Tricky Treats

Merry Halloween! Well technically it is past, but who is to say we are not still in the hour of ghouls, trickery, and creatures of the imagination!

While my phone sits around downloading update 7.00124, I will post some hobby news!

Those may remember last years great pumpkin competition.

Unfortunately, last year it did not win and this year pumpkins were safe from my knife due to the crazy amount of work still left to do on this Lord of The Rings project.

 The battle of Pumpkins is over, but the battle for Bilbo's Birthday Bash has just begun...

So as we near the one week count down, here is a couple more teases of the board, army, and progress.

Why So Serious?

 Just a quick update here. I finished off the first warband of hunter orcs late into this morning. Time lines are beginning to become an issue so every hour is counting.

Played around with a couple skin tones and clothing variations amongst the 12 models, will continue the rotation with the other groups. Keep up the painting!

Red vs Blue

Part I: Red Death

"There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood--and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror."  -Poe

Well, my continued new years resolution has been failing in getting more blog posts up, but it is about the quality not the quantity right? I hope this one does not disappoint.

 With the looming Bilbo's Birthday Bash Lord of the Rings tournament, I have revisited the Red Death.

Fans may remember these guys from last April when I first painted them up for Adepticon. I was under a bit more of a time restraint then and I wanted to go back and really spruce them up. So without further ado I am happy to remix.

 It was fun making the darks darker and lights lighter.

 The basing will also be added to once the display board gets up to snuff. Excitedly, that is next on the chopping block.

On the left is the updated army, with the right being the first coat basically.


Part II: Blue Steel

I give you, Blue Steel!

This guy is the Elrond conversion. I do not think anyone wakes up and thinks, "Gee I would love to spend $45 on 1 finecast model from Gamesworkshop...."

BLOG POLL: To the listeners, I have a question for you guys; my army list calls for a captain. Which pose do you think should be the captain? Vote now!

 

Found this on the world wide web, it was appropriately appropriate. 

LED Life

 BY THE POWER! The kickstarter santa came today and left a wonderful package full of LED's. This is the fruits of Powered Play Gaming kickstarter. It shipped close to on time and did not hit the common snag of being months late.

I picked up the Alpha kit which included 4 boards, 4 on-off switches, and 4 9V battery connectors. As well as 16 light cables with 2 lights per connector.

 My previous attempts into the world of model electronics involved tea lights at the basic level and the more advanced model railroad transformer set-ups. That was fun figuring out useful tips to how actual lights and wires work but a pain in the butt for small modeling situations.

This product is AMAZING. I highly recommend this to anyone looking to add lights to the table top. It runs on a 9V regular batter or as seen in the first photo, a mini 9V battery they just finished.

Currently in post production is the light effects board for strobe, pulse, fire, and many more options, those will be shipping later in the fall.

Summer progress and plot lines are going according to plan; so the triumphed return of Dol Guldor, Fubad, and the LEDs will hit the project table again on September 1st.

So now that I have the wires and lights, check out some previews of what will be coming down the assembly line...

P.S. check out the daily puppy pic at the bottom of the page, moving up in the world!

80s Rock & Roll

GO JOE!


I might be late to the party and I do not usually do movie reviews but this is the exception.



Before I jump into the amazing movie that this was, we must first pay our respects.

A good friend was lost today. Close to 5 years of service I retired my primary Winsor and Newton. It was time as the side by side of a new brush can attest.

And we are back to GI Joe Retaliation!

Starting off, this review is close to half a year late. I don't get out much.... 2nd spoilers ahead, and 3rd, I grew up playing with the 3/4 inch toys so this is totally my jam.

If you saw the first movie, forget about it. It was good for a laugh or two, but took itself too seriously and when it tried to be campy or cheesy, just forced it. Retaliation throws it all out the window. Opening scene kills off Channing Tatum's Duke and somehow he still gets top billing... but enough of that, THE ROCK is in this movie. He is all you need. Big fan of the rock and he sells the part.

All the vehicles, costumes, and plot is just ripped from the classic TV show. Throw in modern fight scenes with cliche fight music and slow motion explosions and works on all levels.

They do not even spend a single moment explaining how Storm Shadow comes back to life after being left in pieces at the bottom of the ocean Darth Maul style; and it did not matter, no one cared, it was a reboot without a reboot. I hope the new X-men movie can take note and just not mention how Xaviar will come back to life, just accept it.

Yes there are plot holes, yes there are cheesy lines and the acting is bad, and yes things seem unbelievable (London has been an unfortunate victim since the Fantastic Four sequel targeted it), but it is exactly what a GI-Joe movie should be. At one point The Rock picks up a .50 cal machine gun and fires it with no recoil to his body, just cause he can. The Rock's main antagonist is Ray Stevenson from the most recent Punisher movie, so you know a lot of ass was kicked. 

Two thumbs up for a nostalgic wild ride, cause knowing is half the battle!

Back Logged WIP

After finishing building my new orc army; which was hard to put to the side, I jumped back on my promise to finished some back logged projects before going forward with too many new ones.

A while ago a little adventure began for the White Dwarf rules, "movie marines". That transformed into different plans to adopt into Forge World's Zone Mortalis, and the independently made, "Special Operations Killzone.

Lease to say, right now it is a bunch of converted space marines, terminators, and a flying rhino. Coming into the summer my goal to get through the 15 or so marines before jumping onto the previously dominated posts about Dol Guldor and Biblo's Birthday Bash.

So here we have 3 more space marines almost ready to get chewed up by some bugs. Some work on the bolters remains.

 A Boarding Shield terminator with custom lightning claws. Going to have a busted up adeptus mechanics decal on the shield. 

 This the leader/sgt of the group, built his own tyranid light saber.

  Then there is the Iron Man warmachine inspired jump pack marine. The power weapons and missile combustion were chosen to offset the black power armor.

The Gang is All Here

Zoinks! Another mystery is on our hands; the case of the missing green stuff and who broke all those pinning drill bits....

Scooby's house of horrors is developing nicely with the pouring of it's dried up river bed.

 This was the first layer of sand and will be getting a couple more to develop some contours. The whole left side of the cliff is glued down now, the castle is waiting on the electronics to arrive.

 Finally found a use for the last bits of moria goblin ruins....

Here was the concept art of the river bed.... I totally passed 1st grade.

The last of the pin drill bits ate it while finishing up the orc and warg bases. In the end, it was just melting plastic through friction, not drilling. Here are a couple of my favorites.

 All the cork basing will match up with different parts of the river bed for the most part. These models really started to grow on me after initial distaste.

 I was able to again get some life out of 1 GW kit, and used the extra fell warg heads on the old warg models to give them a unified look.

While this guy doesn't have the Predator shoulder mounted plasma canon, Arnold would still have a little trouble with this guy if they met in a jungle somewhere. I like to throw in a bit of movie inspiration in some models.

 Thankfully the writers block on the tower left me and I got to hacking up wall sections for this ruined bell tower. The shade will be sitting up there and 2 LED lights will be fed up through the floor combined with cotton ball fog effects.

 Going to add the rest of the collapsed top to the courtyard, there is too clean a feel to the abandoned Dol Guldor.

The shade is finally where I want him to be. Added in another spooky hand coming out of the abyss and more wispy ghost goo.