Man cave upgrade

My gosh 2 posts in as many days!!!

Today i was forced to go spend stupid amounts of cash at the dentist. This (as you can imagine) left me feeling a little blue..



 To counter this I decided i was going to do something to cheer myself up so I decided it was high time I improved my man cave. Considering its my fortress of solitude from the wife and kids and also where me and the lads play games I figured it was well worth any money spent in improvements. After having a few minutes think i realised all I really need to improve was my painting area. Being a professional miniature painter you would think i have a great set-up but the truth is I do 90% of my painting at Battlefront HQ so i haven't really needed anything special. The picture below shows what my painting area looked like this morning. I think you have to admit its pretty small and cramped. (And almost never that tidy!!!)

I had a desk on the other side of my garage that i kept my gaming rig on and had been thinking for a while that the space could be much better used if i moved it around did some tidying up and put a large sheet of wood on top of the smaller desk to give me more space and allow for both the computer and a nice large area for painting or paperwork (making army lists ect). Several hours later and much cursing and swearing assembling a set of cupboards (my miniature collection had to be placed somewhere!) :)  
This is the end result. The old painting area will now be (Once it's all cleaned up) my Airbrushing area.

The complete set up:

An improvement i think.  Now maybe i can get a bit more painting done at home now i have a much better painting area.  Now all i need is a paint storage solution.

Free Painting Time

It appears that i have a bit of free painting time coming up so im opening up for some contract work again.  Anyone interested in getting some FOW or other items painted feel free to contact me.

Totally bummed out

I was hoping to have a post of some nice new finished Heavy Gears but alas fate has been cruel - my lovely dog Max has a stupidly big powerful tail and in a fit of dog inspired madness decided it would be fun to jump up and spin around knocking afore mentioned Heavy Gear models onto the floor. (Insert extremely sad face here).

Ive started to reassemble the pieces so as long as nothing is missing or too badly chipped the pics might happen by the weekend.

For something a little different ive decided to do a poll in the left hand corner of this blog. id love to know what everones favorite tabletop wargame is at the moment. Ive listed what i consider the most popular few but ive put in an option for those who like something else. Feel free to comment on this and let me know what you play and why its your favorite.  if this proves popular enough (ie someone bothers to try it) then i might make polls a regular thing on the blog.

People are Awesome!

 

Was feeling a tad down this morning and i came across an older Utube video which after watching it made me feel all inspired to do stuff today. You may have already seen it but if you haven't watch it through to the end and tell me if you don't feel slightly inspired by how awesome humans are.

Comments Gremlins

Ive been made aware that some people are having issues posting on my blog. Till i resolve the issue Ive removed the password verification so in theory there wont be any issues - lets hope im not spammed to buggery.

Please post a comment or two so i can see this has solved the problem for the moment.

Battletech 3 way

Rob, Chris and myself are playing a 3 way battletech game. Here are a couple of in game shots.

Small yay moment for me…

 

Today the first FOW Box Set that has my painting work on the box cover go’s on sale in retail stores. http://www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=53&art_id=2424

It’s nothing super special but its a nice moment for me as this is what I've been wanting to do and working towards for years. Over the next 6 months a fair amount of box sets will be coming out with painting work done by me (this is why my blog has been very quiet as of late as I've been painting like a mad man morning, noon and night!).

As always I'm keen to here your thoughts on how i painted the Jagdpanther platoon.

Hope you guys like them.

EW Panzers

Hi Everyone

Been a busy first couple of weeks in the new job but im loving it. Making terrain and writing articles beats customer service any day :)

My Early war army is finally finished - Yay!! (Well actually its just the first 1500 points but its a good start. Im looking forward to trying this out at Rallypoint in Hamilton in November.  A couple of games in and ive already noticed a few things the army is lacking. (Pics of the upgrades will follow in due course.)

I painted this army up for work - the first article can be seen here:  http://www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=53&art_id=2146

 

Command HQ of 2 Panzer 38(t) with 18T Recovery vehicle.

 

Panzer 2 c (early) platoon.

Panzer 38(t) Platoon 1 and 2.

8 Rads. 

 The full 1500 Army.

Im Very happy with how this force has turned out, (considering it was painted over the last couple of week during my lunch breaks) Check out the Flames of War web site for lots of close up pictures.

Let me know what you think.

War Pig

 

I've started work on my Farrow force. As soon as i learnt that the Farrow were being expanded by a Warcaster and a couple of warbeasts i knew i had to collect an army of these piggies!

I’ve decided that every model will have a sculpted base – it seams to be a common theme on the forums and i figured what the hell ill give it a go to. :)

Here’s where I'm at so far:

   

Here’s a couple of close ups of the green stuff work on the base:

Next to come will be a modified Lord Carver.

Change is in the Air!!

Well ive been pretty quiet over the last week and this is mainly due to a massive work load brought about by taking on too many contracts at once - silly me, (you think after all these years id learn!)

Anyways ive also just got a new job - Yay :)  After working in sales and customer service for Battlefront Miniatures for the last 6 odd years i finally have managed to get myself a job as part of the studio team and will be taking on the Hobby Support Manager role.  This basically means ill be making all the scenery that will be used in photo shoots for books and web material - exciting stuff, i finally get to be creative.

I have a pile of Warmachine and Hordes Projects on the go at the moment as well - hopefully this weekend i will get a chance to take a few photos.

Header/banner third and final attempt

mmm after having another think about effects the banner needs ive decided that the trolls skin needs to be lightened up somewhat. I was a little worried about trying this but its actually alot like painting layers onto a miniature.  I also decided that the troll needed a bit of color for his eye and needed to have some rocky lumps added to his arm.

Im happy with the Banner now and will leave it like this.  Now to think about how to do the blog background!

Header/banner Second attempt

After going out for a couple of hours i thought about changes i should make to my banner.  The first thing that needed to be changed was the colour of the troll. He had to be Blue!
After that i looked at some of the smaller details and made lots of little adjustments here and there – way too many for me to remember or list. 

So here is the banner take 2. Let me know which one you prefer?

A new Trollblood blog

Hey everyone

Ive been mucking around with Photoshop trying to learn how to make a Banner/Header for a blog. I figured the best way to learn is have something to push you to learn so i decided to start up a Fan Blog for Hordes and in Particular Trollbloods.  

Here's what ive come up with for the Header/banner for the blog:

Its pretty rough, but this morning i had no idea how to make a header/banner at all so im rather happy with it for the moment.  Ill come up with more ideas im sure but for now i like how it looks.  The idea for the name is inspired from a sig on the PP forums created i believe by PG_Warsmith. (im im wrong please correct me so i can credit the right person.) Its excellent and very fitting and has become a bit of a funny dig/joke amongst our hordes gaming group as i have been making an ridiculous amount of tough rolls! 

Love to know what you guys think? - go easy (remember its my first attempt!)

Pre order Warhammer 8th edition items!!

 

The Wonderful world of Warhammer is about to explode with all the cool new bits and pieces that Games Workshop is about to release next month!

 

Below is a few pictures of some of the new pre-order items – go check them out at the GW Website.

View Full Album

 

All photos used without Games Workshops permission – but i think they will be ok with a little bit of free advertising!

Redesign of my blog

Hi Guys

You may notice some changes to my blog - ok the whole thing looks different.  Basically i got tired of the basic design of my blog and wanted to do something a bit flashier that everyone might find a bit easier to navigate and more interesting to look at.  It will probably be a bit of a mess for a few days while i figure out how to get everything working and modify my logo ect..  Id like to know what you guys think even though its not finished.

Over to the right of the blog ive added a basic poll so vote yes or no depending if you like the look of the blog or not.

New Family Member

This is the newest member of the family - his name is Ozzy and he's a 15 week old Australian Terrier.

He's a total terror and its taken a week for me to take this pic as he almost never stops moving.  He's pretty smart and im hoping he with be a great companion for my wife for many many years.

Isn't he Cute!!! :)

YAY!!!!

My New camera has arrived.  For anyone who's interested ill do a review of it once i figure out how to use it properly. :)

Hopefully i can get the first pics up of some of my Carthaginians and some more of my Flames of War work.

yay!

Got my new camera ordered today - none in stock typically so i have to wait a few more days :(

Still on the plus side that means i have more time to get some more miniatures finished so i can post up more pics.

New Camera

After talking to one of my friends ive decided that i need to upgrade my HPM407 4.1 MP Photosmart digital camera to something a little bit more high tech!

This is what im looking at:

This is the Fujifilm Finepix S1600. Its got a monster list of features:

•12 megapixels

•15x optical zoom

•3.0" lcd screen

•hd720p video capture

•hd1080i still capture

•ccd shift image stabilisation

•target focus

•smile and blink detection

•image search

•image auto rotate
 
Weither or not i will need have these features im not sure but it should take some excellent shots of miniatures!!  If anyone out there reads this and wants to recommend a good camera - leave a comment. :)