Bah!

Bear with me people. Still learning the new camera. These Bloodletters look better than this picture lets on. Now I just have to figure out what setting I had it on when I took that last set of pictures.

I'm Back!

My new camera arrived last week, so photos will return to Citizen Nick Hobby Center!

Here is the unit I feel like I've been painting for an eternity, the Bloodletters. While my new camera is a bit nicer than my last one, the functions and settings are all different. It has macro, of course, but pretty much everything else is different. That is my long way of saying that I'm not 100% happy with these pictures. I'm sure I'll get used to it soon and crank out some nicer pictures.




I definitely have to add a little more highlighting o these guys and clean up some of the mistakes. There are quite a few areas that I slopped red paint somewhere it wasn't supposed to go (the red paint I slopped on the swords may stay).

I have to finish up the claws, some spines, the teeth, eyes, and more highlighting on the swords. I'm hoping to have this unit done after one more painting session.


Here's the banner/ icon. I was trying to make it look like an old faded tapestry (maybe painted with the blood of heretics?). The last layer came out a little brighter than I wanted, so I think I'll have paint some more highlights.

Some other business, I add a blog to my links. My buddy Felix's log, Pokeminiatures. The blog mainly features Warhammer Fantasy and Warmachine/Hordes. Check it out.

Also, I've watched this video about 15 times since it hit the tubes. Enjoy:

Request for Feedback and Other Important Business

This year I've strip down this blog to just the basics. It's been a few months since I moved to the current format of switching off between progress pictures and in-game pictures.

So how do you like it so far?

Speaking of progress pictures, I have been plugging away at my Bloodletters. Unfortunately, I broke my camera during a pinata-bashing session at a baby shower this weekend. No, I didn't hit it with a bat. I just dropped it.

Here's a picture that someone else took of me about to rip the candy heart out of the beast that indirectly cause this tragedy:


Anyway, it will be a little bit before I show any more pictures, but that's where you come in. I need suggestions on a camera. I will mainly be using it to take pictures of the kids, but obviously, I need one that can take pictures of miniatures, too (although it seems like almost all cameras have macro now). Suggestions, anyone?

For the past several years, I've been posting pictures of Adepticon. However, for a wide variety of reasons, I wasn't able to attend this year. I will however post links to other blog that I think did a good job of coverage.

For example, John at plastic legions.

Finally, I have jumped on a bandwagon I would normally avoid and have summoned a Daemon Adoptable. It can be found on the right hand column. If you have no other feedback or suggestions, please at least click my Daemon.

I will be back soon with pictures of bloodletters. Stay tuned.

An Old Enemy

I have some bloodletter pictures coming, but in the meantime, here are some pictures from this weeks game. I got to play against Art, my old nemesis and former roommate. Art and I have played in some games together in the last few years, but it's always been some odd two-on-one deal or a three-way free-for-all. This was the first time we were able to go mano-a-mano in something like three years.

This game had four objectives so Art deployed in the center near three of them. I was hoping to surround him, but not a single unit from my second wave showed up until turn three. That gave him plenty of time to waste my first wave.


My screamers made a line for his hellhound when they finally showed up, but it would be too little, too late. Art slaughtered me to the daemon.

Meanwhile, on the adjacent table, Nick was playing his old nemesis and former roommate, Anton. They were both practicing for the Adepticon Championships.

I was able to capture this heroic moment. Right after I took this picture, Nick had to take seven saves from from the Kroot attack. He made 6 of them! Impressive rolling. Too bad it wasn't enough to save the marine.

Monday Night City Fight

Nick and I played a 1000pt cities of Death game this Monday so here are some pictures. Let me apologize for their weird tint. I think I had my white balance set wrong. Just pretend that this battle took place on a planet with an orange sun, or that it's atmosphere is so polluted, the sun looks especially yellow.


A small section of Nick's Ork horde. Word of caution: Orks kick ass in Cities of death.

In this photo, Nick points out which ork is about to shoot melta beams out of its eyes. WTF!?

Rhinos keeping those firing lanes clear. Good job, boys (Just kidding, I took this picture before the orks even deployed).

Great firing position, right? Wrong! I tried to get down from this 6" tall building for three turns! Never did get any closer to the objective.

This is what my sorcerer mini looked like after Nick knocked it on the floor. Luckily, it's mostly held together by magnets. I guess that makes up for me actually blowing up one of his Rhinos (that wasn't really my fault as much as I'd like to take credit for it).

The game was a total slaughter. I came to the game with a 1250 list and cut 250 points to do the 1000pt list. In retrospect, I should have left my defiler in there so that I could have blessed those Orks with some pie plates. Live and learn.

Behold! A test Mini! (And Special Offer)

I want to say thank you to those of you that commented on my last post about test minis. I think I just needed to accept the fact that when starting a new color scheme, the noble test miniature is unavoidable.

So here are some more pictures of the mini. I'm pretty happy with it.




This is definitely pretty rough still. I need to neaten up some of the blending, especially around the horns. I'm happy I was able to work some subtle purple shading into this guy.

Special Offer!
I am finally taking the plunge into selling some old gaming stuff on e-bay. Find it here.

If there is something that you're interested, please make a bid. If you win, mention that you are a Citizen Nick Hobby Center reader and I'll give you free shipping!

A discussion about test miniatures

I've been on a minimalist kick lately on this blog, but today, I'd like to provoke a little dialog. The subject is test miniature.

Instead of painting a whole squad at once, you paint just one to see how you like the color scheme. It's also a chance to figure out what colors you're going to use to get your desired effect.

Here's selection of some of mine:This is the miniature off of which the rest of my Thousand Sons are based. It's actually the second test mini I did. This is the first:

This is the third and final test mini for my Renegade Space Marine Chapter, the Sentinels of Truth. I had a real hard time getting the grey just right. This color scheme has yet to be, "put into production" since I decided to concentrate on demons for now.

Speaking of daemons, her are the test minis for my flamers and horrors. The Horrors have been finished with a slightly different look. The Flamers are in the queue.

One of the few test minis I was satisfied with the first time out. I still need to work on how that gold is going to look, but the flesh tones (blue body and pinkish claws) are pretty much what I was going for. Another unit in the queue.

This is a test miniature of a diffident sort. I just wanted somewhere to practice some highlighting and shading techniques. I figured a spawn was a good place for that. I don't intend to paint a whole squad like this, but I figure that if it doesn't come out perfect, no big deal,it's just a spawn.

The reason I'm bringing this all up is that with the unit I'm currently painting (the bloodletters), I wanted to forgo the usual test mini. I figured that they're mainly just red so how hard can they be?

Another reason I didn't want to paint a test mini was this it takes the limited painting time I have away from the unit as a whole. I really wanted to bang this unit out quick. Plus, I don't want to agonize over this unit too much. I'm more of a Tzeentch/ Slaanesh kinda guy, you know?

I painted the Bloodletters this week but didn't post pictures because I'm just not happy with them yet. I think I've come to the realization that it's harder to work without a goal in mind.

Here's what I mean. I started with a white under coat and started with a couple layers of Blood Red.

The first shading layer was Blood Red mixed with Red Gore(1:1). This layer didn't show that much, but I figured that as it was just the first layer.

I did this on all 8 miniatures in the unit. This took about three painting sessions (yeah, I paint slow).

The next layer was pure Red Gore. However, the shading wasn't really coming out the way I wanted. After I painted about half of the unit, I added Dark Angels Green to the Red Gore and painted one mini with it.

This one miniature looked OK, but I had too many questions. Is this final layer going to be dark enough? Should I add some Black? should I strat to build up some highlights? I wanted to work some purple in there; how would I do that?

I came to the realization that I'd have to paint a test mini. I hope I can nail it on the first try and not have to paint three of them.

What about the rest of you? Test miniatures: Good, bad? Waste of time? I'm open to suggestions if you have them.