Israel’s Neighborhood

Really I do.  But right now packing up stuff is taking priority over things like having fun.

Luckily my painting supplies are "portable" so I can keep them out while everything else is packed away.  This should let me paint up a bunch of the minis that have languished on the shelf for so long.  I'm not going to try army painting when I'll have to keep putting the paint supplies away so single figures it is.

I'm giving away all my partially completed buildings and my partial modular dungeon.  Two reasons for this.

1. I don't want to move them.
2. I'm not that interested in building set pieces any more.

I really like the arena style pieces since they're even more modular than my modular dungeon and they can be arranged into anything.  I can still make all the accessories I want but I'm not limited to room size or shape.

My FLGS is going to luck out/get dumped on for this and I'll be glad to do it.  I know they'll either keep them to use in the store or find a good home.

I still say I have too many hobbies.

Chrome is sleek and quick and I like using it, but its one drawback is its "homepage" option, which lists the eight most commonly visited sites.  As a result of this running tally I'm reminded constantly how many times I go to Facebook or Huffingtonpost or The Miniatures Page.  And no, clearing your history doesn't reset it.  I suppose it'll keep me honest and on track.

Ingredients:

If you say in  your sermon, "I'm not going to win the raffle," then you'll win the grand prize, in this case a $250 gift certificate to Home Depot.  That gift certificate will probably become our emergency home repair fund and allow us to finally get an artificial Christmas tree this year.  We've considered one for a while but never could quite bring ourselves to pony up the cost.

Having not won a gaming-related prize means that the field is either wide open or completely shut, depending on your point of view.  I really, really want to get the Marauders finished, but for some reason have become bogged down.  Last weekend, when I thought I'd get more done, I ended up spending time doing other unplanned things.  I did manage to squeeze in a lot of casting, though.  Not too much hope for this weekend, since I'll be at Diocesan Convention, but I am gaming on Sunday which should be really good.

In other news, our houseguest had a promising job interview on Monday.  The job wouldn't pay well I suspect, but it'd be money.

I brought the camera to OshCon but didn't get to take pictures since I was playing in the demos.  Oh well.

And I can't really take pictures right now because the minis aren't accessible.

I promise that as soon as I can I'll get them posted.  They're way cool.

But progress is being made!

I'm too busy painting to take pictures right now but between the stuff I had already done and the new miniatures I have enough for 4 demo armies.

I'm still finishing up the last ones.  5 of them need lining.  4 of them need shields attached.  All 5 of them need to be sealed.  The last one got a base coat tonight but he should be easy enough to paint.  Simple monster.

The 2 new factions aren't based, much to my shame.  I'll try but won't kill myself to get it done.  They're painted and that's most important to me.  The official rules say paint is optional but for demonstrations a painted army is best.

I will have to use some proxy figures but that's OK.  I need to remove some abilities since I'm sticking with straight melee.  I can still use the same figure, I just put a different data card with it.  Technically I'm breaking a rule with one faction by having the same data card and 2 figures but I'll deal with it.

I had to lower my demo armies from 400 to 350 points because of my own mistakes but that's still a nicely sized army for a demo.

The terrain is complete and I need to pull out 2 pieces of felt in 2 foot by 2 foot sizes.  That's the game board size.

I forgot that the round counters I wanted to use kind of belong in the gaming group and they are gaming this weekend.  So rather than take them out I'm making new ones for myself.  The first half of construction is done (drying) and tomorrow morning I should be able to do the final construction.  That will let me paint and seal in a timely manner.  Even sealing is optional for this time but I'd like to do it if I can.

I'll try to get pics of the demos in action since those are always cool pictures.  And I will get pictures of all the things I've painted up recently.

Well, first off, some more dipped miniatures I completed:

marauder1

marauders3

I'm currently working on painting the Dragon Turtle and pretty much everything I painted today is going to get repainted.  In short I picked the wrong colors and I was trying to do too much.

Longer story.

He's got plating on his arms, legs, neck, tail, etc.  I had already painted the skin to match the guy down below and was working on the underside of the shell, the plates under the tail and all those other places I just detailed.  And some around the face.  All those other places I was going to use the same tans as on the body wrap of the grunt so that the shell would stand out more.  And I was trying a new technique that suggested taking the base coat a shade darker to make the effect really pop.

I did all that and it just didn't work.  The colors were completely wrong against the bright skin.  I should know better than to pick colors when I'm in an unhappy mood.

A friend gave me links to his painted figure.  His has the plating the same color as the skin.  Only the shell, underneath the shell and the plates under the tail are a different color.  That looked much better.  So I pulled out the skin colors and painted over all the stuff I did.  And yes, it looks much better.  I still need to highlight it and I'll probably pull the highlights one shade higher than on the rest of the models just so he pops more.

I also prepped 2 more minis that I need for this demo army.  I'll be pulling out the epoxy tomorrow and these guys need to have their arms attached.  Since I'll have epoxy mixed I'll use it wisely.

Oh - I put the base coat on some new arena pieces.

I'm doing all this in preparation for doing Warlord demos at Oshcon next month.  With the new rules and datacards I need to make sure my armies balance.  I did get new models for new armies so I really need to get painting.  I need 4 demo armies that balance.  I need to check my Crusaders to make sure those are the same and then work up 2 more.  I don't think they'll take as long as these since they're not nearly as complicated.

I'm making the assumption that you are.

In a nutshell, I have too many hobbies.  I went on a complete sewing binge and that kept me from the paint table.  Heck, I even used the chair there as storage.  I'm a bad, bad painter.

But now that's over and I'm back to painting.  I'm finally making progress on the Reptus demo army.  Or as I like to call them 'leezards' after the Taco Bell commercial.

Grunts 03

Grunts 04

I tried for an enameled look to the armor and I'd say that I pretty much succeeded.

Despite saying earlier that I wanted to become a better painter, I'd also like to make some headway on the giant pile of unpainted plastic and metal in my basement.  As such, I've begun to explore "dipping" which is using wood stain to ink and seal a miniature.  After a few failures, I've finally struck on a good look.

Ranger1

What's even lazier is that I just sprayed the figure gray, basecoated a few details, and then dipped it in Minwax Polyshades (Pecan, in this case). No highlighting or nothing.  It won't win me any awards, but it looks presentable.