Tip of the week

For the longest time, I just used old plates a painting palettes. Most of these were your basic grandma's china/ thrift store special. They got the job done even though sometimes the flowery designs got distracting.

After I had broken several of these plates, I decided it was time to invest in something nicer. I headed over to my local Blick art store and picked up a set of stacking porcelain bowls with a lid. The set is shown on the left in the picture below.




The set had five bowls at one time, but I broke one. I'm embarrassed to say that I paid in the area of $30 for this set of bowls. I thought that was awful high, but I really liked the set.

Fast forward to about two weeks ago. My wife and I were in Crate and Barrel trying to spend a gift card we had received as a wedding gift. I had never shopped at this store, but they carry a lot of plates, dishes, flatware, etc. I specifically noticed that they carried a lot of little porcelain dishes.

I really liked these little square ones pictured on the right. The best part is that they were only a buck a piece. I found them at Crate and Barrel's hipper "urban" incarnation CB2.

Granted, this made me feel like a yokel for having paid so much for a stack of pallets. Especially since these new ones were not only cheaper but actually easier to use.

I'd like to eventually get this, but right now it'd take up too much space on my tiny desk.

Thousand Sons progression photos

I have to say that I love Google "products". I knew I needed an Internet hosting site, but wasn't sure which one to use. Since I'm already using Blogger, I decided to try Picasa. The most awesome thing was that when I logged in, it had already created albums for me from the pictures on my blog. That's so smart!

(The album isn't public at this point, so don't go looking)

Anyway, I was organizing pictures today and noticed that I had taken a few very similar ones of my Thousand Sons in progress. I wanted to see what they would look like together, so here goes.








Admittedly, that second to last photo is kinda crappy. I guess that's what I get for being lazy.

Thousand Sons Update Time!

I'm embarrassed at how long it's been since I've posted pictures of my latest Thousand Sons Squad. I guess I'm also embarrassed by how long it's taken me to paint this squad. In my defence, I have painted and built quite a few other things.


Also, my picture taking skills seem to have gotten rusty. OK, I'll stop complaining here are the pictures...

Here's the whole squad. I have to put a layer of highlights on the gold and yellow, then pick out the details and I'm done.


Here's the front of my sorcerer. You may notice from the last time I posted a picture of this miniature, that some of the highlights on the tip of his cowl have warn off. This is because while I've been painting his mini, I've been using it in games. When I realized that routine game usage was wearing the paint off, I decided to stop using it in games until it was finished.


Here's the rear of the sorcerer. The robe came out a lot darker than I wanted, but oh well. It was the first time I used Foundation paints (Charadon Granite, specifically) and I didn't realize how dark it would come out.


This was a stab at taking a better picture of that Tzeentch Horror I featured recently. I think this picture may be worse. Also featured here is a work-in-progress Tzeentch flamer. Yes, I'm very, very excited about the demon codex.

So long Gary...

I know it's been more than a week since Gary Gygax's passing, but I was on a Caribbean beach at the time, drinking Pina Colatas. I made up for it by crafting this Beholder out of felt at the MCA's family day this past Saturday (and yes I know I probably shouldn't have put tentacles on the bottom).

Anyway, I think I'd be remiss to not say something about such an important person (I mean NPR ran a story about it for crying out loud!).

I first played D&D way back in 1987. It was that red box edition that came with the dice set and a crayon for coloring in the numbers. I convinced my friend Art to play and fun time were had by all. My D&D interest pretty much died after I discovered 40K (Oddly enough, from an ad in the back of Dungeon Magazine).

I didn't play again until damn near 10 years later when I was invited to join my friend Chris's Forgotten Realms AD&D campaign. I played a monk who's true name has been lost to time. Since his chosen weapon was a Jo Staff (somehow different from bo staff?), he became known simply as "Joe".

I played consistently for about 9 months. I gained enough levels to be able to talk to animals (like druids). Unfortunately, animals never knew jack. Still, I felt a sense of accomplishment.

The party was a strange mix of chaotic/neutral/unlawful (sorry, I'm super rusty on my alignment types), so most games involved a lot of hack, slash and ask questions later. Chris was a great DM and threw a lot of puzzles at us to keep us on our toes.

The most memorable part of those games (besides the post-session craps games) was an NPC called "Larry the Drunk". Our party picked him up at some tavern brawl and he became our mascot/ pack animal. Unfortunately, he also became human bate. If we suspected a trap or an ambush, Larry went first and flushed out the perpetrator. Larry was our faithful companion for at least 8 sessions.

I can still remember how sad we all were when Larry met his end beneath the foot of a (frost?) giant. His body was crushed beyond any hope of resurrection. Chris beratted us for using Larry that way and made us all feel very ashamed of ourselves.



Aaahh, good times!



Anyway, I posted my felt finger puppet creation, so I'd also like to share my wife's and son's puppets.

On the left is Max's snowman with ice-axe (rules for which can be found in White Dwarf). Clare made a "fire hippie" with bonfire. There pictured here with the stage we made for them.



To tie them into my D&D theme, simply consider Max's a Ice Elemental and Clare's a fire elemental.

One for the Road

I know I said that the blog was on hiatus, but I just can't stay away.

I came across this article yesterday (thanks to GoffRokka at AWC for pointing this out). While the zenithal lighting effect is something I want to incorporate more in my paining, I was much more interested in what the article says about painting with washes. James Whipple demonstrated a similar painting method in the Adepticon class I took with him last year.

So last night I had some time and a horror miniature that I had previously primed white, so I decided to give it a go.

Here's it after two hours of work:




One problem I had with this miniature is its crappy undercoat. A while back, I decided to try priming with gesso since I hated spraying them. I've had less experience with it, so it came out a little clumpy. I think I laid it on a little too think in some parts and a little too thin in others. That, and the fact that gesso doesn't seem stick to metal very well made for an extremely uneven undercoat.

I didn't go for any zenithal lighting on this miniature. It's a demon that's supposed to be made of pure warp magic, so I wanted the light to look almost internal.

Since this is just a basic troop, I didn't want to spend a ton of time on it. I made the washes a lot thicker than the article recommends. Plus, with something this light, it didn't take many washes. I can see what the author says about this process taking a ling time. It took me two hours to rush through basically two colors. I think I'll use this process to paint my HQ units, but I'll slow it down a lot.

I'm not happy with this picture, so I'll take more when I get back.


That's all for now, ya'll. I'm off on my honeymoon!!!

Blog Update

Well, most of you may have noticed that I'm not posting much lately. Most likely, I won't be blogging much in the weeks to come, either.

As some of you may know, I'm getting married in less than two weeks and my mind has totally check out. It's a great thing, actually. I can't wait. I'm especially excited about the honeymoon. I've never taken a beach vacation before, so I'm really looking forward to this. I just want to get out of this crappy Chicago weather.

Also, I realized yesterday that my camera is broken. As some of you remember from the early days, a painting blog without pictures is pretty lame. Hopefully, I can get it fixed, because I really don't want to shell out the dough for a new one.

Anyway loyal readers, I don't want to leave you all hanging, so consider this notice that this blog will be on hiatus until at least mid-March. I appreciate your patience and understanding.

Terrain Monday, Again!

Oops, did I say every Monday. I meant every other. Anyway, he's more of Art's stuff...

For you Chicagoans out there, this piece is inspired by the asphalt factory at Pulaski and the Stevenson (I-55).

Yeah, it's basically two coffee cans, some tuna cans, and a couple of yogurt cups.