This is serving as a test model. I am almost positive that I am going to stick with this paint scheme. I wanted to stick to something close to how Mantic painted the models because I liked the way that they looked. I just wanted to give them my own spin.
Well thats it for this team gang. With the completion of the Strikers this team is finished. I just need to get them sprayed with a matte varnish and then they will be ready to play. Also at that point I will get pictures of the whole team all laid out for the team photos.
So the other night I finished off the last of the Guards and tonight I decided to get to work on the Jacks. Well I managed to get the 6 of them all done. All that leaves is the 6 Strikers and I am done with the Corporation team. When I get the whole team done I will get pictures of the whole team all laid out. For now... just a taste of how they are starting to turn out.
Thats right, I am finally working on Dreadball stuff. This is just a test run on a paint scheme for the Corporation team. I wanted to stay with blue and silver but change things up a little bit. I started by making the blue the primary color of their armor and then I changed the shade of blue to a softer aged looking blue compared to the true blue that they used on the studio models.
Thats right... don't let the title confuse you. I converted a librarian to be riding a Ravenwing bike.
Well actually I sorta stole the idea from the April 2013 issue of White Dwarf, page 109 if you want to go and look it up. On that page Mark Bedford took the Librarian from the Dark Vengeance box set and combined him with a bike from the new Ravenwing Command Squad box and BAM there is one of the coolest ideas I have seen in a while and I thought to myself, "Hey I can do that one too. I have the stuff here in the studio to do it. I just have to convince the owner of the Dark Angels stuff to let me do it." Which honestly it wasn't that hard to convince him of this because after all he is building a full fledged Ravenwing army and was trying to figure out how to work a Librarian into the mix. So I showed him the pictures and the rest was history.
Here is the first of what I am planning will be three Sanguinary Priests for my Blood Angels Project. This one just happens to be the Finecast model with a little kitbashing fun added in... like the winged jump pack and the plasma pistol and the shoulder pad stolen from the Death Company sprue. I decided to go with the winged jump pack on this guy too because that is going to be a running theme through out the whole army when it is all said an done.
The model is mounted on one of the Ruined Temple resin bases from my friends over at Secret Weapon Miniatures. Which that is also going to be a theme for the army. It took me several days of going back and forth before I finally decided on these bases and let me tell you... I am glad I chose these, as they really are kick ass bases.
Paint wise this is the red that I think I am going to go with for all the models in the army. I am not trying to win any Golden Daemons or anything like that with this army I just want them to look good and draw some attention. When this army is all done I want people to stop and look at them and be like "that is a good looking army". BUT that is still a long way off as there is still a bunch more stuff to paint and a few more things that still need to be bought for them.
As promised I finished up the Pathfinders that I started over the weekend. Well here they are in all their red and black glory. They are mounted on the new Tau Ceti bases from Secret Weapon Miniatures. If you are having a hard time trying to figure out how to base your new Tau army then I highly recommend heading on over to see Mr. Justin and the rest of the crew over at Secret Weapon and picking some of these bases up. I think that they are really cool and really help give the models more of a story... like maybe they are defending their home Sept world from the evil Ork invaders.
Man April was a rough month... kinda glad its all over. Anyway... not much happened here in the studio last month except I did paint some non-gaming models for one client and I painted up a few Firestorm ships for Phil over at Firebase Delta.
I helped assemble a bunch of models for my gaming buddy's Dark Angels... had a little fun doing some kitbashing and converting. I have one more model that I have to get assembled for him then he is going to work on getting them painted. I will get a picture of this last model that I have to assemble as soon as I get it done. Also in my last post you might remember the Pathfinder that I painted up as part of the Farsight Enclave... well that squad is almost done, I am down to the last three models in the unit and they should be done shortly.
As for what all I am going to be working on in the wonderful month of May, well I am a little unsure. I am thinking of FINALLY getting to work on the Dreadball set that is sitting here as well as working on some of my Blood Angels... well maybe if I can ever get my FW Rhino doors to arrive.
One last thing... and personally I think I saved the best for last. A few weeks ago I posted about the Secret Weapon Miniature Kickstarter for the Tablescapes. Well I can happily report at the typing of this post it has over 900 backers and over $175k in support. It only has like 10 days left so PLEASE don't miss out on your chance to get in on this one and show your support. That and I really want to get the Ruined Temple set unlocked... and we are almost there. So head on OVER and show your support.
This Pathfinder is helping to serve as a test model for the rest of the Farsight Enclave. If some of you may remember the Tau army that I painted for myself a couple years back... well it is going to be getting repainted as the Farsight Enclave, and are going to be getting added to the other Tau army in the house. So there is going to be a MASSIVE Tau army in the house.
The Tau are also being rebased on the Tau Ceti bases from Secret Weapon Miniatures. The color choice for these bases was a long hard road because it is going to have to work well with two differently painted Tau armies as they are both going to be getting the same bases. When I get the whole squad done I will get squad pictures taken.
So I often field requests about painting models and miniatures that are not gaming related. To answer those questions in bulk yes I will paint random figurines as long as they hold still and will take paint. Recently one of my regular clients who does egg carving had me paint another batch of figures for her to put in eggs that she sells at ren faires. Here is an example of some of the work that I do for non gaming models. She is an autumn fairy.
As you all know I am a huge fan and supporter of our friends over at Secret Weapon Miniatures. Mr Justin is an awesome person to deal with and not only do they have great products they have great customer service.
Well some of you may know that I am not the greatest fan of Kickstarter... well honestly I think I might just have to eat my words on this one. Cause Mr Justin just today has launched a Kickstarter that I would love to support and I recommend that all of you at least take a look at it and consider getting in on it as well. Secret Weapon is proud to present their Tablescapes line. It looks like they are going to come in sets of 16 12"x12" tiles that will make a 4'x4' board on the Kickstarter he also has a set that contains 32 tiles so you can make a 4'x8' board. As I understand it from watching the video on the Kickstarter page the 16 tiles are all different so you will have hundreds of different combinations to put them together so every battle will be different. The Tablescapes are made from an injection molded plastic and not some soft poured plastic or resin. So they will be sturdy. Also they are held together with little clips that go in the corners so you wont have to worry about the tiles shifting and your models getting knocked about.
So what about the price you ask... well for a set of 16 tiles on the Kickstarter it is $150 and for the 32 tiles it will run you $250, and those prices include shipping. Mr. Justin is hoping to have them ready to be shipped out by October according to the info on the Kickstarter. Now lets compare this for a second to the Realms of Battle Board and tile expansion set from GW. The Realms of Battle board comes as a set of 6 2'x2' tiles so you can make a 4'x6' table for $290 and for another $99 you can get 2 more tiles giving you a 4'x'8' board, bringing that total to $389. So for a much higher quality 4'x'8' board that you have almost unlimited options for a layout you can spend $250 for a set from Secret Weapon Miniatures... or if you are a GW fanboy you can shell out almost $400. Personally I would rather spend the $250 for the board from SWM and then take the money that I saved to buy some matching terrain or resin bases.
Thats right people... the Tablescapes don't end with just the 16 tile sets... which according to the video that Mr. Justin made there are going to be several different sets designed to match some of the different base sets that they produce. Let me say that again... they are making the boards to match their resin bases. How awesome would that be to have your awesomely painted miniatures mounted on some of SWM bases and be playing on a board that actually matches the bases. Now let me take this one step further... IF I understood everything correctly in the video and from what I read on the Kickstarter page there is also going to be a modular wall set to match the boards as well. Talk about having a themed army and table... honestly how cool would this be. Personally I can't wait for the Ruined Temple set to come out so that I can have a matched board for my Blood Angels to play on.
So go to KICKSTARTER and please, please, please show your support for Secret Weapon Miniatures Tablescapes Kickstarter so that we have better and way more affordable options than what is already out there for modular gaming boards. I know I have plans on supporting this one myself.
So unless you live under a rock or you just don't care about Games Workshop games anymore, this past weekend marked the relaunch of the Tau Empire. Or at least it was supposed to be the relaunch of the Tau. And I say that because GW dropped the ball yet again... no real big surprise there cause they have been doing that bunch as of late.
"How did they drop the ball?" you ask.
Well thats simple... again unless you have been living under a rock you may already know that the Tau were completely sold out before the release date. Now logic would tell them that MAYBE since they produce their own miniatures in house that they should up production levels. But no... they decide to move ahead with their already way over crowded release schedule. Now I have been to every store in my town that still stocks the new GW stuff when it comes out and the supplies are very limited. In fact we picked up the only box of the new plastic Pathfinders in this city. At the last stop I asked my FLGS owner what was up with the lack of Tau and the story I got was that they dropped the ball on production. That they didn't think that the demand would be that high for what has been one of the best selling (non-space marine) army for 40k, and that they knew that the stuff was going to sell out and didn't think "Hey this is going to be huge... maybe we should bump the rest of the production schedule and think about getting more of the Tau stuff made so that we can cover our butts." But no... they just pushed Tau back to their earliest open spot on the schedule.
Now when GW asked about this their response was to have the stores tell people that they were having "production problems" and when they were pressed harder about when the items would be back in stock because the store had taken pre orders and didn't get the items to even take care of the pre orders GW came back with "it will be about 90 days until they can get the Tau back into production because they have other stuff coming out that they have to get produced." Now here is where I say that is BULLSHIT... and GW screwed up and that they should own up to their mistake and take care of the back orders and get ahead on that product line before you introduce another one. Don't punish the fans of the army because YOU screwed up on not producing not enough stuff for one of the best selling armies.
And the biggest thing that pisses me off about all of this... Remember the camo Tau I painted a couple of years back... I was going to buy Commander Farsight and repaint the camo Tau using the Farsight Enclave colors... BUT... unless you preordered the sculpt of Farsight from GW when the Preorder went up on their website you are not going to get one for a long while.
Now this is the info I was given when I pressed for more word on what the big deal was from several FLGS owners. According to the GW site things should not be back ordered for that long... but we will just have to wait and see...
So here we are in April already, and things have been in a bit of an upheaval over the last 2 weeks. Which is part of the reason I am waiting until today to post up the actual news so people don't think it was some kind of April Fools prank. The biggest part of which was that it was looking like the studio was going to be closing because I had a job offer that was looking really promising and was pretty much nothing but travel, but because of other reasons that job is now not going to happen and the security of the studio has been restored for now. I am actually looking for something that does not have the travel so that I can keep things rolling here as normal.
Now that I have got past the hard bit of news, I am currently working on the last bit of Orks for a friend and my Blood Angels Project as well. I have fully decided on a red paint scheme that I like and I am going to stick with it on this army. Its not the typical orange-ish red that you normally see on Blood Angels. It is more of a deep red... a red that actually looks more like the blood it is to represent. Almost similar to the red that I used on my Khador army last year.
Also in the studio this month... I hope... is also that Dreadball set. I am really hoping to get some paint on those models soon.
