Rastl’s blog

I've just been busy with other projects and the minis have been neglected.

So here's a pic of the mini I entered into an online contest.  She's actually a part of my personal dwarf army and was painted for that, not a contest.

Meet Gwyddis.

Gwyddis 09

I've got a variety of unconnected updates so I'll just use Rob's Bullet Method(tm).

• I'm a complete painting slacker.  My arena pieces and the leezards are just sitting on the paint table collecting dust.
• My friend is making a swing lamp holder like the Illinois painting group uses (which he also made) so there's a good chance of getting decent light at paint night soon.
• My friend likes to over-engineer so there's glue, epoxy and wood screws in the swing lamp holder.
• Thanks George.
  
• My hope is that better light at paint night will bring in more painters.  And help the ones that show up all the time improve their skills.  Everyone can always improve their skills.
• I'm a communication junkie.  I've been corresponding with a few people and when I don't have at least one e-mail waiting for me in the morning I get sad.
• Overhead lights + halogen floor lamp + iron set on high = room gets hot.
• I've been sewing.  Check out the FashionAeons blog over to your right if you're at all interested.
• Roomba is modified but the battery hasn't liked the on again-off again usage.  New battery is in the mail.
• I have absolutely zero willpower when it comes to new hobby tools and fabric stores.  None.  Nada.  Zip.
• The new version of Reaper's Warlord rules is at the printer and I need to rebalance my demo armies.
• Math is hard.
• Planning has started for this year's RastlCon.
• I need to redesign the RastlCon website.  I'll probably go WordPress.
• I got additional XP in our last game because of role playing.  I guess I need to start drinking early every game!
• I might go to the renaissance faire in costume if one of my friends wants to go that way.
• I need to find my old renaissance faire costume.
• I hope I still fit into my old renaissance faire costume.
• This year is the 25th anniversary of the Court at the renaissance faire.  I was in Court for 5 years.  Odds-on money is that I'm not contacted/invited.
• I want to try learning to use the roller blades I bought for my first midlife crisis again.
• I'm afraid to try learning to use the roller blades I bought for my first midlife crisis again.
• My friend Kris is responsible for me wanting to try to learn to use the roller blades I bought for my first midlife crisis again.
• Thanks Kris.
• I was able to get rid of some of my enormous stash of foamcore recently.
• I plan on dumping some of the remaining foamcore at the gaming store.
• I'll need more foamcore after I reduce my stash.
• I have no current plans to make anything with foamcore but I know I won't have enough when I do.
• I have too many hobbies.
• I have too many projects started.
• I will probably start a new project yet this month.

I could probably go on but that's enough for now,

Well, after all that the undead pirates are going to be taking a bit of a vacation.  I did find out after I had them painted that they weren't going to be in the first release of Warlord changes and so I need to set them aside and work on factions that are so I can demo the game properly.

I found this out trying to balance my demo armies using the new datacards.  There are no official datacards for this faction so I'm just going to set them aside and wait until they come back.  And of course this is one of the only demo armies I have painted.

I think I'll replace them with Nefsokar (Egyptian) after I get the Reptus (leezards, in honor of the classic Taco Bell ad) painted up.

This is just a quick post because I think I finally figured out how to make the seaweed for their bases.  Once that's in place I'll have to take all new pictures.

Scuttlebones 02

You can see the others in the collection below and once they're really complete I do a full post on them.

Demo - Razig

The smell of craft paint always reminds me of school.  That evocative smell of cheap acrylic paint that we used in so many projects.

And that's what I'm using on the arena I'm painting up.  Well, not completely cheap paint but it all kind of has the same smell.  I'm painting roof and other large sections so there's a lot of wet paint at once, hence the aroma.  In the smaller amounts and in drybrushing you don't get that.

I was able to repair the piece that broke when I dropped it (sorry Froggy - you won't even notice) and a piece that broke when I was painting it (see previous note).  I had epoxy out to work on something else so I made it even stronger.  I really need to start using more epoxy in my builds where there's going to be butt joins and other weak areas.

So all the last pieces have their stonework painted and I've gotten a good start on the detail work.  There's always touchups but those are minor compared to the actual painting.

Whoops.  Forgot the final white highlights on the stonework because I don't put them on my own stuff.  I'll do that tomorrow before going back to the detail painting.

I'll be happy to finally get these pieces done and off to their rightful owner.  I have another 'project for trade' in the wings and that one will be more complicated since I'm still designing as I go.  I also think I need to cast a lot more bricks since I need a lot of a particular one that has one per mold.  Lovely.  I know I should make a mold so I can just cast those but after this project I don't know how much I'll need those in quantity.

Finally Mr. Rastl was very kind and did a project for me.  I now have new figure holders for those models that have the slotta base.  I was using binder clips but had issues with finding places to put them so the paint didn't touch anything.  Now I've got nice stable wood pieces with thick wire holding up alligator clips.  They're weighty enough to stand up nicely, the wire is flexible so I can reach everything on the piece, and the alligator clip should hold the figure securely without getting in the way.  I only had him make 4 of them because: a) I generally only paint at most 4 models at a time and b) the alligator clips came in packs of 4.  We've got enough material to make more if I need them but this should be plenty.

I used my epoxy wisely as I assembled the figure holders, filled in some gaps on the dragon turtle and fixed the terrain pieces.

What I didn't post yesterday because I didn't feel it was worth a post was that I got the heads attached to the Reptus figures.  I used CA (superglue) but didn't get as solid of a bond as I would like.  I re-glued the offending and now detached heads then used the epoxy from the final dragon turtle assemby to seal the seams.  I've done that with other figures and it works quite well.  I'll do the same thing when I attach the shields.  CA to get them in place, epoxy to make sure they stay there.

You've been patient.  I finally have pictures of the complete* Crusader demo army for your review.

Conlan 01

Sir Conlan is the sergeant of the troop.

Warriors 01

Spearmen 01

Stabby death at a distance.  And they provide some nice support for those poor schmucks above.

Ivy Crown Archers 01

More stabby death at a distance, just farther away.  These are the guys I converted to have bowstrings.

Guardian Beast 01

And finally, one kick-butt monster.

Tomorrow I'll post up the other demo army.  But I'd like to let these guys shine for a bit.

If you want to see everyone, check out the collection below.  There's a lot of not-quite-as-good pictures in there but you still get to see everyone and booty shots.

Demo - Crusaders

* When I say 'complete' I mean I've painted up all the models I got for the army.  However, the new data cards coming out mean that I need to add a few to this army to make it legit and to balance it out.  So there's a few more to be painted up once I pick them out.

The craft room is set up for sewing so I really can't do much painting.

Last night I started prepping the Dragon Turtle as the monster for my next demo army.  He was surprisingly clean and the parts dry fitted very well.

Tonight I started putting him together with epoxy.  This is going to take a few steps and I may also put a couple of pins in him for strength.

My intent was to bring him with next week when I paint with the Illinois crew but now I'm not so sure.  I'm going to try to prep some of the regular army models at paint night and see if I could bring those instead.  I have a better chance of getting them done.

Now the craft room smells like epoxy.

The playtest beta I did on Friday turned out really well.  At least I thought so.  Once we got in the swing of the ruleset things moved along quickly so there was a sense of action happening.

By the time we had played 2 full games the 40K players were on their second turn.  'Nuff said.

However this means I really need to get 2 more armies ready.  I can pull one out of my personal dwarf army but no matter what I need another demo army painted up.

I decided on another 'cool' army and pulled out the Reptus so I could start prepping them.  Unfortunately it means pinning some of the bits so they stay attached and I've gotten rather lazy about pinning.  I'll get back into the swing of it soon enough.

There was a brief debate about color since I didn't want to use the standard green or orange people tend to use.  Mr. Rastl looked over the color chart and said he liked the red violet colors.  I agree, they're quite different.  So those are the colors.  The absolute complimentary set to that color has been discontinued and I'm debating about whether I should just use it since this is a demo army or if I should go with colors that are still current.  I won't know that one until I start slapping paint.

I'm finally making plans to paint with the Illinois crew (IMMPS) so I do need something to paint.  It's either going to be the monster from this army or a set of army figures.  If I'm looking for something that can be mostly and/or completely painted in an evening I'll have to lean towards the army figures.  After I get a certain amount of paint on a figure I don't like transporting it since I always tend to rub off paint when I do that.  Hence my preference for doing 'real' painting at home.

And on one final note.  I was hoping to take a bunch of pics today using the new light tent Mr. Rastl got me for my birthday but time got away from me and there was so little left that I spent the time taking mold lines off the Reptus monster and dry fitting him to get an idea of the work involved.  He's all cleaned up and goes together surprisingly well.  I don't think I'll need to fill any gaps.  Very good quality there.

I wasn't expecting to get back to painting in the very near future.  That's why I felt safe in using the area on, around and by the paint table as temporary storage.

But things changed and now I guess I'm running a demo of the game of Warlord on Friday.  And one of my demo armies doesn't have painted bases.

Yes.  I can use them without painted bases.  But they're just not as cool!

So I dug out the paint table and drenched the bases in the shadow color.  Once that dries it will be a quick matter to drybrush up the rest of the colors.  I do want to put seaweed on them (undead pirates, etc.) but that's not 100% necessary and I'd rather get them painted and sealed for play.

I'm also playing with the idea of adding a highlight to the base edges in the army color.  Nothing too fancy, just another way to easily identify the pieces on the table.  Of course one of my far more detailed painter friends took that to mean that I was going to gem the bases.

For those not in the know, to 'gem' something is to paint in the manner of a gemstone.  Reflecting light and all that.

I wasn't planning on going that far for demo army bases but I will try one with the highlight edges and see what that looks like.

Base coat is on and drying.  I touched up the spot on the crab where primer got on the underside of the claw.  So they're set for the evening.

Here's a flower pic for Spike.  We're in the 'everything is green' phase of the garden right now but the tulips were quite nice this year.

Tulips

1 comment

Yes, we did get the house painted so it doesn't look like that any more.

I'm getting edgy to pick up a paint brush again but I have a couple of other non-mini projects I want to complete before I do that.  And after those I HAVE to finish that arena I'm painting up for a friend.  Only then can I paint minis.  Unless I join the Illinois painters for their Friday paint night because going to paint night without painting is rather silly.  But that's an overnight plan since it goes late into the night and I don't want to drive back in the wee hours of the morning.