093. Oh how the time flies...

Times a funny thing.  Sometimes it moves glacially slow, and others its blink and you miss it.  I'm sure Einstein would have a thing or two to say at this point about relativity and other scientific things.

For me, it seems an age since I last posted here.  Although I sit at my computer each night and review my blog roll, following along with what people are doing; or sit on the bus on the way to and from work reading Dakka or trying my hand at this new fangled Twitter thing; I have been less than productive when it comes to being 'present' in the community.  And at the heart of it, that's what this blogging lark is meant to be about - building my own corner of the community, and engaging with the rest of it.

Tonight, I left comments on two blogs where I made reference to 'community'.  It struck me I can't talk about it if I'm not living it.  So I says to myself, you'd best boil the kettle and get some photos of what's on your desk, and fire off a new post.

What's on my desk right now (and for the last two months)

January seems such a long time ago, and yet in the scheme of things, its not that long ago at all.  Hobby wise for me, it's been a bit hit and miss for the last few months.  After getting excited by those Custodes and Sisters, I ended up parking them to one side, getting instead super excited about the idea of playing in an Apocalypse game to welcome back the start of the local clubs new season.  Apocalypse!  Now there's a game I haven't played in well over five years.  My buddy Ray was also keen on going, and after a brief chat with him, where I was cautioned against bringing my Orks for want of time to move/shoot/assault with them all, I settled on bringing a low model count/high points force comprising my Titan, Baneblade and First Company detachment from my Marines.  

Terminator Sergeant - I'll revisit that power sword at some point and make it look more "power'y"

I was aghast at the thought of running my Marine stuff at first as aside from two squads of Terminators and a Dreadnaught, none of them were painted.  Those that were painted were grey, not blue, being painted in an older scheme rather than my newly planned Ultramarines reversion.  Ray said not to worry about it, but I was buggered if I was going to play in a formal club setting and not adhere to the 3 colour minimum rule.  I figured I'd settle with getting everything sprayed Macragge Blue, and block in the rest of the base colours, reds, whites, golds and silvers.

WIP Terminators

My first problem was my paints are a mix of 10-20 year old paints, and I was distinctly lacking in the blue department, and my red, white, gold and silvers were also looking fairly sad for themselves.  This necessitated a trip to the local GW and a paint purchase - the first I'd made for more than a single pot of wash in probably five years.  In those five years not only has the GW paint system been changed once or twice, but the price of paints had shot up, with the new look golds and silver now setting me back $9 a pot, compared to $6 a pot for the standard colours.  Grumble grumble, progress, grumble, better throw in some new brushes too, grumble...

Various Captains, Chapter Masters and Big G Himself

The Ancients of the Chapter - I have a Leviathan in the post, and am thinking of doing up a Librarian one to offset the Chaplain one - you can never have to many Dreadnaughts

Back at home, I set in with the airbrush and base sprayed the 30 Terminators, 2 Land Raiders and 4 Dreadnaughts I planned on taking.  I then picked out the first five, being the Tartaros kind from the Prospero set, and put down the other base colours.  This was happening in the week before the big game (to be held on the Sunday), and it dawned on me what a slog I was in for even to get this basic scheme blocked in.   By the Wednesday, I'd blocked out the colours on the first squad, and done the standard bron drybrush bases across three of squads, when Ray announced he wouldn't be able to go.  Lamesauce indeed.  Ray being my lift to the event meant my race was also run.  

WIP Custodes - who knew gold would be so off-putting - I'm thinking of adding some colour to those pads

I bit of hobby doldrums set in.  I moped about in my hobby room for a couple more nights, moving paint around the palette and putting some more colours on a Custode before getting despondent about how that was progressing,  Aiming to perk up the old hobby mojo, I put most of the Terminators away on the shelves of shame and I settled down and focussed on finishing the Sergeant for the unit of Tartaros Terminators.  I tried a bit of everything with this chap including proper edge highlights, stubble hair, the posh new gold and silver, and a freehand Ultima as my transfers are horribly old and brittle and fitting one onto the tiny space drove me bonkers before giving it up and painting it on.  I was quite chuffed in the end with how he came out so had a look at the next four.  They dragged on and on and are currently sitting in a partially finished state where the shoulder pads and helmets are done, and that's about it.  Washes have been applied and all I need to do is re-cut in the armour colour and then highlight the armour and weapons.  That's eluded me for the past month and a half or so.  Same goes with the Custode, although tonight I think I struck on a plan to add some more colour to the Custode to break up all that gold, which is what's given me the most headache and made me the most nervous about painting them.  I think I want to block in the shoulder pads - red for the four plebe (as if there is a plebe Custode) troopers, and white for the Sergeant.  I'll let that one percolate for a bit before committing.

Pringles terrain for the win

One thing I have been keen on is doing some more home made terrain (ie craft) with the Dort.  She took an immense interest in collecting 'junk' and adding it to a pile in the hobby room with the intention of doing 'craft' with her old man one weekend.  So on a rainy Saturday a fortnight ago, we sat down together and cut things up and glued it back together in different ways.  We came up with two fluid storage tanks and a comms tower/bunker'y type complex.  This weekend just gone, we went outside and 'goofy glued' (not sure what they are teaching her at childcare) sand to the bases.  She enjoyed herself, my blood pressure didn't rise too high, and I now have a few more serviceable line of sight blocking pieces of terrain.  Hobby Woot!

Cider terrain is just as good

I've also been on a Dan Abnett bender, reading loads of old Gaunt's Ghost, Eisenhorn and Ravenor, between flicking through old WD from Ray, and wondering about the future of 40K and the potential of New-Cromunda.  I've kept the hobby fire smouldering, and feel it's ready to turn it up a bit more and get back to my paint desk and crack on again.  Setting goals doesn't work for me so I think I'll try and just knock off the stuff on my desk and then see what I want to do after that.  Maybe some Nurgle stuff, to get pumped and follow the hobby mojo rollercoaster that I'm sure will follow the Death Guard release - I've already got some kitbashed Plague Marines (Mk3 armour and the FW upgrade set) and Terminators (more FW upgrades) and some Nurgle Daemons lurking on a shelf that would be good to get a start on painting.  Or my Orks always have a few more models in need of a lick of paint.  Or I could return to my Titan and see if I could push that further down the road a bit...

Ohhh, big Pringles - even more win

With luck it won't be so long between drinks in the future.

Cheers all and merry hobby to you,

Liam