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OK I'll remove the blue talk and glue him as is. I used go assembly line all the time... we'll see if I still can.

Good to see progress! I'm off on my holidays at the moment so I won't be commenting as much but I figured I'd check in!

@Da Boss, thanks for dropping by

I've got the next five zombies glued, and one weapon team. I plan to finish the second and third weapon teams and maybe look into assembling some more zombies. I doubt that I'll paint any more than 11 in one go, but having stuff assembled may speed things up later.

I'd probably have a few more bits cleaned and glued if it weren't for TDL! His Shinobi Kitsune got me looking at infinity models, and looking at models gets me making lists, and I go into this whole downward spiral of making a shopping/build list sometimes taking days before I realize I don't have time for another project I managed this little relapse in just over a day though, still think some of those Nomad remote sputniks and zonds may someday make it to my shelves, may some day try infinity, but not now!

Hoping these zombies go even faster with the addition of a couple more of their colors being airbrush-ready now.


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Went ahead and stuck the next 5 zombies on nails and primed them. Trying out my new Mahogany VMA for these. Its pretty darn close, and I like the way the paint works on minis much better. Will still try to pay it forward on the zombies but going to go ahead and get some painting done while the iron is hot (or something).

Been doing some counting, the 46 model box came with 50 bases, and the FFIW came with 10. So 60 bases for 60 infantry and 3 weapon teams (came with 4 WT bases too), but I can't seem to find two! I may have to put a couple of zombies on spare gw 25mm bases, but I'd really prefer to find the mantic bases. Will have to do some cleaning and search

Alrighty, small update. Didn't get anything finished, but I did get some pictures while I was working. Mixing VMA white and light brown didn't quite color match bleached bone, but I think it will be close enough once the models have been dipped, and getting to airbrush that step will save a fair amount of time. The paint was still pretty uncooperative though. Something about light tan colors and being gummy even if you thin them properly... Tip dry was a nightmare this time around, but if I thinned the mix any more it would have taken way more passes, and being that I'm going to dip these guys anyway... I also got the first layer of flesh down on a couple of zombies, not much progress, but the baby gets up early


Silly putty is the new liquid mask! This stuff is obviously far chunkier than liquid mask, but for what I'm doing here, it is so very much easier to use and remove.


Not a perfect coat of 'extra light brown', but it should be good enough under the minwax. I really wanted to leave the little silly putty hoods on, look like the scarecrow batman villain or something


Just to prove I'm actually painting them and not only fiddling around with the airbrush That librarian is just a photobombing prankster isn't he?

While I waited for the 'elb' to dry, I tried my hand at making a more interesting urban base. My goal was twofold here: primarily, I needed to conserve my tiled plasticard to ensure I would have enough to finish the project; secondly, I really just wanted to splash in a different look here and there.

I figure my bases are probably best considered as either tiled floor interiors, or some kind of sidewalk. Looking at other urban bases online, and doing some thinking, I decided roadways may be a logical next step. I had some 1mm plasticard (same thickness as the tiled sheet) around for potential future projects, so that got drafted. I have some other ideas for the flat sheet actually, this roadway bit wasn't even on my radar until I googled urban bases earlier this evening. I'll get into those Ideas when and if they come to fruition though

I know that I said I was going to do those slotted bases for all of my weapon teams, but I need the bases for the extra zombies that got generated by the z-corp process, and these zombie weapon teams will never be disbanding to join veteran squads anyway.


The gist of the base is about 1/3ish tiled plasticard, the rest 1mm plain, with a strip of what I'll assume is .3-.5mm card that I get in bulk in the form of for sale signs at walmart serving as a curb or edge to separate the sidewalk and roadway. The green strip is two coats of liquid greenstuff applied between two pieces of masking tape, just so the roadway line would have some substance to it when I went to paint the thing.


Before you holler at me and say the line is too long and or there should be more, I looked it up, and at least in the US those lines are supposed to be 10 feet long and 30 feet apart. I have a sinking feeling that by trying to do it "right", that I'll make it look questionable, so we'll just see how it works out. You may not tell in the pictures, may need paint first, but the plain plasticard has been roughed up with some medium sand-paper to give it a little texture.

Come to think of it, that road line is probably way too close to the sidewalk... I mean, unless its something like a bicycle lane. Nevertheless, it was too large a space to leave alone! I may implement some small scatter bits on this base, but I want to leave the first attempt relatively plain to serve as a base line for future 60mms. I may do a small billboard or advertising post on the next one though

What does this mean for the next 36 or so models in terms of basing? I have almost enough spare/leftover tiled card to do the other two 60mm bases, had it cut out for some space marine bases but they're mothballed atm. But I think I'm going to go ahead and implement the changes on the smaller 25mm bases as well. A base or two of the next ten may be all roadway, a couple of them potentially half and half. It will help tie the bases in with the 60mms as well as the preexisting force.

Finally, remember how I said I was ogling some of the infinity miniatures (how dare you make that implication! I'm married! I simply meant for future hobby projects, you gutter-minds!) before? Well, if I get my TDOD list done in plenty of time, a blister or box or so of those may just be my reward I dunno though, still pretty hyped to try some armored core dreadnought conversions, or to work on the ship to sit in my spaceport sector. Either way, plenty of incentive to keep my butt moving!

Little more painting down. Finished out 5 bases for the wip zombies. Tried to get that infinity thing out of my system a little (can ogle models and use their decidedly awesome infinity army thingy while minding baby, painting modeling not as much =/). I've got a bit more flesh to put down and then its on to leather metal and shoot almost done after that. The bases can be ready in an hour or two as well. May take a minute to figure out what color I want my pavement and road lines, but beyond that the new bases may paint up a tad faster even.

I made one of the road/sidewalk bases plain and smooshed it into some instant mold, going to see if I can get a decent copy of it in green stuff to save a little time on the next batch of models, just one or two and of course with extra bits added, but conserve materials and time as I can.


'Cause, who doesn't love poorly crafted paint how-tos

I notice a couple of air bubbles, any loss of quality will negate the minimal time/materials saved so I'm on the fence as to if this was worth the time, but we'll see.

Oh man, I am so sorry for provoking such an effect! I too suffer from the same, I pretty much made an "oath" to avoid buying new models until most of them are painted, but if I have fun with an Infinity demo I may have to cave-in. Infinity models are far too beautiful.

I leave your blog alone for the week-end and so much work is done Zombies are being painted, bases are being created, keep up the great work! and yeah, that Heavy Weapons team is badass, I have no idea why he would he's grabbing that head like that, I just know he looks cool

An Infinity Starter pack would be a nice reward for a work well done

I feel more like you've done me a service by introducing me, however inadvertently, to infinity. it looks like I was really missing out, & I wish I knew about infinity before I bought all the space marines last year.with all of my incoming dead zone terrain, infinity seems a natual progression.

the zombies are actually pretty close to being done, just need metal and details then dip and bases, probably no more than a couple of hours of work. If things go well today I may get them done, however I'm not banking on it.

**edit**

I don't think I actually like any of the starter boxes for Infinity . Pretty much all of the models in their ranges are quite nice, however only some of them speak to me aesthetically. I hold them to a high standard since they're all so nice, and would only get the ones I really like due to the relatively high cost (of course they are metal, but I like painting plastic and resin plastic just fine).

No, what I would get should I reward myself for maintaining the discipline to finish this army set on time would be along the lines of:
These guys, these guys, or this dude and this lady. I would theoretically want all of them for a future list (models cost enough that I would wanna use them someday and not just get for shiny prettiness ). The custodier and lunokhod would *technically* be valid, but I may decide I wanna paint a couple of robots instead I'll be fishing around on ebay and wargaming sites to see what kind of discount I can manage beyond thewarstore's given 20%, as I'm fairly confident I can get this project done under budget (timewise at least!).



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Gah so tired today. The zombies were are so close to being done too...

I think I did a bad thing guys....

Months back, one of my favorite ebay bits sellers had some mantic parts. I was mostly interested in the corp guns/arms at the time for a conversion idea. Checking back on that seller (who had a massive inventory redo, and was out of action for a few months), I discovered that they had a small selection of mantic parts still. I found some stupid things. I will list them, please find it in your hearts to talk me out of spending MORE MONEY ON MODELS!

Forge father steel warriors 10x torsos for 4 bucks. Short 5 heads, only some of the frills, and of course no lower torsos or bases. Do you have ANY idea how many lower dwarf torsos and extra heads I have just laying around wasting my space? So read that above as ten more steel warriors for $4, and as many as I care to get. I'm a little scared. It gets worse.

40 mantic bases for 5 bucks Mantic doesn't charge much for their bases, but these are even cheaper, and a damn easy way to justify getting more forge fathers. Or marines. Or zombies. Oh did I not mention the following?

40 arms for 3 bucks, basically 20 sets. Includes the sgt options. Thats a potential of 20 more heavily zombified marines for only THREE DOLLARS!

They've got some fantasy parts too, including (imo) poorly priced zombie and ghoul parts, but I can't get over the 10 for $4 steel warriors I could be having. They have corporation torsos too, reasonably priced, I *could* get even more zombies (better, more marine-looking ones) if I wanted. They also have 5 stormrage veterans for $10 which turns out to be about half price, just the bits no box, but I don't need that stuff.

I think I can wait on the extra marine parts. If, when I get my deadzone stuff, the plague zombies look like they wanna be combined with marine parts, I'll come back looking.

But 10 steel warriors for $4? And 20 sets of marine arms for $3? I'm thinking that I want to do some corporation/rebs crossover conversions, and those arms would help out, not to mention enabling me to add more zombies. Looks like I can get some more heads for the steel warriors, but only 4 of the good one with some extra goggles. I think maybe I could do some conversions instead...

Looks like this stuff is pretty well in stock so I've got a little time to decide, but man, thats some cheap steel warriors, no?

Gonna go down and salvage what modeling time I can for the night

BOOSH!

Just have to de-nail them, glue them to the bases, and blast them with matte sealer. Gotta let them dry for i dunno, at least 8 hours, I'll finish them up tomorrow and get pics if I can help it!

I was curious as to whether or not the mold I made would be good enough:

What do you think?

The couple spots that depressed into the green stuff actually look good, little pits in the sidewalk and road, the curb is kind of chewed up a bit but that may look good with paint on it... just a tad more worn down than the others. Even the scratching made it through which is props to instant mold. The bubbles that let the green stuff stick up too far were fairly easy to shave down, and I scratched the roadway up a bit more for good measure. I think I'll make a couple more like this to save time when/if I get a little behind on bases.

Now its time to decide if I have 5-6 more zombies in me, if I need to do the dwarfs for a break, or if I can calm my inner painter and pop out 5 more marines or rangers.

Also, I need to decide how many dwarfs to order! I'm thinking ten for sure, though there could be an argument for 20. At least ten, and the arms, as well as bases. I'll mull over getting more than 10. 20 steel warriors should let me field everything I want to that I'm getting from kickstarter, and the FF are a secondary (tertiary?) project... so I don't want to go nuts

The new base looks even better than the original with so many bullets and fighting going around, there's bound to be some some holes and weathering.

If you want a break from the zombies, I say the remaining 5 FF to complete that step from the "DO OR DIE" list! (But I'm a little biased because I really like the models. )

As always, TDL, thanks for the kind words! I think I will try to make a couple more generic molds like that one as I've got a surplus of greenstuff at the moment, but no so much tiled plasticard and everywhere wants a silly amount to ship it But hey, I've got pictures!
Updated Goal sheet:



A bit blurry, lookit my painted cheering section go! 35 painted mantic models, I'm excited

ZOMBIE TIME!


I think they turned out alright. They look a bit shiny, may need a second coat of sealer eventually.


Spliced this one together, bit more in focus than any of its component parts.


All ten lined up.


Jetpacks, zombie backs, and some outnumbered space dwarfs!


These guys are just photogenic. Thought I'd get them a shot in the sun while I was at it.


Lighting was reasonable, so the rangers came out to play as well.

So, second batch of zombies down. I've just realized the helmeted zombie needs to have his lenses done. I'm also considering a slight edge highlight for the brown armor, the dip just can't give it enough definition due to the color. I think the 'extra light brown' coloring worked for the clothing, although the skin tone and cloth color are kind of close and in danger of blending together on certain models. I'll give these guys a pass, I'd say they're fairly consistent with the first five, and I did them a bit quicker.

Thinking about assembling the second batch of forge fathers next. I've got two mini modifications I want to take care of for this batch; I want to convert a mjolnir and a dragons breath to round out the squad. I think for the Mjolnir I will do a shoulder mounted rocket launcher look, with a round tube and some pointy missiles sticking out if possible, mounted on some kind of brace/mechanical arm. The dwarf wielding the weapon will have the control looking thing that comes with each of the steel warrior sprues, and either the pistol (though he doesn't get one in the rules) or the pistol arm hacked down and replaced with something (possibly steal a dwarf hand weapon from my other dwarfs). The dragons breath will be a bit more of a modification. I will want to take one of the two gun sculpts and remove the thin-drum ammo canister and replace it with some kind of fuel source, either mounted where the original was, or a tube going to a backpack I'll have to make and add (or possibly steal if I have a bit somewhere...). Then I'll modify the barrel to look more flame-thrower-ish and add the little flame bit to ignite the expelled fuel.

If those conversions go well, I have half a mind to make 5-10 Thorgarim (if I spelled it right...), out of normal dwarfs with the two handed hammer, and then do some modeling to add the occasional goggles and or tech bits to make them match my steel warriors a bit. I realize that they aren't the best unit in the army, but I have the models to potentially make them, and they sound pretty cool. Anyone who's going to bring a massive super-heated hammer to a gunfight has to be a badass, right? If THAT conversion goes well, I may be inclined to try some drakarim. I think I'll get 3-ish packs of dwarf torsos from ebay, that will give me my current 10 steel warriors and 30 more to build or convert into whatever. I figure I would only ever field 2-3 sections of steel warriors to unlock tanks and heroes/monsters. I'm also heavily considering outright stealing some of my marine vehicles and donating them to the cause...


Light Drakkar, anyone?

I could do the landspeeder-into-jeep-slash-buggy conversion we've all seen a couple of times by now, and plop a couple of dwarfs in there I would reduce the amount of the cabin that was visible so all you could potentially see is upper torso and arms, using the thane arms to represent/convert into control sticks and weapon handles. Hailstorm autocannon should be reasonably easy to convert, and the heat cannon may not be so bad either. I could also steal my predators and paint them yellow to become Firewyrms with some modified weapons, land raider could be a heavy drakkar... That is getting a bit ahead though, land raider may be reserved for whatever I end up keeping of my space marines (a 1500-2000 single list, the rest I'm going to try to repurpose or trade/sale/etc).
Oh, could also try to make some stormrage/godhammer vets if the shoulder weapon mount works out

Those new zombies look great as usual Simple but very good looking (oh man, how I love those FF. The camera loves them!)

I like your idea of highlighting the armor: They look mighty fine after the dip, but the browns do look very similar. Some highlighting with the original base color should be enough to make them pop!

Lastly, as much as I would love more and more FF, please remember your "TODO OR DIE" list 20 out of 51 done, you still have plenty to tackle and if you start shooting in all directions, well, you may have to rush near the end. We are already in month 8 of 12, don't forget that, and life can throw us a curve-ball anyday

But do I love the Drakkar idea... Those Jeep Landspeeder conversions always bring me a smile and a Jeep driven by FF, and instead of Imperium symbols, Dwarven ones, that would be GLORIOUS!

But if you ever plan on painting a FF Iron Ancestor, oh yes, screw everything, I want to see one of these bad boys with your paint scheme

Yeah, I agree that I am getting a little cocky for being 20/51. I think I see the 30-35 painted corporation and forget that 15 of them were done prior to the list

I should be on schedule still though, or a bit ahead. Given 2 weeks for each batch of 5 models ( one batch of 6 for the teams) and 6 batches of models, if I stay on track I should be able to finish it all out in 3 months, leaving one for recovery before Deadzone. I may not get as much time as I would like for a side project, but I'm so ridiculously excited for Deadzone I won't really care

I think the only thing that can possibly bog me down (aside from curveballs as you point out) is apathy towards the standard corporation paint scheme. I think I've got ten more in me though, surely! I mostly want to buy the extra forge fathers stuff to have it on hand for future project time. I'm going to get enough forge father stuff via deadzone to have a pretty solid force with just a couple of steel warrior units, let alone any conversions I'm considering.

I *almost* ordered a DZ Iron ancestor, I think they're even in resin instead of resin plastic, but he was the same cost as the normal one and I didn't want to bloat my pledge to even more ridiculous levels If I see one for a bargain somewhere, I'll definitely get it, I like the model... it reminds me a lot of a space marine dreadnought, though it screams dwarf at the top of its vox!

I may have to get one of all of the mechs for DZ, Thornton has been posting cards and stats and I think they could be pretty neat to run in larger skirmishes.

Finally, I may take a break from models for about a week to ten days as I scrabble to put together a cosplay costume of all things! Infinity is going to have a table at Gen Con Indy, and I just realized that I'm close enough that I can totally drive to it. Somehow it just dawned on me where it is after I saw the mantic blog post mentioning it. Anyway... They say they're giving away one of their bootlegger minis to anyone who drops by their table cosplaying one of their characters. I've been scouring their mini range to find something simple enough to make (and that I wouldn't look too ridiculous in) but clothing is far far away from my forte'... Still, it would be ever so nice to get a free infinity model

More on that as I take another look, my eyes are too tired. I think half of the aireadna stuff is basically stander rag-tag soldier/camo look but I wouldn't want to be awarded a mini for not trying

Gonna go snap together that batch of forgefathers if I can help it! More on all of this later

Free Bootleg mini?! Oh, you lucky git, you get to have fun with other nerds and get free minis!

Best of luck with your Cosplay project, I think the easiest ones are probably the Ariadna ones since they all have that low-tech gear: Métros, Highlander SAS, Foxtrot Rangers, Line Kazak, all look easily doable. But for extra awesome-sauce, you should totally go as an Highlander: Greatsword and Kilt. So much manliness in a single mini

Ahahaha! No kidding. I wish i had the time and talent to put together something cool like a zero or reverend custodier but there's no way. Metros though? What is that a hoodie and grey pants (well at least the HMG guy)? Ezmode. It may have to be my "settling point" as well, as I have no camo or military gear for the other ones. I don't own a kilt, and they probably won't let a sword past the door. Good thing I have excuses to not be a highlander (as many as it would be )

See, it says get a free mini and other gifts while learning to play at their tables, then it mentions the bootleg for cosplay, so maybe there are more than one up for grabs? I need to get signed up for my events, just waiting to see if it wife wants to go or not.

I actually feel pretty lucky to get to go, being here in southern Illinois, stuff is usually too far away, or happens on days I work. Aside from a couple of gamesdays many years ago, this will be about the only thing like this I've found time to go to. So, needless to say, I plan on nerding out quite a lot. I will have with me my trusty droid bionic, and its not so modest (for a camera in a phone) 8mp camera will be working overtime. Hopefully I can still get in on some of of the infinity and mantic events, and find a few more to go to, many pictures will be coming of anything I can get good shots of!

Back to the dwarfs! Got everything cut out, just need to trim and assemble. I may be a mediocre painter, but I can put things together in a jiffy! Hopefully the dragons breath and mjolnir just 'come to me' as I'm working on these.

*EDIT* I just caved and ordered the 20 sets of dwarf torsos, 20 sets of laser rifle arms, 40 round mantic bases, and 15 dwarf heads (including 5 of the good ones from the SW set, and 10 goggles/eyepatches). It will get me 20 more steel warriors (or 10 and conversion fodder for 10 of something else most likely) with proper heads as well as extra laser rifles for zombies and potential deadzone conversions. And enough bases to do any dwarf converting (including 10 hammer guys from normal dwarfs, if I want) and give me some slack if I can't find a few of my awol bases for the current project.

Now go away hobby, you can't have any more of my money unless you cleverly ambush me at gen con!!!

Even more goodies?! Oh, yeah, that looks like one heck of a con!

If your wife is going too, make sure she guards your wallet. If there's starter sets or some deals for those drones you like so much, oh man, I fear someone is gonna cave in

Yeah... It's pretty much guaranteed. If Ronnie Renton or one of the Infinity guys asks me to buy something, I'm probably just going to hand them my wallet. Especially if there are deals or signatures involved!

Part way through a flamer dwarf. Once the baby sleeps I may try to finish it. Having trouble finding a good vented looking bit for the flames to come out of. May make something, but that will take more time so who knows.


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Hmm. Tinkered with the special weapons for the steel warriors a bit.



The dragons breath I could be ok with. It isn't in the style of the drakkarim, which actually mount the tank under their weapon, but my dwarfs kind of have a more rustic feel to them... maybe they don't have the best equipment forge fathers as a race have access to. Maybe down on their luck or poor clan. I wanted to do a shoulder mounted missile launcher but as you can see, it did not pan out. The actual mantic model is more of a shoulder resting bazooka kind of thing. I have some of the IG missile launchers, or I could make something a little smaller out of plastic tubes. I'll have a look at it tomorrow.

The thing under the barrel is for setting the fuel on fire, something I notice is missing from the dragons breath weapons. I like the muzzles on those, but the one I have may just suffice. Thoughts?

If you are going with the more rustic feel, the muzzle seems a great idea. They already carry the fuel tank like an "ordinary" Flamethrower, so they need that. I would only recommend bending it up a little. Right now it looks like the flame would heat, well, nothing

Something like the good ol' SM stuff:


Other than that, it looks great!

I checked the Mjolnir rocket launcher: That thing is brutal. It looks bigger than the FF carrying it! A simple shoulder mounted launcher really doesn't do it justice.

Two brief notes and I'm off to bed. Too tired to mess around with models tonight

First, going to skip the missile launcher for now. The steel warriors are technically on the list, but they are still a considered a side project. I have enough bits coming in that when I decide to put those together at a later date, I can figure out the mjolnir in a more relaxed setting and make extra to swap with my existing squad. Need to get these dwarfs built and painted so I can keep pushing forward.

Second, at risk of sounding wishy washy, I am going to cancel my gencon indy plans. I got really excited when I realized how (relatively) close I was and what actually went on there, that I just started making plans. Less than two weeks out. Gencon Indy is hugemongous, something like 25k people are supposed to attend. The hotels are going to be booked for miles and none of the events I would like to attend have any tickets left. Sure, I may pick up a free model at the infinity table, but I'd be paying hundreds of dollars to make the trip out there for not much else in terms of gain. I think I could just buy the infinity model and stick to a nice relaxing weekend instead No, I won't attend this year, what I will do is bank my enthusiasm for next year and get everything sorted out months in advance!

On another, third, heretofore unmentioned note; I think I conned a buddy into trying out Infinity. All I had to do was describe it and tell him to check out the site. Going to see about the quick start rules this Sunday. If he actually gets into it, I may have to reschedule some things and add some infinity models to the queue

Alright, just a bit of progress. I wanted to sleep, but I decided to finish prepping and gluing those dwarfs. As an added bonus, I assembled a trial Thorgarim (or however it is) A.K.A. mad hammer space dwarf. Keeping to my lower-tech theme, I decided to use a separate power source with a somewhat cumbersome cable connecting them. The power source for the heat hammer and squad special weapon look very similar, which has sort of morphed to intentional. The large tanks are going to be detailed and painted in such a way as to suggest large batteries, and the hammer will follow suit. Basically its a wide area heat gun, instead of a flame thrower. It can flash boil the flesh off of enemies, but it dissipates too quickly to damage heavier armors.



I imagine the coil near the barrel to be a rapid heat dissipation system to keep the weapon firing more often. Do you guys like the mad hammer dwarf? I couldn't help but use the goggles and mic, makes him look a bit crazy. Hopefully I get the chance to work these over with the airbrush tomorrow. Undercoat white-->yellow-->red with the airbrush and I'll just have a few details left before I can dip 'em.

Looking great as usual Grim! Sorry I've not been around to post, I've got my first professional commission painting Sedition Wars, So I've been swamped with painting other peoples minis
Love your zombies and I can't wait to see that flame thrower! I've started playing dreadball (damn mantic!) so now I've got yet another project!

Hey GrimDork, dwarf looks great as usual! The goggles are so big it gives him a crazy buggy-eyed look. Truly something I wouldn't like to encounter in a tight mineshaft

The fluff looks really cool too, but I have a special love for your weapons names. Minesweeper and hush gun? You must have spent some time thinking about it because they sound too good, haha!

(Ah, remember those curveballs I mentioned? I got one myself. Working through all the weekend so my miniature painting deadlines have been shot down with extreme prejudice )

@BMB no worries, I'm going to keep on plugging along even if I'm here all by myself Thanks for the comments and be sure to let me know where to find the results of your first commission when you get it done

@TDL thanks! I'm generally terrible with names, see how both my clan and my corporation force lack them Shame about your curveball, but we will still expect progress soon

@BMB, indeed, I'm always up for seeing more beautiful minis from any game system, I too would like to see them

@GD - Aaahh, I'm sure you'll be able to conjure up a nice name, I too took ages to discover a Dynasty name for my Necrons. Thankfully my curveball is almost done, I'm tired as frak, but I'm hoping I'll be able to update it today!

I got one of those curveballs too, yesterday didn't turn out quite like I planned, and today I got called in for some 'emergency' work, only half a day, but this stuff wears me out especially off-schedule like that.

@TDL Take your time, but I'm sure that troll will look awful nice when he does show up over there

Since my buddy lives out of town, we had to postpone our Infinity match due to the random work, but that gives me more time to prepare.
I'm a little torn, I'm able to proxy our starter forces with fully painted models, but I don't have much in the way of suitable terrain. On the one hand, I would like to have something presentable to go with the painted models, giving a more favorable impression of the hobby; on the other hand, I have hundreds of battlezone tiles and over a dozen accessory sprues coming from the deadzone kickstarter... and hastily crafted terrain just isn't going to match up with that.

So, what I'm looking at is either using a bunch of cardboard model boxes and the like as buildings, maybe throwing some barricades together but not bother painting them... wasting little time but presenting poorly; or spending my limited hobby time (with TDOD looming over me the whole time) to make less shoddy training terrain that I will probably still be inclined to throw out (running out of space to put this stuff!) once my deadzone stuff comes in.

Having thusly analyzed things, I think I'm inclined to do the cardboard boxes and get the function of the battlefield situated, while still making time with my deadlines.

Thoughts?

On that note, I'm gonna go see some dwarfs about an undercoat!

*update* Dwarfs sprayed white. Maybe a quick shot of yellow if I'm feeling squirrely tonight!

*TWACK*
Thou shall not waste valuable hobby time with the TODO deadline looming on the horizon!
*TWACK*

I'm sure your friend will be able to understand why you don't have ass-kicking terrain for a quick game Painted proxies is already more than enough to sell how awesome miniature gaming is. All you need is that "hasted" terrain so you guys can test the rules and see if you truly enjoy the game

At least that's my opinion

And a sound opinion it is! It is the correct course, I just feel like a bad host not having a fancy battlefield. I'll make up for it tenfold once I get my deadzone tiles Gotta get up early, but going to see about blasting those dwarfs with yellow before I hit snoozemode.


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*update* dwarfs sprayed yellow. You guys know what my whip stuff looks like so I'm gonna save the effort of pics. I will say that mad hammer dwarf is growing in me by the day... not sure when I will find the time... but so far these forge fathers have been fun to paint. Something to do with using such a 'hard' color and doing it this easily... like I'm getting away with something. Not sure I could ever paint a good yellow, not the 'right' way.

Oh well, maybe after I get some dead zone done I can break for some more dwarf units.

Happy hobbying!

Gah, baby threw me another curveball last night. Was set to get up early and visit some relatives and baby decided to kill 2-3 hours of sleeping with a massive fit and refusal to go back to sleep about halfway through the night. In and of itself, that isn't so bad, it happens every once and a while... But I am just wrecked today, I have no idea why I'm so tired, I guess cumulative sleep debt is taking its toll. So, not going to do anything modelwise tonight, baby just fell asleep and I'm going to go as well to greedily snooze as much as humanly possible before I return to my usual toil

On another note, my bits came in from Hoard 'O Bitz, one of my favorite ebay bits sellers. It was a tiny envelope, but everything is here, it was just well packed. This means more dwarfs for the future and plenty of guns and arms to help ensure my zombies look the part of their stat line (as marines they should technically all have rifles ).

It would be so easy to put the red down tonight, just six loincloth thingies, but not gonna happen

If the amazon prime continues to honor it's 2day shipping thing, I should have one of those fancy healing cutting mats and some of those new-fangled microbeads to play around with. I hear the caviar thing is all the rage and my poor nails are just so flat!
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Just kidding! Anyway, supposedly they are just about the right size to represent rivets. So you use a tiny drill bit to make a dimple and set the little bead in place and BAM, nice rounded rivet. We'll see. I was planning on implementing some on my next wave of bases for a slightly more industrial section of the city warzone the bases are meant to represent.

Alright, next time will be pictures. Probably not finished dwarfs, but certainly far along WIP shots!

If you're bored in the meantime, be sure to check out TDL's painting Den! There you will find some fantastic necrons, an awesome ninja, a furious Nijal Stormcaller, and other lovely things to admire

I have no idea why I'm so tired, I guess cumulative sleep debt is taking its toll.

Oh boy, do I know the feeling Yesterday after work after I got home, bam, I was falling asleep watching youtube, nevermind painting. I just know if I picked up the brush I would fall asleep.

I like your idea of spicing up your bases with the rivets. That way you give the idea you have an army that's fighting in multiple fronts. Nice touch

Bring us pics!

Everything's looking good, Grim.

I especially like how the bases are turning out.

BTW, my own P&M blog is up now, if you want to check my sig for the link.

@TDL Yeah, if I had tried to heft the airbrush it was going to go tip-down into my desk and I'd be out at least $16 Feeling rather better today, hopefully some work will be done!

I see your P&M blog CIsaac, fancy stuff. Not sure I jive completely with the whole warjacks thing, but you've done some pretty fancy painting on them

The UPS truck gets here a little later in the day (I think) but my amazon order is due in, so hopefully I get to take another crack at some bases with new materials today.

I'm far less exhausted today, so I think I'm gonna traipse on downstairs and fire up the airbrush for the last bit of spraying the dwarfs need. Hopefully by then my stuff will have come in and I'll be able to pop some WIP base pictures here before the night is out.

*edit* wait a second... Traipse means walk wearily or reluctantly? Bah, vocabulary fail! I guess I should have went with meander, huh? Well... I guess. Maybe We'll just settle for wander, huh?


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Woooo. My goodies came in! These microbeads are, well, micro! They're super super small. Grains of sand small. May be too small, may be perfect. The cutting mat look ok, kinda stinky but that will fade.

Also, gonna use a regular brush for the red, will take a couple three layers, but the masking for the airbrush would have been at least as much work so meh

BBL with update!


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Alrighty, I didn't get quite as much done as I had hoped, and I will be turning in soon to try to keep up on my sleep. However, I did some fiddling with bases and the dwarfs don't really have much detailing in general. Leather is a tad less than halfway done, metals flesh and well no I think that's basically it. Maybe a little fancying on the coils for the heat gun and the heat hammer, maybe. Anyway, here are a few pics to keep things from getting too boring.


Boom! Supplies! Its hard to believe there are parts enough for 20 dwarfs in those two packages. Well, I guess there aren't. It's just the front torsos and arms, still, they pack in nicely.


More supplies, these are the microbeads. They are tiny tiny! You can make a better judgement in the next images with the bases, but they are super small. All I know is that I want to walk on a fuggin beach of these things, it would be wonderful. Well or maybe not, I think you may sink in, they displace very easily. One of those sweet glass-bead style volcano beaches though...


The microbeads in action. The round bit is one of the integral mantic bases cut off and flipped over to the smooth side. The way to use the beads seems to be to drill a dimple with the smallest bit you can find, then get some glue into the socket and deploy the bead. Both the small portion of glue and the bead handling were proving problematic until I accidentally discovered probably the ultimate tool for doing this kind of work. That piece of metal is the bare part at the end of a guitar string, I had just cut it off since I wanted the string for the cable look, and the plain piece wasn't useful at the time. Put a tiny wad of poster tack, or anything sticky, even old gum if you're desperate on one end; this is your grabber. The other end is left alone. See that dark spot on my palette? That's a small pool of superglue. Dip the bare end of your new bead-tool into the glue very lightly and even more lightly tap the dimple where you want to put the bead-rivet. Just enough glue should come out, then flip the tool over and very lightly snag a bead with the sticky end. So far the poster tack has been loosing its grip on the bead easily, with the superglue sucking the bead down into place. I'll have to see them painted up, but so far I like these for rivets. I wish there was a size maybe 50% larger, would be good for some things, but for small rivets these are neat.


WIP bases and dwarf just so you know I'm painting them I forgot I had six dwarfs this time, so I've got to add material to the bare one. I wanted to make a better man-hole this time around, and try a couple of things out. I'm not sure what the base with two lines of rivets is supposed to be, perhaps a different pattern would make more sense, just wanted to try something out. Need some scatter junk for the tops of some of them too.

So, like I said, not a whole lot of progress, but steadily pushing forward. Pending weekend plans, I may get the dwarfs done this week, putting me half way to goal.

On another note, I just got in a bluetooth controller and a micro-hdmi cable so I've just turned my phone into a nintendo/psx/nostalgia engine. Expect to hear me ranting about old video games as I take necessary hobby work breaks If I can still play with a controller, I loaded up armored core and couldn't even get through the practice room, something about having so many years of mouse-looking, hard to use those triggers to manually adjust the camera in battle

Returning soon!