Oops!

Well I've decided to try and get back into 40K and since I already had a lot of Sisters of Battle I decided to start painting them up. My sisters are the army I collected but never painted up during 2nd edition so I still had a lot of them left over. I did have a convent name "Order of the Iron Rose" and I had painted a five sister squad and had half painted a squad of Seraphim. Now back in the day I used a lot of craft paints and these days I use mostly miniature paints. Anyway now the minimum squad size for battle sisters is 10 figs and not 5 so I needed to finish up this squad and paint another battle sister squad to get my army started. Problem is I decided to paint the spares while the five I had painted were sitting on the shelf in the other room. Well of course with no refference I got the armour way too bright.


Oops! Well I didn't expect an exact match but these are a full shade brighter. I use to make medieval armour with a guy who would say that the difference between a master and everyone else was that the master could fix his fuck ups. Now I wonder if I can fix this fuck up. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go with a wash. Hopefully that will get them close enough.

Pegasus Hobbies Gothic Church

Well I went down to my local FLGS today and picked up a Pegasus Hobbies Gothic City Buildings small set #2 or the Gothic Church as I like to call it. The retail price was $30.00 which is very good for a building of this size. As you can see Gordon got the box open right away and there are several parts.

Straight out of the box the most disappointing thing is the lack of instructions. In fact the instructions were a one side one sheet affair. Gordon can't understand it either.

The first thing we did was put together the parts that did have instructions. The flying buttresses, rose window, and roof arches. These went together easily. There are some chunky flash areas and some other bits that need to be trimmed up a bit but a big exacto is the only tool I used in the basic assembly.

Oddly enough the hardest bit to assemble were the doors although they were not all that hard. You want to set them up to swing out like this.

Here are the doors and walls. They go together fairly easily I wouldn't personally recommend gluing these parts until you at least dry fit the entire structure together first.

It's actually a bit tricky to put all the parts together and I strongly suggest you dry fit everything before you use any glue. Make sure everything is snug and take your time putting the thing together. The walls fit together via a tab and slot system which is really quite ingenious and there is some play in the whole structure which makes it easier to assemble. The tabs that show on the outside can be filled with the decorative elements that come with the kit or filled with putty or something. The only loose parts I had at this point were the flying buttresses. I'm going to be gluing mine together on the final assembly.

Anyway that's basic assemble of this kit. I'm really happy with it so far. I think I have fewer than three hours on the assemble and I was bumbling around a bit. I would say that this kit could go together in less than an hour if someone was really in a rush or they had some experiences with the other kits like it. I'll follow this up with final assembly and painting. With any luck I'll have a new building for my table by the end of the week!

Another New Studio

Well our last landlords here in Warrensburg apparently fell off the face of the planet so we had to move house unexpectedly. We managed to find a much larger rental property for only about $150.00 more than we were paying a month and we were paying very low rent there. It's a three bedroom house with a separate garage and a really big yard. Still moving cuts into painting and terrain making time not to mention game time. The studio is about 50% larger than the old studio but I couldn't get as much shelving into it as I could the last one due to the layout so I put a lot of my model kits and long term WIPs on my other two shelves out in the laundry room. I think it's going to work out pretty well and I don't feel so crowded in this room.

Here is the left side wall from the door. I managed to get two five tier shelves up. I still need to rearrange my shelves to get the most important projects in each room. There is quite a bit of finished terrain on these two shelves. Eventually I want to have only WIPs on these shelves but I don't have enough nice shelving in the living room to display it.

Here's my painting desk in the right wall. I've got a smaller five tier shelf in the corner because that's all that would fit there. My paint desk is still not in order but it is in place.

Here's a shot of the left hand corner behind the door. I have some more short shelves and as you can see there is a small closet in this room as well.

Ah yes and here's Gordon the studio gorilla reading my copy of Savage Worlds a game I haven't played yet but am dying to try. Gordon seems to like it anyway.

I've shown you what is and now you get to see what could be. This is the garage. The last people who rented this place apparently stole the garage door. They also stole the refrigerator and stove. I'm not sure why. Anyway we're trying to get the door replaced and I hope to get the garage re-wired since the old wiring has been cut. Pretty soon I hope to turn this into the uber terrain studio.

Technical Difficulties.

I've been having computer problems lately so I haven't been able to update anything. I think I've got things figured out so I should be able to add some new post soon. Stay Tuned.

Longest "Speed Paint" project ever.

So I've decided to do a Warhammer 40K army and the only I still have enough figures for is my Sister's of Battle army. I started collecting this army several years ago. I'm thinking at least nine years ago and perhaps longer. I painted up a five sister battle squad straight away because in their first incarnation the minimum squad size was five then I started painting these seraphim. I got everything done on them other than their hair, weapons, and other small details then let them sit on my shelf collecting dust because I decided I hated 3rd edition. So Wednesday night I pulled them out dusted them off and finished them up. My painting style has changed over the years but I think these gals came out as a good table top squad. They arn't very heavily highlighted or tightly detailed but they they do have enough contrast for army figs. For instance their armor is just one layer of drybrushing over black but it gave me the exact look I wanted for them. They are from the Order of the Iron Rose my own order and I wanted their armor to look like brushed iron. Now I need to try to keep the rest of the troops painted to this level and try not to over work them. Of course I plan to paint the characters to a higher level but I'm pretty happy with this level as a squad.

Gamer ADD

Howdy folks. Sorry about the lack of quality updates. I have been working on things. Too many things. In fact it's starting to look like a case of Gamer Attention Deficit Disorder. I have just way too many ideas and not enough time to work them all out. No amount of organization or planning seems to be helping me. As soon as I get stuck in on one project I get another "great idea" that diverts my attention and resources away from projects I should be working on. I hate it when this happens as it usually just causes me to have a lot of unfinished stuff laying around.

Games I'm currently involved in:

Shadowrun: Fortunately as a player and we aren't real miniatures heavy on the Shadowrun game. The GM has a bunch of the old Ral Partha Shadowrun minis in various stages of somewhat painted. I'm glad at least he's doing miniatures in some form because SR combat can get "interesting".

Serenity: I'm running this game and doing a ton of miniature projects for it but I'm starting to waver. I've only finished minis for about half the party and one of the PCs doesn't have a mini at all finished or not. I've still got a half painted fed squad and a pack of reavers that are still in their blisters. I have finished several NPC types but I'd say I still have 50-100 minis to finish for this project. The game is currently on hold until September due to schedule conflicts among the players.

BMAP: This is my family pulp adventure game and it's stalled due to the fact that I'm not ready to continue to the next scenario due to not having all the minis or terrain done yet. Moving house really hurt this campaign and our one non family member player now lives like 90 miles away. Hopefully I'll get back on this "soon"

Games I'm suppose to be working on:

Blackfeather: Another pulp adventure game set in the U.S. Only played one session of this game so far.

Star Wars Star Destroyer Liberty: I was suppose to start this Clone Wars era campaign over a month ago but I just can't get it together.

Warhammer Fantasy Battles: I'm suppose to be helping get a Warhammer league going at one of the local game shops but I'm not up on the current rules yet and my armies are still half packed up from the move.

Warhammer 40k: Never tell anyone you have enough minis to make an army for this game. They will immediately start pressuring you to join their 40k game group.

Games I really, really, really, want to play:

Sky Pirates: Still working slowly on a campaign that I plan to run spanning both "Weird Wars". I have planes and some minis but can't get a group interested yet. Probably a good thing due to other projects. This one will have to simmer on the back burner for a while I'm afraid. I'll certainly work on it but only a little at a time.

Santa Carlito Zombie Republic: A recent idea for a Zombie outbreak game I plan to set on the fictitious Caribbean island of Santa Carlito. I may even do this as a multi group campaign where each "team" can affect the story line.

Other game project ideas:

The Adventures of Jack Harrison: A pulp adventure featuring the Jack Harrison model by Reaper Miniatures. I plan to use only Reaper miniatures for this game and their RAGE engine for the rules. I plan to make it a convention game and hope to run it at Recruits Convention in Lee's Summit Missouri some time in the future.

Starfarers of Sol: A sci-fi setting based entirely on our own solar system without aliens.

Deadlands: I'd really like to play a Deadlands campaign.

Pirates: Yeah pirates.

Arthurian: I've had a number of abortative attempts at doing a rpg set in Arthurian England.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying: I keep buying the books but can't get people interested.

Mordheim/Necromunda: Yeah the two GW games I actually want to play but everyone else wants to play the money pit games.

Dry Brushing Update

I have started a unit of Dwarf Clansmen from the Warhammer Fantasy "Battle for Skull Pass" boxed set. I'll try to add some pics tonight but it's been a really busy week. I think they are going pretty well though.