Friday, January 4, 2013

Hobby Holidays!



 Greetings and Happy Holidays to all!

Things have been quiet out of my corner besides my Friday articles, but things haven't been quiet behind the scenes.  I've been dancing between 4 hobby projects and enjoying not working towards a tournament deadline currently.  I acquired a Grex airbrush in early December from my buddy Joe who won it along with best appearance at NOVA this year.  I've been wanting to try it out but needed a new canvas.  I finally decided to have a go at the new plastic tyrant with a new red/black/fleshtone scheme and I do have to say, the difference between the Grex and my old Badger is shocking.  I went from painting at 18psi down to 2-4psi and the blending is so much smoother on this model than any of my dark eldar.




My renewed enthusiasm to paint paired with the recent chaos codex release got my creative juices flowing.  I've got all these 2nd edition metal CSM sitting on my shelf from my college days and a decent chunk of store credit from the GT so I decided to add a really fun hobby project to my agenda: Rebuild and repaint my old CSM collection and produce an army with what I have on the shelf and store credit only.  I think it will be really fun project so I put together a possessed model to test some colors on.


 This army will be a mono-nurgle build with some bandwagon and some unusual units.  Nurgle holds a special spot in my heart as a plague marine force was the first army I built.  I've been working with so many bright colors on the dark eldar that I was craving something more subdued and earthy.  I loathe the fact that so many nurgle armies look similar at a distance, so I wanted something less traditional.  Here's my inspiration:


 The army chapter and theme will be "Legion of Maggots".  They won't be bloated and rotting like most plague marines, but are known instead for arriving at recent and current warzones to consume the dead.  The armor will be white to yellow with dark heads to draw a parallel with maggots.  This possessed has some green appendages to denote his nurgle mark.

I'm pretty excited about how the test model turned out.  The picture doesn't capture the true grit, but it's definitely a grimdark model.  I used the new airbrush to blend 5 different colors from brown to yellow to green, then fire white down from a zenith on the armor.  I finished it all up with some techniques I picked up on youtube from schnauzerface.  Check out this guy's demo videos, I learned a lot of good tricks from them.  Here are my two favorites:


After airbrushing the model and panting in the trim, I painted on a layer of gloss varnish and applied an oil wash using vandyke brown.  I've never used GW paints so I can't compare to their washes, but I am pleased with the end result.


I also applied some purple, brown, orange, and red pigment scraped from a pastel chalk like he does in the mountain king tutorial.  I really like how the powdered pigment create a whole new texture and feel to the model so I'll be adding plenty of rust and corrosion.

On the terrain side, I've been busy mass-producing terrain stock.


 I wasn't kidding when I said I was prepared for a large order if some wayward TO happened upon this post and was interested in a large commission.  Nothing big happening yet, but one of the local guys did order 4 pieces of area terrain with crystals (almost done Paul!).  Top shelf has about two dozen pieces cut for area terrain.  Second shelf is primed pieces ready to be airbrushed.  Under the eggcrate is about 300 pieces of spray foam of various sizes to be used as rocks and area terrain clusters.  On the bottom is enough pre-cut foam stock to make 100 or so crystals.  If no new orders come in, I'll be making 3 new sets for myself with new fabric I found to use as mats.

I also made it out to a small local tournament last weekend, which will probably be my last event until April due to work.


I hit up my co-authors and Crispy obliged me and came out.  Figures I would have to face him first.  I brought my grey knights because I knew space would be tight and time would be short.  They are by far my  easiest to transport and fastest army to play.  We set up our own terrain and some huge BLoS walls helped him with his hive guard and biovores.  It came down to his tervigon running for an objective and rolling a 1, then my terminators central in the above picture chew through most of the army and consolidate towards the same objective, also rolling a 1.  I also had one last chance when a mishap-re-reserved dreadknight tried to deep strike into contest range of a backfield objective, scattered away, and couldn't run far enough to reach.  Chris got first blood when 3 ymgarls that survived inteceptor (quad gun) and overwatch from the rifleman achieved 3 glances and wrecked it.  I had linebreaker so we ended in a draw.


Next, I played Mike who's somewhat of an arch-nemesis.  We face each other in every other event it seems and he almost always beats me.  This time, he brought a brutal mechdar list and combined with first turn and hammer/anvil deployment he outmaneuvered and outshot me.  I had my warlord, terminators, and 1 NDK left at the end but scored the 4 point objective and linebreaker in The Scouring for a 5-10 loss.


My final game was a bloodbath with grey knights versus black templars vying for The Relic.  Dual vindicators plagued me all game and a drop pod followed by jumpers and 2 loaded rhinos meant my opponent got the relic first, but I was able to get first blood with one NDK and his warlord with the second NDK for a 2-0 victory.

It's been a fun couple weeks and it's back to painting for a few months for me.  I have the final game of the GT to write up still and then I'll move on to hobby articles and maybe some CSM list discussions.  I'll leave you with my obligatory baby pic.  1 year old next week!


13 comments:

  1. Out of curiosity, what sort of price and shipping are you looking for per table?

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    1. I think I can do the jungle 3.0 set for $125 shipped within the US. Going to test ship the crystal pieces that Paul ordered so I have a grasp on shipping costs. I'm hoping it won't be bad since everything is light, it will just need a large box.

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    2. Would that price be with the cloth for the table top?

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    3. No mat unfortunately. The material I use for personal mats is sub optimal and I wouldn't

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    4. ... Pass that on as a product. The colors I use on the jungle set are pretty close to the gw game mat.

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  2. In terms of the airbrush, where are you controlling the psi? Is it right on the brush?

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    1. I use a Central Pneumatic compressor from harbor freight. The small silver one for airbrushing. It has a built in water trap and pressure adjustment. It's quite nice for the price, about $40 if you watch their website for a 50% coupon. It's also very quiet. The only problem is it only runs when you're painting and has no storage reservoir.

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  3. Most likely on the compressor, at least that's the,way i do it :)

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  4. Xmas was kind to me - picked up an airbrush+compressor (Badger Krome/TC908 combo), but of course I now need to learn how to use the dang thing =) You've been quite the inspiration. Thanks for the how-to links above. Trying to learn the absolute basics has been an adventure going down a lot of mostly useless YouTube rabbit holes. Really like the fleshy red/black combo.

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  5. I have been working on a nurgle csm army as well, couldn't resist the chance to field a 'walker' hoard(the walking dead) but I really am trying to keep this army fluffy/compy other than typhus

    I like the unusual scheme for your nurgle csm and the nid wing looks great!!!

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  6. Looking to pick up a Grex airbrush sometime early this year, will probably get a quiet 5 gallon compressor too. Can use it for casting as well as for painting. Good luck with selling your terrain. There's demand out there for sure I hope enough customers come through the blog for you to get a good stream of sales.

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  7. I got a grex and I'm a big fan of the pistol grip...can't get used to it. But the needle is insanely good. I still use my iwata more tho. Pistol grip is really cumbersome for me, I feel like the grex was made for 2D more than models.

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