New Job, New Gaming Group!

So, I just relocated (sorta) to the South Bay area in Northern California and as such hobby and gaming time will be a bit difficult to come by for the next few weeks.  That being said, I am really excited about this move not only for my growing little family, professional development, and life but also because I will be around much more serious gamers and hobbiers!  I have already connected with a Facebook group of a local gaming store that is running a 30k escalation league, perfect for me and my new Forgeworld projects!  The store is call Apokalypse Gaming and is located halfway between work and home which means it's perfectly placed!

Why am I so excited about Apok Gaming?  Well, there are a number of reasons actually.  First, the people running the store are former GW employees who lost their jobs when GW closed the store in the mall.  They say that there is a large community and that community is focused on WHFB, 40k, 30k, and also some obligatory X-wing and MTG.  So, the terrain and armies that were in the store when I dropped by yesterday were awesome and well painted.  Second, there's no dedicated 40k night!  Normally this drives me nuts because the store doesn't actually want people gaming just buying at their store.  However, the reason Apok Gaming doesn't have a specific night for 40k is because people are always there willing to play and hobby!  As someone who is spending the next couple months living with my in-laws in the middle of nowhere, it's really nice to know that I can drop by any day after work and get some game or hobby time in, it's always more fun with friends!  Third, they actually have a WHFB group!  With WHFB losing a lot of popularity it has meant that my possible chance to actually learn how to play the game was diminished dramatically.  However, I dropped by the store yesterday to talk to one of the employees and he's going to do a demo game at 1500 pts with me on Thursday.  I'm much too excited about that for sure.

Overall I am super excited about this store especially since I don't have anything better to do in the evenings.  I might start bringing along my models to work so that I can drop by the store when I'm done and get some modeling in while waiting for the traffic to pass.  We'll see though because I also like working in the evenings and getting paid overtime!  I didn't bring a lot of my models out with my to California but I did bring most of the Eldar Ghost Warriors box set so that should be fun.  I honestly don't know how much work I'll get done on this since I'm pretty busy training and all but it should be a small little distraction.

Anyway, maybe my next post should be about some more background on the world I created, Al-Sear Prime?  That'll be good for me to think about and write.  Have fun gaming and hobbying till next time.

Alpha Legion Recon Squad Pt 3

So, as you can probably tell already I am a glacially slow at painting but I'm thinking that is getting better!   One of the hardest things to figure out right now is just how to paint using an airbrush.  It may seem weird but I've only ever painted with a brush and not really in sub assemblies.  Learning how to paint with an airbrush (and on Forgeworld models) tends to change things a bit so maybe I'll highlight my process here so any newbs to airbrushing can see what I do and I can learn from them.  That's the beauty of the wargaming community right?  We all learn from each other?

In these two pictures you can see that I decided to paint the backpacks and arms seperately, a move I have since decided to scrap unless absolutely necessary.  I found it was really difficult to actually control where the pieces were and trying to paint all of them at the same time was difficult.  

The backpacks were especially hard because I didn't use strong enough glue to hold them in place which meant the pressurized air pushed them in a circle as I painted them.  On the models I'm putting together now I have decided to put the backpacks on the model after the initial black undercoat.  This way if I can get to an area with the silver or blue it is already shaded and doesn't take a ton of extra time.

So far with the Forgeworld weapons I've decided that the best option is to keep them on the sprue and just make sure I have cleaned up all the flash and mold lines.  Since they only connect with a small part in the back I figure there will be very little touch up after the undercoat and most of the work on these will be done with a brush anyway.

The next two weeks might be a little heavy on non-airbrush and non-forgeworld stuff as I am starting a great new job in California, two states away, and my wife is 38 weeks pregnant and staying here in Utah to give birth.  This means some craziness in many directions but since I'll be living with the in-laws in California I'll have a little more time in the evenings to do blogging on some other topics and meet my new gaming group/club that I've already scoped out in the Bay Area.  I'm looking forward to the move and getting around a good Warhammer Community and hopefully some soon to be good friends.

New Test Models!

I'm trying really hard to do that thing where I don't buy new models until I've painted the old ones.  It has never worked for me before but considering how many pounds of plastic and resin crack I have sitting in the "Closet of Doom" I think it's best if I at least try to stick with it this time.  However, after all of that I did order some new models.  However, these are not models for playing but rather new test models.  Two of the Dark Vengeance tactical squads for airbrush testing, etc.  Now that I think about it I probably didn't need two tactical squads since I don't have that many marines to paint.  However, isn't the old addage in Warhammer "Why by one when two will do just fine?"  Something like that... anyway, maybe I can use these to test out schemes for all of the Horus Heresy Schemes I like but that will be later in the project log.  We'll see what these guys turn into I guess!

Alpha Legion Recon Squad Pt 2

Apparently, I am not very good at preshading.  I spent about three hours going over these cloaks with a wash, dark brown in the recesses, and white on the raised areas.  I then went back over the cloak with the original color but unfortunately this destroyed most of the previous work.  There is a little bit of additional definition to the cloaks but not as much as I would like after the amount of time I put into them.  You live you learn right?  If I add an additional five members to the squad later I'll see if I can come up with a better system for the pre-shading.

As you can see from these two photos there is a little bit more definition, which I think is nice, but I think there also might need to be some additional covers on the cloaks since they are supposed to be camouflage.  What do you think?  Should I make them actually look like camouflage?

Below you can see that I repainted the helmets and they look a lot better.  One thing I have learned from the many test models I have done is that you should always try to redo exactly how you painted it before.  I like the color on the helmets below a lot and think they'll look good on many models and also with the white painted on them.  That will have to wait until the next post!

Forge World Models Prep

So the wife and I made an impromptu Independence Day vacation to Vegas to see my sister and her family.  That meant that I didn't want to stay up quite so late using the airbrush and instead wanted to prepare some of the resin crack I have for future airbrushing.  I haven't yet figured out how to paint the Iron Warriors and Imperial Fists so most of these models will be painted up as Alpha Legion.

Here you see that one of the units cleaned up was an assault squad.  I honestly have no idea if they are any good in 30k, especially since they are not very good in 40k, but they look awesome!  So, lets paint them up and see what happens.

The nice thing about cleaning models is I can do it in front of the television while sitting with my wife instead of squirreled away in the man cave.  I know my wife appreciates that and I can multi-task and have fun!

If you haven't ever painted up Forge World models you have to wash them thoroughly with de-greasing hand soap to make sure that there aren't residues left on the models from the molding process.   You can see in the picture below that I like to let the models sit with lots of soap and then rinse them multiple times.  I'm new to the Forge World bandwagon so I don't know if I'm doing it right but I think it's working so far.

Hopefully I'll get these models assembled soon and start throwing some beautiful paint at them!  I hope they look as good in real life as they do in my head.

Alpha Legion Recon Squad Pt. 1

This is the scheme I have settled on for my Alpha Legion models.  I am still wondering if orange might be a nice spot color but I really enjoy painting green and have it as a consistent color throughout many of my armies which means that this would tie them together in a subtle way.  Do you like the green or do you think orange would be better?

I decided to move along with the Alpha Legion Recon Squad and lay down some basic colors on the model bodies, cloaks, and heads.  The bodies followed the typical recipe I have developed using the airbrush and two glazes of Gulliman Blue over silver washed with Badab Black.  I sprayed one layer of on the cloaks and painted the rest on with a brush.  On the helmets I tried to do a metallic blue instead of the recipe above but it didn't come out looking very good with the white so I'm probably going to repaint it to make it consistent.  

As you can also see from the photos I am experimenting with battle damage using a mixture of drybrushing and spot application of the old Chainmail GW paint.  I must say that I like the look but don't know if I'll continue it on the other models in the army.  We'll see.  I like that the drybrush sort of eliminates the need for line highlights (making this painting much quicker) but it's hard for me to make them look all beat up.  We'll see I suppose.

As you can see, I think I've made some good progress and the squad is looking good.  Next I'm going to see if I can add some definition to the cloaks using the airbrush.  I have a sneaking suspicion that it isn't going to work very well but we'll see.

Unexpected Break in Content

Well, after an awesome first week I totally dropped the ball on regular posting.  Have no fear, not only am I back but I haven't stopped hobbying in the past week.  However, my posting and timing was cut into by a trip to Vegas with the wife.  It was sort of a last minute baby-moon before my son is born in August and also a chance to see my sister.  I already have the next four or five hobby posts scheduled and planned over the next few weeks so you should see regular content coming from me.  In addition to hobby posts there will be random posts about fluff, blogs I've read, new cool stuff, etc.  I hope you'll stick with me, enjoy the content, and help me build a feeling of community here.  Happy gaming!