Pride (and knowing when to swallow it)

I'm not sure whether to file this blog as advice, tutorial, or product review. So let's just get on with it.

I have a friend named Pat. In fact, now that I think of it, I believe he is my oldest friend. Pat used to work at a local comics and game store many (many) moons ago. He was the manager, in fact. Probably about 24 ago years now. Pat is a great guy with only one glaring fault. He's freaking good at everything he tries to do.

So one day about five years ago, Pat is trying to help me sculpt something. Towards the end of the day he says, "here, take these extra sculpting tools and stuff, I have plenty". Very generous of him. But, in the mix of proffered supplies are these...



I was a little befuddled as I had (and still as of last week have) 20/20 vision. He assured me they were simply for magnifying things close up and that apparently I wasn't getting any younger. "Just try'em", he said. Well, to hell with that! I don't need glasses to see! I buried those suckers way way down in my pile O' tools.

Here's where the lesson comes in...

A few months ago I noticed that (despite my awesome 20/20 vision) my minis seemed to be getting farther and farther from my face as I paint. Simple enough solution, move hand toward face... but... but... what the crap!

So that day, the great bell tolled and my pride died in the heat of painting battle. I tried the glasses. Freakin Pat was right again! The glasses allow me to get the subject closer and still keep it in focus. So now I can be found slipping the 'reading' glasses on when I'm painting or sculpting anything detailed.

Now I know a lot of folks wear prescription glasses. This article may not mean much to you as you are quite used to wearing glasses. But, while I've seen a million blogs about paint brushes, paints, techniques, sculpting, blending, washing, inking, and the use of electric fences in Suburbia (thanks Suneokun), I've not seen anyone mention the fact that at some point you have to make sure you can get the mini where you can see it to do any of it. I think it's kind of assumed, but I can tell you as a person who doesn't wear glasses, I'd have never thought of it if someone hadn't shared the knowledge with me.

If you've made it this far, bless your heart. I try not to get too wordy, but I'm not always successful. I'll have more picture-y blogs coming soon. I've even made some decent progress on the Marauder Destroyer!

In closing I'd like to thank you for stopping by. And I'd like to thank Pat for the great advice that it only took me about five years to follow. If anyone is interested, you can visit Pat's project blog here. He is now a full time sculptor and he does take commissions!

Feel free to drop any comments or complaints you may have in the appropriate area.

I've got the biggest horns (so I'm in charge)

A quick update to share some progress I've made on my beastly kill team.

I wanted my squad leader type beastie to stand out from the crowd. So I gave him the biggest horns, the custom armor, a combi melta, and a bionic arm too! He was born with white fur, which I'm sure is some sort of rare omen of awesomeness when you're a space goat.


From the front you can see most of the conversion work. He has a torso that is made of a terminator chest with regular power armor back. I also slipped in a piece of plastic card to bulk him out a bit. The shoulders, bionic arm, and combi weapon are from the marine Commander sprue.


Not much to say about the back. I did use procreate putty to extend the chain mail that the mini already had in the front of the lower torso all the way around. It's not perfect, but it passes for chain mail.

Here is a group shot of the team so far...


I'm not sure I'm happy with the overall stance of the Great White Goat. I may try to get a little creative with the belt sander and grind away a bit of his base on one side. The idea will be to make him lean a tiny bit less to his right.

Well, work is slow due to the real world constantly interloping on my hobbies. It's not looking to get any better any time soon. Especially with Civ V coming out next week... woot. I just want to say I do appreciate all the folks that stop by and I'm determined not to let slow turn into stop.

Also, I've joined the Special Operations Killzone forum. All the cool people are doing it and you want to be cool don't you? Well, ok, it's for all the cool people who are interested in the Special Operations Killzone project. And, there's games on the bottom of the forum index page. Silly, fun, time wasting games. Damn them.

Hope you've enjoyed your visit. Feel free to drop a comment and say hello.

Multiplying Beasts (Beast Marines Post)

I've been really enjoying working on this little side project, so I thought I'd share my work.

These guys are a project inspired by horRAiN on his blog of the same name. I built one just for fun and liked it so much I wanted to build a few more. Luckily for me, Big Jim over at Galaxy In Flames gave me just the excuse I needed to build a small force of these guys...



The Special Operations Killzone rules are the perfect excuse to put together that small, flavorful, army you've always wanted but never had a reason to build. In fact, there are couple folks out on the interweb putting together forces made up of old or out of print minis. Check out Big Jim's Squat Team or B. Smooves cool Roge Trader era Marine Team for example. As a guy with not much hobby time and virtually no gaming time, I'm really hoping this skirmish game takes off. It would be awesome to be able to get some games in and this may be the way I find time to do so.

Anyway, back to the Beasties. I've got two with bolters and one with heavy bolter finished. I say finished, but I'm sure I'll be touching up crappy paint work till the cows come home. You can click the pictures for a larger, flaw spotting good time version...





You may notice that the flesh is not identical across all three. Since these are going to be part of a reasonably small force, I wanted to give them each a bit of personality. This will mostly be achieved by back story and festive naming, but also by not all having the exact same skin tone. We are all different, why wouldn't huge mutant power armor wearing goats be?

Comments, critiques, and pointing & giggling are welcome as always. So feel free to leave a comment if you like. Thanks for stopping by!