War Builder

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

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

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....

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

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

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

Which came first, the army or the list?

 

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.