Editorial - Why Do I Try So Hard

Just spent about 20 hours painting this Vulkan mini and really stressing over the green armor. I need to try weathering powders so I banged out a set of legs to try them on. Rather than stress over painting the armor in a detailed fashion, I just did a quick dry brush and it turned out really well.

And that is the frustrating part. I spend a lot of time putting paint precisely where I want it and to have a very easy technique so closely approximate all my hard work. It is frustrating to know that there is an easy button out there.

Regardless, this mini is pretty much done except for some details and the weathering powders. 

Long time...

Two months and no update? Unacceptable!

I have been painting but much of it has stalled out. I am just trying to clear the painting table at this point. Working hard to finish the Char's Zaku project. I have both arms, both legs and the head finished but the torso and weapons are languishing. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel but it is a pinprick at this point.

Started work on the next installment of Dark Eldar. I had charged the client more than I needed to because I thought that I would do some slick conversions, but his assembly was so good that I just painted what he sent. I feel a little bad about that and for how long it is taking so I am going to cut him some slack on the final payment. I would not have felt good about taking money for it.

Also still need to begin work on Cranky Old Gamer's Frostgrave Warband. I don't even have details on how he wants them painted.

Then there are my projects. I am working on my Frostgrave Warband by painting Zombicide minis and taking minis out of circulation when they die in game. I have three minis on the table right now with 6 in the wings.

I am playing in two D&D games right now which accounts for some of decreased playing time. I am a miniature guy. Well, I mean I am a large person but I love minis. I have a painted mini for one character with two in the works. That character can summon different kinds of creatures and create fire effects, so I have minis for each of the creatures and Reaper walls of fire. I also have two more minis for that character in the works to represent changing gear and style. The character in the other game has a mount so there is a mounted and on foot mini to paint.

So lots to do and reduced time to do it. I don't know that I am going to take any more commissions for the foreseeable future. I have plenty of my own stuff to work on.

Fixing Vehicles - The New Toughness

Just had a good drunken idea about how to reconcile Toughness with how vehicles take damage in 40k.

Rather than a Toughness characteristic, vehicles would have a Durability score. Wvery time they took damage you would roll versus their durability score. If passed then they were durable enough to shake it off much like biologics and Toughness. If they fail they reduce their Durability score and keep moving. This represents a vehicles ability to shrug off damage but also slowly accumulate damage as well.

Borrowing a mechanic form Deadlands RPG, We could add in steps to the Durability characteristic where for each mutiple of the step, the vehicle would add in a mishap (basically a roll on the vehicle damage table). For example a Durability rating of 4/9 would mean that a vehicle could fail 9 Durability rolls but at the 4th and 8th failure they would get things like weapons blown off or immobilized.

I know that drunk me has not thought this through very well but it is still an interesting thought.

Vyndica - Lovecraft

I got this commission from theKlute. $40 for a single mini was pretty good. I got a "how do we do this" message at first. I responded with my intentions on how to paint and got no response. 15 days later there has been no communication and no mini. Sent some messages and no response for a week. Kinda strange for someone with a deadline on the commission.

He "checks into what is going on" with no further details or explanation. Then radio silence again. Sent him another message a week later and still no response. Never gave me a tracking number despite my asking for it mutiple times. The mini arrives another week later. This is over a month after the commission was agreed to at this point and past his deadline.

It took me about 10 days to paint the mini. Really it was two weekends worth of work. I went as fast as I could but it was not treated as a priority. I just worked on it between other things.

I am mostly happy with the finished product. The flames came out a little rough. I could have painted it a little more like the box art but this is how I do flames. The suit worked out about how I thought it would. I like how the little beastie turned out. It draws attention but so does the book, the face and the torch.

I have mixed feelings about the skin. I tried to paint it like I did the Dark Eldar from my last commission. I wanted it to look pale and unhealthy but it came out too pale and too unhealthy. If the client does not like it I think I can make it look more human with a flesh wash and some touch ups.

That is if the client ever gets back to me. I've never heard of someone spending money on something and be so non-communicative. It is very frustrating. If he ever does get back to me and pay the rest of the money, he can have his mini back. Until then, Mr. Lovecraft is going to watch over the Deathwatch minis that are on the table.

Update: Client got back to me and he was out of the country. I feel bad about being cranky about him not getting back to me. If I was in Italy, there is no way I am even checking my email so I don't blame him. As of now he has the mini and he seems pretty happy. 

Editorial - Paying The Scalpers

I am normally not a big fan of the limited edition stuff that GW puts out. The limited edition, collectors, three different covers Codex is still just a Codex. I don't see me paying twice or three times as much for that.

What I get even less is paying more to scalpers. If GW produces 100 of something in a limited edition, then there will be 80 people buying them up in the firs few seconds. These people are not fans of the army. They are not collectors. They frankly do not give a damn about this item but they know that you do. They are going to pay $150 knowing that you will pay $200 or more later.

Not everyone can run down to the GW store on Friday morning to get the new releases. Hell, some of us can't be bothered to hit "buy it now" from our phones while we are waiting for the bus to work. And if you are like me, you are about three months behind the new releases. I didn't even know that there were Deathwatch Dice until after they were sold out. I didn't even know that I would want Deathwatch dice until after I had read the Codex, build and painted some minis and played a few games.

So there I was with some extra money from overtime work and was looking through eBay for a deal or to fill some holes in my collection. I saw the Deathwatch dice were going for $25 to $40 each. For the love of the glorious Emperor, that is crazy. They retailed for $20 and someone would pay $40 plus shipping? I threw out some best offers and eventually was lucky to get two sets for $32 each with shipping.

Better believe that I put my GW dice in a PP bag. 

I know that I would have been over-paying even at $20. Chessex will get your custom dice for $1 each and there are places that will do it for less. I could have gotten the precise images that I wanted on the side I wanted. I chose to pay out the nose for all the different Chapters. It would have been really expensive to get all the Chapters of Deathwatch on dice.

In the end, I am very happy with my purchases. The only thing to complain about (aside from the price) is that the icons are on the 1's side. I want a little celebration when I see that Chapter symbol come up not say something like "Ultramarines? Guess I over-heated and died."

A Christmas Miracle

Last year, I had problems with clear coating and it fogging my miniatures just at the point of completion. The Tomb Blades and the Battlewagon were the worst affected but the Flash Gitz and a whole Slew of Deathwatch minis also got fogged. I was so upset at this that I listed them for trade.

Since this snafu, We have moved to a new house. In the finnished basement, we have a nice dehumidifier that runs all the time. It is the least humid basement that I have ever been in. While I was clearcoating some other minis inside ("use in a well-ventilated area" my ass), I decided to test out re-clearcoating some of the frosted minis. The test Deathwatch Terminator came out almost perfect. Encouraged, I did a few more. It worked again! I even took out the old Flash Gitz and they were rehabbed as well. Setting my teeth, I did the Battlewagon and it too looked better. Aside from the 40% humidity or less that it is inside and not using that Krylon MAXX garbage, I don't know what I changed to make this Christmas Miracle happen, but I am very happy it did.

Lights, Camera, Back To Work

The shelf is installed and the lights are hung. It's time to play the music; it's time time to paint the minis. I had to buy some extension cords and get creative with how I am supplying my computers, lights, Dremel, paint shaker and other accessories. It makes me nervous as I have power strips plugged into extension cords at this point but at least the computers are just plugged into a single power strips.the light is great though. 

I went to Lowe's the other day and one of my least favorite kinds of people were there. You all know this person. She is bossy and a know it all but most of all she is an idiot. Her confidence is wildly out of wack with her confidence. She is a genuine moron, but think she is next in line for the Nobel Prize. I was asking for natural light bulbs and she says that she knows where they were. She takes me to to the light bulb isle (where I just was) and shows me flood lights. No no no, crazy pants, I need normal-sized lights. I feel like that was implied. Rather than acknowledging that she had no idea what she was talking about, she conveniently wandered off to help someone else. This is the Dunning-Kruger effect in practice.

/end rant about awful people

The Last Thing You Buy

I want to take a moment to talk about the coolest kid I know, Jesusgold7. This brilliant bastard makes the ultimate Warhammer 40k collectors items. Usually, it irks me when people use the work "ultimate" to mean anything other than the literal meaning of "the last." In this case it really is the last thing that you buy after models, glue, paint, basing material, cases, foam, shelves, dremel and a Titan. Once you get to the point where you are buying real life Purity Seals and Warrants of Trade, you will know that you have reached the end of the road of nerdom. Well, maybe the end are the people that drop a couple of grand on real life power armor.

I was able to get this Warrant of Trade with my name on it (blanked out in this image) for less than $10. Then, I went and spent over $100 getting it professionally framed and I can't be happier that I did. It takes this already awesome piece and takes it to the limit. I am going to attach the Purity Seal that I also bought to the frame and hang it in my Den.

Just saw Star Wars

Let me start by saying that I am not going to spoil anything. 

I just got out of seeing Star Wars Episode VII The Force Awakens and made myself the celebratory dinner you see before you (Sarnac Caramel Porter not pictures). It is going to take me a while and many subsequent viewing to fully digest it (the movie not the food). In the true since of this blog, I am going to say two to three things that I liked and two to three things that I didn't like. 

The cinematics are great for the long shots, there are a number of callbacks and fan-service and lots and a very strong female protagonist. There are lots of sweeping long shots of exotic places that Star Wars may not be particularly renown for but were certainly impactful. Scattered about are little things that will make fans of the original three films happy. They are all pretty obvious but made me laugh. The heroin don't need no man to save her and kicks all the butt while the boys are looking for their glasses on the ground. Finally, holy crap holy OMG WTF! Why are you reading this and not watching it?!?!?!?

The X-Wing collection grows

Part of the reason for the drop off in posting frequency is the excitement for Fallout 4. I spent the last month playing through Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas and now Skyrim. In each case, I stated a new character and played from scratch. I know those games so well, that I hit the highnotes and got to a place were I was a walking god looting the watelands with impunity and also with no greater purpose. It is the methadone to the china white that I hope Fallout 4 will be. 

Also very distracting is X-wing. After buying the starter set I bought what you see in the picture for about $100 which is about half retail from a nice guy locally. 50% is what I like to pay for things that are not new and it seems that the bottom has fallen out of early-wave X-wing stuff. 

On the table now - Badrukk and IPA

 I can remember a time when I would unwind with video games or movies at home. These days, all I want to do with my free time is paint. Nothing is better than throwing on a podcast or Netflix and painting for 6 hours. 

Except maybe having a beer with it. 

I used to like stouts and porters, but have been gravitating toward IPAs lately. While mighty tasty, beer (and IPAs in particular) tend to have a high ABV. That makes it difficult to enjoy more than one and still have the manual dexterity to put paint to plastic. 

BEHOLD! Introvert Session IPA from Left Hand Brewery. Session beers are typically under 5.0% ABV as opposed to the 7.5% or higher for most IPAs. Some can have less flavor to go with the lower ABV, but not this one. This gives me everything that I want from an IPA but a manageable amount of alcohol.

My current project is the King of the Gitz, Badrukk. I got a resin one when I bought the big box of him and his boys, but recently picked up a metal one for a sing on Bartertown. I like metal character over resin ones so decided to paint the metal and sell the resin. 

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. 

Editorial - Playing Your First Game against a New Person

I have my first game coming in ages coming up and it is with a new person. I was in the process of making my list and I began to stop and reflect on my choices. I thought about what this list says to my opponent about me. You only get once chance to make a first impression and that first game can be a last game if you don't start on the good foot.

I had a game last year with my friend and his buddy that I had never met before. It was the two of them against with 1000 points against me with 2000 points. Normally with 2v1 and even points, I would stipulate that both sides use only one Force Org chart to keep things even. Not doing that opens up the game for abuse (this was back in 6th before the Unbound nonsense), but my friend was a classy guy and I assumed that his friend would be classy.

I was wrong.

Army Feature - Trevy the Great's Space Marines

I saw Trevy's army up for grabs on Bartertown. While I was not in a place to drop what he was asking for a fully painted army, I was impressed with his cohesive color scheme, pervasive conversions, his composition, the detail painting and the extra work he did on his basing. It is clear that he put a lot of extra time and effort that he did not have to into this army. The end result looks good on the table.

Now if this were a BoLS Army Showcase, after that paragraph that took 7 min to write, there would be a giant copied and pasted section written by the person that painted the army followed my 5 or 6 pictures posted with no thought, insight or analysis. But that is not how we roll here at TMM. We use effort!

We All Get a Little Bored Sometimes

It all started off with biting off more than I could chew with that damned Ork Wrecker. It is a
massive undertaking to convert an non 40k model to be usable in 40k. Perhaps I bit off more than I could chew and that is what lead to me stalling out. At first, work went swimmingly. The frame and cab assembled and converted nicely. When it came to converting a driver and gunner for the cab, things kinda stalled out. I did not and still have not found a way to insert a couple of Orks into the vehicle in a way that pleases me. So I would push off working on the Wrecker and work on other projects. Since I started the Wrecker, I have finished 25.5 minis. That's a lot of productive procrastination.

Now, I am out of side projects or small projects to paint and I do not want to go back to Wrecker. I am bored with painting. I sit at my desk for hours just looking at my minis an bits and thinking but brushes never touch anything. I have things I could paint. I have things that I should be painting but I do not have the drive. I have the mini painter's version of writer's block.

What follows is an article on some of the things that I do to break myself out of this sort of funk when it settles over me.

Warhammer 40k 7th Edition - Something Has Changed

Only two years have passed since GW rolled out 6th Edition. Why would they release a new main rule book? The cynical will say that it is just to make money and, while that has to be a component of it, I (in this instance at least) will give GW a little more credit than that. While it may be a good idea in the short term to release a new book to drum up some sales, that plan comes with more than just a few downsides and the cynics are breezing by.

The main drawback to releasing a new main rule book is that producing such a tome takes money. A lot of money. You have to pay writers, proofers, artists, binders and distributors. It takes a lot of money to get a book from the brain to the page to the printer to your hands. That is a considerable investment that is not easily thrown away. It is that investment that dictates the schedule of releases for the rule books. Have they made enough money from the last edition to recoup their investment.

Unfocused Mini-Rant Against GW

This could be a small part of a larger point but I'll start with a point about Whirlwinds and go on rant my ranty rant.

I just figured out why GW decided to make a new kit rather than give a new rule or change a rule to an existing model. It, like everything else lately seems to be, is about money. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but when you put money ahead of the integrity of the game, that is when I have problems with it.

Case in point is the Whirlwind vs the Stalker/Hunter. 

Since rumors of the new Space Marine Codex have circulated, and maybe much before that, there have been further rumors of giving sky fire to Whirlwinds. Seems a very efficient way of updating the SM to 6th and giving them an option for anti-aircraft while preserving the fluff in an Occam's Razor kind of way. This seems reasonable. GW would not have to do anything other than add a line to the Whirlwind's entry. 0.5 seconds of work and then you would increase the sales of whirlwind kits, right?