Review: Eccentric Miniatures Base Conversion

Adaptors are always nice.

Just a quick one today for the new year. I'm going to try to get through my backlog of posts that I meant to write, so we're going to go from no posts to a post every two days or so for a while. For the 3 of you who are actually still following this blog (hi Mom! Just kidding, even my mom won't follow this), brace yourselves.

So today we have a nifty little kit from Eccentric Miniatures. Or, more specifically, 

Corsec Magnet Applicator

Once in a while, I will stumble across a product that solves a minor chronic problem so elegantly that I can't figure out why I hadn't looked for it before. These are not wholly innovative gadgets; rather, they are things that have existed, but I just had no idea since it didn't fall within my tiny sphere of attention. I want to show you one of these products.

Review: Dragon Forge Designs Cargo Crates

A quick one for you guys today. About a week ago, I received a small envelope from Dragon Forge Designs containing and assortment of cargo crates. See them here. Jeff Wilhelm has really been expanding his inventory to provide a lot of variety lately, and all of his stuff is very usable, customizable, and most importantly, not gimmicky. His stuff really enhances models without overshadowing them. So let's take a quick look at these crates, both raw and painted up. [read more]

Wargamma Tortured Lands Bases

When I went to Adepticon in April, I met a nice vendor who was selling some interesting sculpts. I thought they were very well done, but what caught my eye were his Tortured Lands bases. I basically bought his entire stock.

Wargamma Tortured Lands Bases

I was going to use them for my Grey Knights since I was going for a Draigowing configuration. Since then, my plans for GKs keep changing, and I didn't really have enough of these bases for any of my other planned armies.

Enter 6th Edition, and in particular, allies. I bought some bloodletters and daemonettes for my fluffy Khorne Berzerker and Noise Marine-centric Flawless Host warbands. I decided to paint them up:

The movement trays are from Armorcast. Click to enlarge.

They look pretty good and they are very easy to paint up. Click to enlarge.

Bleached bone, Tentacle Pink basecoats. Devlan Mud wash for the skin, Baal Red wash for the innards. Tin Bitz for the staples. Very characterful. I'll post these again when I base the daemons.

WIP: Emperors Children Sonic Dread...color blocked

Not even remotely related to this post.

Not much time to post this evening. It's already 1:00am and I have a bunch of work to do for a 9:30am meeting. But I wanted to show the progress I've made on my little 3 year project, my Sonic Dread.
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Basics: Drybrushing, Washes, and Bases

Two of the most important techniques to learn as a beginning painter or aspiring speed painter are drybrushing and washing. Today we'll look at how it applies to very textured bases. In this case, they are skull bases from Secret Weapon Miniatures.

Drybrushing involves loading a brush with paint, removing most of it with a paper towel, and then raking it across the model, catching only the raised portions with pigment.

Washing uses watered down paint (the wash) that is applied liberally to the model where it will seek the deep recesses of the model and also provide a general tint to the other surfaces.
*READ MORE*

Speed Painting Objective Markers

This weekend was very, very busy for my two young daughters, so consequently, it was very, very busy for me. This, combined with my Armory Primer debacle, left me no time to work on my Blood Angels, but I wanted to take advantage of my small bit of momentum somehow. I looked around my office and found a set of these:

They are objective markers made by Secret Weapon Miniatures in their "Alien Infestation" scheme. I found them six to a bag at a local game store. I don't see them being sold on the Secret Weapon site, but I will update this post if I find them there.

They are, in a word, beautiful. I thought they'd make a great set of objectives for my Nids, but I'd forgotten about them until this week. Since the time I purchased them, I've had a bit of philosophical redirection. For objective markers, I don't feel the need to make them too "realistic"...they need to be markers, for heaven's sake.

So here's where the speed painting comes in. I washed the pieces in warm soapy water, and then I sprayed them with Army Painter bone-color primer. Total time, 5 minutes.

Then for each of the three pairs, I washed them with Asurmen Blue, Leviathan Purple, and Thraka Green, respectively. Then, for each open-petaled pod, I based that area in Vallejo Squid Pink. Then, before the pink could dry, I dropped Baal Red wash in each pod. Total time, 10 minutes.

That's right, 15 minutes for all six of them. And how do they look? See for yourself. Click on any image to enlarge.

I really dig how these turned out. Do you?

[Review] Bases by Phantom Fox

I frequent three FLGSes. One of them, Games Plus, has the biggest selection of miniatures I have ever seen in one place, but it is no longer local (I went there as a kid in the 80s). The second one, Lightspeed Hobbies, is a friendly place and they carry Games Workshop and a few other miniature lines, but their main push is Magic the Gathering and Yu Gi Oh.

The third store, Critical Effect, has a really friendly staff, some nice tables, and a mellow atmosphere. Their community is small but seems very active. They have started carrying terrain and bases from a local caster, Phantom Fox. As soon as I found out this was a local concern, I purposely didn't inquire further about the creator's identity. I wanted to give as impartial a review as possible. *more*