So it has been roughly 10 days since my last post. My arm is healing just fine but still in no shape to actually do any type of maneuvers with my left hand yet. I accepted the fact my projects I had set out to do will be delayed once again until my hand can move properly and regain its strength since I can't even make a proper fist.

Kiss modeling, painting, or any conversions good bye for now. There is a project that has been going well. The Tau I bought has been soaking in simple green for about two weeks now. From initial inspections, they will continue their bath for another two weeks at least. The purpose for the bath is to get rid of the paint, obviously, and to detach, or try to detach, the bond made with super glue. From research and recommendations for my friends, simple green has no impact on plastic, therefore corrosion should not appear. At least that is what I am hoping.

If you are still reading this, you may be wondering why do I have a Guild Wars logo on top my this entry. The answer is easy. I have been distracting myself with it for the past two weeks. Because I am in no state to work plus the current market, I used the hobby as a time killer but since of my situation, I had to find an alternative. Maybe that is why my projects has become a stand still.

Projects

Projects, the word to some is seriously annoying while to others a thing they can not live with out. For us wargamers, the term proves to be your goals that we, mostly, never get done to be honest. Laugh all we want. We are at the boarder line of describing ourselves as hoarders. We start our original project as our first army and we branch out to other armies as well as games. For me I went from Warhammer40k to Fantasy to Infinity to Warmachine then Hordes and may even invest in some other game systems in the future as well. On top of those projects, I have my blog, facebook, and youtube account to maximize my projects' exposure to the world.

What I am trying to say I have too much on my plate. A reorganization needs to be done to the number of projects I have to get any of them checked off my to do list. Having said that though, I am not going to do it just yet. I am going to do the opposite and add more to my plate. Crazy as it may seem, I am still looking for a job and my injury has pushed that out even further. I have been sitting in my room, in front of my screen for all day long nearly 24/7. Yes, I have no social life. Yes, I am kind of a recluse. Yes, many can say my life is pathetic. In the end though, I don't really care as things take time to happen, even if you are not aiming to change.

Let me get to my point here, what I have realize is I am not a painter. My skills are normal at best so I am not going to pretend I am a master and post tutorials of how to do this and that. I will leave that to other bloggers and youtubers. The thing I am good at is doing research and "remembering useless information as well as absorbing new information", said my mom once. I want to show more of that in my videos and blog posts. Therefore the projects I am going to be adding, mainly on my youtube account, are:

1. Name TBA

- A show about how to save money on the hobby

2. Name TBA

- A show about how the play games, like tactica videos about general things not specific armies

3. Miniature 101

- Continuing to add tips and tricks about tools and how you can get similar tools for cheap

At least I have a plan now.

Injury & Projects

I know around almost 3 months ago i posted that I was going to revive this blog and be active on it. However, due to the image you see on the left, the statement was unfulfilled.

What you see is basic an x-ray image on my left arm with a piece of glass in it. After six days of waiting, I got exploratory surgery which revealed the glass cut 65-70% my ulnar nerve. In the same procedure, the surgeon reattached my nerve and put me in a cast for two weeks. Since then it has been an interest month filled with a lot of pain. Basically, what is happening now is my left arm is in a splint which holds my left wrist in place. So far the damage to my nerve has resulted in muscle atrophy in my left arm and hand. Muscle atrophy is the loss of muscle tissue due to lack of activity. I have been going to rehabilitation and occupational therapy to regain basic movement and muscle. However, even though my nerve will heal, its function will never be 100% again. Just kidding, it is not that bad. After a period of OT, I will be able to regain at least 90% of basic function from the healed nerve. During these past months, you can guess, my activity in war gaming became zero. I couldn't do anything with my left hand, which made just day to day living difficult. So far, I have adjusted to my new temporary life and decided it was time to finish some of my projects as well as start new ones.

Painting and basic model work on miniatures should be a decent exercise for my left arm, wrist, hand, and fingers. However, I don't really have any motivation to paint my new Dark Vengeance models or my dark angel project. The reason is because I have been thinking of my first love, the Tau. The reason I got into Warhammer 40k back in 2003 was because I enjoyed the idea of creating your own units of soldiers that computer games couldn't provide. I decided on Tyranids first because my mentor at the time was a bug fanatic and pushed me enough to enjoy horde of bugs squashing everything. However, the more I got into the game the more I felt the over aggressiveness of the bugs did not really fit my character. Sure running in head first and hope you don't die is always a fun tactic, as well as super rewarding when it comes, but it was never me. Thinking long and hard, I thought to myself what my army will look like and the only thing I pictured was robots. The Tau was my first big investment as I bought random things that I found cool. Sadly, a quick trip to Australia in 2005 resulted in my grandma mistakenly classified my models as toys and were all given away to charity which prematurely ended my wargaming interest until last year.

Anyways, after browsing through ebay, I found a decent size Tau army for sale. So I jumped on to the opportunity and bought them. They are poorly painted to what appears to be cheap paint and covered with random washes and decals. The worst thing and the last thing I found out was the seller bought them off of someone else which made the type of glue and paint used a mystery. However, the seller mentioned any fixes required before shipping them to me were made with plastic cement. This turned out to be a worst case scenario when buying used miniatures. At this point in time, I still do not know if their bath in Simple green with get rid of the paint or the glue. From preliminary experiments, the paint is coming off but the glue is still a mystery. I am hoping for the miniatures to fall apart after a prolong bath but if they don't, then I will have to work around it.

Revival of the Blog

Hello there,

As you may have noticed, I have not updated this blog for quite sometime. In between such time, many unfortunate occurrences have unfolded but long story short, I moved across the country to the east coast.

Anyways, I do not want to rant about the past and the things that has shaken my life to the core. Let's talk about 6th edition and all the changes we have to deal with from here onwards.

I have been updating my youtube channel about this and have since made a vlog series about all the changes made by 6th. I recommend you to follow it by going to this link:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL776EB106DA02145C

I will try to keep this blog alive from now on.

WIP Land Speeders Typhoon

After having these guys lying in the bottom of my to-do pile, I decided to use them for my airbrush practice. Don't get me wrong, they are still going to be a part of my army but I personally consider tanks or tanks equivalent are less punishing to the eyes when mistakes do happen. So, naturally, they will be the best place to start as practice goes.

First off, after under coating, I played around with some pre-shading. At first, I thought it wouldn't be so hard and laugh about it. Seriously though, how hard can spraying black lines in areas you deem to have a shadow be? I learned that it is pretty hard if you don't fully understand what an airbrush can do or how to achieve a certain look, IE. hair line lines. 

First trial went as above. To be honest, this is actually the third one I tried doing this on and it is the best looking one, in terms of realistic shadow placement and over spray. My main problem, at first, was I did not release enough paint. I didn't know there was an option on the airbrush I got to control the amount of paint by turning its tail piece. Lesson number one learned, always spray on to something else like paper when you are learning how to airbrush.

Step two, base coating. Now I regret not buying more Dark Angel Green when I had the chance. I thought I had enough, plenty actually with a pot left but it turned out I had only a quarter, not even that!, left in the pot. Damn, I will have to find alternatives soon, IE Vallerjo Game Color? *wink**wink*

 

This is what I got so far. It has been a slow process since I had to learn everything step by step with no instruction and just trail and error sort of practice going on. Well, to me they came out alright.

Dark Angel Apothecary Part 2

I have been working slowly recently. The reason is just that I have more to do at the moment. I just wanted to make a quick post of updates.

More robes

I never liked how my terminators looked in the robes I sculpted. Like I mentioned in my previous blog, they looked more like flax jackets then robes. So I decided to handle that by going through the process of striping the green stuff off of them with an X-acto knife. I ended up cutting their details off and shaving into their plastic and my fingers. I did this, not intentionally to my fingers, because I noticed with the extra material on them, their chests looked bigger as if they are fat people in suits so by shaving some plastic off, it will make the robes look like robes.

So here is the new robes I put on them. I am fairly satisfied with the outcome. The biggest change I made was actually using Vaseline instead of water as a smooth agent for my green stuff and trust me, vaseline makes a lot of different in terms of how smooth you can get it. Also, I added some back cloth on one of them. The reason I don't have them all four is because I re-sculpted that guy's front robes yesterday. So the green stuff has cured.

Dark Angel Apothecary

Image for Dakka Dakka

When I read the codex, I instantly knew I had to have one apothecary in Terminator armor. The down fall to this is the fact there is only known apothecary set for terminators and it is in the Grey Knight box. I did not want to order 50$ worth of stuff and had to convert all 5 armor, since the grey knights are unique in their markings. After doing some research on line, I figured out how the "whatever a apothecary carries" looks like, I set out to make it or make something that looked similar.

To the left is an one of the images of people's conversions, I decided to do something similar to this. The weapon, in my point of view, is a needle type mechanism connected to a life source juice. The apothecary will inject this juice into dying or wounded brothers which will repair what has been damaged.

Having said that, this is "the thing the apothecary carries" that I built from bits and pieces I had lying around. I will be posting a "how to" guide of how I made this. It was fairly simple and the bits I used everyone should have.

Making of Bilial Part 5

Today I have finally completed all the sculpting work on Bilial.  I still need to wait for the final green stuff to cure and then I will have to clean him with some water and dish soap to get all the dust and yuck off his surface before I can paint him.

What do you guys think?

I had to change the pose from the basic concept since I messed up on the shield position.

Fully realize that his cape is not smooth at all. I wanted to go for a more raged looking cape then a perfect one.

 

So there he is, Bilial (pending a name change) Master of the Deathwing

Making of Bilial Part 4

Good news, my version of bilial is finally coming together nicely and is almost done. So far, I have sculpted on additional details on his cape and added more cloth on his waist. The only thing, or among a bit here and there, I need to do is attach his arms, head, and sculpt in some soft armor and he is finished.

Good timing as well, since my airbrush has arrived and paint is on the way. Soon, my Bilial will stand strong!!

Here are some pictures of what I done. Even though these updates are small, boy it sure took a long time making each sculpt.

Miniature Tools 101 - Web Series -

I wanted to help out people, especially beginners, with the type of tools that are out there. So I created this web series.

So far, there are only two episode but check back every Monday for more.

Episode 2 Wax Carvers

Making of Bilial Part 3

I wanted to change the look on his cape so I started out from the beginning by redoing the structure. The main reason why I wanted to change it is because the original structure made the cape look unnatural. The strange shape just stabbed out whenever I look at him and that is not good in terms of painting it. To make a good paint or even just a decent one, the sculpt has to at least be decent. By adding another rod to the structure, it gave me the look I was going for, 4 folds in the cape. Plus, I bended the outer rods to make the cape look more wavy and more natural and I wanted the cape to look more like a "Batman" sort of cape where the end is wider than the beginning. Personally, I find it cool to look at. The hardest part was creating a bent structure that was even in length. Even though I did not get it perfectly equal, it will look just fine or at least, that is how I picture it in my head.

 

After rolling up some green stuff to make it as thin as possible while maintaining its strength and adhesiveness, I managed to complete it. I still need to sculpt in some final details where the cape meets his body and at the end of the cape but over all, I think it went every well and came out just the way I wanted it to.

The only bad thing that came out of this was I will need to repose him. The cape span and his shoulder pad can not meet since I do not want that to happen. Instead of a charging position, I decided to go for sort of like a "Bring it on" type of pose. This will be achieved by posing both of his arms in an opened position. They will bend back towards the back. He will look something like the picture.

The robes of horror (to my mind)

After I gotten myself together and focused on the tasks I had scheduled up in my head, I finally came around to do some green stuff work on my Terminators. The process begun with me researching over the net for various tutorials and I did find many helpful tips and tricks but in the end, I went in with my own "image" of how robes were sculpted. The results are the picture to the right. Yes, they look strange and totally not like robes. Having seen what horror I have made upon my terminators, I knew these robes will never work and if I stick with them, the painting will be equally as horrific. During the waiting period, I went back to the drawing board and back to my vault of tutorials. I decided I will make my robes simple, not the complexed ones I sort out to do.

This is what I got. Yes, they still don't really look like robes but more like flax jackets. Well, maybe they do look like robes but my high expectation of my skills just make anything I do look bad. Working with green stuff is hard and is the part of the hobby where I both love and hate. The fact that I have gotten this far in terms of scuplting skills has already impressed me. I am normally more of a quitter if things get too hard. Anyways, this is what I got so far. Maybe by adding some rope for belts and some loin cloths will make these terminators look more robes than jackets.

The boys are up and running

Today I came to my peace with the fact I will not be making all of my Deathwing individually unique in terms of poses and equipment. There was too much work involved in them and I did not want to do all of it. Plus, I need to start thinking about how to paint these guys and GW changing their line does not help with that. Anyways, I started working on the boxes I had since a month and a half ago. Basic cutting here and there, gluing this and that together, filing a bit where needed and I got myself two squads of Deathwing ready to be painted. At first I was really reluctant to put on the shields since it will be blocking 80% of the model from direct or at a good angle from a brush. In the end, I gave in to my inner self of laziness and just slapped them on. I painted them like this before and I believe 90% of people paint them like this, so who cares at this point!

However, I am looking to switch permanently to Vallerjo since I already ordered an airbrush and its whole nine yards. I am not sure how the new paints from GW will react to an airbrush. I will let someone with time and money to burn do that review. I am looking forward to getting my order since it is the biggest package I will be receiving since I have been here, both in terms of size and price (minus my computer of course) Also, if you ever had or planned to buy an airbrush you will know that Vallerjo has one of the best paint lines to use directly with it. They have hundreds upon hundreds of paint pots to choose from as well as any additional "technical" pots you may need such as retarders and thinners. So I may be looking to getting my hands on some when the life of my current GW pots die out.

Last thing for today, I tried to work out Bilial's cape and failed miserably. Luckily $10 of greenstuff will last you a life time and screw ups are normal for beginner sculptors. Yet, I wanted to show what he looks like so far, but I did not see a point of creating a separate Bilial blog entry.

Making of Bilial Part 2

I just got back from Boston yesterday. So I may not have a lot of updates for this entry. Before I left I managed to string a couple of pieces of wire together intended to be the frame for this cape. I may change the design a bit this week though since three folds in a cape sounds wrong for some reason. Again the technique I am using for building the cape is from The Fortress of the Unforgiven. I can't emphasize more of how helpful their tutorials are.

Before making the cape frame, I wanted to add some more detail to his back area. Since I already sculpted on cloth/robes to his chest region, I wanted it to continue to the back.

I was not as worried about the level of details here since the majority of it will be cover or block from sight from the cape I will be putting on him. Therefore, as you can see, the robes on his back are like they are. Well, at least I did manage to make them look convincing enough in my point of view. Again on The Fortress of the Unforgiven site, you can find numerous tricks and tips on creating robes or just search the popular forums for them. There are plenty on the net.

After I got back, I found that one of my packages has arrived. This order was made from Scibor which is one of the best makers of custom resin pieces and models on the net today. I wanted to add some originality to my Dark Angel chapter with some easy conversions, piece swaps. Here are what I order and how it looks on my Bilial model. (pictures of the actual pieces on bilial will be updated later)

More Cryx, but less of Warmachine

It has been a long while since I updated this blog with anything from the universe of Privateteer Press. The reason being simple, Warmachine is not a popular game where I came from nor was Horde. This was due to it being too punishing for new players. A quote from one of my buddies in Thailand said.....

"I am going to sell all of my warmachine now because I spent 4 turns setting up for the perfect zoning, perfect execution, perfect victory and in the end, one error in placing my warjack cost me the game. I misplaced him by 1 mm....."

Now I am not going to agree or disagree with this statement.  I will leave it up to the Gods on deciding what is what. Meanwhile, since I have not found a local store that is close enough for my gaming fix, I am not going to be buying more warmachine models and may even get out of it entirely. The reason quitting it comes into play is because I have not actually tried playing it yet. I have only been looking at other people play rather if its live or in video form. It seems like a good game to get into but again, with everything that has been going on lately, I don't see much time being devoted to my Cryx empire. For now, I will be focusing more on my Warhammer 40k army, The Reaper Angels. 

However, here are some pictures I have not posted on to the blog.......

  

Making of Bilial Part 1

I went through the codex and checked several websties about Dark Angel list making and who to choose as a HQ. After reading, I decided to go with Bilial. You are probably saying "No S*%T Sherlock!" and I don't blame you. He is probably the most over used HQ choice, period! Yet, because of the limitation of an old book, he is probably the only viable choice. Well, the biker dude is pretty cool and useful but I don't have the cash or the mind set to tackle a large fine cast model and when I do, I will be certain to take as many pictures and videos of what poor quality, or good, I receive.

Enough talking for now, here are some pictures for "The Making of Bilial" Blog

Firstly, I had to gather the pieces. Now these are not all of what I am planning to use. I still have some parts in the mail, when it will get here, I have no idea.The parts I gathered so far are basic parts from your normal Terminator Assault box. I got a Thunder Hammer, shield arm, legs, torso, and head. I decided not to use a helmet since in the Codex picture, Bilial isn't wearing one and I decided to use a bald head because, again, in the picture he doesn't have hair but I might add some though. It depends on how adventurous I want to be since the last time I attempted to sculpt hair did not end so well.

Secondly, I adjusted the legs by doing some repositioning by pining as well adding some cork to the base. Pretty standard stuff so far and I am pleased with the results.
I decided to pose him this way because I wanted him to look like he is charging over some rocks with his shield in a "Get the F**K out of the way" position and his hammer ready to bash some alien or heretic scum.

Thirdly, after getting the pose I wanted, I started with the repositioning of the legs. I sawed the leg into four main pieces and re assembled them using the pinning technique. You can find how to do this in plenty of places, but you can go here, Various Tutorials.

The conversion was basic but it did take a lot of planning and cutting. So if you want to try something like this, make sure you have the proper tools and protection. It isn't worth it to lose a finger!

Fourthly, after the glue dried and all of the pins were secured in to place, as well as there was not movement in the pieces, I added some green stuff on to the model.

This was probably the hardest part so far since I never sculpted whole terminator legs or feet before and the results, well, are not as I planned. However, I do have plenty of ideas on how to fix it. For now, I needed the frame to be secure so the level of quality will do for now. 

Lastly, I wanted to add some character into the model so he really stood out from other marines and can fully call himself "Master of the Deathwing".

So naturally, I added some robes/cloak/cape thing on his chest. This will continue to his back as well but not blocking the vents in his armor. Also, I am going to add more robes hanging from his belt and add robes along his body. Maybe I will use this to block the hideous leg I sculpted. I am not sure yet.

To conclude the look, I am planning to add a cape by using inspiration from The Fortress of Unforgiven. I stumbled upon this site late one night and was immediately impressed with the numbers of Dark Angel related articles and tutorials they had. It is a shame that this web site has not been updated or touched by the moderators or owners since 2007. So most of the models on their site are mostly old school, which for some is a treat but not for me really. I prefer the newer sculpts from Games-Workshop. The old ones just look weird!

Final thoughts, I really recommend anyone to get some professional or proper wax carvers. I have been sculpting for over two years and just recently invested in some proper tools. They make a lot of different in terms of ease of execution in what you have in mind as well as putty manipulation.

What do you guys think of him so far?

Girl Problems, unemployment, and Game Workshop

Moving to a new territory is never easy in the first couple of months. This is something I was fully aware of when I made the trip from Bangkok to Los Angeles. The past 2 months living here has been much more than I expected. Juggling the fact I have no job, my passion, and the lack of interest in myself for employment has been tough on my mind.

Living on your own brings it pros and cons. There are a lot of obligation you have to satisfy before you can fully be freed from what is holding you down. Unfortunately I am not the type to focus on what is needed to be done but rather what I want to do. Getting back into the hobby full time was a decision I made almost a year ago and I intended to stick to my guns this time by not bailing out when things do not go to plan. So far, I have been doing what I set out to but I feel so tired.

I recently moved in with my girlfriend and there is where the problems begin. As you may know, the fact of boys playing with plastic toy soldiers or "dolls" is normally a big turn off for most women. Once you also add into the pot that I am addicted to computer gaming as well, I am the classic "Geek" whom girls do not wish to hang out or be associated with. I do understand that I am not in high school anymore and the days of labeling a book by its cover is long gone. Yet, I bet you also felt it sometime as well. You know, that feeling where the things you enjoy may not be socially accepted and is considered just plain odd.

Where am I going with this, you may ask. My girlfriend had a certain image of me she held on or created when we were first dating. Now that we are living together. The things that she did not know are starting to emerge and the person whom she thought I was is turning out to be just an imagination. So naturally, she is beginning to look at and even talk to me differently. For those who have been through something like this, it is not a good feeling to have hanging over your shoulders. 

The fact that I am still unemployed even if I do have a Bachelor's Degree with a good GPA and plenty of work experience just adds to the stress I am feeling. My saving is evaporating really fast and I don't have much time left until I am flat broke.

So why am I talking about my girlfriend and unemployment?

Here is the thing. I have been constantly purchasing my fix of warhammer over the past two months. I have ordered my tools and gadgets that I had back in Thailand through the magical yellow site called Amazon.com (the devil it is for your wallet) The amount of my possessions has been slowing increasing while the space in "her" apartment is getting smaller. Just add all of the problems I have talked about in this post and you will understand why I am complaining about it instead of making models.

In the end, being a war gamer is a tough gig. It pushes you into the focus of attention for people who do not really understand to poke you with sticks in the form of words and gossip. I have no idea what my plan is going to be but all I know is I need a job and fast. 

Oh, it does not help either that games-workshop decided to flip their paint range to oblivion. Now I have to buy new paint as well. Great.......

My new web series

It has been some time that I decided on making a video series for beginners. When I first started the hobby, I had zero insight into what I needed or where I could get it. Even though there is vast amount of data on about particularly everything you may want to know on the internet, just the amount of time needed to find one decent article or one particular topic is depressing. This video series is made because of this very reason. I wanted to create a place where summarized information can be found.

The series will be sort of like a review as well as unboxing of tools and equipment in the world of table top gaming. The tools will range from expert level usage to basic day-to-day usage.

I am sure the information presented in this series will be helpful for both new and old of the hobby.
 

 

Here is the first episode of the series. Any feedback will be very helpful on how to make this series better. So please leave a comment on the video or here.

Dark Angel Progress!!!

Welcome to my WIP blog, I will be updating it whenever I can will everything I have been doing. Today, the orders from Games workshop finally came and I have gotten all of the other pieces as well. I am still waiting for Scibor's stuff but anyways, here are some pictures of what I have been doing today.

Introducing my Reaper Angels,

Color Scheme


Work Station 2.0 in the US


The Load


The Cheerleader


The progress


I also have some special projects that I can not show yet. My latest experiment was a failure and ended up wasting $20 in the process

Decided on an Army and preview!!

After much deliberation, I have decided to change my production's logo to the current one on the left. This one done for only one reason, I accidentally forgot to bring/transfer my original logo from my hard drive from on old computer.

I actually like the new one I created. It looks professional and clean unlike my previous one.

If you read my previous blog entry, you will know why I have a green terminator in this post. Yes, I have finally decided to turn my back on Dark Eldar and return to the Imperium. I decided to go with a black and green Deathwing army. I am aware the traditional colors of such an army is bone white but I like to create my own army's history and not just take it out of the codex. 

My Dark Angel army is called "Reaper Angels". They are a hidden faction within the dark angel army unknown to the outside world and only to the most loyal of all dark angels. Their wear a black helm to honor their fallen comrades in battle and their main duty is to be executioners on the battle field. I am not just talking about the Fallen here. They believe in justice and are known for their lack of mercy towards the enemies of the Emperor.

I actually have a Company Logo in my head. Basically it is a Death Reaper or just its scythe with wings on each side. Fairly simple to paint/make and should look cool enough on my models. I will give more updates on my army when it gets here.