Gathering Mars

The VSF on Mars project is a slow boiler but I am still working towards getting it all together. Not wanting to get to a point where the Aeronef are ready but nothing else is I have devoted a little time to working out what I actually need to do still.

Scenery is the biggest job after the Aeronef and painting the armies so I cast my mind to that. I need to source a bundle of pink foam for Martian rocks and landscape but I also wanted to have foliage. I’ve used the AliExpress website before to buy cheap stuff from China so thought I’d try there first. 

Success! Lots of different Aquarium plants at cheap prices. The drawback of buying from China is obviously that you are taking a bit of a risk on the quality. Money wise you are pretty safe as the funds are held in Escrow until delivery is confirmed. Not knowing what the quality was going to be like made me decide to buy a few different ones from different suppliers so I was likely to get at least some that were okay.

One set still hasn’t turned up, no great surprise as it’s coming from China, but fours lots have and I can say that I’m fairly pleased with them. I really like the left most one but it was the most expensive. Only £2ish but still more than the others. The centre two are pretty good as well and I suspect I will buy more of those first three types. The one on the right is okay. Big but limp and not really what I want for Mars. This said they look pretty good for filling out a jungle board so not a waste at all.

Just one set to go and then I’ll be deciding which ones to order more of. In the mean time I can use them for alien plants in my 30K/40K games. It's a fair amount of scenery for £20ish and there is still five more to come. 

I am also still thinking of making some additional plant pieces and have done a concept sketch for the liftwood groves which will hopefully feature in the narrative campaign I am planning.

They shouldn’t be too hard to make with modelling clay balls and wire for the superstructure. I’ve got some hairy gardening string and I’m thinking about soaking that in watered down PVA before draping it over the globes as vines.

I’ve not got much painting done as I am still enjoying the CAD work and am currently working on some more sci-fi stuff with a Star Wars Legion feel to it.

So….things progressing but nothing getting finished.

Harrumph.

TTFN

It's been a while

“Still, at least I am getting stuff painted”.

A quote from my last blog post in April. And what have I painted since that statement?

Nada.

Zip.

Nothing.

However I have not been resting on my laurels doing nothing. Oh no. I allowed myself to become further entranced by the idea of creating new projects with the nice folks at Blotz. The Aeronef projects has bumbled along nicely since the end of last year but I was having more and more ideas for things I wanted to try and turn into kits.

With this in mind I approach Blotz to see if they were interested in other projects and whether they had time in the development schedule and whether there was more I could do. The response was to the positive and with their excellent guidance I soon found myself staring at a freshly acquired CAD programme and a blank screen full of potential.

Needless to say mistakes were made. Lots of little mistakes and some whoopers! The priceless guidance and advice I got from Blotz saw me through the first few designs and on to more and more designs. The first set I decided to do was a crashed starship. I wanted the overall set to give a feel of a Star Wars Star Destroyer and several of the pieces were designed to echo design elements however I wanted each kit to work as  stand alone item and one where figures could interact with it with access through or over the piece being an important aspect. The Last kit will get finished tonight and that’ll mean that in two months I’ve designed twelve kits. A fact that I am rather chuffed with.

The first few went from CAD design to production in a very short time and it was a real treat to seeing the kits appearing firstly on the Blotz website and then in person. 

Blotz Website

From that point I was hooked. Having always been plagued with constant ideas and daydreams about hobby projects it felt like I had discovered a new outlet and one that would allow me to bring a greater number of my designs into being.

The CAD work itself was quite a learning curve but thankfully most of the little errors fell away quite early on. I still make them of course but it is unsurprising as the kits have grown in complexity.

The downside is that it is quite time consuming but thankfully an enjoyable hobby in of itself. I’ve resolved to try and keep some painting momentum up in my lunchtimes so that I’ll still making progress. 

Lots of things planned for this new aspect of the hobby but I really must finish off the VSF stuff to enable us to continue with the Colonisation of Mars!

TTFN

GoGX: Change my Dear, and not a moment too soon...

It's been a little while but I have been busy. Honest!

First up let's take a look at the last couple of units before the GoGX army is unveiled. Both represent our friend the Blood God...

First up a Skull Cannon.

This little beauty has been sat around for a couple of years partially painted. Originally it was put together and sort of painted for a GoG trip to Nottingham - I forget which year - and then it sat languishing on a shelf upon my return as I got side-tracked by something else.

The crew were repainted as part of the Analog Painting Challenge but I left the Skull Cannon until now as I wasn't sure exactly how I wanted to paint it and the Analog is not a place for uncertainty of paint scheme!

"Can you see where we're going?"... "Nope!".... Thud....

The Swords have been painted to match the usual Khorne flaming design and the crew are painted in a two-tone black/red instead of the normal red as I wanted them to be a little different to my infantry Bloodletters.

Next up a quick visit to the Underworlds of Shadespire. Now this boxset comes with 2 warbands, Khorne Reavers and Stormcast something or other... guess which one I chose to paint up??

Group shot first - meet Garrek's Reavers! I've painted them in the same colours as my AoS Reavers but given these a gold coloured armour as it seemed fitting to give them something a little more plush to suit their status amongst Reavers.

Garrek Gorebeard

 Yes it did take me a while to realise he has bare feet...

Arnulf

Targor

Blooded Saek

Karsus the Chained

Shadespire is a lot of fun so far. And even better this Warband have a warscroll and points so they can be fielded in AoS. Result!

And now the moment you've all been waiting for! SilverFox's take on the Daughters of Khaine for GoGX.

First up then is a unit of Tzaangors. These beastmen are the mainstay of the Daughters of... er... Disciples of... ok. Something's not right here... Let me rewind slightly...

Look I changed my mind. I know. Typical wargamer. I blame Mr.Silverback and his Nurgle boys. I got hammered by them and it finally dawned on me that I lack synergy with my mixed Chaos army; I therefore decided I needed to specialise. The one phase of the game that I've never really taken a look at is the Magic phase. So I looked around for a specialised Chaos army to build that was strong with magic.

Say hello to the Disciples of Tzeentch!

Now, where was I? Oh that's right. Here is a unit of Tzaangors!

The colour pool is the same as for the Kairic Acolytes painted during the Analog Challenge but with the loincloths painted pink with a nice red wash to provide some spot colouration.

They have a nice grey skin which was purely accidental in the fact I was aiming for a blue! Thanks to the GoGs for their votes on the couple of skin choices.

Loads of bling on these boys but again I've steered clear of actual gold paint as I find it can be too shiny.

 That is indeed a horn. With a metallic effect purple finish.

The banner is painted to match the rest of my Chaos Army. Just another 20 of these beasties to paint...

... And finally for this post we have a Gaunt Summoner. He's one of the leaders for this army and I'm pleased with the finished figure since he took just a couple of days in the end.

His skin is blue as he's a leader, plus it merged quite nicely in to the armour especially on the helmet. The feathers are the same basic colours as the loincloths on the Tzaangors to provide more of the same spot colour.

I'm chuffed with how the book pages came out. The flames are painted just like the Brimstone Horrors although with a Rakarth Flesh basecoat rather than white. The dagger also has a coat or two of the yellow shade to merge it with the flames.

And breathe...

What's the tally now then?

b/fwd 960

Skull Cannon 160
Garrek's Reavers 60
Tzaangors 180
Gaunt Summoner 120

Total 1480 / 3650 or 41% complete!

Days since the challenge began 146

Target points after 146 days =1460

 

Amazingly considering my usual ability to get distracted: Still On TARGET! 

GoGX total: 300/2000 = 15% complete

Love to stay and chat but painting waits for no-one...

SilverFox

May the 4th be with you

So like the rest of us I get distracted by new projects and a few of the GoGs and I have been battling to avoid Star Wars Legions since it came out.  Whilst trying to crack on with my three GoGX armies and my 30k Luna Wolves Eddie and I took a night off and went to see the new Marvel movie. The film was great but the trailer for the new Solo film got the juices going and then realising the date today I really had no choice but to do something Star Wars related.

Now this was an idea I had back when White Dwarf 93 came out, I remember being enthralled by 40k but also thinking why can't they just do a Star Wars wargame. I decided to make my own little shuttle for some space pirates and got as far as painting it black....

This is one of the Star Wars Mini Rig toys by Kenner which I've had since they were released. They weren't in the films but some of them have made it into the animated shows Droids and Rebels.

So 31 years on its time to finish a project. A turret from a bargain bin at some stall at Reading Warfare which I paid about a pound for and a few bits of plasticard to close off the crew compartments.

Some mould lines filed down, barrels drilled out and a primer coat

Now what colour to paint it?


And no I didn't spend £8 on more of them from eBay......nope not me :)

Plugging away

I managed to finish off the wall sections and gate house for my planned 30K strongpoint attack games. All the pieces in this were great to paint and I'm pleased I've painted them all together to keep the colour scheme consistent.

The appearance of the sun lately meant I got to do some spraying as well. The Sylvaneth were done along with the ridiculously large crane that I brought from TTCombat a while back.

I've also started the base colours on the Sylvaneth. I want to get the bulk of them done over the next month or so to enable me to focus back upon Pulp City and the VSF stuff.

My tally was helped with finishing stuff but blown out again by the recent purchasing of some Forgebane stuff. Still, at least I am getting stuff painted.

Purchased: 118
Painted:     -145

Net:           -27

TTFN

Some progress....

...but it doesn't feel like much.

I've been plugging away at my new AoS army. The Sylvaneth are all together now apart from the GW woods which I need to do but I want to do the army first.

Dryads are done baring the 4 I've still got coming. I got 48 Dryads with the starter sets but I wanted to round that up to 50 so I'd have full units so I ordered a sprue of 4 to get me to the 50 mark. I was then later sipping all the spares away and discovered that some of the bits from Treelord sprues work well combined with dryad bits. That gave me another 8 dryads emerging from the ground and will take me up to 60 once the extra sprue arrives! Nice!

The big 'uns are some nice models but ooooh soooo spikey! Now to wait for dry weather so I spray the little beggers.

Last night I wanted to paint so the scenery for my 30K siege plan got bumped up the queue. Just the first grey colour applied with a heavy drybrush but its a start.

TTFN

GoG X - The army begins!........ Just not the one I was first planning.....

Well, my resolution to start and finish an Empire/Free Peoples army lasted exactly one post and one long session sticking almost everything I needed together.  "Why on earth is that?" I hear you ask.... well, I blame the Butterfly.  You see, I'd prepped and sprayed some elves (aelves now I suppose under GW's new IP conscious naming conventions.....) and I thought to myself "you know, I think I'll finish these off before starting the Free Peoples".  And whilst doing this, I looked on eBay and "accidentally" found 40 more GW elves that I liked the look of.  I put in a moderate bid, expecting to get beaten and then promptly went and won it.  My mind was then made up, Aelves it would be!  I already had a fair few hanging around looking for a reason to get painted, so the plan was amended......

And just a couple of days late, here are my first 350 points for March.  First up, the offending aelves who had been sprayed and who caused this change of decision.....

30 spear aelves, ready for action.  These are the old high elf sculpts and as GW has basically disowned this line as they no longer sell them, they only have old legacy rules and don't seem to work as part of any type of army.  So I've decided to use most of the army as "Wanderers", who are wood elves to old school players. 

The army will be from the old High Elf territory of Chrace, which is famed for its rugged countryside, forests and wild lions.  Yep, lions :)  I figure that ties the whole wood elf thing in nicely.  An old ebay win included 32 Finecast Chrace shields and it seemed like the perfect time to use them.

As I look at these pictures I note that one of them still needs the black edging done on his base!  I'll head off to do that after posting this.... These lads come to 210 points for the unit, so here's the rest of my painting work to get to the 330-ish target - Lion Rangers!

These chaps are the elite of the fighting force of Chrace, so massive double handed axes and angry expressions all round it is then.  I've got a load more of these to paint as they were my surprise eBay win, so it's a good job I enjoyed painting them!  Even if they do have enough fur to make PETA march angrily on GW HQ en masse.....

140 points for these chaps, so 350 painted this month and probably more Lion Rangers next month before the more unusual units begin......

.....unless another army grabs my attention of course!