Using Point Motivator Software

Steve's Random Musing has an interesting post about using points motivator software to encourage painting. Sounds interesting. I'm interested in making more work more focused, but this sounds a bit too much like turning my hobby into a second job.

Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog

Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog looks like an interesting blog, with recent posts on a HOTT campaign, something I often think about, and some very nice "mud-brick" terrain. He also has a lot of posts on Cold War Commander, and is sculpting his own figures.

A Little Bit of Sculpting Again

As I struggled against postprandial Thanksgiving sedation, I found the time to work on some new sculpting tools I got here. The first is ProCreate Epoxy Putty. I'm no expert on epoxy putties, although I've used most of them at some point, and ProCreate has immediately become my favorite. However, this may well be because of the new clay shapers I bought. Mine are a mixture of firm and extra firm, which is definitely better, but both are workable. Anyway, I wound up creating the new shoulder pads for my upcoming Space Marines. Pictures once I get back to my camera...

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm thankful for a lot of things, but somewhere down the list you're going to get to walking into Table Top Game and Hobby and buying two of their three Monsterpocalypse starters right out of the UPS box. I dabbled a little bit with my son, and I think it'll probably be a fun game.

Sanding Sticks

The best tip I've seen in a while comes from FichtenFoo. I've always been bad about leaving seams and mold lines on my figures. Metal files work well, but quickly clog with soft lead. Sanding is too clumsy to get into small areas. However, FichtenFoo's sanding sticks have been a real eye-opener here. Quick to make and disposable, they are just the thing for a lot of material removal.

Table Top Game and Hobby

I'm in Kansas City for the holidays, but it's okay-- Table Top Game and Hobby is a very nice little gaming store in the area. The best thing about it is that they have a lot of extremely nicely painted miniatures on display. It just makes you want to jump up and paint everything you own!

Some Very Cool Miniatures

This Inquisitor and Grey Knight Squad by Victoria Lamb are some of the coolest figures I've seen.

Golden Demon Winners

Daemon Winner is tracking all Golden Demon winners. I always love to just look at the winning models. There's some really amazing, creative stuff there.

Soft Edge Camo on Vehicles

This Kevin Dalimore article on painting vehicles shows how soft edge camo should be done-- with an airbrush. That's why he's the man and I'm not!

Bugs, Sir! Millions of 'em!

Now these are some seriously awesome bugholes. From An Hour of Wolves & Shattered Shields.

Hlynrian: Sculpting Sites of Interest

Hlynrian is a blog from a guy who is sculpting his own armies. He seems pretty early in the process, but I really like his sculpting sites of interest post. That is a commendable objective, to sculpt and cast your own army, and I wish him lots of luck!

Blue Moon Spacemen

I some how managed to miss the fact that Blue Moon Manufacturing now makes space men and aliens. They look very pulp oriented (Pulp being the new Zombies), but many of the aliens could serve outside the setting.

Tau Piranha

I've bought Tau off and on over the years, just because I liked the style of the figures. I've always wanted a Piranha, and with my recent success at painting some vehciles and a Hobbytown coupon, I went ahead and bought one

Cleaning House, Part 2

I have been pretty discouraged with gaming desk lately. The area to work on got smaller and smaller as it filled up with miniatures waiting to be painted, spare bottles of paint, and general other junk. The last straw was that I flocked my recent terrain pieces on it, and naturally have a fine dusting of flock everywhere.

How I Painted What I Painted

I have a high tech system for recording and cataloging the paint schemes I use on my miniatures. I scrawl them out onto a piece of paper and then stack it on my desk! It actually is quite useful, although I forget to do it sometimes. I record mixtures, or any unusual techniques I did, as well. For colors not available anymore, I'll write down the mixture for something similar when I need it again. It comes in handy when you return to a project after a couple of years away from it.

Inspirational Terrain

Over at Miniature Wargaming, there's a link to IronHands.com's list of Terrain How-To Pages. It's frustratingly inspirational-- I have all the ingredients listed except for the vision, patience and the skill. It's one thing to make terrain from scrap, but this stuff ends up looking professional. I just don't see the trash anymore, even when I know what it is! Looking through their links, I see a few sites I haven't noticed before: Parasitic Studios and NetTerrain.

Spirit Games

I just received an order in for some H&R micro-armor from Spirit Games. I ordered it on November 1, a Saturday, and got it November 13, so about a week and a half turnaround. Not bad at all, across the Atlantic! I don't get that kind of speed from some stores in the US. Spirit Games has been around a long time, and I wouldn't hesitate to order from them again. I've ordered a few times over the years, and always had really great service. Glad to see the exchange rate creeping back to our favor so it makes sense to order from them again!

The Ruins of Tolen

Over at Junior General, there's a Ruins of Tolen Sci Fi campaign being set up which includes world development and paper figure creating. It looks pretty interesting.

Cleaning House

My painting desk was getting very crowded. It's about 2 feet by 4-5 feet in surface area. I pulled all the stuff off of it, and more than filled an 8 x 2.5 table. Some things didn't even make it to the table, like that 15 year old bunch of rock hard milliput. You know, I just don't think I'm ever going to use that. New rule-- if I haven't used it in 10 years, it goes straight into the trash. The worst is the paint. I have way more paint than I'll ever be able to use in my lifetime, but I have a hard time getting rid of any. You just know that one of these days I'm going to need that metallic purple or hydrangea pink paint, and then I would really regret ever having thrown it away!

IRONDOG Studios

I've had a lot of fun browsing IRONDOG Studios this weekend, especially the very inspirational Tater Titan.

Another Piece of Terrain

I finished another piece of terrain yesterday, started alongside the CD case tower. It, too, had been sitting around a couple of years, assembled but unpainted. I'm glad to finally finish it!

More Painting From the Kids

Got the kids back painting again for about an hour and a half, in which time, together, we all finished eleven figures total. Not bad. Here's a sort of step-by-step through the procedure, with some better pictures of their work. I almost think that such detailed photography of the figures does them no justice, because much of their inexperience just doesn't show when you're not examining them critically.

More old stuff back up for sale

Here is more old stuff that never sold that has been setting around, rephotographed. I think I'm having a change of heart, though. If the kids are painting and playing Fantasy with me, then maybe I should be hanging onto my Fantasy to play with them instead of just selling it off for cash. And, I like these two Old Glory cowboy figures (Poncho and Lefty), and there has been talk about gaming cowboys in our gaming group. So...I'll just have to think about whether or not to sell this stuff.

That was quick

My old pictures of those GZG resin hovercrafts languished with no interested on Bartertown. Within 48 hours of placing the new pictures of those resin tanks, I've got the money in my PayPal account. Hmmmmm... I will be using this money to buy the 40k main rules (with a little left over), which complete my attempt to trade a headless, worthless figure for the 40k rules. Only took me over a year...