Mostly Finished - Flash Gitz

Too drunk to paint, so we type.

Mostly finished these two guys. They are only missing their Boss Poles and Git Finda. I call that pretty much done. I'll post finished pictures of these minis when the squad of 11 is finished.

11 is the perfect number for a squad of Flash Gitz. Even with mounting a Killkannon, a Battlewagon can carry 12 Orks. That leaves enough room for a Big Mek for Kustom Force Field and 11 Gitz. It is also perfect because that is the number of minis that I have and I do not plan of getting more. 

I adore the way these minis turned out. I don't know that I learned anything from them though. I have incorporated a extra stage to my green skin technique of painting on some purple wash to deepen the tone of the skin to maych the overall dark tone of the minis. It works pretty darn well. 

I had hoped that using Daemonette Hide as my base for green skin and washing it green at a later step would provide an adequate depth of darkness and contrast but I have found that the purple base coat seems to be overwhelmed by the green wash. It seems that no matter how much purple that I leave showing under the green paint, it all gets turned green by the green wash. There are bigger problems in the world, I guess. 

I am mostly happy with how the minis turned out overall. The intention was to make them black minis with yellow weapons and highlights. I feel like whatever amount of yellow I use, it overwhelms the mini and makes it look yellow. I am regretting wanting to paint the weapons yellow at this point. 

On the table - Flashgitz

After finishing the Battlewagon it feels empty. It needs some bodies to fill it. The dream has always been to fill it with Flash Gits and devastate everything within 24 inches of it. The Flash Gitz and Battlewagon are in ideal paring as the former can take the latter as a Dedicated Transport. 

To kick things off, I picked a metal Flash Git that predates the current plastic set and one of the minis from the Badrukk's Flash Gits box. Both acquisitions are from Bartertown. The metal guy came as part of a large Orky trade long ago and I got the Badrukk box for 50% retail including shipping from a generous soul. 

Finished - Battlewagon

This big, black, bad bastard really deserves its own epic post but I don't have that kind of time. It took over a week to finish this bad man and I could not be more proud. 

I had a similar problem when clear coating this mini that I had with the Tomb Blades in that it fogged. Humidity was less than 50% and temp was within range. My only excuse was my over-zealotry with applying it. I am going to give my standby of Krylon matte clear coat one more chance under ideal conditions before giving up but I think that they may have changed the formula or something. 

The idea was for this Battlewagon to be a ride for the Lootas or Flash Gits. As the Speed Freak Lootas already had the Wrecka as a ride, I decided to paint this in the same paint scheme as I planned to paint the Flash Gitz colors of black, red and yellow. 

This kit retails for about $90 and the paintjob is passable for me. I used a lot of drybrushing and re-washing on this mini and that feels like cheating a little bit. I would feel bad about saying that this was better than a 6/10 for me. I value the painting at about $60 given the time it took. The small conversions of the Driver and magnets is valued at about $10 for bits and time. Total replacement cost is $150. I don't know that I would trade it for less. Given the complete nature of the kit (with all accessories including Killkannon and Deffrolla (non pictured but included)) and the neutral nature of the color scheme, I feel that it would fit in with any Ork army. Given that, I feel that a fair trade value for this mini is at least $200 if not more. 

Look what just showed up

I have been wanting a Dreamforge Leviathan for a long time and now I have two. I made a mistake and ordered the larger size which is 8.5" tall. this makes it an inch or two shorter than a Warhound titan and an inch too tall for a Knight Titan. I did not know this until after they had arrived and had to place another order for the smaller size which is 1/100 scale. The smaller mini stands about an inch shorter than a Knight Titan, which is what I want to use it as a proxy for. 

Mark at DFG was a rockstar in arranging the second order. He messed up a small part of it but supplied the missing part at no cost. That was a really classy move. Dreamforge Games is one hell of an outfit and I am a fan now. 

Initially, I wanted to return the larger ones but Mark said that I would have to pay shipping and a 20% restocking fee. Doing the math, I would have rather traded the Leviathan on Bartertown at retail and save the 20%. I would be paying shipping either way and trading not only saves me 20% but, if I was very shrewd, I could trade for more than I paid for them. 

On the table now - Something Big

Taking a break from painting (and repainting) tiny minis and bought into a large mini. If you are an Ork player I am sure you can guess what it is by the grill.

Goodbye old friend

I don't remember the year I bought my first Dremel but it was likely around 2006. I got the cheepo Dremel 7700 but I splurged on the kit with all the fancy attachments. I never used the sanding wheels, discs or really any of the other attachments. I did use the "high speed cutter" frequently. I used it to drill holes for magnets in metal minis before I learned the beauties of 1/8" pin vices. I used it to turn metal Grey Knight Terminator Storm bolter arms into bare arms for conversion into Storm Shield arms. I gracefully took off iconography of metal pauldrons. 

I loved this little thing but after almost a decade of service, I decided to retire his little tungsten-carbide self. 

Mt. TBP

I can't say precisely when this started, but I have more things to paint than time. I am fond of saying that if I quit my job and painted 10 hours a day and 5 days a week, then I would still be able to paint for 6 months and not have to buy anything new. That does not stop me from buying and trading for new things though. 

I think it all started in 2008 when I started a 40k budget. I allotted $15 a week for minis. That was enough to get a blister pack (back when they were $7-$14 instead of $35) or I could save it week to week and get a bigger box. 

There was always The War Store. It was great to get anything I wanted that was 40k at 20% off and cheep shipping. I saved up a few weeks of my weekly budget (or sometimes spent money that I might not have actually had)and put in a large order to Neil. 

At some point I discovered Bartertown and was able to get some minis pretty cheep. I was able to get the occasional mini that I wanted for less than half but they were often assembled and painted needing rehab. 

Finished (again) - Tomb Blades

It rained yesterday. Today it was sunny. It was going to rain tomorrow. I checked Google weather and slid that little bar across the next 12 hours checking the humidity. 6pm tonight was the lowest the humidity was going to be for a week. If I was going to clear coat the Tomb blades (again) it would have to be now. 

I steadied myself and took a deep breath because if I messed these minis up again, clearly the only choice would be to set them on fire. Flame cures failure... right? I kept the spray can far from the minis and did two light coats on each side. Every time I checked on them I was ready to see the foggy milk of doom settling over them. The second time I checked them, I hallucinated that this was happening but it was just the light.