Rastl’s blog

I brought the camera to OshCon but didn't get to take pictures since I was playing in the demos.  Oh well.

And I can't really take pictures right now because the minis aren't accessible.

I promise that as soon as I can I'll get them posted.  They're way cool.

But progress is being made!

I'm too busy painting to take pictures right now but between the stuff I had already done and the new miniatures I have enough for 4 demo armies.

I'm still finishing up the last ones.  5 of them need lining.  4 of them need shields attached.  All 5 of them need to be sealed.  The last one got a base coat tonight but he should be easy enough to paint.  Simple monster.

The 2 new factions aren't based, much to my shame.  I'll try but won't kill myself to get it done.  They're painted and that's most important to me.  The official rules say paint is optional but for demonstrations a painted army is best.

I will have to use some proxy figures but that's OK.  I need to remove some abilities since I'm sticking with straight melee.  I can still use the same figure, I just put a different data card with it.  Technically I'm breaking a rule with one faction by having the same data card and 2 figures but I'll deal with it.

I had to lower my demo armies from 400 to 350 points because of my own mistakes but that's still a nicely sized army for a demo.

The terrain is complete and I need to pull out 2 pieces of felt in 2 foot by 2 foot sizes.  That's the game board size.

I forgot that the round counters I wanted to use kind of belong in the gaming group and they are gaming this weekend.  So rather than take them out I'm making new ones for myself.  The first half of construction is done (drying) and tomorrow morning I should be able to do the final construction.  That will let me paint and seal in a timely manner.  Even sealing is optional for this time but I'd like to do it if I can.

I'll try to get pics of the demos in action since those are always cool pictures.  And I will get pictures of all the things I've painted up recently.

I'm currently working on painting the Dragon Turtle and pretty much everything I painted today is going to get repainted.  In short I picked the wrong colors and I was trying to do too much.

Longer story.

He's got plating on his arms, legs, neck, tail, etc.  I had already painted the skin to match the guy down below and was working on the underside of the shell, the plates under the tail and all those other places I just detailed.  And some around the face.  All those other places I was going to use the same tans as on the body wrap of the grunt so that the shell would stand out more.  And I was trying a new technique that suggested taking the base coat a shade darker to make the effect really pop.

I did all that and it just didn't work.  The colors were completely wrong against the bright skin.  I should know better than to pick colors when I'm in an unhappy mood.

A friend gave me links to his painted figure.  His has the plating the same color as the skin.  Only the shell, underneath the shell and the plates under the tail are a different color.  That looked much better.  So I pulled out the skin colors and painted over all the stuff I did.  And yes, it looks much better.  I still need to highlight it and I'll probably pull the highlights one shade higher than on the rest of the models just so he pops more.

I also prepped 2 more minis that I need for this demo army.  I'll be pulling out the epoxy tomorrow and these guys need to have their arms attached.  Since I'll have epoxy mixed I'll use it wisely.

Oh - I put the base coat on some new arena pieces.

I'm doing all this in preparation for doing Warlord demos at Oshcon next month.  With the new rules and datacards I need to make sure my armies balance.  I did get new models for new armies so I really need to get painting.  I need 4 demo armies that balance.  I need to check my Crusaders to make sure those are the same and then work up 2 more.  I don't think they'll take as long as these since they're not nearly as complicated.

I'm making the assumption that you are.

In a nutshell, I have too many hobbies.  I went on a complete sewing binge and that kept me from the paint table.  Heck, I even used the chair there as storage.  I'm a bad, bad painter.

But now that's over and I'm back to painting.  I'm finally making progress on the Reptus demo army.  Or as I like to call them 'leezards' after the Taco Bell commercial.

Grunts 03

Grunts 04

I tried for an enameled look to the armor and I'd say that I pretty much succeeded.

Today would have been my parent's 47th wedding anniversary.  I say 'would have' because my mom died 4 years ago.  No, not on their anniversary which would have really been unpleasant.  It was 3 months later.

I called my dad just to let him know I was thinking about him.  I didn't bring up the event, the significance of the day, or anything else but he knew why I called.

Mr. Rastl made the mistake of asking how I felt about him leaving it on the calendar.  Funny thing is that I have it on my personal calendar and I was fine.  His asking made me atypically weepy.  It didn't help that I've been corresponding with someone and Christmas came up.  That was her favorite holiday.  So the two rather combined with predictably results.

The thing that really brought it home was a small, well-taped box my grandmother gave me many years ago.  It contains a relatively inexpensive sugar and creamer set.  The only significance to it is that it was on the table for my great-grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary and has the '50th Anniversary' on it in gilt.  She gave that to me so we could use it for my parent's anniversary.  That's packed well away and I don't know exactly what I'll do with it.

Granny couldn't use it because she never made a 50th anniversary.  She knew she wouldn't due to having lost 2 husbands so she gave it to me because my parents were going the distance.

Happy anniversary mom and dad.  43 years is damn good even if it should have been a lot more in a more fair world.

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.