Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Too Good for Your Home..




After Games Day it's back to house work..  I'm about to move all my DVD's into containers and store them .. along with a lot of other stuff in my painting room. I'm turning the breezeway in our house into a playroom for the kids and the Treadmill will now be in the painting room. I will also be losing the case that holds the DVDs which is home of a lot of my tanks ..  now I have to figure out what to do with them. I was looking at the Detolf from IKEA..   it looks decent and for only $65 isn't not bad price wise either.. I'd probably have to get two but I'm thinking that's were I'm going .. I've looked online and can't find anything decent for a good price. This week I'll be starting the packing up .. and cleaning.. my table is a shambles from trying to rush and finish up for Games Day haha ..

I'm also trying to figure out what I want to paint next..  it's nice not having something hanging over my head to get done haha ..  I might start on the BA Termies... with the way 6th is looking I'll be running them for sure .. but now that I'm thinking about it we have a Kill Team game coming up this Monday so I need to finish up the three containers I was working on .. containers containers everywhere..

Monday, July 30, 2012

Games Day 2012: The Good the Bad and the Ugly


The Good, White hat and all!
Well my main entry made it to the finals but didn't win the big show. But as I really had no thoughts of even making it that far it was pretty nice. All four of my entries made it past the first cut and the Pathfinder Diorama made it to the finals. If they were right about which level of the display meant what I think I got 4th .. as 1 was on top and 3 on the next level. But either way the coolest part was seeing people checking out my miniatures and giving it props. During setup I had my minis sitting on the table ready to be placed and got some people standing in line near me. When they placed the diorama on the shelf a guy next to me was staring at me. I turned and looked at him.. "Hey".. "Wow man ... you did that? Looks awesome!" haha .. thanks .. glad you like it. I would stop by the displays from time to time and saw people moving their heads around looking at the diorama .. I was pretty happy with the blend ..

Thanks to Dave at Chuck's Comics.. I was on the will call list and got in for free plus a free mini and T Shirt. I help run their 40K events so I was their representative. 8)

Getting in a bit early to enter the competition was cool. We got to see the boards and display stuff before it got crowded so that was pretty nice ..

The Armies on Parade has some nice layouts... the DE that one was nice (reminded me of Skeletor's Snake Mountain) and won but I voted for the Tomb Kings display .. the painting was exceptional (pictures in the link below).

We saw The Watch before we went to the Airport .. a must see .. UBER FUNNY!

There were some nice Mini's on display.. There was a line so I got the best pics I could.. Here's a Link to all the Pictures I took

Games Day 2012 Pictures

The Wrath of Heros video game looked pretty cool.. I'll be downloading that and giving it a try.

The new Fantasy Flight game Relic (40K Talisman) looked very interesting.. it was only a demo at the show but I think it's got potential.

The Bad, Enter greased handlebar mustache
This was the first GD I had gone to since it moved to Chicago. I'm not saying this because it's not in my backyard anymore but the show didn't seem as BIG as it usually was, the number of people although still decent seemed to be much lower then what I remembered. The last year in Baltimore it was PACKED and there were a lot more display tables plus more tables for people to get some games in. That area seemed to be lacking quite a bit here. And I think it has to do with the location, nothing against Chi Town but to me there should be two North American Games Days .. one East Coast and one West. Baltimore was a good location because it's pretty close to a lot of other major cities. DC, NYC, Philly .. the east coast is a highly populated area. For West Coast I'm sure California would also draw a lot of people as again there are alot of people nearby and just in that state alone. Just my thoughts ..  but hey what do I know.

The line for the Terrain Make and Take was crazy! .. from the get go it looked like you were going to have to invest at least an hour and a half. We passed..

The PA system at the convention center was terrible. During the contest announcements I could barely understand what category they were talking about.

The price for a bottle of water was $3.50 ! WHOOA .. Thankfully the hotel was close haha

The Ugly, Like Ogre UGLY!
Forge World, We got in line early and only took about 20 mins I'd guess. I get up to the counter and figured I'd get the new Apoths and Command Squad.. plus I still needed the TL LAS Arm for my Contemptor (today's my birthday so I figured it would be happy BDAY to me). The guy comes back and tells me it's the only Apoth they have so win for me. And now I'm thinking that's cool, so I start to walk over to pay, wait and then head to a cashier. They can't find the items as they are new I suppose. twice a guy goes away and comes back.. with the item number and his price. $45 for each .. Ummm What? I pulled out my phone and showed him their site.. 20 pound for one and 25 for the other..  That's not 45 dollars for either..  He says that's strange and walks away again. He comes back and says sorry but that's a show price. I just stare at him.. Hows that? You are going to charge more then they are listed for? For the privilege of buying it here? No thanks .. now it was his turn to just look at me. You don't want them? Oh I do but I'm now going to get bent over .. I'll just order them and pay the shipping .. no tax and normal price beats your jacked up prices and almost 10% tax here. A lady walks up and we start talking about the issue of which they didn't seem to give a crap, I said I'm glad I was in line early as I would have been pretty pissed off standing there for an hour and get that price .. I bought the TL Las and started to walk away. "We're sorry about that" "Really because it doesn't seem like it" .  Most shows will give you a discount for coming out and supporting a company .. not GW.. it appears they think you should pay more .. even if you flew out there and stayed in a hotel ..  just plain sad.

We had a horrible delay for our flight .. we sat in the Airport for over 7 hours.. boarded the plane only to be told we had to leave the plane. Wait two and a half more hours then board again. We got in at 4 this morning ..  And here I sit at work dying ..  My eyes are burning and my head feels cloudy.. I really hope this is making sense haha ..

Final:
But whatever .. I'm home ..  with my wife and daughter (plus little man soon to arrive) .. was a finalist in the competition .. talked to some cool people and over had a good time.. Here are a few of the pictures of my mini's being checked in .. I ended up taking my Brood Lord as well.. figured what the hey ..






And the Diorama with the finalist pin..

Friday, July 27, 2012

We have arrived ...

Sean and I are in Chi Town .. We went downtown to the miraculous mile and walked around a bit ..  so far the only thing I've purchased is an American Girl doll for my daughter ..  I wanted to get her something out here and their aren't any close to us ..

Tomorrow I'll be taking many pictures and I'll post up a little write up about Games Day...

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Final Selection

Last night I made the final selection of what I'm taking to Chicago. Looks like it will be the DC Dread, Dusk Wolve Termie with Claws and the Pathfinder Diorama. Again I'm not planning on winning or even getting close I just want to put something in to say I did it and as long as they look good enough not to be laughed at I'll be pleased haha ..

I added a little more black blood on the staff on the Dreads base but that's really it for him..

The Termie is going as is .. I just touched up the wolf icon on his shoulder ..

And the Diorama is almost there. I need to mute some colors and blend a little more but taking a step back and looking at the pictures really does seem to help. I see three sections I need to fix now .. so I'll be doin that and one final once over on the gems and lens .. but over all pretty pleased .. I'm sure it will look sad next to some of the peoples crazy layouts there but I think it looks good enough. If other plans hadn't popped up it would be a little more .... more .. .. it would have much more muchness.. but it is what it is ...

I looked through the progress link on the right last night and it was fun to see it when I started and where it is now ..

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now ...

I'm getting so close now.. I got a lot more done on the background which is almost 100% done, just some small details here and there but it's pretty much complete. I also got the Ranger to a good level. Now it's just blending him in to his background and finishing up his details. Tonight I'm hoping to have it completed... If I had more time there is a lot more I'd do but that isn't an option right now haha..

I was planning on adding a bunch of flyers on the wall but when I tacked them up they weren't looking right. So I only added one on the left panel and a few on the ground as trash.

It's harder to see them in the picture unless you enlarge it but they are there haha ..
I have to blend him in again after I made all the changes to the background, his base will also get some blending love.






Monday, July 23, 2012

Your time (and mine) is running out ..

This Friday me and Sean from l33tlike.us are headed to Chicago for Games Day .. and I'm running out of time to get my stuff done. The addition of three major house projects has really set me back painting wise so now I'm rushing. But yesterday I got a lot done on the diorama. I wanted to take the Eldar conversions I've been working on but they aren't there yet so I'm thinking it's going to be the pathfinder diorama and my DC Dread..   I might just take a single mini for the fun of it but it's not a biggy. I'm not looking to win or even be in the top of the pack. I just want to enter it for the sake of entering it. That being said I still don't want my stuff to look like junk haha .. So I'm hoping to have this to a level I'm happy with.. so far it's coming along nicely .. I think ... hopefully ..??  right??  8)




A little work on the Pathfinder.. started adding in some detail and painting his back .. you won't really see it but it still needs to look decent right? 8)  I haven't reblended him yet, that will be the last thing to do since the background also isn't complete.




And I added some of the oil water effects.. I still need to add more to make it more puddle like.



Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Going to get a nice flame job on here!

I have the DC Rhino ready to be primed. Added some scrolls and seals and finished all the battle damage I wanted to carve into it. I used part of the extra armor from the Vindi kit to reinforce the exhaust stacks giving it a beefier look. Also added the old school ram and I'm going to wrap chain around the tines once I have it primed and ready..



Monday, July 9, 2012

OK.. who's cleaning this up?

I got some work done on the Diorama this weekend.. not as much as I'd like but the fence is now one day from being done. Pretty much just need to get the gates in. Anyway .. I got the debris started .. it all at least has a base color and some has a bit of detail. I also picked up some of the GW Water Effects over the weekend and started playing with that.
Sadly one of the hobby stores I usually go to only had the Vallejo effects in blues..  and I want mine to be black. I'm mixing black ink in to make it but didn't want an odd color. So I had to spend twice as much for half the amount.. whoot ! .. but at least it seems to work well.

I applied a quick test in the top of a Gatoraid cap. I'll probably mix in some browns to make it look like a bit of old oil and what not. Going to make a few tests to see what works best and what I'm liking the most. I also plan to make a little how to for it as I figured some people may like to see it .. The water effects will go in last so I need to get cracking on getting the painting done.




Tuesday, July 3, 2012

It's hot .. so hot..


I'm still working on house projects.. but the fence is getting close to being down. Tonight is going to be a hobby night and since tomorrow is the 4th and I'm off ..  I can work till whenever I want .. well as long as I can stay awake haha..