Saturday at the Bowie Battle Bunker

A Day at the Bunker


     I spent a good portion of the afternoon at the Bowie Battle Bunker in Bowie Maryland (go figure, right?).  A few friends were meeting up to play some Warhammer Fantasy.  While spectating the game, I thought I'd putter around the store and take a look at some of the 40K games going on, and snap a few pics.

     I was disappointed to find only two fully painted armies being played.  The most impressive was this Thousand Sons army that was being played using the vanilla Space Marine codex.  There were some interesting conversions, and some creative "counts as" models.  There were Space Marines on horse back that were being played as SM bikers, and Blood Crushers adorned with weapons that were counts-as attack bikes as an example.  Some great modeling work going on here.

Cool but... um...
     So that's a $640 worth of Thunderhawk Transporter.  From distance, it looks ok.  But when I inspected it a bit closer, it made me sad.

     So the paint that's on there is super thin, and the Land Raider... dear God where do I start.  Some of the model has been, well I guess primed?  Not sure what I would call that.  Yikes.  This thing has been on display for some time now.

     I'll just leave you with a few more random shots...

Now Witness the Power of this Fully Armed umm... pile of... Valkyrie?

Some Assembly Required


     I've been spending some time on my first Valkyrie kit.  This isn't the easiest kit I've assembled, but it really isn't incredibly hard.  My concepts for magnetizing bits and making this vehicle a bit more "tricked out" have been foiled by the reality I encounter as I proceed with the actual model assembly.  What I mean is that my mind's eye concept of how the Valkyrie SHOULD go together and how it ACTUALLY does go together are quite often different.  I had this neat idea of magnetizing the side doors such that they would easily be set in either open or closed position and wouldn't be prone to change during handling of the model.  That was foiled by the fact that the side doors are only slightly larger than the doorway they cover.

     There's more than the doors that I've struggled with, but it's symptomatic of my problem: no experience with this model.  That's okay, as I have a second one of these waiting for me under my desk.  I don't know how that makes me feel, exactly.  I can certainly move faster in the assembly, but there's another problem...

Paint before Assembly


     Yup!  I'm going to have to prime and paint quite a bit of this model before I really can put this bad boy together.  The obvious culprits are the cockpit and crew compartment.  The cockpit isn't large, but it is certainly detailed.  The crew compartment, for the most part, should be pretty straight forward.  The door gunners and their heavy bolters might be a bit of an issue.

     Really, if they had just made the heavy bolters ONLY attach to the bulkhead (or wall), and NOT the bulkhead AND the deck (or floor) in the crew compartment, it would have been no problem.  Now I've got some extra steps to take.  Hopefully I don't do something out of order and screw the whole mess up.

Bunker Visit


     I'll likely be at the Bowie, MD Battle Bunker on Saturday.  I'll just be there to spectate, but looking forward to getting some hours in the atmosphere of some table top gamin'!  See you there!

Chimera (mostly) done!

She's ready for battle! (sorta)


     So here it is!  I like the way it came out.  I hemmed and hawed about so many details, and honestly it was worth it.  This being the first test for what should be a fairly large number of vehicles for my Imperial Guard army, it was very important to get it right.  I think there are certainly some larger risks I can take with subsequent vehicles, now that I've tested some theories.

     I'm going to make sure that I do more to hide the decal outlines.  I used the Micro Sol agent on the skull and the 501, but it didn't dull the look enough.  I'm going to make sure that on my other vehicles I paint over the clear portions lightly enough to take that plastic sheen off.  I hit it up with some matte finish, but it's still there.  All of the infantry didn't show the decals like that, granted they're significantly smaller decals.

     What am I referring to when I say that it's "mostly finished?"  Well perhaps you've noticed it already but the hull weapon is unpainted.  I've magnetized the two choices but I somehow forgot to prime them.  I'll just make sure they get primed next time I've got the airbrush out and filled with primer.

Army Parade


     I've decided that I'm going to participate in the Games Workshop Armies on Parade competition.  One of my early experiences in this hobby, from a competitive point of view, was an early "Army Parade" deal done at the Games Workshop store in Grapevine Mills mall in Grapevine, Texas.  The result of that was a little disappointing to me, but I learned some important lessons:

1.  Size matters! -  Big models get big attention.
2.  Bases count.  -  Dull bases?  Pffftt.... shows you didn't try.
3.  Bring a converted Tau tank you've turned into a Titan.  -  Yeah... for real.
4.  Don't get your hopes up for prizes.  -  It'll be a book... a... book.

     1 and 2, take those to heart for sure.  3 is still important because that happened.  The guy's army was painted ok.  I would say better than average, but it didn't matter because of the massive converted Tau Titan.  Stole the freakin' show.  But number 4 also happened, so I didn't feel so bad about losing.  Hah!

     The main challenge for me, on a personal level, with this competition is going to be the display board.  I've never done terrain, apart from bases, and I'm only moderately competent in that.  This is going to mean lots of foam carving and plenty of mistakes, I'm sure.

     Next up?  Valkyrie!  Until then, here are some more pics of my Chimera, enjoy:

Streaming some more painting

(Stopped broadcasting around 10:31pm Eastern.  Stop back by later for more streaming!  Cheers!)

I'm back and doing some finishing up on that Chimera.  I'll be streaming some 40K Radio to boot so join in and be AMAZED!  I MIGHT be overselling that just a bit.  Okay... watch paint dry on the Internet! Hurray!



Live broadcast by Ustream

Painting a Chimera at GW and a New Camera

Painting a Chimera at a Games-Workshop store 

     Spent an enjoyable evening with friends at a local GW store last night.  If you're curious as to which one: Columbia, Maryland.  The store is one of those lone employee stores.  I believe the manager's name is Tony.  He's a very amiable guy, and seems to have a very genuine enthusiasm for the hobby.  Last week, I spent Wednesday evening there as well and Tony and I had a fun chat about the Southern foods and culture that we both miss being this far from home.

     As the above picture shows, I made some healthy progress on my Chimera.  I gave it a good quick overall dry brushing to bring out some edges and give the paint a bit of an older look.  In future I'm going to make sure that I do this BEFORE painting some of the details.  I then used Vallejo Charred Brown (GW Scorched Earth equivalent) and a bit of blister sponge to dab a little "rust" spots around the tank, making sure to hit corners and edges in particular.  I then took GW Gryphonne Sepia with a standard brush and added the water-rust streaks everywhere.  Very simple technique but very effective.  It's starting to really come together.  I washed the treads with GW Devlan Mud, and I'll need to dry brush some GW Bolt Gun to brighten those back up a bit.

     There's still quite a lot of work to be done on this, but I think the paint job is starting to come together.

     Here are some more shots:

Hanging out with Friends


     I've been so consumed with my work lately, that I've afforded myself very little time away from the house.  It felt great to just get out for a bit.  The four friends I met up with were my former D&D buddies so we had some catching up to do.  They're an extremely great group of gents and we always have interesting conversations.  I spectated a small sort of tutorial game of Warhammer Fantasy between two of them.  Three of us were there to provide color commentary and lots of distractions.  Good times!

New Camera

     I recently picked up a Nikon D3100, and I've been playing around with it.  The above Chimera pictures were taken with it.  I'm really enjoying it, having a "real" camera.  I just need to get used to using this puppy for miniature pictures.  You can really get some detail out of the shots, which is worrying to me a little... as this means you'll be able to see exactly what my paint jobs look like.  My experience is that sometimes there's such a thing as getting TOO close to these miniatures and things start looking... sketchy.

Live streaming and testing a new setup

UPDATE: I stopped streaming at 2215 EST this evening so check back with me later.



Hello again!  I'm testing out a new setup for the web cam in preparation for doing some tutorials.  I'll be working on my Imperial Guard Chimera again for Warhammer 40K.  Fun times!

Live streaming again!

UPDATE: I stopped streaming at 2215 EST this evening so check back with me again tomorrow for some more live painting.



I'm streaming live again tonight.  I'll be working on my Imperial Guard Chimera once again! Take a look!