General WIP Update-Actual Painting!

Inspiration and motivation have been slow to come to me lately and 2020 was a disaster.  2021 hasn't been much better but I did finally manage to get a project finished with a Stargrave crew from Reaper's Chronoscope line.  In an effort to speed things up and try to keep some inspiration flowing I've taken a cue from Jean-Baptiste Garidel over at Leadplague and tried a different direction with my painting.  JBG uses a muted palette with a couple of key pieces of vibrant color over an apex spray of dark then light.  I thought I would give his style a try and to be honest I'm pleased with the results.  This is my first attempt and I don't feel like I'm even close to mastering the technique, especially selecting the color and spotting of that color.

With that said I really like the first attempt and the better news is that it seems to be a bit quicker for me!  I have a few more started and will post when done.  Thank you JBG for the inspiration!

I also managed to wrap up the truck for Car Wars/Dark Future/Gaslands.  Started looking like this:

and now looks like this.

These are magnetized turrets that go on top, I embedded the magnets on the inside of the trailer in two spots.  They can also be used on a small box van.  They are made from round bases and a variety of Iron Wind mech weapons.  They always have a booth at the Origins convention with boxes of loose lead at ridiculous prices.  I had always intended to do Car Wars 3up someday and Gaslands just pushed that work to the front of the queue. 

 

Here are some WIP on a wasteland/apocalyptic truck.  Still figuring out the wheels and how they attach.  Not sure I have it worked out yet but getting closer.

As well as getting some work done on the "Off with the old/On with the new" troll project. A quick before reminder, here it is stripped down.  I'll do a proper before and after once I have it wrapped up.

And now a few updated pictures.

These pictures don't quite do it justice since I'm not much of a photographer.  These are older pics, here are a couple of more recent ones with a new phone.

 

I will need to wrap up the base and maybe a bit more detail to work out then I'll call it done.  Next up for the Off with The Old project, FTS!

The Great Painting Bust of 2018! A year in Review.

It appears that 2018 will go down as one of my weakest blogging and painting efforts in awhile.  I had these great ambitions for 2018: getting 52 blog posts in, working my way through the pile of lead sitting in my hobby space, actually gaming some, participating in Orctoer (which them became Gobvember) and Deadcember.  The list goes on, it turns out that my efforts were a bust.  I could come up with a dozen or so excuses like "the dog at all my paint" or "the bosses at work are so mean I just didn't have any time to paint" but lets be real, I was just lazy.  Or more positively spun, I just wasn't as motivated as I should or could have been.

Here is the misses.  I managed a whopping 12 posts for all of 2018, none since August.  Didn't come close to Orctober and totally missed Deadcember.  Honestly a post a week probably isn't realistic,  so I set myself up for failure.

While I lament away about what I didn't do lets change the focus to what I did accomplish.  First up was fighting off my adult ADD and focusing on collecting a full set of figures.  In this case my Champions of Khorne project.  Just getting the set purchased without blowing my entire hobby budget was an accomplishment.  The first group, the hateful 8 are close enough for me to consider them done.

A few minor details to clean up and finish.  White stuff on bases is sparkling compound to hide the slota base tab.  As with most of my projects I'll complete the bases once the rest of the crew is painted.  Here is the next group.

While I missed being able to complete a unit for Orctober I did manage to get a unit of Diego's Knightmare Games feral goblins based up, mounted on caps for the Hobby Holder painting rig and a few base coats on.  Speaking of the Hobby Holder, Kit currently has a second Kickstarter campaign going with a little less than a week left.  I would highly recommend it!

I also kicked off some Gaslands/Dark Future/Car Wars projects that I was able to wrap up.  To be honest these were lots of fun and actually pretty quick and easy to knock out.  I do need to get them a couple of coats of matte finish to protect their paint jobs.

And last but not least, 2018 did see one of my biggest hobby collecting journeys come to an end.  I finally completed my 40 year quest to collect the fist run of White Dwarf magazine.  That wonderful little magazine was one of the contributing factors that enticed me into the hobby and keep me engaged with it even though I wasn't always able to fully participate in it.  It certainly changed over the years but it was still a good read most of the time.

Goals for 2019: simple GET BUSY! I just need to make the commitment to getting more done.  I'll shoot for more regular posts, more like one every couple of weeks.  Painting wise I'll be trying to get more paint on lead with a quick goal of getting the green lads painted up by end of January. 

That is it for 2018, lets hope 2019 bears more hobby fruit!

Yeah, baby yeah! Mojo is back

Title says it all, my paint mojo has found its way back!  And all it took was a couple of new acquisitions.  First group came in a package the other day.

Hmm, wonder what this could be?  Something from across the pond?

It is always fun when you get a package in the mail, it actually happens more often now a days than when I was a kid with the advent of Amazon and online shopping.  But I still get a charge even though I knew this one was coming.  Tim from Diehard sent out the heads up email a week or so ago.  I have to say that Tim and Diehard do a great job with their Kickstarter campaigns.

I went light with this one, I was feeling guilty at the time about all my unpainted lead so I kept the order small.  I added some SF robots and undead.  I definitely feel a SF wave of painting coming on with this group and some remaining space frogs I picked up from an earlier Diehard Kickstarter. 

The more important pick up was this little foursome.

I was in a funk and decided to grab some new paints from a local hobby shop.  I have to be honest I loved Citadel paints back in the day but lately I felt that they were a bit over priced.  That and I've had a heck of a time following the new developments in their paint system.

Well that came to an end when the local hobby shop owner suggested that I try the GWS paint app.  What a great suggestion!  It quickly educated me on what I needed to buy.  I haven't used the full base/layer/shade/dry/edge system that Citadel is currently marketing but I really liked my first experience.

With a couple of pots of new paint I had to break out a brush and put down some paint.  I painted up some brass on several of the figures and used the new dry brush paint to do hit some edges and high spots.  Picture isn't that great so more detailed one in a future post when they are further along.  Lets hope this train keeps on rolling.

In between bursts of painting I also did some work on the War Rig for Gaslands/Car Wars/Dark Future adding a few bits and pieces as well as a front plow.  I just need to pick up some diamond tread plate and corrugated plastic card next weekend to wrap it up.  It is getting closer to being ready for paint.

Looking for inspiration! Collecting and Building.

So I seem to have fallen off the blogging map, life seems to get in the way of my hobby effort occasionally.  We took a vacation in late April and that combined with a busy couple of months at work seem to have sent my painting mojo askew.  I don't seem to be able to get it back on track quite yet so I focused on some other aspects of the hobby; collecting and building.

While we were in Texas visiting my oldest I made my obligatory run at the used book stores in the area, predominately Half Price Books which started in the Dallas area.  I was not disappointed!

I managed to find 2 White Dwarf back issued I'm missing!  I'm down to just 3 issues left on the original monthly run from 1-407.  If anyone has US issues 373, 374, or 377 to sell or trade please let me know!  I'd then be able to put this obsessive quest of mine to bed!  I was also able to replace my missing Baen Books version of The Hobbit that I was bemoaning about having misplaced in an earlier post.

I also picked up a copy of Gaslands off Amazon which inspired me to do some more Hotwheels modifications!  First up is a Wasteland dune buggy that gets a little spikey treatment.

Not much modification here other than the ram addition.  I did toss a spare wheel in the back since I covered the one in the hood up with the ram modifications.  Next up is the start of the war rig!  This looks like the start of a fun ride!

This is the twin to my cheap Walmart semi-rig cut up for a Wasteland look.  The engine and frame are from a Hot Wheels Hauler line firetruck.

I had to cut the engine away from the pump unit and reverse the exhaust to better line up with the direction of the blowers on the twin engines.

The wheels are from some McDonald's happy meal monster trucks while the card stock modifications are actually old credit card/gift cards that I have stumbled across unpacking items.  As I started to toss them I realized that they would make great plastic card stock to use in making these conversions.  I do need to pick up some plastic diamond tread and corrugated sheets and some structural members the next time I'm close to a railroad hobby shop.  This is still in the very early stages so far.  More progress pictures to come.

"Pig Pen, this here's the Rubber Duck and I'm about to put the hammer down." More Car Wars/Dark Future/Gaslands WIP

Yes you knew I was going to eventually quote something from Convoy!   I contemplated   painting the tractor blue but decided to go a different route and try green.

Here is a early WIP shot of the tractor.  Weapons will be blacked and then metaled up. The turrets for the top of the trailer and for the top of the box truck are right below
 

Here is a later one with a bit more detail work on the cab, by no means finished.  I have some clean up to do, the ink wanted to wander outside of the panel lines for some reason.

This is a shot of the trailer and magnitized weapon turrets.

Lastly, the box truck which I decided on grey as the main color.  Not sure if I will use a secomdary.  It can use the above turrets as well.  It has a single weappons spot while the semi trailer has two.

While I had the green out I decided to block out some color on the Chaos Warrior project as well.  Thats it for now.

I’m seeing double! More Car Wars/Dark Future/Gaslands cars

I wanted to do something a little different for the second round of cars. As I rummaged through my (or better put my sons’) piles of Hotwheels I realized that it had several duplicates.  Then it struck me,  I’ve been wanting to do some wasteland cars and opportunity presented me with a great idea!  I pulled out several of the doubles so I could do an interceptor/wasteland version of each.  One lesson learned from the first project, unless it is an open top vehicle I’m not going to waste time on the interiors!  Here are some of the twins!

This set includes one from the original set of cars I did last year and a copy to do the wasteland conversion.  I need to buy some structural HO scale plastic beams and such for more ram conversions.

These are a couple of Dodge Chargers.  I elected to go with at black primer coat on this set of mins and quickly found out that for the wasteland conversion it is perfect but for the interceptor/good paint jobs it was too dark in my opinion.  At least with light colors, this one actually started off with a yellow paint job that simply wasn't happening. Then a grey that I wasn't happy with either.  I think the green turned out pretty good.  nor just a bit more weathering.

I like the looks of this vehicle with the double twin engines and the low rider look.  For the interceptor version I elected not to prime it and instead went with just weathering the factory paint job.  I did pull the engine insert and paint it.  I enjoyed doing the armor plates and making the rivets on the wasteland version of this one and others.  there is still some work to do on all of them.  I need to do windshields for a few of the wastelanders.  And the weapons could use a ink wash and then another highlight or two.  Overall I'm happy with the results.