Manipulations Episode #1

Well, I stated in the last post that I would probably start posting some random stuff here and there so here it is. It has been a couple weeks since I posted last, but I am gonna try to post at least once a week. Hell, maybe I will make a regular Sunday article. We'll play this one by ear and if it goes ok maybe I can keep up with it.

Competitive 40K?

So, there has been quite an uproar the last couple of weeks over what competitive 40K players feel GW is doing with their game. If I still ran regular tournaments I could easily see how it might be an issue. Dataslates. strongholds, super heavies, allies, and all that is out there is a nightmare for tournament organizers. It really has little to do with those fellas and a lot to do with the people who show for those events.

If you don't know maybe you should understand something about people who take it on themselves to run not only tournaments but any type of event. Regardless of how it may look on the outside the desire to run events comes mainly from the desire for others to have an enjoyable experience. Some may be about ego and the more successful ones can make some money at it, but at the root of it is running an enjoyable event.

Having said that, if they feel the players won't enjoy the game many will strive to strike a balance that can neutralize a problem. I was quite like that when I first started. Things I got complaints about or seem overpowering were often comped out or forced to deal with scenarios that weighed heavily against them. I learned a while ago that all you end up doing in those situation is creating something else that is off and it becomes a never ending battle. More recently I have been pretty much will to allow what ever is in the book to fly. Balance comes from the option for everyone to use the same stuff.

How do I feel about the current game. I like it. What follows may explain why.

Eldar Re-Paint WIPs

     My hobby time the past two years has been extremely limited. My decision to return to school as well as the birth of my son have cause quite a drain on my free time. That is probably the number one reason why I have had limited activity on this blog. This summer I decided to take a break after 2 full years (summers too). That should allow me more time to paint and hopefully put some stuff up for you all to look at.

     So, with the recent release of the Eldar codex I have enjoyed working with that army again. We have a saying locally "I don't paint like that no more.", and to some extent that is true. I am not trying to say there was anything specifically wrong with how I used to paint in particular how I painted my Eldar, I have just learned skills and techniques that will make painting new models much easier and reach a better result.

Some Airbrush Work

Many of you know that I have been striving to get control on my collection the last couple years. Part of those strives is consolidating or eliminating parts of my collection. With the implementation of the allies rules in 6th edition I began working on my Emperors Children. With the release of Forgeworld's Horus Heresy book, I decided to consolidate the usable pieces of my Black Templar into a loyal version. That would make one big army I could use. The Chaos parts as a Chaos Space Marine army, the loyalist parts as a Codex Space Marines army, and combined I will use them in Horus Heresy games I play.

One army, one color scheme and I settled on a pre-heresy purple and gold look. Specifically a more muted almost platinum looking gold. In addition I am using my airbrush to do as much of the base color as possible. What follows is the result of my 3rd attempt. Unfortunately I am unable to truely judge if I like them until the other colors are on the model.

The steps after the jump...

Some Quick Work

I finally managed to finish a figure. I have been replaying Fallout New Vegas and I also wanted a figure that I can paint and not really worry about how it looked in the end. Let me rephrase that. I was not going to be concerned with it looking spectacular or matching the color of an existing force. With Fallout on my mind I pulled out one of the cultists I have from the Dark Vengeance set.

More after the jump...

"I'm not dead yet!"

Regardless of how it feels here on Every Store Needs One, I am not dead. The birth of my first child has stolen any free time I had. I have been working on some stuff, but just lack the time to post anything.

I am trying to reduce my collection a bit, and narrow my armies down to those I "really" want to keep and work on. Originally that meant that I was going to be selling my IG and my Black Templar, but the more I read in the Horus Heresy forgeworld book the more I think IG will be the only casualty. Eldar are one of old flames, and I have always been a fan of Emperors Children. So it seems I will be breaking apart my Templar and using what I can to make a loyalist version of Emperor's Children to mirror my current Chaos project.

Fiends of Slaanesh conversion: Need Some Input

Just like many in this hobby, I have many armies. One of my favorite to play, well used to be, was my Emporer's Children army. With the release of the current codex, the style of that army was never the same and I stopped playing it.

Fast forward to the release of 6th edition and the inclusion of allies. Now all those lovely Slaanesh daemons that have been taunting me, are now able to be included in a EC army. Even with the renewed joy of playing my Children, I still have a small problem. The current model GW makes for Fiends of Slaanesh are hideous. I can not state in words how much I dislike them. They have a great profile though. So I have to come up with a replacement. I decided to use Tyranid Ravagers as the base with a bit of work to convert them into some thing depraved enough. Here is the pics, afterwards my thoughts.....

More after the jump...

Change of Plans

Slight change of plans. While talking with Evil Homer the other day about our plans for Wargames Con, I realized something. Any of my armies would work for the team tournament as I view that as a mainly fun event. The GT is another thing entirely. I did not feel that any of the armies I currently own were going to give me the chance I wanted. I know, I could go down there and get my tail spanked with this army just as well, but I like my odds a bit better.

So Imperial Guard it is. I have a limited window to complete this army. Since school says I do not have much free time, I had to hit the ground running and get as much done as I can. I took advantage of the local tournament I hosted this past weekend and went on an assembly spree. 3 Chimeras, a Hellhound, a Manticore, and 3 Heavy Weapon teams joined the Chimera, Manticore, Colossus, and 6 Heavy Weapon teams I already had assembled. I topped that off with 2 Vandettas on Sunday. Outside of the weapon teams, I don't think any of them are completely assembled, but they are good enough I can start getting practice games.

I am still waiting on one more Chimera, and I have 60 infantry to build yet. Then I have to decide on a color scheme and get them all painted. We'll see how this goes. I know one thing for sure, my airbrush is going to get quite a workout.

Airbrushing Base Colors: Part II

 So I promised some WIPs for my Chaos Marines and I was able to spend some time on them this week. Just as I show here, I have been working with using my airbrush for mass base coats. I am still tinkering with the process, but I am fairly pleased with what I have here. This is pic below is the finished product and what the rank and file of the army will look like.

After the jump I have a walk through on how I did the base color.

Post 100...When is organized too organized..?

Well, I sat down to write a quick post and low and behold this is my 100th post. I would have never thought when I started this blog that I would have made it to 100 post. In addition, I think it is neat the amount of people that come and look at my digital diarrhea and for that I thank you.


So I managed to work in quite a bit of hobby time this weekend. I got all my Chaos Marines stripped and broken down into as small of pieces as I could with out breaking stuff. Saturday I got the parts all separated into the parts that I want to use. Is this a bit over the top?

I Don't Paint Like That No More!!

I have been going through a bit of a funk lately. School is taking a large chunk of my free time so the hobby time has been extremely limited. The problem is, with the limited time I have I am starting to tire of painting black and white on Templar so I have been looking for something different to do. I decided to take a crack at working on my future Chaos Marine army.

See, I have an Emperor's Children army that I started a long time ago. This was my attempt at a fluff based list. It was pretty much done construction and in the painting stages. After a while of playing the army the current codex was released and pretty much torpedoed the army I had constructed. I made several attempts to try to figure out a way to make the army work, but the codex really does not allow for a very good mono-god Slaanesh.

An Experiment...or rather, "Don't Leave Your Models at the Store!"

So, this post is actually a bit overdue. In response to the title, one of the guys from the FLGS has a bad habit of leaving his miniatures at the store. So to teach him a lesson I took two of his Grey Knights. I had a pretty good idea what he was planning on having in his army so I made sure to not take anything that was essential.

Now, Evil Homer had asked at one time about a way to do black metallic armor. I had several ideas of how he could have gone about it. I actually did some tests on a Necron to see what my ideas would look like. I was fairly pleased with the results, but I knew he wanted to use it on Marines and I was not sure it would translate over well. In came the Grey Knights.

Since that time though I believe Evil Homer no longer has the army he was intending on using the technique for. Even though Evil Homer no longer needed the recipe, I decided to use the ill gotten Grey Knights as my test subjects. I figured the owner would not learn a lesson if I simply gave them back.

One small note that I want to include. These models were assembled when I acquired them, and I did not do any cleaning on them before painting. That means the bolters are not drilled, and there is flash visible in several places. One of them was already primed and some of the detail has been obscured because of it. Before I start with the steps let me give you some info for those following along at home. VMA= Vallejo Model Air, VGC= Vallejo Game Color, and VMC= Vallejo Model Color.

Slowly Working

Well, I had a week off from work and very little hobby time. I decided to renovate my shed and replace a sliding back door with a set of french doors. Both went about as well as could be expected for a 95 year old house, but unfortunately they took more time then I wanted to spend.

Between some spare minutes and a easily officiated local tournament, I managed to finish a model. Well almost finish should really be what I said. It is about 98% done, but I noticed a few things on the pictures I would like to fix. Those will have to wait till later. I want to move on to another model.

Airbrushing for Base Colors

      Well I started this day with the idea I would write a short post about how you can cut a huge chunk of time out painting your rank and file by using an airbrush. I did some basic models to give you examples the only problem is what happened on the paint table did not transfer well in pictures. Even so I will put up the steps with a few explanations of how I did it as well as some things you can try with your own models. Here are the models after priming and the base coat color sprayed onto them.

More Terrain

     Well I have managed some hobby time for myself and with it I created another piece of terrain. I had someone comment that they liked the start to finish approach so this one took me a few days to get all the pics I needed for the post. No other formalities lets get right to it.

     I start out with some sort of base for the piece. This happens to be a piece of 1/4" plywood. Since I have really liked what I am able to get by starting with some pink poly foam on the base I cut a few pieces from the scrap and arrange them on the base. I like using this on the base because it allows me to do some work below the floor. I can make craters or carve out parts of the side. Overall I just like what it does to a simple piece of ruins.

     The rest of the process is after the break.

Another Piece of Terrain

Here are some shots of one of the other pieces of terrain I have recently worked on. This piece was done with pretty much the same steps as this one was. Just a few pics and a real brief explanation of what I have done. More pictures after the jump.

Some new terrain

I am back to my old ways again and I am running a Cities of Death tournament. I have managed to square away some time to my self so to prepare I have been working on some new terrain. I have been trying to add more detail to the pieces I am able to do.

I started with pink foam insulation glued to a piece of hardwood base. I want the look of a foundation as well as the ability to work below the ground level of the building. I took the foam and carved out a hole so I could imbed one of the pieces of terrain from the Battle for Macragg box. So the foam looks like a floor I scribed some lines into foam with a ball point pen. I did make one mistake when doing this. I drew the line all the way to the edge, and I probably should have stopped before I got to the edge. I also added some wedges at the tip of the cockpit so it looks like the wreckage has buried itself into the foundation.

Learning Curve...black....I think I am getting it

Ok I think I have got to the point I am happy with. The unfortunate part is that I have not had that much time to paint so I have not got that far. I started to block out some colors so I can see what they look like with other colors on them. Maybe if I get some time this weekend I can get one finished for you to look at.

Learning Curve...black....getting there.

Ok I bet you are tired of seeing these posts. Trust me I am tired of doing them. Like I said in the first one I am hoping that what I am going through will help you out. Spending some time looking at some other painters, mainly those who are much more talented than me, gave me an idea of what I wanted. When I attempted to match their work using the steps I thought they would take, my results were less than spectacular.

Learning Curve...black....your doing it wrong.

Well well...can someone say epic fail. I thought I had the right idea, thought I would whip out a quick mini that is somewhere close to what I want. Then I could figure out some shortcuts for the basic soldiers.

WELL WELL WELL...I could not have been more wrong.

So that makes test number 11-12. I am not even really sure where I went wrong. But the mini on the left could not look more grey. I might try to work some black into some shadows to see if I can pull it back to what I want.

If you want to see test model 9 check after the jump....

Learning Curve...black.....still working

Well not much to report right now. I have had little time or inspiration to work on minis. When I do get time I tend to work a bit on some black and then quit in frustration. I have done a few trial pieces and have not been satisfied with anything I have..so no pictures.

You see the problem I have is two fold. First off, you can not shade and highlight black like you do other colors. Normally you have your base color then a shade and a highlight. The highlight is simple. The shade not so much. What do you add to black to make a shadow? So after a bit of hard headed struggling I gave it up. The other problem I have is that I am not terribly hot for the traditional hard edge lining that most people use for black.

So what am I going to do? Well the last couple of test models I have worked on (and I think the count now is up to 9 or 10) I am using a bit of a mix. Instead of hard lining both the top and bottom edges of the model I am only hitting the areas that would get light. For the most part that means just the top edges. In addition to that I will be hitting some of the larger flat areas with some normal shading to try to give a nice contrast. Could this work? I hope so. It could also lead to test models 11 and 12. Hopefully I can get something to a point where I take some pics for you soon.