Command Squad Plasma Gunner, Object Source Lighting attempt

     Here we go, two updates in a single day. Wow... unusual. I finished my Command Squad's Plasma Gunner, and yes I tried some Object Source Lighting. Or as the snooty artsy crowd might say: "Painting..."

     Well WHATEVER you want to call it, I think it looks pretty cool. I'm not saying I did it bang on, but I didn't want to spend too much time on this one command squad member. Basically I just did some strategic dry brushing ever so carefully. I tried a tiny little bit of glazing with a blue wash, buuuutttt that didn't work quite as I wanted it. I certainly realize that, in order to do some good OSL, you really need to change the shading on the opposite side of the lighting source. Basically that side needs to be darker to give the proper look to the lit side. That just would have taken a little too long, and it would have made the this one figure look rather mis-matched on the table along side the rest of the army.

     I also need to give some thanks to my wife, that made a fantastic recommendation that I paint some sort of pattern on the sole of the boot. Great idea, and I think that came out looking nice. It certainly gave some nice detail to the model.

     I've also decided that I'm going to theme my army after the veterans of Meridian. If you've played Dawn of War 2 (which you should, if you haven't) then you might remember Meridian as the planet covered in a large Hive city, the Blood Ravens came to defend this planet against the Tyranid invasion. The guard was present in many of the battles, and I think I can pull that together to give a nice back story to some of my guard squads.

     Well that's enough jibber-jabber, here are some more pics of my Plasma Gunner:

     Hope you enjoyed, comments and questions always appreciated! HAPPY NEW YEARS YA'LL!!

Drop Pod Assault On Dallas/Ft. Worth Area!

     So I'm not living in the Dallas area at the moment, though I spent the lion share of my childhood there, and prior to joining the military, my wife and I lived in Arlington (only about a mile or so from the new Cowboys Stadium... aka Death Star). There was only one GW store at the time, located in Grapevine Mills shopping center. That's an large mall, and if you have been to one of the "Mills" style malls, you know what I'm talking about. The GW store there is small, but most of the staff that I had met are top notch.

     Well the floodgates of GW are opening in the DFW area now. They built a GW store in sort of the Frisco area last year. One opened in Denton this year. CRAZY! Three GW stores! But wait there's more...

     I happen to have a friend who is a manager at a store in the Parks Mall in Arlington. He said he has confirmation that they're putting up a GW store there! So for those of you DFW Texans, congratulations, you're pretty well covered if you live in the mid-cities area and north.

     

     That's not even to speak of some of those independent retailers, simply because I don't know a lot of them. After all, I didn't get into this hobby until AFTER I left Texas. I do know of a pretty key IR though called Area 51 not too far from that Grapevine GW location.

     Just two more years, and I'll be able to return to Texas. I've been looking forward to it for many reasons, and these store openings are getting me very excited. My local GW store at the moment, is decidedly less than awesome. I was really hoping for more, when I moved here. The employees are all kinda slimy script readers. I've been in that store countless times, hell I even painted in the store (not really by choice) and they don't remember me, they ALWAYS go to their scripts, and you can't engage in a just normal chew-the-fat conversation because they're actually TOO dorky. That's saying something as I'm a huge dork myself. Of course I need to also mention that the store's assistant manager's son is there almost all hours of the damned day. He's a little snot-nosed brat that will find his way into ANY discussion in the store, and will interrupt games with stupid "humorous" insights. I had to play a game against him one day, and he specifically tailored an army against mine using some of his army and some of the display stuff. Bleh... worst... game... ever.

     So I hope that these GW store exemplify the better store experience I had at Grapevine Mills, and will provide me and my friends with a good place to enjoy our 40K games.

Orders sir?

     So I lied, just a little. I decided to throw another update up before my computer was fixed. The reason for this? I've completed my commander! I really... REALLY like the way he turned out. I was a little hesitant as it's another HQ model. You always want to put your best foot forward when it comes to HQ models. This one, even though he's just a plastic model out of a command squad box, was no exception. I spent a lot of time on a few areas, and I think they paid off. These areas were the face, the blending on the armor, and the free hand on the right shoulder.

     The freehand was really simple, but it turned out exactly how I pictured it in my mind prior to putting the brush to the model. That gives me a pretty good feeling. Up until now, my freehand has been limited, to say the least. I've been inspired to try it a bit more, as I have a few ideas for some fun stuff I'd like to throw on some vehicles. I needed something on this model to show his rank. I've placed skulls on my two veteran sergeants, so his shoulder had to be a bit fancier. Fun stuff!

     Of course, given this long void of blog posts, I had mentioned that I wasn't idle on the painting table. As requested, here are some pics of my second Veterans squad that I completed  a while back. Enjoy:

 Yes, that's a Space Marine scout head... Big whoop, wanna fight about it?

Some bones from a Vampire Counts skeleton box given to me by a friend. 

 Some scratches and nicks on the armor that I dig. I'm starting to dig the weathered look

Wounds for my meltas? Look! I green-stuffed some bricks, the red ones. Sculpting skillz.

     That's it for now. The army is really looking good as it builds up on my table. I've got the rest of the command squad to paint, then I'm in vehicle territory. For those, I'll need to go buy a compressor for my airbrush.

     Been putting a lot of thought as to what Space Marine army I'm going to do as my next army (much further down the line) and I'm pretty set on Red Scorpions. Should be fun. I wish those damn Imperial Armour books for the Badab war were not so freaking expensive.

     Thoughts and comments are always appreciated! I'm still contemplating the name for my Guard army. The best I've come up with so far is the Hive Rats. Since they are an urban, more elite force style army, I thought that might work. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I couldn't find an established Guard regiment that had a similar color scheme, so if you know of one, do tell. Thanks for tuning in.

The System Is Down!

COMPUTER MAKE BIG BONG NOISE!

    I have been without a computer for about three months now. I live on a military base, in military housing. The result of that is a terribly antiquated power grid, and one fried motherboard. In the process of trying to properly troubleshoot and diagnose my computer troubles, I've spent money, and that makes me angry.

     Normal post will resume once Asus gets around to repairing my motherboard (correctly this time, thanks) and I get that installed. I certainly haven't been completely idle at my painting desk. I've completed both Imperial Guard Veteran squads, and I've started painting my command squad. I'll have to take some pictures and hopefully have them ready to post once my computer is back up. In the meantime, I've been borrowing time on my wife's laptop. I try to keep my time on the laptop limited as it's hers and I don't want to hog. Note to self: One PC relationship is much more difficult than first thought.

SELLING MY MARINES

     I've been giving some serious thought towards selling my Space Marines as I would like to use the proceeds to fund another army. It will most likely be another Space Marines army, but just a completely fresh start is what I'm looking for. If anyone is interested, let me know. I will be posting details later. You can find pictures of most all of the army on my picasa gallery here. Ignore the Ultramarines at the beginning.  If you do have any questions about the army before I start giving details, drop a comment here or send me an email. I'll be happy to answer.