Shaping Up!

Sorry... bad pun. Doomshaper is done! 9.5 hours of half torture, half fun. The photo is ok, but the raised rune details on the leather armor got washed out. I used the P3 Blighted Gold on them and they have sort of that mild-metalic look to them that reflects differently at different angles. I totally love the look of it, but it does have a tendency to not show up on first glance, as the photo demonstrates. Anyway, with the finishing of Doomshaper, I now have all my troll models painted, and I'm a mere 2 models away from fully painted!

Draggin Out Doomshaper

Over 6 hours of painting on him so far. For being a model I'll probably never field, I'm spending alot of time on him. It's turning out pretty good so far though. I'm really trying to work my blending skills to the max, and practice being preciese on edges where possible. Remaining parts to paint are: stone at the end of the staff, scrolls on his back, toe/finger nails, face warts, and the numerous scroll straps. Anyway, again, time for sleep. Hopefully I can finish him in the next couple days.

Doomshaper Disaster?

I've never had a model give me so many problems before I've been taking every precaution I normally would, but I've managed to drop Doomshaper 3 times now. One time his right arm broke off, and another time his left arm broke off. Fortunately both were at the glue points, but still it's incredibly frustrating having to re-glue and touch up paint that gets chipped. Fortunately in another half hour of painting I can glue him to the base and make him a bit more stable. In the mean time, I'm actually trying to do a primo painting job for my skills as best I can. I could probably do better, but the details on this model are pretty intense which make it hard to detail every bit, especially since I've tried to paint him fully assembled instead of in pieces. Anyway, time for sleep.

CMON

I created a CoolMiniOrNot account last night and posted the pic of Alexia. It will be interesting to see how some of my figures rate on that site. Overall it doesn't seem too terrible for how they rate minis, but really, it's just a rough gague and I don't plan to take it too seriously. I just figured since I won't be making it to KublaCon this year for their painting competition, I might as well enter the CMON arena.

I haven't touched a brush since I finished the Mauler. I'm starting to get the shakes!

Mauled

And then there were 3... The Dire Troll Mauler is finished! He was about 7.5 hours of work total. Using Lance's distance rating scheme (which is basically the distance at which the model still looks like a good paint job), I'd rate this guy as between 12-18". He was alot of fun to paint, similar to the Ogryn Bokur, due to having alot of muscle and skin to blend. It's not a super paint job of course, but it was fun and good practice anyway. The base was a slightly different experience for me. I pretty much fully assembled the base (painted, grass, leaves, etc) before mounting the Mauler on it and it worked out pretty well.

Today's lesson is, don't stay up till 4am playing some stupid computer game just because it feels like the game is almost over. Stupid game. I got a pretty minimal amount of sleep and it left me with a headache and feeling mildly sick all day. This bothers me mostly cause I think of how many hours I spent playing that stupid game instead of painting. I could have literally painted an entire model instead of playing that last mission of that stupid game. Anyway, lesson learned, moving on.

3 models left till fully painted! I'm expecting to cave and order new models before I finish all 3. Next on deck is Hoarluck Doomshaper, and the second Ogryn Bokur is sitting in bits waiting for a vision of how to convert it to strike me.

Victorious Defeat!

I played in a coin tournament at my LGS on Saturday. There were only 6 people in it unfortunately. It was a 3 round, 750 point Steamroller 3 (beta) set up. On the minus side, I only won 1 of my 3 games, and one of those I got completely humiliated. On the plus side though, I got a Protectorate coin (since I was the only Protectorate player there), and 2 of the 3 games I played I got the pleasure of very fun and friendly opponents. Here's the sum-up of the rounds:

Round 1: Assassins - Opponent: Cryx (Skarre). This one came down to VP's, and I basically pulled it out something like 9 to 6 by totally wrecking the Deathjack in the last round. Severius' feat and Eiryss were a constant threat to the Deathjack, but it was Gorman and the remaining Zealots that buried it in a single round. My opponent was totally civil and fun to play against though.

Round 2: No Man's Land - Opponent: Khador (eVlad). This battle was actually quite close, but eVlad and the Uhlans were pretty humbling. They wrecked a guardian and a castigator in a single charge assault. On the flipside though, they are totally a one-trick pony (no pun intended). After their charge I killed 3 of them and they broke and turned tail to run off the board. I think I got rolled a bit by not knowing all the calvalry rules, but it wasn't that important.

Round 3: Uh, the 3 control point one - Opponent: Cryx (eSkarre). This was the totally humiliating battle. I got utterly crushed. It wasn't even close. I lost something like 26 to 4 on VPs. My opponent was fun to play against though and I felt like I got defeated by a clearly superior strategist. His army was very slick and he executed very well. I didn't get suprised really... he just outmaneuvered me and neutralized my army's strenghts. Despite the total smashing I received, I enjoyed playing this game alot since it taught me a number of important lessons.

In the end, I had a great time, but I also feel like I need more troops to be able to compete better at a tournament. 2 squads is just not adequate at the 750pt level. Sorry no pics. Maybe next time.

Madrak Finished!

4 models to go! Madrak was about 6 hours of painting. Rather than the storyline version of him that makes him an albino, I decided to try out a green skin scheme instead. He's ok, but I could clearly have done better in the details department. There's a lot of fanboyism on given them scottish patterned sashes which I've clearly departed from primarily because I just don't like it. Actually, as I look at the picture again, I did a pretty decent job of blending. It's just the little details like the ax highlights, the teeth and nails, and the "warts" or whatever those bumps are that could have used a little extra effort. The funny thing is that after doing the Harbinger, Madrak felt like minimal effort. Blending color is so much easier than white and black.


I started the Mauler last night. There's some unfortunateness with the join points, but I'm not really very concerned. He'll be big and blue and badass. He'll probably go faster than most large bases since he's 80% unobstructed skin. I did however fully assemble him (except for a base) before starting. I'll probably regret it, but I can always paint another.

The Push To Fully Painted

My buddy talked me into going for fully painted before ordering more miniatures. The primary motivator at this point is that since I am NOT going to KublaCon this year, I have no pressing need to paint models for an army list that I'd be fielding in May. So, in order to gain a little respect with my wife, I'm going to finish painting the remaining models before ordering new ones. It's really not that much left. Here's the list:

• Ogryn Bokur
• Madrak
• Doomshaper
• Dire Troll Mauler
• Vlad (special Katrina edition)

I started Madrak the other night and am probably 30% done already, depending on how much detail I put into him. The Mauler is on deck and ready to be primed already. Vlad is probably going to end up as an experiment and be turned into a Thrall Warrior for Alexia. Poor Vlad!