Games Workshop needs to fire their "designers"

From the latest worthless "teaser" they love to put out these days. First it was the cover of Blood Reaver and now it's Rebirth.

Stuff like letter spacing and adjusting kerning (the letter spacing) is covered in the first class of practical typography. I guess that's why it irks me so much. Making newbie mistakes like this is like waving the "I don't know jack"-flag around. Not only did they use a crappy version of Jenson, but also violated all fundamental rules of typography. Shows how they really care about making a perfect product. -.-

Thats enough of beard rage for today. Gotta paint some necrons...

A crowded paint station...

They said they came in peace. Bringing gifts and stuff. At least that's what I think they said. "010011010110000101110100001000000101011101100001011100100110010000100000011001010110000101110100011100110010000001100010011000010110001001101001011001010111001100100001" is kinda hard to understand.

Which reminds me of a cool short story Stephen King wrote about a dudes army men coming alive. It was my favorite when I was a young teen discovering the joy of horror.

The Warriors are painted pretty standard. Black primer, VMA Dark Metal, Gun & Steel in a progressive zenithal style. Guns are getting more or less black and right now I'm debating wether to do them with red rods/glow or the standard green. Green is more 60s sci-fi, but red is more Terminator/80's LED... Both are themes I love so I have a hard time deciding. Perhaps I should have thought this out before starting to paint them. But meh. Planning is for mortals.

Adventures in Oil: Einstein WIP #2

Found some time inbetween x-mas stuff (for me, assembling Necrons) to paint some more on Einstein. I think I'm done with the basic skin color. At least it feels like this is a good base for adding some discoloration like pinkish lips and some blue to the eye-sockets.

One fun thing about oils is that they kinda behave different from acrylics. Below is a shot of the colors I used for shade and highlight and they are way different than how they acted on the figure. I guess the blue (Winsor Blue (Green)) and yellow (Chrome Yellow Hue) are way stronger than the Yellow Ochre I mix them with. So when blending it turns more green than brown-green.

Start color is #3 but then I realized I wanted more contrast so I upped the highlights a little since the shadow would turn out more or less 100% black if I went down that route.

Anyways. I have to assemble a ton of necrons. See you on the other side of X-mas!

Merry x-mas'es

The best thing about christmas is that noone looks funny at you when you walk around town with bags filled to the brim with stuff. I still feel a bit shameful though... but I guess that has to do with me letting the waagh down for a synthesized "waaargble?!"

The best thing is that you can buy all the gifts for yourself... Merry X-mas & happy new year. :D

It's the Dork Angels -.-

Seroiusly Games Workshop? Please fire the designers you hired when Mattel downsized. I get the "looking like a castle in the sky" idea. But the execution is so bad I want to poke my eyes out.

But then again, I'm glad they look like crap since it gives me no incentive to invest in other models/armies and will happily paint my orks and space austrians.

More pics over at Dakkadakka Millest Mediocre Meanderings

Adventures in oil / Einstein WIP

I don't know what to say. Painting with oil feels like painting with that paint you got at kindergarten and then proceeded to eat and/or use your entire body to paint with. Finger paint?

It's a lot of put paint on & blend. More paint & blend. Blend the blending and then blend some more.

I think I like it though... Picture is after the first round of highlight & shadow.

Quick review, Gobleon by Ammon

Since I buy a lot of stuff so the shelves in my cupboard don't feel lonely I thought that perhaps it would be nice to do some short reviews of what I get before it gets put away in wait for that year when I have 110% free time to paint.

So without further ado...


GOBLEON by AMMON MINIATURES

This is perhaps one of the funniest goblin miniatures out there. The mini really captures what I think of a goblin/gretchin (if you're a 40K fan). In short, it screams delusions of grandeur with a little touch of Don Quixote and a big scoop of naïveté.

The packaging is without any grandeur at all. To be expected of a small sculpter/caster. The parts are packed in a zip-lock within a larger zip-lock with a printout of the painted mini.

The parts themself are crisp and clean. There are some flash to remove, and of course you have to remove some of them from the sprues. But there are no Forgeworld style gates to remove or any gates attached to parts that will likely break unless you try to cut the resin with soothing words and nothing else. 

Dryfitting all the parts showed that there were no significant gaps and everything will probably go together without much filling. There were no dead areas – commonly found on GW/Citadel miniatures – on the mini so there will be no time spent figuring out what is what. Just pure joy of painting!

So if you're itching for a small project to build & paint. I'd say this is the one. It's a perfect weekend project. No big building diagrams (or lack of them) and a mini that's made to be painted.

I bought mine from Figone, Jeremie is a pleasure to deal with. Although with a tight schedule so don't expect one day turnaround on your order. It's worth the wait considering that you're supporting an indie manufacturer / sculptor.

Happy painting! 

Taking the plunge!

Ever since I've started building and painting military scale models I've had a growing love affair with using oil paint. Creating smooth transitions between colour is made way easier due to the long open time. "This must be really useful on miniatures?!" I thought, but didn't really think much of it. Especially since I really didn't know at what end to start painting with oil colours.

Then I got my hands on "Building and Painting Scale Figures". An old book that really only talks about painting miniatures with oil paints. What selection of colors to use, how you plan and perhaps everything you will ever need to know about the fundamentals of painting a miniature.

It's a little dated. From the style of writing I think it came out just before the acrylic explosion (that's a colorful expression!). Acrylics are way handier to paint with most of the time. But if you're starting up, or is an old beard like me, it's worth a read. If not just to brush up on your skills.

Anyhow. I bought a bunch of oil colours (boy are they expensive or what?) specifically limiting my palette so I would learn how to mix colours properly. I'm usually one of those that buys the Mega Paint Set from Games Workshop in order to never have to mix paints. Or that's the idea, I still find myself mixing paints so why not do it right from the start? :)

The unfortunate victim is Einstein. The amazing ork bust sculpted by Allan Carrasco. The orks I grew up with were the ones drawn by Paul Bonner, and Einstein really captures that style. A little more human and a little less comical relief. You can really see the cunning plan he's hatching in the eyes.

So... expect a messy update on my adventures in oil in a couple of days! And if you haven't heard from me I'm probably just trying to get paint out of my hair or off the cats...

Dicerings!!!

This Kickstarter thing... I'm waiting for the backlash when some high profile goes bust. But until then I'm happily parting with my money for cool stuff I didn't know I could live without. This time it's the DiceRings.

Not only will my OCD be less severe, I can also make that critical charge-roll WHEREVER I WANT! On the bus? Need to declare a Waaagh! and charge? No worries! Having a shower when low morale strikes? On the left hand you have a 2r6... roll away! Lost combat with girlfriend? Need to see if she sweeps you? Since you are a good boyfriend you've bought her a r6 as well... Just roll and see if she destroys you or not. (Be a gentleman, let her sweep you and admit defeat!)

So, you see, this is a Kickstarter you need to take part in.

SM Open - Day 2

So... the defeats are finally over. I ended up losing both my games on day two and are now officially the worst 40K player (of the SM Open). I don't fret though. I learned a lot during these two days, and my opponents were real great winners and made me have a good time while I removed buckets of orks from the table.

One of the top moments in my 40K "career" was the game against the Imperial Guard at game three the first day. We both had no intentions to win, lots of laughs was had and it was an -extremely- close game.

LESSONS LEARNED

Lootas need defense lines. The amount of fire they attracted was at some times hilarious. 

Battlewagons have extremely huge sides so that AV14 in the front dont matter that much.

Deffrollas... not that awesome but still awesome.

Feel no pain cybork body ork nobs are... silly fun! :D

And enough with that, onto the pictures!

What I had left on the table at game 1, turn 3... 

"OK men! Re-roll your re-rolls and let's finish this!"

Close game that ended up 12-8 to the Chaos Daemons

Some non-beardy-dude from the south!

Day 1, game 2 vs. Ultra-Vulcan-Marines (and some IG)

It's like the Vendetta is made to get a sharks mouth. It sure eats my troops like a great white.

Soundly beaten by this awesome eybrow bro-dude!

Day 1, game 3. Imperial Guard gunline. 

"Don't give up on me now son!"

The green tide!

The red tide!

First tourney in 20 years and this is what I get! CHEESE! :D

Getting ready to penetrate the rectal armour of my orks!

Jesper, winner of the SM Open!

Rikard, the official swedish champion of 40K!

SM Open - Day 1

Completely unrelated picture apart from Orcs and Die.

So I got lured into playing in the open section of the Swedish Championship, a two day event in Stockholm... The first day was a blast. Really a blast (eheheh-heheh). Even though I got seriously creamed. :D

I brought a simple list consisting of three battlewagons, nobs, two 20 man mobs of ork boyz and some assorted odds and ends. What might have been a mighty force in 5th (lol I dunno) is a mess in 6th. At least when you end up against Grey Knights and other assorted stuff and you DO NOT have an Aegis Defense line to hide behind. My lootas has gotten so shot up today it's not even funny. Or well, it is/was funny in a dark humour kind of way.

Anyhow, three games got played today. The first against Grey Knights ended up with me getting tabled in turn 4. Second game against Space Marines with Imperial Guard allies ended up with me getting tabled in turn 5. Third game, against a pure Imperial Guard force ended up with a really really close game with me losing by just one single point.

But it could have been worse, I could have played Chaos Demons. Apparently they kick serious butt now. At least according to the assorted cries I've heard from the tables where people played against them... :)

I may suck, but I had a ton of fun. Pictures and more details tomorrow if I'm not too exhausted! :)