2017 a hobby review.

Wow its been a year! And what a year it has been! CSM getting a reboot in the first quarter, and then 8th ed drops for Warhammer 40k!

I was just sorting out my photo album, well primarily trying to find photos to keep or delete and I was surprised what I have painted this year.

List of personal goals accomplished

1.)     Buy something ugly on ebay cheap, repaint it, and resell it!    

The BEFORE photo, bought them off ebay at $0.70 each! #ultramarines #ebay

FINISHED as WHITE SCARS, and sold them off on #ebay and more importantly learnt a few techniques that I put to use on my #Deathguard.

            2.) Complete an iron Painter challenge

IronPainter was a 24 hour painting challenge,  where you have to paint something in 24hours and present it at our local hobby store later on.

I managed to chart my progress on instagram which is also another big thing for me this year, as the lazy blogger in me, just preferred to snap a photo and upload it. Plus all the instant 'likes' can be gratifying.

Search for me! im 'hobbieswithmazz' on IG

and heres my squad of #DeathGuard legionnaires, completed at 2pm the next day.

In hindsight it was really good fun, though the lack of sleep was really painful. and trying to solve a clogged airbrush at 3am was also another memory that I dont wish to repeat.

2017 was also a year for Netflix! My companion through all the long nights huddled infront of my wet pallet.

I think I have watched everything!

One of the few good offshoots from the IronPainter Challenge, was that I was inspired to paint and build faster. I have a habit of painting 40k minis in parts and then assemble them together, which takes just too long. At least for a few months, I was painting the models fully assembled.

I've since gone back to my old ways though =p

My Good Deed for the year!

2 weekends after the ironpainter challenge, Melvin invited me to join him in painting Andrew's Marines. Andrew's a friend of ours who has hoards of unpainted marines and we took it upon ourselves to help him reduce some of his backlog. Probably the most generous thing I have done this year!

Andrew's Dark Angels all painted for him! Really happy with the 24hour paint job too!

My ork collection also received a minor boost this year, again inspired by the Iron Painters Challenge.

 

So I got off my butt and finished another group of orks. Figured in any list combination, I would be covered if i had at least 60+ boyz nicely painted ork boyz.

Boyz ready for the great waaargh of the 8th Edition!

Wierdboy converted from a Warhammer Fantasy Savage Orc, added the trophies to give it a more 40k feel =) and plus to commemorate a great day of gaming, (see Ray's post of DP's 1k tourney)

the Butt Shot. NSFW!!! Sorry couldnt resist this photo =)

and so here rounding off the year is the mandatory family portrait... 

Man! have the Deathguard legion grown! #DeathGuard #legionXIV

 

and the great waaargh just got more awesome too!

CHEERS TO AN AWESOME 2018!

M

Malifaux - Batch Highlighting

Practice game with the missus before I started working on some the primed miniatures.

Managed to get in a game with the wife to reacquaint her to Henchman Hardcore and Malifaux.

I'm a big believer of priming and then hitting the models with a zenithal highlight all together to save time and effort

Here you see them semi completed with the white primer.

I began using my newer Tamiya HG Airbrush III to get the whites on the models. This will go on to save me a huge amount of time when I actually hit them with paints.

Just a shot of my horrid work area!

Drop Pods - In Bulk

I am a big believer that you spend less time per model if you just did them all in one go. Call efficiency of scale I guess. After the base construction, I hit all parts with a Black Primer followed by the relevant reds. I use an airbrush, Vallejo Game Air Scarlet Red followed by Bloody Red. Apply them in thin layers and do them at angles so that you retain the shade to the crevases. 

My paint booth is basically a cardboard box in my balcony

As painful as these are, I absolutely have to do them because they break up an otherwise boring model

Now you know why I hate these Pods...

Boom! Glue them up and they be ready! 

See why those black yellow stripes work? They are so nice

Drop Pods are tough to build and tougher still to paint. However, I do like their look once deployed on the table and they are also good in game. Hopefully 8th Ed won't come and rip me a new one. 

Some modelling updates over the Past month

Last day of September today and i'm like a frenzied bloodletter typing away to get 1 more post before midnight...


Some work in progress shots trying to the cheques onto my converted ork warbuggy. I cant believe I took 2 months to decide how to paint them and then in an anti climax, settling on just go faster cheques.

Note to self.
Masking off cheques only really comes out nicely when using a spray (airbrush), I didnt take a photo of the horrow after I peeled off the masking tape and realising all the white paint had run!

The ork wartrakk has been around I think since when I quit 40k ermm 16 years ago. I decided I had to upgrade and modernise the kit alittle, Chopping off the frontbike and adding the new awesome looking ork warbike on the front.

Mental note to self: damn, the wartrakk just got even larger.. would I be able to stay completely out of line of sight (LOS) now?

Green Stuff and  Talcum powder on converted Painboy on Ork Warbike.

Warboss Alex and I had a 2v2 game against Charles and Alan, it was one of those games, where we were laughing all the way, convinced that we were going to lose and enjoying every minute of it. A miraculous roll of dice on 2 of those D3 points for objectives cards, suddenly swung the game in our favour.

Anyway the star of Alex's army was his beautiful core unit of warbikers and his painboy on the warbike. I decided I needed one too!

Alex's warbiker on their volcanic asphalt type basing.

 
GW didnt make a model but I thought I saw a few converted models online. After clipping off the waist and legs of a painboy, I did some dry fitting onto the biker legs and onto the warbike itself. Hopefully the surgery and reassembly would please the Mad Doc himself!

Heres a tip.
I realised that GW wants the builder to assemble the bike first, then insert just the lower legs over the saddle. And then glue on the upper half. Its almost impossible to seat the ork fully assembled into the seat.


This works great if this is an out of the box build but with the painboy conversion there wasnt a smooth mating surface between the upper and lower halfs.


In order to create a small mating surface between the upper and lower halfs of the conversion, I first aligned the 2 halves, placed a pin through them and squished some green stuff between the 2 halves. BUT BUT before squishing the 2 halves together, I dusted talcum powder.. (well actually SAF foot powder because Orks like it like that) as a form of 'mould release agent' so that the 2 halves wont get too tacky and stick together.

2 halves pulled apart, showing the talcum powder between. Note the pin that will help to align both halves together later on.

talcum powder washed off and the green stuff left to harden.

Once the green stuff has fully hardened, I can continue to prime and paint both halves and then gluing together when I'm thoroughly satisfied.