Unprepared, as always

Somehow I forgot both the cable and the adapter card to take pictures from my camera to the computer.  I may have to prevail on a friend or two to move them from my camera to my thumb drive so I can post them in something resembling real time.

I've taken some pictures and hope to take more as the convention continues.  I've been lax the last couple of years but I have excuses, as some of you know.  If you don't know, then just consider me a slacker.

Events and commentary so far:

Wednesday afternoon - Rastl's Hot Tub Party was a great success.  More than double the number of attendees.  We had a good time and I think the guys' nads have once again returned from being drawn up into the warm safety of not being in cold water.  Outdoor pools are not heated in Texas and they're a bit of a shock after the hot tub.

A group run to the package store for booze.  Lobotomy Boch, Devil Dog and much Shiner made their way back to the hotel.  Preparation is key.  We love having a package store in the parking lot of the hotel.  Just makes things so much more convenient.

Wednesday evening - Reaper Meet and Greet.  A very informal way for Reaper to put on a spread of food and for folks to start the socializing.  Since July is Reaper's 18th birthday and none of us are around then they celebrated early with cakes.  I don't have pictures but I'll get some from other people.  Each cake had the logo from a different product line.  quite tasty.

Wednesday night - And so it begins.  ShinerCon (which doesn't really exist, is an urban legend, etc) was once again hosted in my room ~sigh~ but it was nice seeing everyone again and having some fun.  We even kept the noise down because there wasn't one complaint from the hotel or the other con folks staying on either side of us.

Thursday morning - Reaper decided to put on a pancake breakfast.  Freshly made pancakes, sausage, bacon and fruit.  It was wonderful.  I even paced myself and didn't eat too much.  Some rather blurry memories of talking to lots of people and finding out if my army survived being dropped from 4 feet right in front of me while being carried to the car back in CO and how it survived the trip.  A bit of wear but nothing broken.  Many people wanted to see it.

The tournament organizer has been trying to get awards for "best painted army" used in the tournaments because we put in a similar number of hours as the competition painters but just paint more of them.  I don't see that going anywhere this year but maybe next year.  Right now my personal goal is to get the last figures painted and the basing done.

I participated in a few dungeon crawls, 2 of them to make up enough players.  I'm trying new strategies in each game just to make things fun for me.  First it was a standard crawl of picking up loot.  Second was trying to get loot and get to the central room where the good loot was.  If you didn't get munched on by the dragon.  I was very, very lucky in that one and got the maximum value for treasure.  Then I got munched.

Tomorrow I think I'm going to see about taking on the other parties and stealing their loot.  I like trying new things.

I have a game tomorrow morning and the rest of the afternoon to paint minis,  My friend Kris brought a lamp with him (thank you Kris!) and some grass tufts that will make finishing the bases sooooo much easier.    After my game is a lunch break then I think I'll sit in on Kris' army painting class.  I helped proof his class handouts and I'm very interested in what the class has to say.  I neglected to print out my own copy of the handout but will get one so I can take notes for making it better next year.  If he cares what I have to say.

I can't get the pictures off my camera just yet but will see if someone can move them to a thumb drive so I can put them online.  Nothing too interesting but let's see if we can change that tomorrow. :D

OK - off to bed for far too little sleep.  As I've said in the past, if we don't look like death on toast by Saturday morning we're not doing it right.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

More mini progress!

I keep getting distracted by phone calls so it takes me a little longer to get the minis done but I also get the fun of talking to my friends.  Go figure.  Of course I could use my Bluetooth earpiece and try to do both but I hate fixing the mistakes that happen when I attempt to multitask.

I've got Saturday to try to finish painting the last minis and paint the bases.  At least try to paint the bases.  I can always do the basing while I'm in Texas but it would be nice to actually have a mostly finished army for once.

I'm hoping time permits me to put up the light tent and take pictures of what's done.  Well, mostly done since the bases aren't painted.

Once again the newly finished stuff is in green.

Here's the total list of what's being done and what has been done:

Troop 1
Larnach the Grey
Lysette
Caerwynn
Royal Guardsman x 4
Death Seeker x 2
Vale Long Thorn x 2

Troop 2
Chiral, Centaur
Centaur Warrior x 3
Hunting Cat x 2
Faery x 2

Troop 3
Silvermaine, Unicorn

Troop 4
Mossbeard the Treeman

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

6 more minis painted

No pictures - I hope to set up my light tent this weekend and get pictures of what's been done.  The bases aren't painted yet but I might take some time to do that since it's pretty relaxing end-of-the-night work.

Here's the total list of what's being done and what has been done:

Troop 1
Larnach the Grey
Lysette
Caerwynn
Royal Guardsman x 4
Death Seeker x 2
Vale Long Thorn x 2

Troop 2
Chiral, Centaur
Centaur Warrior x 3
Hunting Cat x 2
Faery x 2

Troop 3
Silvermaine, Unicorn

Troop 4
Mossbeard the Treeman

The ones crossed in green are the latest ones done.  The unicorn and the treeman have base coats on them so they're "in progress".  Next up are the centaurs since they're kind of grunts as well so they don't need as much attention.

Two of the centaurs have their torsos done and one has the horse body started.  I'm trying to get away from the 'brown with black socks' that seems to be a standard horse color.  Of course it takes longer to paint but looks SO cool.

If I push myself I should have 2 of the 3 centaur warriors done before Saturday and the third one started at least.  Saturday is the monthly paint day so I'll bring a solo figure (one of the ones from Troop 1) and see about getting that done during the paint day.  Maybe 2 of them since I might even finish the first one.  Gotta love army painting.

Oh, and for the record.  Spraying varnish on fairies feels like spraying them with bug spray.  Icky.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Some work in progress shots

The colors are tinted yellow even after correction so they're not quite as vivid as in person.  The blue is really a nice blue-green that I love.  I'll have true color pictures when they're painted.

I'm making this army for the ReaperCon Warlord tournament.  I know, I know.  I've been painting dwarves like a fiend but didn't want to field them this year.  And then there's the troop of battle nuns.  But those are for later.  This year, elves take the field.

WIP Elf 01

WIP Elf 02

WIP Elf 03

Obviously the armor isn't nearly done yet.  The plan is to pick out some details with a thinned metallic blue and then wash all the silver with green liner.  That should get me the blue-green to match the dominant color in the minis. I'm a big fan of color washing my silvers.

I got myself all confused by trying to work blues and greens into the colors to go along with that blue-green I like so much.  For the record, it's the Ocean Triad by Reaper.  I love using it as a skin tone too.  But I digress.

A friend of mine helped me talk colors and that's why almost everything else is a neutral.  The leather is a red-brown but not heavily so.  Mr. Color Wheel says it's the compliment of my blue-green and I think it looks pretty darn good.

I did spend a good chunk of tonight fixing and cleaning up the work I did here with inadequate lighting.  My paint table lamps has been packed away, along with the chair I've used for over 20 years at my work tables.  Excavating in the small bedroom resolved both of those issues.  The lamps are yellow shifted but I don't use them for picking colors so it's all good.

I also got most of the rest of the army based and primed in the last couple of days.  The last pieces are on order so I'll be painting like a fiend for the next few weeks.  I need this to keep myself occupied.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Teaser!

I get to be a tease once in a while.  OK.  I get to tease as much as I want.

Tomorrow I'm going to be playing at least one demo game of Warlord with the game group here.  I'll have my "normal" demo armies but have also put together a couple of slightly larger, more complex armies.  These guys are experienced gamers so after getting the basic rules out of the way I think we can move on to the more fun stuff.

On a related note I plan on testing a 500 point Dwarf army, since I need one to kick some orc butt.  Yes Spike, I'm smack-talking your precious green overgrown goblins.

I'm going to try to take pictures for battle reports but it all depends on how the games go.  Battle reports are fun.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Just what the heck do I have?

I did pack up all my minis for the move but now I need to sort out the armies so I know what to acquire at ReaperCon.  This is not as easy as it seems.  Luckily most of them are still in their blisters so sorting is relatively (hah!) easy.  Please note the number of boxes below.

Boxes o Minis

The storage container at the very top is one of three that I have, filled with minis both in packaging and not.  In one of the three is an assembled and primed elf army.  This isn't even considering all the painted dwarves I have.

If you count along with me you'll see 7 boxes on the floor.  Add dwarves for 8.  And there's a mini-faction that isn't represented here for 9.  So far.  I might find another faction lurking in a storage container before this is over.

Once I have them sorted out I'm taking a page from a friend's book and making a "list" of what I have.  You'll notice the quotes around the word list there.  I actually made an Access database with the Reaper product list so I can do some reporting on these armies.  I'd really not like to have to look at a box and ask myself "now what's in here again?".  Again.

These are all armies for the Reaper Warlord game and they put out new rules, new data cards and there's a new command structure.  I know I'm light on command figures.  The question is just how much.

I'll report back as to what my findings are.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Little tiny metal men

The game club got me into historicals by offering me a free brigade (aka - the "Bag o' Crack") so I had something in hand.  Yeah.  I bought the Lasalle rulebook already and found out I need to get a LOT more minis to make up my army.  ~sigh~  Like I didn't see that coming.

Luckily these guys have painted a lot of 15mm minis so they're more than willing to provide reference material and help.  It's a bit funny to see half a dozen people sitting around a large table, each of them with 50 to 200 figures being painted at the same time.  That's a lot of little tiny metal men.

French WIP 01

French WIP 02

They're glued to the jumbo craft sticks, which are about tongue depressor size.  That might give you an idea of scale.

They're based mostly in 8 models per infantry base and then differing numbers depending on what else they are.  I don't have any artillery yet.  Those get even more interesting since you have one set that are limbered (hooked up to the horses and can move) and unlimbered (shooting at things).  It doesn't seem to end.

Tomorrow my goal is to get the coats done on everyone, including the facings.  Those are going to be red.  The rest of the uniforms are white.  Tell me, who puts armies in the field wearing mostly white??  Oh yeah, Napoleon.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend