Supply Drop!

A small package from Kromlech arrived today. Happy-happy! Joy-joy! Four sprues of "Sturmgewehrs", a bunch of legs (you always need more ork legs!), steel helmet heads and some of their awesome fatty ork-torsos.

I don't know what it is with polish bits-makers. But there sure is an abundance of German world war 2 inspired ork stuff coming from Poland. I like it. They look both hard as nails and hilarious! 

The plan is to use these as Flashgitz with their awesome cover-ignoring guns. 

Hopefully I get these built (there are some gaps and stuff when they connect to GW-stuff) and painted before GW decides to come out with Flashgitz.

OMG! It's a remake of Evil Dead!

And it looks aaaaawesooooome! Actually a movie I'd pay to see in theaters. Hopefully this one will age a little more gracefully than the original. Not that the original is bad, it's more of like Buffy the Vampire Slayer-good if you catch my drift.

PSA: Maelstrom rumour confirmation

The rumour that Maelstrom was in massive debt can now hopefully be confirmed. On the Wyrd forum Graham posted;

Maelstrom won't be getting any more Malifaux from us as he's been cut off due to his massive debt, which has now been sold via a debt purchase company who will be pursuing the debt and legal action. 

MG is running his final sales (several of them) and there is nothing much left. No further stock will be sent from us. 

All fate Decks, Retro Decks, rulebooks etc are all in stock here and you'll find them at any other stockist in the UK who have ordered them in. Try Firestorm, Wargames Workshop, Waugh Games, Arcane, Wayland Games, Waylands Forge, Spirit Games, Total Wargamer, Worthy Wargaming, Titan Games or any of the dozens of others who have plenty of Malifaux on the shelves. 

We have re-stocks coming in every other week and pretty much running straight out the door to all the stockists, so we're just ordering even more

This is further compunded by Taban Miniatures also cutting their ties with Maelstrom. So, if you have outstanding orders with Maelstrom, try calling them. When they don't answer, contact Paypal and/or your bank and request a chargeback.

WIP: Space Marine Chaplain

I've been working on and off on the chaplain for a week now. The base was shown earlier I think. Now it's gotten some paint (marble tiles are a b*tch) and I'm partly done with the chaplain itself. 

Still needs some cleanup and coats of matte/satin varnish here and there. Then some weathering. Trying to keep him clean, not because it's warranted, just because I'm so tired of painting dirty orks. I want to paint shiny stuff every now and then!

Tried out some techniques in oil paint taken from the old book "Building and Painting Scale Figures" by Sheperd Paine. Oils can be really forgiving in terms of blending. Don't be fooled by their long open time though. Oils are open longer, but when working in this small scale it sure aint open as long as they are on canvas.

Not completely sure on the pose. I wanted him a bit more forward leaning, so it looks like he has jumped down and are on his way up again. But I don't want him to look like he has tripped and are falling down. So I guess I'll just sleep on it. =)

Forgeworlds take on a diorama…

… is of course nothing but spectacular! Check out this video of their display table at Games Day UK.


Ah-mah-zing!

Base-mania and an Ork Warboss…

When serendipity strikes, you go with the flow! I saw this pretty nice tutorial by Miniature Mentor yesterday, and today when I woke up I had this urge to do some bases. So after getting home I got into it. Two of them are just repetitions of what was in the tutorial, the third with the lamp post is destined for my Snikrot, whenever I get him done. My workplace looks like a mess. :)

Basemania

I got around to take a photo of the finished Ork Warboss I painted earlier (here & here). Nothing special. I got to try out some new techniques and I guess I'm rather pleased with him.

Looking like a chess piece with that plinth

I guess I will have to kitbash myself a proper warboss some time in the future. After I have gone through my backlog of ork stuff that needs to be painted. So next year perhaps... -.-

+++

In other news, the Maelstrom Games saga continues. Check out the thread on Dakka for updates. Still nothing really new. Mostly speculation. Hopefully it'll come to an end – good or bad – pretty soon. My money is on them going bust. :/

Maelstrom & Ponzi, sitting in a tree...

So... the latest "We have everything on sale" came from Malestrom Games. This time with some sort of explanation. Let's read that and then discuss...

Here at Maelstrom Games we have decided to clear as much of our hard-earned stock as we possibly can over the next few days - and therefore generate some much-needed cashflow - in order to ensure we can fulfil the orders that you, our valued customers, have placed over the last few weeks. To that end, we have decided - in consultation with our trading partners - to sell our remaining stock of [list of manufacturers]. All other ranges' stock will now be sold at 40% off UK RRP - we hold good stocks of Gamezone Miniatures, Dark Age, Cool Mini or Not and Scibor Miniatures, and there's a fair bit of Privateer Press and Malifaux left too. As well as that, from this moment onwards we have decided to stop any customer from placing orders for items that are not in stock, simply so that we can clear the orders that have already been placed. 

We have not made this decision lightly, and please note that we have absolutely no issues with any of the above manufacturers or suppliers; we are simply trying to sell off stock in order to clear older orders and ease any worries our customers may have regarding the speculation that is currently rife on the internet. As well as that, we believe that our retailing model must now change to selling products that are in stock at the time of purchase, and as such that will continue to be in place in the future, once our orders are cleared and our stock is sold. 

I would ask all of our customers to remain as patient as they can with Maelstrom Games and, indeed, our staff, for we will use the money generated by the sale of our stock to ensure all of your orders are fulfilled in their entirety as quickly as possible. We remain committed to servicing our customers first and foremost and will continue to do so in the future. 

Now... this I guess is all good unless you have an interest in economics and can see a Ponzi-scheme for what it is. As I read it it says: "We have no money so we cannot fulfill orders placed earlier. Please spend more so we can fulfill orders already placed" And then? 40% discount doesn't really give much profit in order to re-stock your [new] warehouse?

So, what happened Maelstrom? I can only guess. This newest information sounds a lot like the "speculation" that Maelstrom had lost their credit from distributors were true. So in order to fulfill orders placed a couple of weeks ago they actually have to buy it instead of request it on credit from their distributor. Clearly not an indication of a healthy and thriving business.

Couple that with Paypal not being a payment option anymore(!) and my advice is to abandon ship before it sails away with your money. -.-

I really hope all this is a giant misunderstanding. I really really do.

Finished Dakkajet! In 720° vision!

If Games Workshop can do spinning product images, so can I! It's a bit of a hassle, but the effect is kinda nice. :) Click the image to pop-up a PX40K copyrighted 720° view of the Dakka-Jet!

The inspiration for the colour-scheme came from the venerable Stuka. This particular camo with yellow wingtips was used on the eastern front I believe. But only on the undersides, and that would detract from the effect on the tabletop.

I tried to follow the "official" RLM colour codes with the Vallejo Air Colors I had. The only snag was the yellow which had to be airbrushed light and building up from a darkened Yellow Ochre up to the lemon yellow. It took some time, but in the end it turned out really well. Super vibrant. I like! :)

The "splinter" camouflage was done with some simple masking. I put down some Tamiya masking tape on my cutting mat and then cut some angular shapes that I placed over the grey basecoat and then sprayed it green. :)

Some basic weathering and post-shading with oils, add some pigments to that and voila! A Dakka-Jet!

Check out the work in progress posts via this link.

Introduction to Airbrushing with Ken Schlotfeld

This is an awesome video produced by Wargames Consortium that covers almost everything you need to know about airbrushes and compressors if you are just starting out or are looking into buying a setup to start airbrushing your minis.

It's a long watch, but well worth it. 

If you get yourself a Harder & Steenbeck (popular here in the Europe apparently) you cannot backflush it the same way as with Iwata & Badger. Instead, unscrew the nozzle protector a little and it will backflush. 

PSA: Maelstrom Games going bust?

It seems like Maelstrom Games is going under. The thread on Dakka has been going on for quite some time now without any representing MG chiming in. A lot of people have been posting there to tell about orders taking forever to ship, or in many cases, so long that they have requested a refund.


Rumours say that they have a huge debt and are moving stock & current assets to other companies in order to be able to fold the company in debt. Which means that if you order from Maelstrom Games (if this all turns out to be true) your money will be in limbo.

Of course, forums are what they are, and I can understand if you as a business really don't care about all that's written on them. But if you look at their website there sure isn't much in stock. It's actually hard finding anything that's in stock at the moment. Further reinforcing the rumour that they're out of money. Even though they supposedly are moving warehouses and such (and has been for a while now...) it seems like a -really-bad- business decision to let 90% of your website show items as "Out of Stock".

I suggest you subscribe to the forum thread to watch for further development. Hopefully this is just a rumour that's gotten a bit inflated. Hopefully. 

WIP "One Last Dance?"

When watching the Miniature Mentor video with Jennifer Haley she mentioned that one of her favorite sculptors was Werner Klocke. Not knowing who he was I checked him out and found that he is the creator of the game Freebooters Fate and a bunch of wonderful miniatures for Reaper. So I got myself some. :)

This girl has been sitting primed and ready in my cabinet for a year now. So I guess it was about time to get her some life.

Very WIP, NMM is still wonky. Had a totally different idea about the light source when I started painting.

I plan to mount her on a pretty simple base with a ballroom floor or something. The idea of Death asking for the last dance makes me smile. :)

If you have any other ideas, please let me know. The ballroom floor base feels kinda like a cop-out in some ways, but I'm stuck at that idea at the moment.

Wayland Games, new site

A day late, but anyways, Wayland Games has a new site. Or rather a new design on their existing framework. Finally you can find stuff on there without having to do searches that either turn up 1000 results or nothing.

From the thread on Dakka Dakka it's said that there will be a new stock level system incorporated as well. Supposedly more live than this one (there is of course always a delay no matter how "live" your stock tracking is, perhaps something for a later post) and said to be implemented on Monday.

... standing by!

After much hassle with the postal office my copy of Star Wars: X-Wing finally arrived! I can't wait for the weekend to come around so I can play it. All day, all night.