location : m41- brooklyn, ny, 11201

Terrain Inspiration

Was looking at some terrain photos and was really impressed with the quality of production these pieces so I thought I would share them with you guys. These can serve as a template or inspiration for your projects.

Enjoy the pics!

On another note, I do welcome ideas how we can further develop our collection of terrain at YC's place and my place. 

With Fantasy coming up real soon, there is a need to do up proper terrain for both systems. Ideas guys?

Cranking ass cans out the ass

How much does it suck to have to drop cash everytime you wanted a one-off component from a GW kit? Not anymore! I've decided to save up money and attempted to cast my own resin parts. In the close up shot, you can see the quality... not as bad as the worst of what I've bought from forgeworld.

A story of goodwill.

I got home today and went about checking all the usual blogs I follow. And I found out that today was going to be the day where Papa JJ from diceRolla was announcing the results to his blog giveaway in his Hey Win Some Stuff entry. I joined in hoping to win some miniatures to help with my Slanneesh Chaos Warriors army.

Although I eventually did not win the grand prize. I was awed at the fact that Papa JJ actually went on to give out consolation prizes for everyone that took part in the giveaway!

Not only did he give out a whole bucket load of stuff to everyone involved. You can check out all the free stuff he gave away here. He painstakingly went to do some research work on all our blogs to find out what we were involved in and gave out stuff according to what he felt was most appropriate. That is just crazy!

Anyway here is a little extract of his blog post -

"Beef Nuggets - To help fill some of those gaps you mentioned in the Nuln army you're now working on, how about two new warmachines? One is a new Empire Artillery box (the cannon/mortar one), the other is the Empire Volley Gun/Rocket Battery box. Also I've got a box of Empire Wizards, Empire State Troops, and a blister pack Master Engineer Repeater Pistol. I hope these will help you out."

~Big thanks to Papa JJ for these lovely miniatures! Words cannot express my gratitude to such an act of goodwill on your part in helping out fellow wargamers around the world. Be sure to catch all the painting updates on these miniatures as soon as I get them. You are after all now an official shareholder to this wonderful Nuln army.

Cheers.

-Mel

Official 8th Edition Faqs are here!

It's finally here!

Official Army Building begins!

Airbrushed SteamTank

A "little distraction", these are 2 words we hear so many times from others and even from ourselves. Well I guess my target of completing my 30 Spearmen unit got pushed back. By a SteamTank!

So I was sitting around my paint station on a slow afternoon ( I was ill and on Medical Leave ) staring at the stacks of miniatures I needed to paint for my Empire army. I was also thinking about how I could utilize my recently bought airbrush in my fantasy army.

Using them for 40k was no problem as there were loads of Marine armour and IG tanks. Tanks I thought! How could I use it on my Empire Steam Tank? Then on my iTunes playlist randomly came up the "Fade to Black" song by Metallica. And by a magical spell by the wizards of the Lore of "Metal" (pun intended) I knew what I wanted to do.

With my limited palette of colours in my Nuln army and even more limited skill of using an airbrush I decided upon using the 2 primary colours. White fading into black. I not only decided on using this for my Steam Tank but for all my State Troop standard bearers as well. If it all goes well I might even extend them to the barding for my Great Weapon Knights unit!

Here we can see my previously "WIP" Steamtank. The metal version.

Application a success.

A little cleaning up to see the fade better.

And some painting done through the night. Hopefully I'll finish it up in the following day.

Although I side tracked on my initial target I managed to get 11 guys done and even did up a 6 wide by 5 rank movement tray for them. Any progress is good progress in painting!

~What a surprise it is for me to suddenly want to paint my SteamTank. I'm sure many of you guys will get distracted (hopefully by painting minis!) while working on a project but when the vibe and inspiration comes I say go for it. Working with pure enthusiasm often yields a good time with your hobby and isn't' having a good time what our hobby is all about in the first place?

Nuln Spearmen/Empire army built WIP

It's been Fantasy vibes for me ever since I got my July White Dwarf. And I have been digging through all my old miniature stash to set up my Nuln Army for the 8th Edition. Feels quite nice to be using majority 6th Edition Miniatures for my army. Makes keeping minis in storage not seem so bad after all!

Can't wait to get my hands on the rulebook and play some battles! Seeing how this new edition will require large amounts of infantry I could not help myself but start painting them up in anticipation. (and so that I can have as much painted stuff as possible when I start playing!)

So with so many hundreds (literally) of models to paint I have begun and after my first Spearmen test model I went full on to paint up my first unit of 30 Spearmen with full command. My aim is to finish this regiment of 30 models by the week. If I am able to churn out a unit a week (wishful thinking but I'll try!) I can forsee very good progress in my intended 3000pt army.

Here's some WIP shots so far of my Spearmen.

And here you can see the Miniatures I have found for my Nuln army. Not all will be for my Nuln army, I'm still deciding what models I need. Most are unpainted. The few that have some base coats will see a repaint in my black & white Nuln color scheme. Will post the other painted Empire army here soon.

What I will probably need to buy is a few more Handgunners and Warmachines (more cannons and mortars!) to make it truly a Black Powder army from the Gunnery State!

After reading this article on BOLS about Empire in 8th edition. I'm glad I decided to do a Nuln army as it seems that the Empire's range missiles will be rocking!

~ Anyone has any spare Handgunners from 6th edition laying around? Or know someone who has or knows a place still selling them? I'm interested! I hope I don't have to resort to the current models. Which are butt ugly in my opinion!!! Help me out here!

And as always, comments on a Nuln army list is always welcome! As I'm still waiting upon the official FAQS to be released before I set which miniatures I will need to build my intended 3000point army.

13th Co. WIP

Just started works on 20 13th co. space wolves plus 1 converted wolf priest as besides the main names characters, space wolves hq are hard to come by in hkg.

Its gonna suck painting up so many guys. I dread this stage so much. I just wanna fast forward to the last 20% as that's when the sense of reward starts to settle in.

Canis' defective head

Canis is almost done, just need to put some snow powder onto the base when i get my hands on some. In the closeups of canis' face, you can see his right cheek is much more defined and protrudes more than his left cheek. also as mentioned before his right cerebral cortex seems to be flat.

I guess when you are raised by feral wolves, you tend to suffer more than your mother dropping you as a baby for a few times. I shouldn't of painted it... I think my exchange with gw should be for the 'eavy metal's display model. I would hate to have to repaint the whole thing again.

New GW paint pots confirmed.

Not sure if I am late on this news. However last week when I was in Paradigm Infinitum- PI (Local SG game store) I was browsing through their GW stuff and I came across one lonely NEW pot sitting in the racks.

It was the Blazing Orange paint. So I guess these pots are the next phase in our hobby lives.

~Damn it. As much as I love the new pots. This also means soon my pot stacking days are over!!! Have to look for an alternative way to store them.......

canis wolfborn WIP

My surprise present wip. I have mixed feelings about this one... I still don't know who sent this here and the sculpt kinda sucks as part of canis' head suffered from severe miscast tragedy resulting a flat skull (with hair to comb over) on his right cerebral cortex. On the same note, the wolf kinda reminds me of a mad chow x german shepherd if there is such thing. I dunno how to make this cool.... :(

Empire Spearmen of Nuln. And my painting journey....

I read many painting tutorials and articles and realized that my usual painting style was very different from the trends of today. Many painters fully utilize the washes and dips to very good results. Therefore after studying how many others achieved this I decided what better way than to try this different approach to painting than to start a new army.

In this case, my 8th Edition Empire from the city-state of Nuln. How different is this approach some of you must be wondering. Well let's first see how I usually paint.

I usually paint on colours and successive highlights very carefully, most of the time leaving the black showing in between colours. This has of course achieved a very stark contrast between colours and made minatures "pop" more dramatically. This can also be achieved by what many know of as "black lining".

While this method of painting has it's own beauty, it really isn't the most efficient way of painting. Most of the time I would be spending it on very careful application of each colour. Hoping not to mess up and spill over. Back then GW inks were a messy affair. So I stayed away from any kind of washes and simply relied on painting in whatever effects I required.

But this (new to me) approach is almost opposite to what I have been doing for so long. I applied flat colours directly. Without worry of messing up a little (notice I said little! whatever you paint please don't just go crazy and mess things up, you will regret it later!)

Once all the flat colours were down then comes all the GW washes. I used Devlan mud for the flesh parts and bedab black for everything else. All the little mess ups will be muted and "cleaned up" by the washes.

Then the next step is to simply go over the base colour again and one more final stage of highlight.

What I like about this approach it that is creates a "softer" and more natural blending of colours. And of course with the added benefit of being almost "cheatingly" fast as well!

Here's what I produced in 45mins. I am estimating 30-35 mins max when I batch paint.

I went for a colour scheme that I have never considered before for any of my armies. A monochromatic grey. With only a tinge of red on one part of the model. This colour scheme will be applied throughout the entire army. Hopefully able to create a stunning and unusual mono-colour look.

*p.s ~ Those who have watched Sin City or read the comics before will know what kind of feel I am trying to achieve.

I chose Nuln because their colours are mainly black. Which suits my monochrome theme. And of course I want to have an excuse to field many cannons and warmachines!

~ I know I am late on this, many of you would have already been using this method of painting when GW released their washes a couple of years ago. Don't ask why as I myself do not know how I could have missed painting in this approach. Those who have more expert tip on painting please share it with us!

Men of the Empire.

*pic from Games Workshop website

Well I guess I cannot deny all the hype coming out from WFB. And my wandering mind has already started to build new armies and paint schemes for it.

Then I came across this picture on the GW website. And I heard the calling. I was going to do a Nuln army of the Empire. A new Empire army just for 8th Edition.

I have an Empire army in 6th Edition. It was a Stirland army. Very generic empire army.

Now I wanna do a gunnery army for them! I just love the color scheme it is so menacing yet striking! I will go home tonight and gather the miniatures needed for the army (yes I do have a large stash of models in storage) and will post pics of them asap!

~So which army will you guys be doing?