Favorite Min

I think that I have posted pics of this min previously but it is one of my absolute favorites. It is a Chaos warrior from the now defunct Marauder Miniatures line.  To my knowledge only available in the US as part of a sample pack that included a Chaos dwarf with two hammers, MMS3 was the package code if I'm not mistaken. 

    

He has come up on eBay every once in a while and I have always regretted not picking up another one.  As you can see from the above pictures I'm up to four now with the latest acquisition below! 

And for those of you who are disheartened about eBay you can still find the good deal occasionally, this guy was only $10 including shipping!  A reasonable price in my opinion so I picked it up and now I have some motivation to get back into painting.  Here he is bare and mounted up on the new painting holders.  As you can tell from the above paint schemes I'm a fan of Khorne.  I think I will stick with some basic colors of red, black, bone, and bronze as a tribute to his his previous paint-outs while trying some new techniques.  I'm interested to see the results and compare them to his predecessors.

Stalled

Stalled

Yes pun fully intended!  My Car Wars/Dark future project has become somewhat stalled as of late.  Got the cars weaponized and to the primer stage and then I realized that I most of my paints are dried up.  So over the Holiday's I thought that I had this project jump started with the help of my wonderful wife.  She bought me a slew of brushes for Christmas.  Reality of time management was that I was very slow in purchasing some cheap craft paints.  I have paints, brushes, and a new paint station so no excuses I'm off to play Earl Scheib!

Stripping!

Not what you think although I did find some inappropriate pics to go along with the title.  I instead have elected to stay on the true topic which is stripping off old paint.   As I posted previously I've decided to get back into the Rogue Trader mins by diving into the old Space Elves/Eldar range.  It was very easy to pick up a ton of the old dreadnaught/war walker/wraithlords most of them had very poor paint jobs so the task at hand was figuring out how to strip off the old paint.  After some quick research I found a few options.  First up was the purple power juice or Castrol Super Clean.   

Turns out that I couldn't find the Castrol Super Clean.  Not sure if it isn't produced anymore of just not carried in my area.   Next up was Dettol.  

 

Well strike number two it appears that this is really a British product either only available in England or again not in my area.   Next up was Simple Green. 

Well it appears that the 3rd time is a charm.  I have to be honest I had my doubts about this since it is a biodegradable degreaser but It was my only option outside of a solvent based stripper.  Much to my amazement it worked very efficiently!  I went with a 50/50mix and in most cases it stripped off the paint in one soak.  I decided to set up two soaking vats one for the first heavy duty stripping and a second one for a separate soaking to get into the nooks and crannies.

Above is the conglomeration of dreadnought bits I've recently purchased with the painting pealing off.  to the right is what i thought was a spray can enamel but it peeled right off after a few days in the Simple Green. 

Troll

A few days ago Kaleb Hordes posted an issue of Black Sun from GW Mail Order of the 80's, I unfortunately could never really afford to order from the UK.  As a wee lad I never had the money and once I reached young adulthood and was able to they had opened the US Headquarters so I never had to worry about it.  I have to be honest I really miss those old "bitz" days when you could order anything out of the catalogues.  I think I actually spent more on bitz then I did full mins!  Well Kaleb mentioned the old Troll insert that US WD subscribers received for a while so I thought I would post the first one!  Here you go.

Pay dirt at the used book store!

Well another great day at the used book store!  First up Brian Craig's Plague Demon.  This is the second book in the Orfeo Trilogy so my set is complete and I can finally catch up with Orlygg and possibly prompt a book club/review on the 3rd book Storm Warriors!  Also found a copy of the Felix and Gotrex Shamanslayer which should complete my collection. I might have to binge read these over a holiday or vacation.

I also had a big day in the Horus Heresy range picking up the latest 6 books in the series.  A couple of them were in the large format paperback but I'll replace them somewhere down the line.  Lastly Graham McNeill's Gods of Mars in hardback at less than half the price of the paperback, ahh what a day!

 

Eureka Iterum

Another epiphany struck me as I scrolled through G+ looking over posts and pictures of various miniatures I noticed one post that really caught my eye.  I cannot event remember what the min was but as I was looking it over for more detail and inspiration and I noticed what the artist had it mounted on to use as a handle.  I was dumbfounded by the genius of it.  Now I have to be honest I've always been a "just hold it by the base" painter in the past but I've started to warm to the idea of mounting a miniature on handle of some type.  I've seen lots of people using cork but I have yet to find a wine bottle cork that was large enough to be stable when you mount a miniature on the top.  I thought about wood dowels but just hadn't gotten far enough to buy anything yet.  And then I saw this post and they were using an old pill bottle as the handle.  What a great idea!  I have access to these which would normally be a discarded item in my house and has now become a reusable product.  Again the best part is that they are free!  I guess I can claim that I'm a sustainable hobbyist now!  I grabbed a couple and broke out the hot glue gun and the magic started happening.  Here is what I have so far, still a little top heavy so I put a handful of pennies in and then topped them off with some hot glue.  I'm going to give them a try and see how it goes.

Eureka

As I prepared to get back into the hobby I wanted to have as much flexibility as possible in how I get the painting accomplished.  I started to recall my most productive painting years and remembered a time when I had a small 2 foot by 2 foot plastic table that I used to haul into the living/family room and paint on as my wife and I watched TV or just visited.  This was for just basic painting, any heavy work or conversion stuff was done on the proper hobby desk.  Once my sons were born the painting table wasn’t practical.  In the ensuing 20+ years since that time the table is long gone.

To be honest I am a cheapskate and don’t want to lay out the amount of money that GWS wants for their lap tables.   Seems like a lot for so little.  I do like the design but not for the price.

Then an epiphany struck me, literally as a couple of pieces of heavy foam board fell over and landed against my leg as I was mucking about in the hobby room.  Why not try to make one out of this stuff; with stuff being 1/2 inch foam board.  It is easy to work with and yet pretty durable, and even better didn’t cost me a cent since it was discarded signage!  So off I went and behold the partially completed results.  More to come!

Wow! Reality is a harsh mistress!

Well I have come to the hard realization that I don’t have as much time to paint as I had originally anticipated nearly a year ago. That along with some plain old procrastination has lead me to being 9 months off the paint schedule that I had originally intended to follow and contributed to a poor effort in posting.  I even told myself as a New Year's resolution that I would post something at least once a week, well you can see how that turned out!  I think I have a handle on work so that should be some relief and I have accomplished a few other items that will help me get moving with a jump back into the hobby.  So fingers crossed you should see more activity here and not just my babbling but some actual painting to boot!  Enjoy.