KublaCon 2011 Summary

So KublaCon has come to a close once again, and as before I had a very good time. What follows is a whole slew of photos and some notes about my experience of the con. Many of these photos are of, shall we say, sub-par quality. Hopefully Santa will bring me a better camera this Christmas. On Friday evening there was a 15pt WM/H tournament that had a 1 unit and 1 solo max limitation. The Sacramento PG Jimmy ran the event and I had quite a lot of fun, despite getting my butt kicked in 4 out of 5 of the games. However I did receive one of the 2 sportsmanship awards which was a poster of the new Wrath book cover! Overall, great event. I think there were 24 people there in total, with a great representation of factions. I think I saw everything except Skorne and perhaps Minions. Next day I dropped in to attend a class by Derek Schubert on sculpting. Although I floated in and out, the class was quite good. I learned a bunch of random little tricks and techniques to assist with the sculpting process. Being a novice in the realm of sculpting, it wasn't hard to learn a lot. Some of the tips were simple things like having a small sponge and water on hand to moisten tools with, putting the mixed green stuff on your off-handed thumb as a temporary working area, and how to create basic frames for sculpting on to. For those of you unfamiliar with Derek Schubert, he's done freelance sculpting and painting for Reaper for several years. His class was interesting in that not only did he give a lot of helpful tips for basic sculpting, he also talked about materials and the overall casting process along with considerations to keep in mind about that process. Overall, delightful class.

At the same time as the class, there was a 50pt WM/H Steamroller tournament going on. There were 19 or so people for this event, again with most factions represented. Given that I didn't participate in the tournament I can't really comment on the event, but it definitely seemed like a huge battleground.

My day was rounded by participating in one of the speed painting competitions. The rules were pretty straight forward. They provide a brush (terrible synthetic with curved bristles), paints (also pretty terrible craft paints), and a primed model. Everything was the same for each participant. We got 45 minutes to paint as good as possible. Amazingly, having never done something like this before, I got 1st place in this group, which qualified me for the masters speed painting. Here you can see my poor little samurai warrior.

The next day was all classes for me pretty much. First up was another class with Derek where he basically spent about 90 minutes painting a face on a model and sharing a wide variety of pieces of information. I really enjoyed this time because it afforded the opportunity to just ask Derek a lot of questions about his process and techniques. Pictured here are a couple of his models that he passed around for close examination.

During the same time slots as most of these classes I was taking, there was a 35pt tier 2 WM/H tournament going on. Again, not having participated in it, all I can say is that at this point I think the WM/H players were starting to wane in strength as this was the 4th event.

The next two classes were with Justin McCoy of Secret Weapon Miniatures. He was teaching about weathering using a few different techniques. These classes were outstanding. Now to be fair, all of the techniques Justin demonstrated were completely different from anything I do. I'd read bits and pieces about them, but never seen them properly demonstrated. These classes were one of those "Ah ha!" type moments. Justin demoed the salt and hairspray technique, chipping, using pigments, and oils, all for weathering a vehicle. I also particularly enjoyed that he brought an airbrush and demonstrated using it as a part of the process. He had a number of good tips, and as a result I went out and bought an airbrush starter kit myself. It certainly helped that by his recommendation, I was able to get a basic double action airbrush and compressor for a mere $90. I'm very much looking forward to practicing some of those techniques in the future.

Ok, I'm just throwing this in for commentary. Seriously people! Just because it's a convention and everyone is indulging in a weekend of geekly decadence, but honestly! And take a shower while you're dropping that fistful of cheese balls!!

Before rounding out my day, I was in the masters speed painting competition. Same as before, however we got 2 terrible brushes. My lowly model is here, which came in 4th out of the group of 9. In all fairness, Derek was in the masters here as well. I have to say, it was a very amusing challenge and I'm looking forward to doing it again next year.

What follows are pictures of models submitted to the painting competition. My own entry did not place in the masters, but I'll go over that in more detail in another post tomorrow.

RtC: To The Competition!

Countdown to KublaCon painting competition: 2 days!

Well, today is the opening day of KublaCon, and I'm ready! There were a number of small refinements to the model since my last update over 3 weeks ago. I'll post final pics of this guy later, but here's a quickie one before he heads off to the competition display case.

Overall I'm pretty happy. I'm not really expecting to place well in the masters, but it's a goal I set for myself regardless. I've put a lot of time into this model. I'd conservatively estimate at least 50 hours, and perhaps as many as 75. I'm really ready to be done with him.

One thing to note is that I decided not to seal him like I normally would with other models that I use. I spent an enormous amount of effort on the metallics, and applying a sealing coat could easily throw them off.

While I'm at Kubla I'll be endeavoring to take lots of photos and post them each night, particularly of the Warmachine/Hordes events.

Gun Mages (take 2)

Yikes! To say that I've been in a painting slump would be a gross understatement. I just checked my blog and it's been more than 2 months since I finished a model. So without further ado, here's my second set of Gun Mages, complete with officer.



Ok, so what happened to the SPQR series? Well, a couple things. First is that the posts felt awkward. I do plan to pick up the SPQR posts from time to time, but not quite as the regular installment that I had intended. Instead I'll do them sporadically as tips and techniques come up. Trying to do it with the Gun Mages here felt pretty forced and was holding me back from getting them painted.

Second is that I just needed to get something finished, and these guys were already in progress. I've been working on the War Hog for so long now that I really just wanted to be finishing something. The War Hog is still in progress and will get done this week. However I just needed to feel some sense of accomplishment (however meager) to give me a little juice again.

Anyway, nothing special here. Speed painted and not that great (by my standards), but they are done and just itching to be used in that Ashlynn tier list!

Make Your Opponent's List

Last night I played an amusing game where my opponent (Henry) built a list for me from his model collection, and I built one for him from my collection. We played a 25pt game and (in the spirit of a learning experience) used the following friendly rules:
* Must use every point, included jack/beast points
* Models included must have a legitimate chance of coming into play (no Incubi without any models to pop out of)
* 2 proxies items allowed
* Simple Killbox scenario

Lists:
My list for Henry: High Reclaimer, Templar, Crusader, Vigilant, Reclaimer, 5 Cinerators, Herne & Jonne - Tons of SPD 4 stuff, hardly any warriors to generate soul tokens, and of course a merc unit that is notoriously random for effectiveness. I was quite pleased with this chunk of lousy.

Henry's list for me: Grissel, Slag Troll, Krielstones (6 + UA), Runebearer, Gudrun, Pendrake, Swamp Gobbers, Bone Grinders (6), Bog Trog Ambushers (10) - Wow! Did the Skornegy here! Lots of awesome spells and features that... only affect Faction models. Hahaha! What a lumb of terrible!

Battle Summary:
The quick synopsis is that I started off by surrounding Henry on all sides, with Gudrun sneaking around behind his forces, the Bog Trogs coming in on a side edge, and the bulk of my force approaching from a third angle to trap him in. The first hit on the High Reclaimer (aka "HR") came in the form of a Rift blast from Grissel against the Crusader which just reached the HR too, scoring 5 points. At that point he backed off from that battle line and towards his Cinerators. The next hit on the HR came from the Bog Trogs. They rushed in from behind and despite the Cinerators' best efforts, a couple Bog Trogs slipped around behind them. I used a lot of careful placement by running them instead of charging to keep the Cinerators relatively pinned in. One lone Bog Trog got a charge against the HR in his back when he had no focus on him and scored a whopping 10 damage! My 3-angle attack was working well, but I was taking heavy casualties in the process, losing all the Bog Trogs, half the Krielstones, and half the Bone Grinders. On the other side of the table, only the Crusader and Herne & Jonne were destroyed. I got lucky on two specific things though: First, the Templar ended up about 1/4" outside of the HR's control area at a critical point, which severely handicapped it's ability to cause damage, and second, the Vigilant didn't end up in B2B with the HR. The last 4 points on the HR came from a lucky second Rift blast damage. The HR had put clouds out to block LOS, but the remaining Gobber stood in the cloud just right. Then Grissel dropped a rift on him. Fortunately for me it scattered onto the HR, and the blast damage did plenty to finish him off.

Learnings:
* Even a marginalized model can create a good combo. Pendrake's bola combined with the Slag Troll pretty much wrecked face on the Crusader. It allowed the Slag to reliably hit and use his focus for boosting damage and taking the extra shot.
* Maneuvering can grant a lot of power. Although the Bog Trogs didn't kill any Cinerators (and in all fairness, I didn't want to be handing out soul tokens), they were able to use their reach as an advantage. By positioning them on opposite sides of a Cinerator at their reach range, the Cinerators had movement problems due to potential free strikes.
* When possible, flanking forces your opponent into tough decisions about how to split their defenses. By coming in from 3 angles, the HR had to use Cinerators on one side, Jacks on the other, and then focus for clouds to keep himself safe. It allowed me to pick which engagements happened and when/where they took place.
* This format is awesome! Totally loved it. I'm looking forward to doing this again. It really forced me to hunt for hidden combos in a ragtag set of models, and that I feel translates well when trying to build a competitive list.

Game 2:
Ok, actually, this was a throwback game of Battletech, and I'm throwing this in just for fun. I hadn't played Battletech for ages and Henry was kind enough to offer a game as a refresher course. The game ended up being pretty short. We spent a turn advancing towards each other and then the first volley was exchanged. Henry shot at me and missed. Then I fired back...
Lance (spectating the game): You should shoot everything and try to take out his head.
Me: I shoot all my guns!
Henry: Ok, let's start with the PPC. Roll to hit.
Me: 7! Does that hit?
Henry: Yes, exactly. Roll location.
Me: 12! What's that hit?
Henry: Uh, the head. Roll to see if you get a critical.
Me: 8!
Henry: Oh dear. That's 1 critical. Roll location.
Me: 3! What's that do?
Henry: That's the cockpit. You just killed my pilot.
Me: Neato!
Lance: That's going to make for great salvage! No damage except for killing the pilot.
So, it was an amusing albeit short refresher of Battletech.

RtC: My Time Management Sucks

Countdown to KublaCon painting competition: 27 days

More pictures than normal for this update of the War Hog! I've made significant progress, despite the fact that I'm doing a terrible job managing my time and staying focused. One of the most important hurdles I overcame this week was to get everything base coated. Well, almost everything. There's one warjack head that isn't completely base coated. However it's 98% base coated at this point, and that's helping my focus an awful lot. Now I can get a better sense of the overall look of the piece. At this point I'm definitely noticing that the head draws the majority of the attention. I'm very curious to get feedback from my readers though about the overall look at this point (including the base).

So what's working well for me so far? Lots!
* Using dry pigments is working out great. I'm still a total amateur with them, but the results are pretty compelling none the less.
* Working a section at a time is very helpful. I'm not completing a section entirely, but I work it to a level of medium satisfaction and then move on to another area for a bit. This is keeping me fresh, but also helping me think about the overall look of the model as I go.
* The new pot of bronze paint I got is really working well. It's actually from the Golden Acrylics line. Golden Acrylics are hit and miss, but when they hit, they sure are good.

My wife was looking at it last night and said "Are you almost done?" I chuckled and said that I was probably about 50% done time-wise, to which she gave me a confused look and wandered off. So what are some of the major things left to do? Here's my list of things that haven't really gotten much work at all: teeth, tongue, eyes, right-hand/axe, rope, right leg, warjack heads, and the boiler. Lots of stuff still needs additional passes to tighten it up, and there's lots of little details (like putting some pink on the flesh where it's stitched together). I'm still debating whether to put a tattoo of some kind on him too. Perhaps something like a serial number or instructions. I'll see where things shake out time wise once I'm closer to done before I start adding more work.

For my painting readers out there, you may want to wander off now because I'm going to insert a gaming rant. I proxy-played a couple of Farrow forces the other night with my gaming buddies who were kind enough to put up with a pile of proxies. I'll skip the normal battle report and jump right to the rant. OH MY GOD DO FARROW SUCK!!! Seriously, I hated playing them. The War Hogs I fielded did almost nothing in both games. Maybe it's just a huge learning curve and they aren't my playing style. I'm willing to chalk it up to that. But here's my gripe: They are SLOW, and they don't have the arm stats to survive the beatings they will receive on the way to the battle. I wanted to like them. I really did. I love the models overall. But it's really hard to get excited to paint something when you realize it isn't fun to play. Ok, rant over. Nevertheless, I'm going to finish this beast for the painting competition and then he can menace my painting shelves.

RtC: Never Satisfied

Countdown to KublaCon painting competition: 34 days

So I've made some significant progress on the War Hog over the last couple days, but I still have a long ways to go. At this point almost everything is base coated to some degree, with a few small exceptions like the rope, teeth, and any brass metals. This is helping me get a better feel for how the whole model is shaping up tone/contrast wise. I can already tell I may need to make some significant alteration as I go along. The good news is that I'm getting much happier about how the skin is working out.

Over the weekend, while painting, I was thinking about how much I've learned on this specific project by taking a lot longer...

First, thinning paints really does help. I've been forcing myself to thin the paints a little more than I normally do, and I've found it to be really helpful. I'm doing a lot more layering instead of 2BB, but the results are still pretty good. Forcing myself to do this has been challenging, but definitely valuable.

Next is that I've found I really need a completely separate set of brushes and rinses for metalics. I'd moved to a separate rinse for metals a few months ago, but while I was working on this project, I definitely started to notice little bits of metal lingering in the brush despite a thorough rinsing. Being very disciplined about this is actually pretty easy. I marked my metallic brushes with some tape on the handles to make it easier to keep them straight.

Working on just one project drives me crazy. I normally have a primary focus, but I've set aside everything else to focus on just the War Hog for the last 3 weeks now and I'm getting a little frustrated. I'll probably try to wrap up my SPQR Gun Mages this week just to have a sense of accomplishment. I'm also really antsy to get back to painting Legion models.

The last thing is that I'm never satisfied. I'll call a model done, but I'm never 100% satisfied with it. This is sometimes frustrating, but I feel this attribute is what helps drive me to be a better painter.

RtC: Change is Good

Countdown to KublaCon painting competition: 39 days

My painting process is getting thrown sideways in a number of ways on this project. First it was having to put the model on a base before painting it. Now I've found myself in the position of having to get most of my base coating done before doing highlight and shading work. This is a departure from my normal process where I tend to work a single area to completion and then move on to another area. On the one hand, I feel it's a good thing to change up my process to see if something different works better. On the other hand, I'm worried that changing my process on what is meant to be a competition piece. I guess only time will tell.

This photo shows the current state of the flesh, but I've only done base coating and highlighting. There's a lot of shading to do now and to bring the tone back in line with the rest of the piece. However I'm likely going to start working on another area before doing the shading. I think this will help me with my overall composition which is where my biggest skill growth area is now I feel.

Ugh! 39 days to go! I'll never make it at this rate. I need to sleep less and paint more.

RtC: How many days left?

Countdown to KublaCon painting competition: 44 days

I really need to get cracking if I'm going to have this thing done in time for the competition. Tonight's progress is small, but important. I did the black base coating for the major sections that will be metal. Also I got the loincloth to a point that is nearly done. It needs a glaze or two to smooth out the colors still, but it's close. It's pretty late though, and I desperately need sleep. Hopefully this weekend will produce some results as well.

RtC: Hog the Base

Countdown to KublaCon painting competition: 49 days

I'm actually writing this post during the course of mounting the War Hog model to the base I'd prepped. Why? Well, it's a little nerve wracking so writing the post at the same time is both cathartic and gives me time to pause and think through my next step. I apologize in advance for the odd wording/tense of phrases in this post.

The first thing I need to do is drill a first hole. Something to note here is that the two pieces of metal I used on the base were some random scraps of metal I found in a parking lot that I just happened to like the look of. There's one pictured here. They have convenient holes in them so I just need to make sure my pin holes go through there to avoid any really unpleasant drilling. So after using a spare one as a guide, I've picked out a spot for the left foot pin to go through and will drill that hole.

Ok, with that hole now drilled, I need to do something really terrifying. I decided to leave the round tab on the bottom of the hoof for added stability and drill out a larger space for that tab. So I got out my 1/8" drill bit and *shudder* my power drill. I don't have a smaller drill handy that can hold such a bit so I'll just have to be very careful. I've done similar stuff before, just not on a base that I'd already put multiple hours of work into. Anyway, here goes...

Success! No cracking of the basing material or anything. The weight of the drill did most of the work for me so that I could focus on keeping a steady hand. I did a test fit and it's perfect. Now the next step is tricky, but one I've done a number of times: Drilling the second hole. My process here is pretty straight forward. First I measure out the distance between the pins in the feet (1 3/32"), then measure and mark the second hole on the base. This is a little more complicated since I have to either aim for the hole in the metal piece, or avoid the metal entirely. Ok, I totally got lucky here. It just barely slips into the corner of where that plate was. Time to drill!

Ok, not as smoothly as I was hoping. I had to adjust my drilling angle just a bit, but it got sorted out. After an initial dry fit, I just applied some glue and there it is! Miniature and base are now one. There's some clean up to do once all the glue dries, but now I feel like I can proceed with confidence on painting the hog itself. I'll explain the current state of the hog himself next time, but it's getting late and I'm still recovering from the flu.

Finally, a comment to my readers who posted feedback on the base: Thanks! I got a lot of consistent feedback from here and other sources as well. At this point I definitely think dirtying up the hoses more will be necessary, but I'm going to wait until I get further along in the project before I make those changes.

RtC: Lots of Painting While Sick

Countdown to KublaCon painting competition: 52 days

Well, being home sick has the advantage that I got some painting done. It's all work on the base, which I'm calling mostly done at this point, although I may go back and make some adjustments after I've started making progress on the War Hog itself.

I should note at this point that I'm inviting critiques from my readers. Obviously constructive criticism is what I'm looking for. Obviously I'm just looking for feedback about the base itself, since the War Hog is still absent.

I used a bunch of different techniques in working on this, most notably though is using dry pigments. I'm still sort of building up my comfort and familiarity with them, but this base was an obvious target for using them. For this work I actually tried out pigments from Vallejo, Secret Weapon, and MIG. For the most part they preformed pretty equivalently, although the Vallejo ones seemed to require less work to break down some of the chunks of pigment.

From the Desk: (De)Motivational Material

Quick update for folks out there. In case you hadn't heard of the Crystal Brush painting competition this year at Adepticon, here's a couple links to check out. Fair warning, the stuff entered here is absolutely amazing. The Crystal Brush is attempting to set itself as the premier painting competition here in the states. Salute being the big one in the UK.

Here's the winners.

And here's a link to all the entrants.

I always enjoy looking at these high-end painting competitions even though I don't have a chance of placing in one of them. Although it's easy to find such amazing works to be de-motivational, I tend to look at them for inspiration and ideas. Anyway, just some eye candy for folks out there that might not have heard of this competition. With a $10,000 grand prize, it's hard to simply gloss over this as "just another painting competition".

RtC: Base Progress

Countdown to KublaCon painting competition: 56 days

As I should have expected this. My motivation and free time have both dwindled dramatically. Business trips, getting sick, and more house guests have erupted during the last 3 weeks. Nevertheless, I'm trying to make some progress.

So I started doing some work on the base. Pictured here is a bunch of the components for it. The main reason for working on the base this early is (as I mentioned before) the weakness of the legs. This was a significant problem given my normal painting process. I typically attach models to an empty spray can in order to hold them better while painting. However since this guy is so massive and with such a thin right leg, I quickly realized I needed to better secure him somehow. Attaching him to the base is my only logical recourse. Normally I wouldn't do this unless absolutely necessary, but for some specific models (like the Carnivean and his cousins) I've changed this process. When I do, I typically leave long pins sticking out the bottom of the base to attach it to the spray can.

So anyway, here's the base at about 75% assembled. I wanted to create a sort of mechanical laboratory feel to the base. The biggest chunk of work here was in casting out the metal plating. I searched high and low for textured plasticard that matched what I was looking for but found nothing. However while scouring my LGS, I came across a very large base (70mm) that had the right pattern and some InstantMold product. That evening I cast out the mold which was a piece of cake. Then I pressed in a bunch of black Milliput and I had exactly the patterned steel plating I wanted. Then it was just an arduous task of shaping it to a circle and carving out a square space in the middle. Once that was done I added the metal grill and additional metal pieces.

Here's the fully assembled base. It's now sitting in my garage as the primer dries. Today I'm hoping to get started painting it and drill out the necessary pin holes to mount the War Hog to it. With only 8 weeks left, I'm starting to feel the pressure to really get rolling on this project. Time to carve out some serious time and really paint like I have a pair!

RtC: It Never Fails...

No matter how much time I spend looking for mold lines, I always miss one or two. No exception with the War Hog project. I found a couple places that needed clean up. I knifed/filed them down and then used some of the brush-on primer to clean up the spots. Totally worth the extra mile on this project.

I also discovered a bit of a problem. The right leg (the mechanical one) isn't very strong and started to bend while I was moving him around by the pins sticking out of his feet. Normally I'd paint him completely separate from the base, but I think in this case I'm going to need to get him on the base so that I can better secure him.

Speaking of basing, I've started putting together my idea. I got some great inspiration from David's comment (link) and I'm doing my own adaption of this to match my goal for the War Hog. I'm not going to share too much more yet, but this picture shows my collection of bits I plan to use.

Well, it's late, and I'm still recovering from my work travel this last week so I'm going to cut this post short so that I can get some sleep and get an early start on this basing project tomorrow.

Feralgeist

Super quick post. Here's the finished Feralgeist that I painted the other day. Nothing amazing really. I decided to keep it in the pink theme. I sorely debated whether to try and make it lighter in the center and darker near the high points. I sort of wish I had, but it's done now. If I end up painting a second one for whatever reason, I'll do the reverse of this one.