video tutorials about modelling. I've always found paper tutorials to be okay, but they lack the ability to actually see things like the thickness of the paint, the direction of brush strokes etc.
This is a collected review of several different ranges of tutorials. I will review each as a set (by company rather than by subject) and at the end i will compare and contrast the different companies style and give an overall recommendation.

The companies whose videos im reviewing are:

Miniature Mentor
Night vision creations
Steel Dog
Compendium Films

I should say right from the start that each of these companies covers the subject of modelling in different ways. MM and Steel Dog are mainly looking at the "Fantasy" end of the subject, with NVC and Compendium mainly focussing on "Real" subjects (such as tanks and the like). Obviously this changes the way the subject is dealt with. However, i still think that the different products can be compared, we just have to take in to account these differences at the start.

Miniature Mentor
Miniature Mentor (MM) produce a series of downloadable video tutorials (some are also available on DVD). The download tutorials are supplied as zipped files accessed via a link sent to you in your purchase reciept. The videos themselves are in .H264 format and the quality is excellent.

They range in price from about $15 - $25 as well as offering a subscription service where you can access all of their films at any time. The subscription is priced at $70 which to me seems a little bit high. I've purchased almost all of their films to date and i have yet to spend near $70 in one year - Im not sure who the subscription is aimed at; however it may prove to have more value depending on the speed at which they can produce future videos.

In general MM tends to focus on the new wave "French" style of miniature painting - ultra smooth blending with acrylics. Many clean lines and with an attention to colour matching and theory. This is a style of which i am a particular fan (for an example, just check out "Ravage" magazine at your local hobby store).

Each tutorial starts with a very nice "Interview" with the artist featured. Generally the artists are well known in fantasy modelling circles and are often multiple award winners.

The tutorial proper follows the interview and it is here that the "meat" of the actual tutorial is presented. The camera remains focussed upon the model for almost the entire tutorial, except for cutaways to show the consistency or colour of the paint on the palette or to show cut aways with explanation of some part of the technique that they are currently showing.

The MM style is very much to be considered in with "proper" art - they focus a lot on why colours are chosen, where to place the colours and how to move the brush itself.

This "low level" tutorial style is very useful, if you are unused to mixing colours, or making decisions about which part of the model to paint and in which order. However for the slightly more experienced painter, it can often be a bit too much detail. MM tends to do continuous shots with audio of the presenter and the painter talking about the technique over the top. Whilst the actual conversation is interesting, because of the detail being show it often ends up that what you are actually watching is literally paint drying! The presenter often seems to run out of things to say; and rather than use (for example) background music he resorts to silly platitudes ('Nice job', 'great work' etc).

I also found it rather annoying that they dont show the final model at the end of the video - its quite unnerving to always see a model at such an extreme close up, so it becomes hard to see how the parts fit together in the final model.

This is not to say that MM's tutorials are bad! Far from it, they are excellently produced (the photography is clear, the cutaways are useful and the techniques are solid) and have contributed a lot to my knowledge of the subject. In some ways tho, i would like to see them produce slightly shorter films, with more of the "Paint drying" being removed, if only to speed up the process.
Overal they built to be a nice collection of tutorials and with a few small changes could be an excellent series for anyone interested in fantasy modelling

Steel dog
Steel dog produce a series of downloadable and DVD tutorials. The download comes via an email link as a .divx file. I have to say that this was my first annoyance with Steel dog - Divx is not a particularily useful file format for me - although it will play in VLC, i prefer to have all my modelling videos in iTunes, so i ended up converting them to m4v file format to watch inside iTunes. Each video costs $20.

The Steel dog videos concentrate on slightly different areas of modelling to the others, mainly covering some more esoteric areas, such as how to produce bases, non metallic metals etc. Again this is firmly in the realms of Fantasy work, although most of the techniques would be suitable for AFV modelling too.

The videos themselves are fairly low quality (from the point of view of the actual pictures). Close focus on the parts tends to be blurry and generally the camera is focussed on the presenter, sometimes making it hard to properly see what he is doing on the work bench.

However, the topics covered and wonderfully inspiring! After watching each video i have been left with a sense of "I can do that", even for things that ive always been scared of (scuplting!). The presenter has a slightly infection enthusiasm for the subject and seems to truly love what he is doing. Whilst the techniques covered are much more suited to "gaming" models rather than proper display models, with refinement they work beautifully for static models.

In all? Well i felt that Steel dogs videos were let down by the camera. Without the close focus many of the techniques are lost. They are inspiring though, so they may well be worth the investment.

Night vision creations
Night vision creations (NVC) currently produce 2 DVDs, both under the "F.A.Q" title. The first deals with the application of pigments and the second with "Modulation style" of airbrush painting. The focus here is solely on ultra realistic AFV models (generally WW2 German Tigers). The DVD's cost about £10 in the UK (I got mine from ModelZone in Holborn).

Produced and written by Mig Jimenez (google his work if you dont know Mig Jimenez....) the F.A.Q series are superb. From the packaging, which includes an inlay book detailing each technique and the products, to the DVD itself everything oozes quality.

The camera work is steady and ultra clear. Each step is covered in enough detail to be understandable, but without boring the viewer. The narrator speaks only when necessary (and obviously from a well prepared script) and the background music is awsome!

The techniques presented in these videos gives amazing results, but having tried a few of them, they are incredibly easy to actually pull off to a reasonable level. One thing about the F.A.Q videos is that they do rely on the purchase of quite a few supplies (pigments and oil paints being the key). However, i really feel that the investment is worth it, for the results that it generates.

Compendium Films
Compendium files produce a series named "Expert model craft". Like NVC they focus on the "Realistic" end of the spectrum. Each DVD is nicely packaged and aswell as the main feature they also include several bonus chapters, such as a profile of the narrator, a selection of images of their models as well as a list of the sources and references used in the production. Each DVD is priced at around £15

The DVD's each focus on a small area of model work, generally following an artist as they build a complete kit. One artist of special interest was Macus Nichols (the editor of Tamiya Internation Model Magazine), because of his special focus on building to deadlines. His tutorials tend to focus on getting great results quickly, and being an impatient modeller this definately appealed to me.

Generally these films remind me very much of old modelling shows i remember watching as a child on BBC2! In the main the presenters are slightly older and they have a considered, patient approach to model making. Personally i like this style. Its relaxed, yet exacting.

Overall
If you are solely a fantasy modeller, or you never go near tanks i would definately recommend Miniature mentors videos to you. They cover the techniques needed for single model painting is great detail and you will be able to learn a lot.
Anybody interested in AFV modelling solely, i would point to the F.A.Q series. Overall the F.A.Q series was the best presented, planned and executed set of the DVD's.
If you work in both fantasy and AFV arenas i would combine the Miniature mentor and F.A.Q series. Together they give a great combination.

The steel dog films are hard to judge. The quality is a let down, but the material itself is great. My recommendation if you are just putting models together for the battlefield, rather than for contests is to take a look. Lots of the techniques are fast and very suitable for army building

The compendium films DVDs were in many ways my favourite - the slowness of the presentation, combined with the accuracy of the result really appealed and they are slowly building up a nice collection of subjects.

So, which of the companies films would i recommend? This is a tricky one, because each covers so much of the modelling field, what i really want to say is that you should purchase all of them! If thats not possible, i suggest that you watch the clips provided by each manufacturer on their websites and try to judge which matches your needs closest.

The good and the bad....

2009-02-16T12:33:00.000Z

I wanted to do a post about two shops that ive recently had contact with. One to give you a warning to stay away from, the other to recommend with the highest respect!

So first, lets deal with the bad. I placed an order several months ago with Arcane miniatures for a big collection of miniatures. First thing that i noticed was the slightly odd ordering system. Rather than having an online "shopping cart" you had to email them with a list of what you wanted and then pay via paypal. Anyway, i sent my email off to them and within about 6 hours i had a response with details about what was in stock and how to pay. I duly paid through paypal and then waited. And waited. And waited.
When the miniatures hadnt turned up after several weeks, i thought that i would send an email to Russ at arcane miniatures to find out what had happened to my models and recieved no response. After several more emails (and a bit more waiting), i phoned arcane and was met by an answer phone. In total i sent about 8 or 9 emails and phoned half a dozen times. All emails and calls went unanswered.
In the end i had to resort to a claim through paypal. Even with this, Arcane didnt get back in contact. In the end (today) Paypal refunded my money because they could not contact Arcane to deal with the dispute.
So my recommendation is to stay well clear of Arcane miniatures. I dont want to say that they are rip off merchants (Indeed, i dont know if this is the case), but there is definately something odd going on. Im just glad i paid through paypal, rather than by cheque, because at least i got my money back.
If anyone else has had dealings with Arcane, id be interested to hear your comments / experiences.

Now the good. I cant recommend Antenociti's Workshop highly enough. Great selection of products, high quality casting on their models and very helpful staff. I've met them a few times at Salute now and they are always helpful and knowledgable about the products that they sell. An order placed late on a monday night was with me by the end of the same week. Make sure you check them out.

First experiments with casting...Part 2

2009-02-14T11:42:00.000Z

So its now the morning, and the plaster appears to have set, so i set about popping the plaster from its mould... And hit on the first problem! It would seem that both of the mixes that i used were slightly the wrong consistency.

The thicker consistency plaster doesnt look like it set properly, whilst the thinner plaster had an odd "oily" texture to it (it felt wet, but in a very odd way - the same way that olive oil feels!). Here is a picture of the two plasters still in the mould

You can clearly see how the thicker plaster has become lumpy. The thinner mix looked a lot better, just some small amounts of shrinkage around the edges.

I flexed the mould slightly to release the plaster and immediately found a problem with the thinner plaster - it cracked!

After popping out the thinner plaster, i then moved on to the thicker mixed wall - and again it cracked. I was left with two broken walls!

After cleaning up the thicker wall (the thinner one didnt seem to need it), I was left with the four major sections. As a first go at casting, they are not too bad. I dont think they are good enough for the main walls for the diorama tho, Im not sure that they have the structural integrity that i need, but not to worry they will be recycled for use as small parts of masonry or possibly part of the upper level!
So now i'm back off in to the kitchen to mix up some more plaster and retry my moulds... More updates to follow

First experiments with casting...Part 1

2009-02-14T02:12:00.000Z

For a diorama that im working on at the moment i needed a corner of a building. Normally i would have made this from foam board and plasticard, but because i wanted to do some specific damage results the foam card would be no good.

So i decided to have a go at casting some "walls" using normal plaster of paris. The idea that i came up with is to use the plaster sections as the basis for the wall and then build on top of them using my normal plasticard.

I've cast small things before, but nothing that required me to build my own mould nor that require perfectly flat edges, so i decided that it would be worth documenting the process from mould to final "wall"

The first thing that i did was to cut two squares in to a piece of PVC foam (if you havent seen PVC foam, its the same as Foam board but the card is replaced with plasticard). I then cut around the gaps in the PVC foam, and glued this new square to an even bigger square! Easier shown than described, especially at 2am! - Here a picture of what the final mould was:

Next i mixed up my plaster. I actually ended up doing this in two batches, as i wasnt sure what consistency to make the plaster.

The first batch that i mixed up was thick -about the consistency of yoghurt. It didnt flow well in to the corners and felt sort of 'lumpy' going in.

The second mix that i did was much runnier - about the consistency of thick milk. This flowed a lot better in to the gaps, although i did find that at lot of water ran to the top very quickly...

In the picture above, the top most mould has the thicker plaster, the one at the bottom has the thinner...

After about ten minutes, i scraped the top of each mould using a piece of thick plasticard. I then wiped down the edges and set the plaster aside to dry. So now the mould are sitting in the corner of the room drying. Ill post another update in the morning to let you all see how they turn out!

Real life rhino...

2009-02-12T11:16:00.000Z

Not gonna say much about this... I'm sure you all know about THQ's real life rhino... So, just enjoy the video

FtW Dice

2009-02-03T19:34:00.000Z

So my dice turned up from Ron! They look really great, are nicely weighted and hopefully will bring me some much needed luck!
Big thanks to Ron for organising these!

Blood Bowl Pitch Tutorial

2009-02-01T01:40:00.001Z

I'm a big fan of Blood Bowl. I really do consider it to be one of GW's finest moments - Games are fast and furious and always fun. One thing ive always been dissappointed about tho, is playing on the Cardboard pitch - It always felt lacking to me. So i finally decided to bite the bullet and build myself a pitch!

The first step was planning. In reality i've spent over a year now considering various ways to put together a pitch. The key problems are marking the squares, so that the grid is the same size as the standard pitch. Many options were considered, including marking out spaces with map pins, using tile spacers in each corner, as well as more esoteric options, such as using square monster bases!

The first practical stage was to gather together all of the materials required. Last thing i wanted was to run out of the necessary parts half way through! You can see all the flocks / static grasses and glues that i used in the photo below:

I used two types of glue. The first is normal PVA glue. Generally this was watered to about 75% water to give a very thin consistency similar to skimmed milk. The second glue is Woodland Scenics scenic cement. This is a very thin, ultra tacky glue which can be sprayed from a spray gun, or used on a brush. I'm a very big fan of this glue - although normally used for model railways, the sticking power for use with scenic materials is immense. You use it in two passes. The first sticks the scatter material down. The second is applied after the first is dry and is simply to seal the flock or scatter material in place. Because the glue dries absolutely clear and matt you get a good hard finish, but without any adverse changes to the flock colouring...

For application of the scatter materials I used a Noch grass applicator and a spray gun, again from Woodland Scenics. For areas where i wanted extreme control i would load up the end of the steel ruler in the picture and gently tap over the area to be covered.

The other important thing to mention was the material i used for the base itself - this was Dow Corning Blue Board ("Blue foam"). The board is approx 0.75" thick. I bought a big sheet of the stuff (2' x 4') and then cut down the board to a suitable size (obviously having measured the squares on the main blood bowl pitch)

Sooo... Firing up the airbrush i dived in. The first job was to airbrush the entire board in GW Goblin Green, leaving patches clear where mud would be. These remaining areas then recieved a coat of Vallejo "Earth" again via the airbrush to give basic deliniation to the dirt / grass areas.

You can probably see in the above images that the airbrush coat doesnt completely cover the blue foam underneath, but tbh its really not that important. The green is just there so that any areas that start to shed scatter materials after some time wont show through as stark blue.

Once the basic areas were mapped out, i then masked off the pitch area (it doesnt show on the photos, but this area was actually marked on the board in light pencil), and applied spray glue to the dirt areas. Dont worry about being too neat for this, grass / mud is not regular in nature, so hard edges are very rare. Try to feather the glue spray across the boundries.

Once you have applied your "dirt" scatter material to the glue (I used GW sand as a base) allow it to dry fully. Once it has dried apply another coat of the Scatter Cement and now leave it over night. Although doing it this way does take time (about 2 weeks in my case) you will end up with a very strong board surface to play along.

I continued applying scatter materials in this way, working from the darkest grasses up to the lightest, making sure that I feathered the edges of the areas the scatter covered. Finally the scattering is done:

After having applied all of the scatter material, and letting it dry thoroughly, I masked the main pitch off and applied a uniform flock to outer area to delimit the pitch from the "table". Once that was dry,
i then went back with my initial sand and dirt materials and applied an extra coat in the end zones and along the edges, where most of the combat usually happens. This gives those areas a more recently churned up feeling

The next stage is to begin to mark the pitch out. To achieve this i took a packet of small panel pins and working from one corner moved around the outside of the pitch pushing a pin in to the foam at each junction. I ended up with a pitch surrounded by panel pins at regular 30 mm spacings

I then took some thin cotton thread and passed it between alternate pins giving a grid. This was the worst part of the whole project in all honesty - It relies on you keeping tension in the string at all times the moment you release the tension the whole lot collapses and you have to unthread a big chunk and redo it....

Once the grid was marked i grabbed a new sharp flat brush and using thinned Vallejo white paint began to mark the intersections of the squares, the end zones and wide zones. This was slow work. I tended to work on blocks of four squares at a time, complete them and then move on. I found the best technique to use it to dab the paint on. If you pull the brush around the paint smears and lifts the flock from under it...

Once the markings were finished, I removed the cotton, leaving a (hopefully) perfectly marked grid...

The pitch was then given a very heavy coat of the scenic cement to seal it in place. Heavy = about half a bottle sprayed on! I left this for about 48 to dry completely.

In the mean time, i moved on to the score board. The score board was built from some scrap balsa wood i had lying around and an old fridge magnet. The first stage was to cut a main piece of balsa wood and sand the edges off to be rounded:

I then cut two strips of the same balsa wood and filed them so that they curved in opposite directions. These were glued to the score board to provide the legs and two small balsa triangles were glued to the front of the legs for stability. This whole assembly was then glued to a spare strip of foam board to provide a base

Whilst the glue on that was drying i cut out 12 squares from a thin piece of balsa. The whole lot, plus the score board were then undercoated with Vallejo "Earth" and dry brushed with Vallejo "Kahki". The base was painted in Goblin Green and then flocked with the same flock as was used on the board surround. Notice in the later photos that i also did the edges of the foam board aswell to make sure that they blended in with the pitch.

Finally i painted white lettering on to the score board and numbers on to the "score cards"

Next i took the fridge magnets and cut 12 squares from it, just smaller than the "score cards". Each score card then had a magnet stuck to its back. Similarly i cut two slightly larger pieces that were stuck to the score board. The later were painted with Vallejo Earth and had "0" painted on them (so when there is no score you dont put a score card on). To change the score you simply take the old one off and put a new one on. The magents grip each other just enough to hold the score card in place, but not enough to make it hard to remove. Here is the finished Score board:

All in all i think the project went really well - the board looks great, it has room for placing dugouts (of which more in a later post) and a magnetic scoreboard!
Here are some pictures of my undead team taking to the field. Hope you enjoyed this tutorial... Comments and questions welcome as always

Painting Vs. Army Building

2009-01-20T18:45:00.000Z

So in my last post, i talked quickly about the difference between 'Painting' and 'Army Building' - i wanted to expand a little on what i was saying in that post.

For me, the hobby started (oh some 20+ years ago now!!) when i saw a copy of White Dwarf for the first time - I was fascinated by the Goblins they had in the issue (as part of 'Eavy Metal). Over time i learned about the games and started to play some of them (well, truth be told, as many of them as i could lay my grubby mits on!).

However, in all that time, i never properly 'built' an army! I had large number of models (11,000 Pts of Warhammer undead at one stage, sadly lost in a house move), but they never gelled in the way the armies did in the pages of White Dwarf. Basically i was running in to several problems:

Because I'm mainly a painter (i only get to play a few times a year, due to work and other commitments, and painting is what always fascinated me about the hobby) I always try to finish models to a display standard. I either get disappointed when i realise that i cant keep that level of detail up for the whole army or i let the standard slip.
I always find that i end up either over complicating the paint scheme, or becoming distracted by another colour scheme for the army, leaving it looking like a rag tag group, rather than a co-ordinated whole.
I find that i become bored in the middle of units, and so nothing ever gets finished properly (Usually i get to move on to something new fairly quickly when painting single minis, whereas units tend to take me much longer)

Recently tho, I started to realise that building an army is not about each miniature, the skill is in producing a reasonably painted, but unified looking group - the quality in the army comes from just this unification, even though each model is not the best paint job possible. "The whole is greater than the sum of its part", some might say.

So thats what i set out to do with my tau. The first thing i did was to spend some time looking at as many colour schemes as i could on the internet; I took an image of a tau from the GW website, loaded it in to photoshop and tried to airbrush new colours in to the image, to give myself an idea of what it would look like etc.

Once a new colour scheme had been established, i tried to figure out the quickest way of applying it - obviously the simplest paint job would be the quickest, and the simplest paint job is just basic flat colours. By avoiding high lights and shadowing (as well as all the intermediate washes, glazes etc) I instantly found that I had massively reduced the painting time per model, but that the units looked nearly as good as if i had done all the extra work

The other thing that i did when building my tau was to put away my paint set! I have a rather silly paint collection (i hate not having the colour i need when i need it!), and because it sits just by my right hand, its easy to think "I'll just grab a new colour" - by physically removing the paint set and just having the 4 colours i was using, i managed to reduce my "paint lust" to a minimal level.

So now i seem to have found a way to build an army that gives good results! The only thing i have found now is that i get "army fatigue" - basically i get really tired of painting the same thing and start to lose interest in painting. At this point I grab a cool single miniature (or five) and get painting on that, putting in as much detail as i can, experimenting with paint combinations etc.

What is everyone elses experience? And what tricks do you use to keep your army on the straight and narrow?

Tolk'fre Tau

2009-01-17T12:17:00.000Z

It occurred to me this morning whilst doing some hoovering (gets you good brownie points with the wife!) that i hadnt actually put up any pictures of my Tau army. So here we go - the entire army in one post!

The original idea behind my Tau was to put together a 1000 point army as quickly and simply as possible. With previous armies i had always fallen in to the trap of trying to paint every model up to a display standard - this just doesnt work, mainly because its not unknown for me to spend upwards of 15 hours on a single model! Multiply that up and it means that you never finish a squad!
So for Tau, i chose a very simple paint scheme - Each model was undercoated with Citadel White Primer, then airbrushed with white Vallejo acrylic for a flat base coat. Each model then had certain key areas blocked in with Vallejo Cold Grey and finally the piping and edges were given a thinned coat of Stonewall grey. Tints were blocked in with Vallejo Scab Red. Each unit took about 6 hours of work, including sticking together and basing.

Now that the army is painted, and i've had some time to let it grow on me, i think the paint scheme looks good - although individual models are not even close to even my worst single miniatures, as a whole the army looks good. At some point in the future i'm gonna do a longer post on this subject (Painting vs. Army Building), but for the moment, enjoy the pictures..

Elites

Troops 1

Troops 2

Heavy

Krieg trench

2009-01-16T17:26:00.000Z

For a while ive had some of the wonderful Forge World Krieg models hanging around. I didnt want to waste them on a single unit for my guard army - they are such nice models they deserve something special!
Eventually i decided to put them together in a small diorama in a trench. Before i commit to the larger trench network however, i wanted to paint a single model up to see what the pit falls are, what works well and most importantly, what colours to use!
So here is my Krieg guardsman in his trench. Its heavily influenced by WW1 models by Richard Windrow (especially those in the book Advanced Terrain Modelling). Its also the first time i've used model snow - I think the effect looks good in "real life" (tm), but on camera it looks like dessicated coconut (or so my wife just told me!)
Comments as always welcome on painting and photography.

War Builder

2009-01-12T19:48:00.001Z

So after my bemoaning the fact that GW doesnt make software for Mac for building armies (in this post) I felt that i should "put my money where my mouth is".

As some of you may know, by day i am a software engineer (I write music software), so i figured that i could write this as a little side project. And thus "War Builder" was born! At the moment its not quite ready to go (I'm still fighting a few small issues), but its all basically there.

War Builder lets you build 40K army lists, in a classic Mac OS style (i.e single window, lots of drag and drop etc). Its written in pure objective-c / cocoa, so unfortunately it will only work on OSX, but im sure there are lots of OSX users out there who would be interested in this application.

I intend to release War Builder (once finished) for free on this blog.

But at the moment one of my big problems is my lack of design skills! So im asking for help from the OSX wargaming / design community. What i need is a talented individual to draw me some icons for War Builder! There are a couple of limitations to this - I need the icons to be in the same style as other OS X applications (ie ultra glossy, hi definition etc) and they have to use no IP of Games Workshop (so no using the GW logos for Troops / HQ / Elites etc...). Once someone has stepped forward, i can give them a full list of all the icons needed. For a few examples of the types of icons that i would like, take a look at any of the Apple 'iApp' icons (such as iCal, iTunes etc), Firefox, Netnewswire etc...

I would also be interested if any budding authors out there would like to help me with designing some documentation (again, leave a comment on this post, and if possible a link to other technical documents that you have written).

I cant pay for this work (free application, coded in spare time == no budget!), but you would get a full credit in the about box, and a warm fuzzy feeling from contributing to the greater good!

If it sounds like something you would be interested in, leave me a comment on this post and ill be in contact (if possible please also post a link to some of your design work. I have a very specific vision for the graphics for this project, so apologies in advance if i turn someone down because their work doesnt match what im after)

And just to tease a little bit, here is a screen shot of War Builder running on my dev machine

PS - Just in case any one was wondering, no this wont replace your codex. War Builder (for obvious reasons) will not ship with any codex data - YOU WILL STILL NEED YOUR PAPER CODEX. Nor do i have any intention of providing this codex data, again for the obvious reasons. Everything within War Builder was created by myself and contains no IP from anyone else, I'd like to keep it that way!

PPS - If anyone would like to help me to test this, leave me a comment along with a system spec. Please note that War Builder needs Leopard to work properly. As far as i know it will work on a PPC machine (its built universal), but i dont have a PPC machine any more to test on, so its currently unknown as to if it will work properly...

Salute 06

2009-01-09T19:58:00.000Z

So for a while i've had the free miniature given away at Salute 06 hanging around. I always liked the pose of the two models, but the casting was terrible on the one i recieved, so I'd never quite gotten around to painting it (and in the end it took a lot of work to get rid of the moulding errors)
Over christmas i had a bit of a dirth of miniatures to paint (shops closed, waiting for presents etc), so i decided to paint some of the models that i already had.
I'm sure that originally the two models were meant to be set in a specific time period, but i just painted them in ways that looked correct to me (so apologies to any "classical wargamers" who might have problems with the paint scheme!)
I've placed the models on a small piece of dirt surrounded by water. I wanted to give the impression that the two soldiers had fought their way to the waters edge and the one on his knees was preparing for his last stand.
I'm quite pleased with the way the model came out. The ground especially looks good (imho!), and the water effects turned out quite nicely (although it doesnt look quite as good in the photos), despite a near disaster with my masking tape breaking and the "water" leaking everywhere.
Comments welcome as always on both the miniature and the photography...

Forgeworld Ork Bust

2009-01-09T19:24:00.000Z

Second attempt at painting this particular bust. I have to say, i really love this Ork model - Its quite an old resin piece, that i dont think they make any more. I picked it up many years ago when i still worked for GW. This particular model was stripped of paint and then re-painted recently when i ran out of things to paint over christmas.
I wanted to try to convey the power and brutality of an Ork, but also the stupidity, hence the "dribbling" effect around the mouth (this was a small amount of gloss varnish applied after the main face was painted). The only thing that im not 100% sure about is the gloss varnish on the antlers - I was attempting to make them look like heavily polished pieces of horn, but i think they look a little odd next to the completely matt skull.
Comments welcome as always on both the miniature and the photography...

Changing blog name....

2009-01-06T19:59:00.000Z

I wanted to ask the advice of the blogspot community - has anyone changed the name of their blog? I want to change the name of my blog, but im worried that all my old posts / images / comments and readers will be lost - can anyone confirm what happens when you change your blogs name?

Aquila Folder

2009-01-04T01:31:00.000Z

Recently ive been sorting out my mac file system so that things are a bit more organised and i found i needed a folder icon for my "wargaming stuff" folder. Once i'd created it, i figured that other people may like it. Here is what it looks like:

And you can download it here. The download includes all the PSD, PNG and ICNS images. Enjoy!

Excellent post about Colour Theory

2008-12-17T09:57:00.000Z

Bell Of Lost Souls have posted a very useful Colour Theory tutorial. Well worth a read

Which came first, the army or the list?

2008-12-15T18:04:00.000Z

So Ron asked us to consider the question "Which came first, the army or the list?" - So here it, my way of building an army...

The first stop for a new army is the Codex. I will usually flick quite quickly through the codex on first purchase, mainly looking at the big colour photos of the models. Once i have spent a while looking at the Codex photos, i will usually have a colour scheme or two in mind. At this point the process splits in to two parts:

Normally i would get a couple of models from the army that i am collecting and do rough paint jobs on them. What i am trying to achieve is a good even look that can be replicated quickly, easily and neatly over many hundreds of models. Paint jobs usually consist of a base coat and then a wash, or in some cases a dip.
At the same time, i would be looking at the codex to put together a basic army list. Normally i would start with the obligatory HQ + two Troops choices. To this i would add a couple of units that particularily stand out as being particularily interesting to paint. The army list would normally be around 1000Pts (as i find its a good number to aim for; there is enough scope there for a reasonable game).

This whole process usually last about a month or so - Notice that in this entire period i havent bought any models! I find that planning goes a long way in to the satisfaction you can get from painting a whole army. Once i am happy with the first 1000pts I will buy everything i need to paint those models. That includes all the paint, brushes etc. Nothing worse than starting a project and not having enough of a certain colour - especially if you are mixing custom colours (which in my experience is generally a bad thing for armies).

Next step is to paint up the models. Generally they are painted in bulk, around 10 models at a time.

Once the first 1000pts is painted and i've had a game or two with them, ill know the army a lot better. At this stage i will start to add more units, either focussing on the things the army is lacking (for example Heavy Support or maybe some Fast Attack) or on units that i specifically want in the army. Although you dont necessarily get an "ultimate, kill everything it takes on" army in this way, i find that you do get a characterful army that you enjoy painting and playing with.

The original question here was "Which came first, the army or the list?". I would say in response, neither - the relationship between my army and the list is a symbiotic one. Each part plays against the other and influences the way the army and the list evolve.

Viridian Sniper

2008-12-07T20:41:00.001Z

So recently ive been taking a break from my guard (Im sick of painting guardsmen!) and working on a few single miniatures. The first to be finished is a Viridian Sniper from Urban Mammoth
This is a very nice model that with the addition of a scenic base forms a very single single miniature.
Painted as always with vallejo game colour, citadel washes and mig weathering powders. On an aside i was working on my photography as well with this post - hopefully the images here should be a lot better than previous attempts.
Comments welcome as always on both the miniature and the photography...

FTW December Round Table

2008-12-04T21:26:00.000Z

So for the current FtW round table discussion Ron posed the question

"You have just been put in charge of Warhammer 40k for GW.
They would like to know what you think the company should do with the start of the new year.
What are the Top 3 things you would change about Warhammer 40k?"

Which started me thinking - what would i want to change in the 40K world. Originally when i looked at the question, my first reaction was to change some of the rules - to bring back some things that i think are missing (overwatch!) and to remove some things that i think make games unbalanced ("And they shall know no fear").

But then i started to realise that in many ways, the current 5th edition of 40K is actually quite a decent game. Sure it doesnt have all the intricacies of "Rogue trader" nor the totally silly weapons of the second edition, but it is fast and fun to play, and for the most part the designers have do a good job of clarifying and cleaning up the rules.

So having moved on from the game in general, i started to think about everything that surrounds gaming, and how i would improve that... Here are the answers that i came up with -

1. Setup an online community forum with experimental rules and interaction with gamers before, during and after release of main rules and codex include better online errata rules for each army, including a points calculator / unit development tools for creating your own custom units at home.

I have always had a bit of a problem with the fact that GW puts out rulebooks full of errors, and then takes ages to put up any erratta for them. When the errata does come out, it tends to be a very brief overview and doesnt answer some of the more detailed problems.

There doesnt seem to be any proper interaction between the GW designers and the people who play the games (namely us!). What i would like them to do is to setup a web forum, which the designers frequent and on which you could ask questions, get definitive answers, as well as helping to play test new rules that are coming up - For example, so of the changes to the vehicle rules between 4th and 5th editions could have been trialled in this way.

I would also really like to see the designer be more open about the way that they develop the points cost for the units they design, and if possible to make available the calculation tools that they use (I have this theory that its just an Excel file that they input some numbers to and it gives them a points cost - similar to what they have for Battletech etc).

With this sort of tool it would be trivial to create custom units that were "somewhat" official (in the sense that the points were at least in the right range...).

2. Provide software tools for army building that are included with a copy of the codex, which run completely cross platform (Mac OS, Linux, Windows)

Okay so I will freely admit that I am a nerd (and judging by the fact that most people reading this are also bloggers, gamers and painters I would guess the same applies to many of you!) and that this one is a nerdy request, but why is it, in this day and age that 40K codexes (codicies?) dont come with a set of database files for a well designed piece of software that allows you to build and setup your army? I know there was the poor thing that GW put out a year or so ago (and promptly forgot about) and I know that there is "Army Builder", but both of these applications are Windows only. Let me say this loud and clear

THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO DONT USE WINDOWS!

Ahem...
In an ideal world, i would really like this to be included with each codex, along with templates for basic armies, images of painted models for that army and a PDF copy of the codex - (maybe on a locked memory stick for copy protection purposes?). Okay, it might add a small amount to the cost of the codex - which lets face it are not exactly cheap at the moment, but think of all the time it would save and hastle playing round in Excel. However, i dont want it all digital - for gaming at a friends house the paper codex will always be needed.

3. Bring out plastic titans!

Yep, everyone wants a titan (or three!). So i'd put together multiple kits (Warhound, Reaver, Warlord, Gargants etc) for as many armies as possible. Then put them out as plastic kits at under £100. I'd put money on them being one of the most popular kits they make.

So there we go, my 3 ways to chnge the 40K landscape. Comments welcome as always, and thanks to Ron for such an interesting round table idea!

Painting 3 Baneblades...(Part 1)

2008-11-30T01:50:00.000Z

For a game of Apocalypse that me and friend have planned ive been working on a Steel Fury Apocalypse unit - this consists of 2 Baneblades and 1 Baneblade command tank - Yes, that is 3 Baneblades in one unit! As i was painting them, i took stage by stage photographs. These are included with a basic tutorial of how i painted the models.

Stage 1
Once i had bought and assembled the units (a very enjoyable experience i must say - the Baneblade really is one of the best kits ive ever put together), i undercoated each Baneblade with several coats of Chaos Black undercoat.

In total each model have around four or five coats on each part (two lascannon mountings, turret, Hull Heavy Bolter and main hull). I then left each Baneblade to dry for approximately 24 hours.

Stage 2
Next each Baneblade has Vallejo "Wolf Grey" lightly airbrushed over each panel, concentrating on the center of each panel

By the time i had finished the third tank, the first was dry, and i then applied a second light coat of wolf grey, covering mostly the same areas. If you havent tried using an airbrush on a tank before, i highly recommend it. The finish that can be achieved in far superior to brush painting, and other effects are easy to learn. Whilst there is some initial outlay (i use a Spray Master kit that i got on Ebay for about £70) the differnce it will make to your vehicles i vast. However, i digress....

After the second pass of "Wolf Grey" each tank then had a mix of "Wolf Grey" and "Stonewall Grey" airbrushed in to the very center of each panel, lightly. Sorry about the photo above - it came out a lot bluer than the actual tank is. Later photos show this more clearly.
One question that friends tend to ask me, is about the consistency of my paint when airbrushing - although this depends on the colour and the effect that you are after, normally i work at a 1:1 paint / water ratio. The paint ideally should be about the same thickness as semi skimmed milk. This is similar to the ratio of water and paint that i would use when brush painting, so i guess its habit more than anything.

Stage 3
Once the "Wolf Grey" basecoat was complete on all 3 tanks i gave each one a light dry brush using "Stonewall Grey" and "Bone White" mixed together, in varying amounts. Initially i focussed on wide areas using a high concentration of "Stonewall Grey" and then as i added more and more "Bone White" i concentrated more on the absolute hard edges

Stage 4
Painting the tracks and other metallic areas was next - I like to paint these in a mid grey to start with, as a good flat backing fot the mettallics and then work in the metal with the weathering and mud (shown in a future post!). The first thing i did here was to mask off any areas that could potentially catch the overspray from any parts. Main areas that i concentrated on were the tracks and the gun points

Once the areas had been masked off the exposed areas were given several light coats via airbrush of Vallejo "Cold Grey". Once this was dry, the masking tape was carefully peeled away

Stage 5

Once the Grey on the tracks was dry they were given a watered down coat of MIG Pigments "Standard Rust" pigment mixed with a lot of water. You can see the combination in the photos below

If you havent used MIG Pigments before, i highly suggest that you get hold of some. They are basically artists pastels ground up to a fine powder. You can make you own by rubbing a pastel on a piece of fine sand paper (this is something that i use later on in this tutorial, for "soot" effects on gun barrells etc). If you are using the pastel method, make sure that you dont buy oil based pastels as these are no good and will simply smear on your nicely airbrushed tank.

The mixture of pigment and water was then liberally splashed all over the tracks.

Once this first coat had dried a second coat was applied, using the same wash. You will notice that the pigment stains in a way very different from inks / washes. One thing that is very cool is that you can use a wet brush to move the particles of the pigment around, even after the wash has dried!

Once dry this gave a nice rusted effect to the tracks, as seen in the image below. Although not much of this rust effect will be visible once the mud and other debris has been added, it non the less gives a more "used" look to the tank where the tracks are visible

Stage 6

The next stage was to add mud effects to the track areas of the tanks. This was acomplished in several simple steps -

First the entire underneath of the tank and the edges of the tracks and skirts were given a light airbrush of watered down Vallejo "Charred Brown" followed by a light airbrush of Vallejo "Earth". This gave a good base coat for the mud to come.

A mix was then made of Vallejo "Plastic Putty", Vallejo "Charred Brown", Vallejo "Earth" and MIG Pigments "Basic Earth". I also mixed in a large handful of "Burned Earth" static grass. This was then liberally applied to the base, tracks and skirts, covering roughly the same area as the airbrushed in step 1, but leaving some of the base colour to show through. The Plastic Putty means that the mixture remains malleable for a good while (I usually find that the working time is about 10 to 15 minutes, depending on the exact ratios). This is usually more than enough time to get the mud down. I try to avoid key areas that would avoid mud in real life (If you look at real tracks, mud doesnt generally collect on the actual face plate of the tread, because it is constantly moving) and also try to avoid splashing mud too high up the side of the skirts - in real life, this is what the skirts help to do; prevent mud from getting in to the drive mechanism!

Once the mud has dried it gives a very realistic effect, as can be seen in the photos below. The static grass especially give an extra dimension to this effect, and especially if you move the grass whilst the Putty is still wet you can achieve really great results!

To be continued...

To dip or not to dip, that is the question...

2008-11-23T00:55:00.000Z

Recently i started to play with the "Army Painter" series of minature dips as a way of bulk painting squads of miniatures. Being an imperial guard player ive found that it can be soul destroying to finish painting a ten man squad and realise that you have only added 100 pts to your army total!

On a random trawl around the web, i started to read more and more about the painting technique of "dipping" - essentially you block colour a miniature and then "dip" it in a stain - the stain acts as a wash and a coat of varnish. For a more complete description of dipping, check out this article over at Dysartes.com.

So after a bit of research i went with a tin of "The Army Painter Dark Tone" - This is the darkest shade available, and i quickly discovered that the tone is very dark - to achieve the final shade that i wanted, i generally had to paint the base coat 2 shades lighter than i normally would. However, with a bit of experimentation i found that i was achieving a reasonable looking set of models, especially when used 'en-masse'. Suddenly i was able to have the uniform looking, large army that I had always wanted - I never was much good at painting armies, because i would focus too much attention on each model and never get squads finished!

Unfortunately its given me a bit of a pause for thought - whilst i enjoy being able to paint a large army quickly it does mean that im not painting 'properly' any more. Because of limited time around work, i have to make a decision about what to work on - and usually its the army. At the same time it feels like im losing my painting 'skills' because they are not being used.

So im wondering, how do other people deal with this impasse - Do you have ways of working single models in to your painting schedule? I had considered enforcing a 'one unit for the army' then 'one single model' rotation, but knowing myself, im sure ill find that hard to follow...

Imperial Armour Model Master Class Vol 1

2008-11-20T19:37:00.000Z

I thought i would write a quick review of Imperial Armour Model Master Class Vol 1 which ive just recieved from my darling wife as a birthday present!!

First off - the presentation of the book. As usual for Forge World, it is an impecably packaged product, being presented in full colour and on glossy paper. As per the Imperial Armour books it is an 'oversized' book (roughly the same size as the Apocalypse book from GW), and the photos are lavish with detailed text accompanying each photo.

The book is split in to 17 chapters. Each chapter focussing solely on one model / diorama at a time. Each chapter is long enough to give you the key points with regards to this model. By doing it in this way, it forces you to read the whole book before you jump in, because techniques sometimes feel like they are spread throughout the book. However, each technique is demonstrated clearly and with simple steps.

Lots of the book focuses on the preperation and painting of rust and weathering (A good thing!)
Unusually for a Games Workshop publication it actually includes references to materials other than those manufactured by GW themselves, in this case specifically mentioning several brands of thinners and pigments to use.

At the back of the book is a small gallery showing a battle taking place over a custom gaming table with apocalypse size forces, including a couple of titans. These photos are simply stunning! Infact in many ways this book is worth possessing simply for the quality of the photos, even without the text (although the text is very good). Simply looking at other peoples work can inspire new ideas for working with your own models.

This book is clearly not aimed at the inexperienced modeller however. In several places on the book cover and in the introduction is clearly states this - with good reason! Without a good grounding in basic / moderate miniature preperation and painting it will be hard to make the best use of the information contained within.

I have absolutely no reservations in recommending Imperial Armour Model Masterclass - although it is an expensive book to purchase (£26), in my opinion it should be required reading for any serious 40K treadhead! The photos are excellent, the text is informative and well written and the layout is clear

Minature Photography II

2008-11-19T11:07:00.000Z

Just came across a second post by Ron over at From The Warp - This time about lighting when photographing minatures. This is another excellent post, and well worth the time to read. When i get a chance at the weekend i'm going to try out some of the things that Ron suggests.. You can read the article here

Joining the FtW Blogger Group

2008-11-14T16:26:00.000Z

So i just got an email from Ron, accepting my request to join the
++ From The Warp ++ Blogger Group! Im still waiting on more information about the group, but im just about to upload a new title banner with the FtW blogger logo on it! I have to say, i'm really quite excited to be joining FtWBG - At the moment, my interaction with other gamers is limited to my friend Chris and the guys in the local GW. I'd really like to meet and talk to other gamers, and it seemed to me that this was an excellent route to take!
If you want to read more about the FtW Blogging group, you can on this page - and here is the logo

STC-Defense Laser Turret Tutorial

2008-11-12T11:44:00.001Z

Just came across this tutorial about making very nice STC defense laser turrets for 40K, or similar futuristic game systems...

Miniature Photography

2008-11-11T23:04:00.001Z

So after my last post about miniature photography, i figured that i would try out some of what i had read, and try and improve the quality of the photography on the site.
The first thing that i did was to setup a sheet of white paper, underneath my OTT-Lite. OTT-Lites give out "daylight" (that is, light of the same frequency as daylight), so it gives a very natural look to the models. You can see this setup in the picture below

I decided to use the HQ from my Tau as these were the impetus for learning more about miniature photography - I really like my small Tau army and wanted to put it online for a few people to take a look at. Unfortunately the only photos i have of the Tau are low res phone cam pictures, not really suitable for a blog!
Once i had the miniatures setup, i placed the camera approximately 3-4 inches from them (on the picture above its about where the edge of the green cutting matt is). I then found the first problem - the OTT-Lite was casting very bad shadows, which you can see in the image below:

So i used another angle poise light that i had lying around and taped a piece of toilet tissue over it. I moved this around trying out various shots, which you can see below, in their "raw" state:

Once i had taken a couple of dozen shots, i pulled them all in to photoshop, and after consideration chose these two images to work with:

Ive only performed basic operations on these files - I've altered the size, cropping and adjusted some colour balance...

So, my first proper attempt at miniature photography is done, and i have to say, it went "kinda" well - On the plus side, the images i have captured are a lot better than the previous attempts. But the colour is still a little too blue for my liking (the greys are too blue in the images - in reality they are a much more neutral grey). Oh well! Practice makes perfect!

Photography of miniatures...

2008-11-10T14:33:00.000Z

Given how bad my miniature photography is, as can be seen by the shots on this site, i decided to do some reading about photography of miniatures. And i came across this blog post on "From the Warp" - There are some excellent details on there about photographing miniatures which i will hopefully be able to apply to future pictures that i take..

Addendum! Ive also just found this very handy post about how to make a home made Lighting box for photographing your minis

New site design...

2008-10-31T04:13:00.001Z

Well ive finally found some time to sit down and edit the theme for my blog... I quite like it at the moment, but im sure that in a few weeks ill decide that i dont like it and change it round again.. But for the moment, im happy

Imperial Flags

2008-10-26T16:13:00.000Z

So ive been working on my imperial guard a lot recently for a big game i have coming up. One thing that i noticed that was missing was flags - I wanted to have a consistent flag style throughout the army, so ive designed on in photoshop, using the Aquila shape that i used in my last post.

It a generic flag design, i simply add the unit name and serial code in to the scroll boxes and then print it out.

Ive included it below. Feel free to use it for whatever you want. Its all my own work, except for the purity seals which came from here and which i subsequently scaled down. I tend to move these for each unit, so they dont look too uniform.
Ill include some shots of the flags within units once the game is out of the way!

Aquila custom shape for photoshop

2008-10-26T11:22:00.000Z

Recently ive been working on flag designs for vehicles and units. My general system for working with flags for my army is to design it in Photoshop and then print it out. Whilst this doesnt look quite as good as doing a full flag work up, using thin metal sheet and painting the design in place, it does have the advantage that it is quick to do, gives a good uniform look to the army and means that i can have many chances to get exactly the design i would like without having to re-undercoat and start the design from scratch.

Anyway, the thing that i find myself needing a lot is the imperial aquila (the double headed eagle!). After a long time of simply drawing it again and again, i decided to create a Photoshop custom shape using paths. That way i can simply drag a single vector shape on to the flag and have it rescale nicely each time i resized the image. I figure that this would be useful to other people, so i have made my custom shape available here

This custom shape was created for use in Photoshop CS2. Im assuming that it will work in other versions of Photoshop as well, but unfortunately i do not have access to other types of photoshop to test this - Let me know if you get it working in other packages!

You are free to do as you wish with this shape. Obviously it is based on Games workshops IP (and i make no challenges to this), but the actual shape was entirely my own work, based on a sketch that i did. The only thing that i would ask is that you dont claim to have created this shape yourself!

Below is a basic version of the Aquila, to show you what it looks like. Hopefully other people will find this as useful as i have...

Foam arrived!

2008-10-20T21:06:00.000+01:00

Well the foam from Mike over at Terranscapes have just arrived... They are absolutely perfect and will save me buckets of time. You can see most of the set in picture below. After i saw the youtube video i posted a couple of weeks ago i realised that Mike had cut some parts wrong. I emailed Mike and he recut the parts, and then included the mis-cuts with the shipment - This is awsome, i now have many ideas for the miscuts alone!
More detail on this project will follow...

Imperial Guard Font...

2008-10-19T20:28:00.000+01:00

Ive been playing around with airbrushing Logos and vehicle identifiers on to tanks recently. I find that transfers never set properly and never look exactly right. Ill do a full post on the technique i use in a later post, but for the moment, i wanted to discuss fonts. Originally i was just using Arial in my tests and it never looked quite right. When i started to google it occured to me (duh!) that military vehicles use a military font. So after a bit of googling i found Da Font which has an excellent collection of military fonts. I went for Gunplay which nicely matches the style i am going for...

Another tank weathering site...

2008-10-15T10:40:00.000+01:00

Just stumbled across this site which details a few other ways of weathering AFV's - A nice one that id not come across before includes using artists pencils...

Custom Foam Pieces

2008-10-09T12:09:00.000+01:00

Just had an email from Mike over at Terranscapes, letting me know that my custom pieces of foam for a terrain project are ready. Ill be talking about this project in more detail in a future post, but for the moment, take a look at the youtube video that Mike has posted for me...

Just as an aside i wanted to comment on how helpful, knowledgable and friendly Mike has been. I would *highly* recommend Mike / Terranscapes - the price for custom work is excellent, the work is good and as mentioned already, Mike is a great guy to contract from - Even if you arent interested in custom work, their pre-made terrain is awsome as well (just take a look at these trench sections for an example!)

More tank modelling sites...

2008-10-08T19:42:00.000+01:00

So ive just found two more ultra cool tank modelling blogs / sites.
The first is Ultrawerke - This site focusses on tutorials that apply to sci fi and "real world" tanks. It is very handy reference site...
The second site is Fichtenfoo, an oddly named site, but which has an excellent tutorial on putting together a WW2 Russian tank - Almost all of the techniques are usable on 40K Tanks tho

Magnetic Flying Bases

2008-10-07T15:24:00.000+01:00

Having recently broken one of the flying stands of my Tau Devilfish, i was interested to read this blog topic about making magnetic flying bases... Seems like a simple and efficient method of magnetising your flying bases! Now if i can just find some time in amongst the guard, the terrain, the tanks...

Cool tank modelling site

2008-10-05T03:09:00.000+01:00

Ive just come across panzermodelbau - a very cool site that has lots of galleries and diaramas of WW2 Panzer tanks. Whilst the site deals with "Real world" tanks it is an excellent source of painting ideas for Sci-fi tanks and vehicles

City fountain finished...

2008-10-02T19:25:00.001+01:00

For a while ive been thinking about the idea of having a fountain in the middle of my city - sort of a devotional garden.. So after a while of thinking about it, i came up with the idea of a small walled fountain with grassy edges and a heroic guardsman statue in the middle.
The construction itself was simple - For the walls i used the small parapets from the GW COD box (I had some left over from another building). The tiled floor was simply cardstock cut in to sections.

For the statues base i cast the packet from a battery using basic plaster, then set the guardsman atop it (Its actually a model of a US Marine from a modern day combat skirmish game that i picked up at last years salute, and id been wondering what to do with it! - The scale was a bit big to use as an actual guardsman, but the pose was perfect for the statue). To form the fountain base i cut a piece of plastic piping to the right height and then topped it with a circle of card cut using compass cutters. Finally i packed out the inside edge of the fountain with more plaster.

Once I had finished the construction it was undercoated in GW black and then airbrushed with cold grey and then stonewall grey. The ground was given a coat of Vallejo "Earth" and the tiles with Vallejo "Gore Red" and "Charred Brown" mixed 50:50. The "water" in the fountain was painted with various Vallejo Blues and greens (I mixed up a big batch of different colours and then just dabbed them in place, letting the colours bleed in to each other whilst still wet). Once all the paint was dry i put a layer of "Summer grass" and "Blasted Turf" static grass on to some areas of the earth section. I wanted to give the impression of a lawn that was once well cared for but which was now dried out and burned.

Finally once everything else was dry i put a very thin layer of GW water effect in the fountain.
You can see the results below.

New road sections complete

2008-09-28T18:23:00.000+01:00

One of the main projects that ive been working on is a complete, modular, Cities of Death table for an upcoming 40K / Apocalypse game that me and a friend have planned. We are going to be playing on a 10'x5' table, so we decided that we needed to have a good amount of terrain, and for a long time ive wanted to do a fully modular table.

Unfortunately storage is a big factor for me as i only have a small amount of space that wargames can take up, so doing big 2'x2' boards was out of the question. In the end i went for the City boards produced by Miniature Scenery - Im using the Urban Grounds packs. These give you 9"x9" boards (roughly) and a whole load of road sections.

Having played games on "COD" tables, i've found it hardest to play on the tables where there is too much rubble, so ive gone for a slightly sparse look to my table - Although it doesnt look as good, it does make it easier to play the game - We usually count any areas of rubble as being difficult terrain meaning that we both know exactly what to expect from a piece of terrain.

Given that i have to cover a large amount of the table, ive decided to use a quick and efficient paint scheme, combined with plastic buildings (mainly the GW COD boxes and a few bits from Peggasus Hobbies and Antenociti's Workshop).

To paint i first put the models together, then undercoat using GW's choas black spray.

Then i airbrush the entire model (except road sections) using Vallejo Cold Grey (which is about the same as GW Codex Grey)... (On a seperate note, i plan to do a full post about airbrushing terrain in the future)

...followed by a lighter airbrush of Vallejo Stonewall grey (not sure what GW this is equivalent to) - Sorry about the quality of this photo, no matter how hard i tried it kept coming out ultra light...

Road sections are then painted by brush in pure Choas black.

And thats it! They look kinda basic but when put together they give quite a nice effect

Orc Progress

2008-09-27T13:49:00.000+01:00

I've been painting (in amongst my other projects) an Orc warlord produced by Avatars of war - Its been a very enjoyable miniature to paint, as are all of the AOW mini's that ive looked at so far. Anyway, here is a work in progress shot to show you roughly where i am at. Oh and please excuse the photo - best i could do at the moment. Im slowley learning about mini photography - so hopefully my pics will improve with time!

New Miniature Mentor Video out!!

2008-09-27T12:38:00.000+01:00

Great news, the new Miniature Mentor video is out. Hopefully this will be as good as their other videos. If you havent heard of MM they produce high quality detailed download movies focussing on certain minature painting techniques. Having bought quite a few other painting tutorials in the past, MM is the only one that i would really recommend. The filming quality is excellent (no blurry / out of focus shots), the painters they feature are truly world class and the price of the downloads is very affordable. Check their stuff here - http://www.miniaturementor.com/

My first post

2008-09-26T08:58:00.000+01:00

So i've spent years saying "I have no need for a blog!" - Well now ive found a need!
I'll be using this blog to detail my terrain and army building progress as it happens over the near future. Mainly its so that i can see my own progress and keep myself motivated - and hopefully this will give other people some help and inspiration!