Painting Across the Pond Inner Geek Edition Pt II

So Drax has posted his second installment in our collaborative paint series and now it's up to me to show mine. I'm notoriously bad at taking pictures as I go, so this is less and WIP and more an 'almost done' post. Drax is not quite as far along, but in his defense I tasked him with a mini with lot more surface area to paint!

For anyone needing to catch up, I've linked the first Editions of painting across the pond below;

Painting Across the Pond Drax Edition Pt I

Painting Across the Pond Inner Geek Edition Pt I

Now that we're all caught up! Drax gave me free reign to paint his Colonel as I please. This is very trusting of him, so I'm trying not to disappoint him. I've been trying to make sure that this important fellow is different enough to stick out, yet similar enough not to look too out of place with Drax's army. I also wanted to add some color, as he is a ranking officer and likely to have some freedom in how he wears his uniform. I didn't want too much bright though, it would only make him a glaring target in the grimdark of the 41^st millennium.

Without further ado, here is the Colonel in progress... really quite close to finished...







I hope you all like the direction I'm taking with this guy, but I especially hope Drax likes it. He's the one who has to live with it after all.

So that there is still something to spring on my readers I'm saving one last surprise for the next post. It's a little thing, but could be very important to someone as high ranked as a Colonel!

Thanks for stopping by. Comments, suggestions, and vague hints at total annihilation are welcome, as always, in the comments. Look for a post about my adventure seeing the UltraMarines movie in the theater in the next few days!

Proposition, Name Calling, and a Peak into the Future

Two posts in one week! You lucky readers!

First off, I'm looking for a date. Don't worry, my wife knows. I have seats for Inner Geek plus one reserved for the theatrical showing of the Ultramarines Movie on Saturday February 26^th in Denton, TX @ 11:00am. If anyone in the greater North Texas area would like to go, I'm only using one of my two seats. Email me, there is email info in the left sidebar. On a side note, the movie is at a studio movie grill, so if it's as bad as the folks on the interwebz say, we can drink beer till it doesn't matter. (beer is assumed to be available and will not be provided by The Inner Geek)

Nextly, I'd like to start off a sentence with a made up word. Done.

If you read my previous post and the ensuing comments, you will have noticed that there was some discussion on naming/designating miniatures. If not, you can go read it now, or just hang tight as we move forward. The gist of it is that I'd like to name my minis to add some personality to each one. I got the idea of marking their bases from my pal across the pond, Admiral Drax. I've printed out some homemade decals and given it a go. Here are some troops from the Cadian 5^th regiment, 3^rd company, 1^st platoon, 1^st squad.





I've learned that Testors decal paper works in a Brother laser printer (black only anyway) and that the decals suck. When trying to remove them from the paper and add to mini the decals curl back and stick to themselves like the most infuriating sort of sticky tape you can imagine. For the record, 8pt font fits about right on a standard base. The curvature of the base is a bit of a pain, but not too bad to if you use a decal solvent like MicroSol.

Anyone interested in being immortalized as a lowly guardsman is welcome to email me their name and I'll be happy to get you inducted. It's that many less random names I have to come up with. I'm trying not to get to the point of resorting to names like 'Jack Handy' and 'Phil MacKrevice'.

So what's coming up on on the blog? Of course now that I'm making some progress on my IG, my attention span is starting to wane. I'm not stopping them, but I am going to keep another project going so I can switch back and fourth in hopes of avoiding burn out on either. So what will it be? Here's a clue...



It should make for some exciting times as I'm really wanting to push the proverbial envelope on dynamic posing.

Thanks for stopping by. As always comments, critiques, and giggling are all welcome in the comments. Oh, and I'm serious about that Ultramarines Movie. If anyone in the North Texas area wants to go, email me. All the reservations are filled so I intend to get there early to get my seat(s).

More IG Finished, a Page Change, and Other Thoughts

Well, my self imposed goal to post once a week was certainly short lived. Sadly, other blogs may be without updates as well. Big Jim over at Galaxy in Flames is going to be taking off a couple weeks and, sadly, Ron over at From The Warp will be discontinuing his blog completely. Thankfully Ron will be at least keeping us up to date on his new WIP blog, Black Dot Barrel Studios. Still, it was a sad night of blog reading when I got on Sunday night.

In other news, I've made a subtle change to my blog. Can you see it?? Did you notice it right away? Yea, probably not, but I'm proud of it anyway. With my meager html/css and graphics know-how I managed to widen my blog. Why, you may ask? Why not? It will allow me to post my pics a little bit bigger (though you may typically click on them for a larger view anyway) and it will fill up a screen a little better. The total width is now 1024 pixels which is about the minimum size of any monitor anyone uses these days. Trust me, there was a temptation to try and really stretch it out, but I decided not to show too much favoritism to my readers with wide screen displays.

On to the newly finished IG minis!







My camera skills are weak after all that painting, but you get the idea.

Now I'd like to share some thoughts on assembly line painting I've had over the last couple weeks.

First fifteen is too many to assembly line paint. Sure it was probably efficient, but it became tedious quick. In the future I'll probably work on five minis at a time. I think that will be my magic number to knock a few out and feel accomplished in a reasonable amount of time. Plus, at five every week or two, I could knock out all my guard dudes in about a thousand years... or, minus the exaggeration, a year or so... yea probably not with my attention span. Realistically I'll probably work on other projects some weeks. So then my guard will never get finished... damn. But, you wouldn't want to see me post every week about another five guardsmen anyway.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my rambling thoughts. If you'd like to leave a comment, I always enjoy hearing from you folks. As a fond farewell to updates over at From The Warp, I'd like to ask that any comments work the word "warp" into them somehow. That is all. Thank you.

IG Beast Squad Finished

Just a quick update today. I've been working sporadically (when babies and real life allow) on my first full squad of Imperial Guard Beastmen using the new fantasy Ungors. I really like the way these guys came out! I'm thinking I'd use them for counts-as penal legion, but I might do a whole platoon with command made of beasties. Well, the junior officer might be a human of some sort... you can only trust these beasts to far!



I've got parts to do another ten of these guys. So, two penal legion squads or the start of a two squad platoon. I don't think I'd ever do an entire army of these as the cost per trooper is about double that of a plain old Guardsmen... in money that is. But, a couple squads will make for a nice visual on the field!

I've also been playing around with a salvaged Leman Russ tank and a Chimera. I'm not much of a tank painter, but once I have some decent progress to show, I'll do so.

Thanks for stopping by and having a look. If you have any comments, critiques, or at least a decent catch-phrase, feel free to share it in the comments section!