In the Name of Economic Recovery

Dear U.S. Government,

Please send me a large check. I promise I will not save one penny of it, for the sake of economic recovery.

Your fan,
Mike

Flashback

On a bus or a taxi going through Kyoto, Japan in August 1990 I saw a club called "Pignose Jazz." The name was burned in my memory for some reason, probably because I was just starting to fall in love with jazz at that point in my life.

A quick google search yields a "talk about Kyoto" page (in Japanses) listing "Pignose" along with a couple other jazz clubs. I am oddly gratified that the place still exists, despite never having set foot in the place.

Looted Codex

GW should not have hired Orks to write their own codex.

Discrepancies in the codex so far:

1. Dakka guns are AP5 Assault 3 on the main description page and AP4 Assault 2 on the summary page.
2. Warbikez are said to have twin-linked Dakka guns on the main description page, but are listed as having Dakka guns (without the "twin-linked" indicator) on the army list.
3. Stormboyz are shown to have the "Waaagh!" special rule in their main description but do not have it in the army list section.
   

I will edit this post as more are discovered.

Skullhamma Finished... somewhat

Don't laugh. It was a two night job, and that's a lot of tank.

Skullhamma

A friend who works at the local GW store has asked me to paint the store's Ork "Skullhamma" tank. It's an interesting model insomuch as there is no official model for it. It is a conversion of an Imperial Guard Baneblade tank. It dwarfs my mostly assembled Ork Trukk! Someone else did the converting, so I'm biting my lip and ignoring all the mold lines and things that I would not have left. This is for the store, it's for fun, and I have other commission work that I need to be doing.

Coming soon! More Eldar! I finally get to paint Swooping Hawks!

Humor, Melancholy and Exasperation

Humor: Yesterday we tried to clean the dishwasher out by putting a quarter cup or so of Melaleuca's Tough and Tender into it and running it for a cycle. Problem: Tough and Tender foams. We had a mess on our hands of Bradybunchian proportion. The nice part is that everyone was cheerful and the whole family chipped in to help clean up the suds. Good times.

Melancholy: My daughter Sarah turns 9 in a couple weeks. It has occurred to me that half of her time living with us (give or take) has gone. It was too quick. I won't be ready when she's 18. I don't even want to think about it right now.

Exasperation: I don't know who keeps challenging this, but Planeswalker's Magic Bag is a real store! Angelos has worked his tail off to build that place from the ground up, and to have people continue to call his suppliers challenging the fact that it's a real store is beyond reproach. I've been to the store a couple times, and it's got a nicer games section than a lot of hobby stores I've seen, plus gaming space and a paint bar! It's in downtown Munith, a small town on its own but on a heavily traveled route, so he gets tons of visual hits from the people driving by. Angelos seems to take the whole thing in good humor, but I'm sure he's irked by these little acts of sabotage. He's growing a successful business, and somebody isn't happy about it.

A Little Down Time Painting

Over the last year I have won a few things at the Games Workshop store, mostly through random drawings and some through painting contests. The end result is that I had a few blister packs that I wouldn't normally buy or paint, so I decided to give them a go for eBay over my break. Here they are, and the pictured link to ebay.


I don't tend to paint demony things for the most part, but it was free and I figured maybe I could fleece some chaos players of a few bucks. It was a one night paint job, and the wings are scratch built. (Yes, I will use my new scratch building expertise to make a plain, blue police box!) Chaos armies, especially those of "Khorne, the Blood God" just seem like an adolescent power fantasy to me. (Yes, I realize that the whole hobby is an adolescent power fantasy. Khornate armies just take that to its embarrassing extreme.)
The Empire Warrior Priest, on the other hand, was big fun. The original figure is "Valten on warhorse" which I don't think has a lot of potential for sale, since Valten is a character from GW's summer campaign 2004. In the end of campaign write-up he was murdered by Skaven assassins (hooray for rats!) so I decided to brand him as a regular, fieldable hero and not "dead guy from three years ago." The Skaven skull that I put on the base is an homage to the original figure. The gold was done using the technique I learned from Tim Lison. I'm not much of a horse person, so I struggled a little with the coloring. Mark helped me bring the tone down to something less distracting than I had originally used.

For some reason I decided both of minis needed shields. Neither came with one. I think the shields complement them well.

Apparently I'm still alive!

First off, before I go and talk about myself, I'd like to say Welcome Home, Eric Volz. I can't imagine what the past year has been like for you, but you've had a lot of people praying for you. Your safe return is a huge relief, even for those who have never met you.

I just looked at my last post and realized that my "haven't posted in a while" post was more than a month ago!

Here, look at the pretty picture:


I think it shows a bit of improvement over the same model done in a different scheme about 8 months ago.



For some reason I feel like my pictures are looking better. Don't ask why... I don't know.

Video Interlude

I know I haven't updated in (quite) a while. I've been painting like mad, working like a dog and running around like, umm... a mad dog, I suppose.

Here is something to calm you down. It's from a few years ago, so the animation is rather dated. The story in the video is good if you have the patience to watch the whole thing.



The Wall-E trailer reminded me of this.

Hooray for Tim Lison

I met Tim Lison for the first time yesterday. If you don't know who he is, check out his award winning painting here. It's pretty phenomenal. Anyway, Tim was one of the judges in Chicago so I got a chance to get feedback from him on what went right/wrong with my giant. It's currently in the display case at the store, so Tim was able to talk very specifically about the model. Some parts of it the judges really liked but it was the little bits that were a little messy that cost me the bronze. The arm bands were one of the things he pointed out. (I struggled for ages with the gaps in the model right at the arm bands. It's no surprise that they were a limiting factor.) Tim was very encouraging and told me that if I could apply that microscopic attention to detail to fix the little things that weren't quite right then I would be bringing trophies home without question. I'm going back over to the store about 6:30 tonight and Tim said he would show me some techniques for metallic gold, a color with which I struggle. I've got a Harlequin with me to try his technique on, so hopefully I'll be able to raise the bar on these guys. I've been using a lot of gold on the shoulder pads, backpacks and weapons so I can't wait to see his techniques.

Not Surprised

Apparently Mythic Entertainment is shutting down the beta test of Warhammer Online. This post from developer Mark Jacobs explains a little of what is/isn't at the root cause.

I like computer games. No, really. I loved WoW. Like all Blizzard games, it hit the sweet spot with its intuitive interface and dramatic presentation. I played a lot of WoW. Not as much as my friends did, but a lot. I also like Warhammer, not only the tactical game or the miniatures but the overall setting and fluff. Therefore, a well done computer game set in the world of Warhammer would be a good thing for me.

That said, the demo of the massively multiplayer game "Warhammer: Age of Reckoning" (aka WAR) at Games Day was less than exciting for me. I saw people queuing up for it, and watched a bit of it on the big screen they had, but was for the most part uninspired. It looked like a WoW clone. Yippee. All intention I had of buying it evaporated that day. Now that the beta has been suspended, I am pleased to see that one of the things they are going to be doing is making WAR less like WoW. With more than 8 million subscribers WoW is a huge money maker, and I'm sure the temptation (or even pressure) to copy the interface and gameplay as exactly as possible would be intense. It makes me very happy to hear that they are giving WAR its own identity. Cautious optimism is back. Don't disappoint me, Mythic.

Oh, and there better be some pretty fantastic looking Skaven.

Grrr, I want to paint, not photograph!

I am sick of this. Are the photos good enough at this point? Will they ever be? I just want them to have the same general level as everyone else... if my models look mediocre because they are painted that way, then so be it. Trying to show people minis with poor photographs is like running the 100m dash wearing flip-flops. Hopefully I'm at "Wal-Mart brand tennis shoes" at this point.

/grr

Good + 2.1Mpixel = Mediocre

I finally decided to post the Skaven Giant on CMON. Is the photo great? Not so much. Is he doing well in the voting? Meh.

A Better Photo

I like this photo better, so I added it to the auction. Hopefully bidders will like it better too.

Horrifically busy at work and home lately. I've barely touched a brush since finishing Alastriel here. I'm eager to get back to Eldar, especially since I found my scan of the Saim Hann autrarch from the new codex, so now I can reproduce that freehand work.

CMON repost link

Before You Say "Good Enough"

I'm frustrated with photography. I can't seem to take a picture that looks like my subject, which inevitably is something I've painted. The photos just don't look like the mini. Smooth transitions in daylight become stripes in photographs. I find seeming imperfections in the photograph, then can't find them on the model.

Anyway, last night I'm taking pictures of Alastriel and finally just give up and say "good enough." I submit the ebay auction and get ready to clean up for the night. That's when I realized that one of my lamps wasn't on. Take a look at the photos. They are all lit from the right. My powers of observation just weren't on last night. I'll probably retake photos tonight, and eat the $.95 auction fee to repost the auction with the new pictures if they look better.

Another option... get one of my mini painting associates to take a picture of one of my models to see if they look just as poor. My giant from Chicago games day looks really good in the pictures on the GW site, and to my eyes it isn't remarkably better than a lot of these minis that I'm getting low-6's on.

WTS elf mage PST

Ah, good old Alastriel.

I'll paint her again in a year or two to see how much better she looks.

For now, this one's on the auction block.

CMON Link
eBay Link


Paint, paint, paint. This gave me my fantasy fix. Now, on to more 40k!

Double Goodness

My new computer arrived at work today! Two 19" LCD monitors! Once I got both monitors up and running (with my old system) I was quite pleased. A coworker asked me how they were working out. "Fine ham abounds," I answered. Wow. That's a "Kids in the Hall" drop from years ago. It surprised even me.

I am featured in "Focus EMU" this week, the online newsletter for faculty and staff, for my miniature painting. Other than a bit of exaggeration about my competition performance it is quite good. (For the record, I placed fourth in my category, not fourth overall. )
Link link! http://www.emich.edu/focus_emu/100207/miniatures.html

Coming Right Along

I painted quite a bit this weekend. It feels good to be on a roll.

From the WIP photos last post, it should be fairly clear that I spent a little more time on Alastriel than on the Autrarch. He's pretty much done, and I've started his back banner, so I'm feeling pretty good about it. The turquoise and pink harlequin is almost done, but she was up on a shelf when I took pictures and didn't feel like going to get her.

I'm not really sure what to do with Alastriel's base. I wanted a simple platform with a step leading up to it, but I'm not really sure what to do beyond that. Some vines/moss on the platform? The platform is a little rough, so I'd like to obscure it a little. Hmmm.

Water effect tests have all been pretty resounding failures. The only thing I really got out of it was "Fabri-tac", which cures with such a huge number of bubbles (they form during curing!) that it would make a wonderful boiling cauldron effect.

Still thinking about Orks. I passed up an eBay lot that was going for about 1/3 retail cost for a pretty good sized Ork mob, so I'm not completely gone. I did order the Mad Dok figure from GW direct, since it's one of the models that is going away when their direct order changes significantly on November 1.

Edit: Wow, Alastriel looks chunky and lacking contrast in that photo. Maybe the Ott light isn't so hot for snapshots.

Two Nights in a Row?!?

Well this is an unlikely post. I not only took some WIP shots, but I worked on three separate miniatures tonight. The Autrarch is nearly complete, with the freehand on his back and the gemification of the gems as the only notable things left. The next Harlequin is... well... I haven't decided yet. Between pink, blue, black and bone I'm not sure even who she thinks she's supposed to be. Rounding out the group is the ever popular Alastriel, for a direct to eBay mini. I just wanted some fantasy stuff to paint after focusing on 40k so much.

Quick WIP Shot!

I'm trying to get into the habit of taking more WIP shots, so here's one from tonight's fun.

I'm not sure if the turquoise shirt and the blue jacket are too close. I was trying for a color scheme based on blues and greens, but it might end up with just too little contrast. Maybe if I make the jacket liner black. Hmm.....