Pay the piper...

In spite of the witty title, there are no pipers on the painting desk. There is however a few revaluations. The first one is said without any real venom, it's just a statement of fact. As far as Games Workshop goes, I'm done.

They just don't have a product that appeals to me anymore. All the stuff I've got, all it's going to do is sit in cases and gently gather dust. Time to let it go and sell it on, put the money into stuff that I'm actually interested in now.

First off is going to be my imperial guard, I never even finished building them. The rest will follow shortly after.

So where is my focus now then? Well obviously Malifaux is my priority, I have The Ortegas based and under coated and ready to get done.







I also have Ten Thunders, the Railway Crew, to be painted, Lady J's crew to be built and painted. Sonia's crew is to be built and the same. Who knows, if my internet is out long enough, maybe I will get them all done.

Progress reports will hopefully follow :D


Marc

Time on my hands...

 Recently I've been having a nightmare in regards to my internet. Major FUBAR between the ISP and the phone company and all that fun stuff. My computer has essentially been reduced to a very large, very expensive MP3 player.   

However, it did get me thinking (shush Bear) I've often considered the question of where did I find the time when I was younger to paint a whole army. Admittedly it wasn't painted very well, but it was painted.   

Well, the answer came to me today. It's all the internets fault, when I was younger we didn't have internet at first and when we did, we had the raw power of a 36k (or whatever it was) modem. Feel the speed.   

Not.  

  Anyone that remembers dial up knows you could start the process and then go do something else for half an hour.   As a result, having faster and faster internet over time and access to more and more diversions online ( Twitter I'm looking at you) I've found it very easy to ignore stuff just to play silly buggers online.  

  As a result and as I am apparently going to be lacking internet until at least the 21st of May I will be getting lots of hobby done.   I have already started this by getting the green stuffed bases made and my Ortegas pinned onto them.  

  Pictures will be forth coming. Honest.   

  Anyway, that's all for now, I'm signing off.   

This is killing my phones data. :P  Marc 

And now our service is interrupted further...

Thanks to an EPIC Charlie Foxtrot with my ISP and the phone lines, I have no internet access other than through m phone for the next 3 to 4 weeks. 

Funtimes. Fun times. 

Bet you thought...

I'd forgotten about the blog again. No such luck I'm afraid. I've had a death in the family so updates will be erratic for a while. 

Thanks for your patience, 

Marc. 

Salute Highlight Gallery (Warning - Picture heavy!)

In no particular order,  these are just some shots from the show that took my fancy.

On a side note, photographing through perspex is tricky. Would also have helped if I hadn't tried to take every shot with my macro lens.

You can have it in any colour you like, as long as it's brown...

Hello!

I thought today I'd do a quick run down of another Salute purchase I made.

Now, let me be honest here. I've tried a great many miniature cases over the years from many different manufactureres. 3/4 generation of cases from Games Workshop, (Anyone remember the single clam shell version?)  cases from the now defunct battlepack people (Charon Industries, crying shame) aluminium flight cases, Figures in Comfort cases, KR Cases, and I'm sure there's a few that I've forgotten that I can't remember who makes the damn things any more.

This is about the Malifaux branded case from Battlefoam. 

Tools, trees and trash..

Hello again!

Contrary to popular belief, I'm not blogging just to wind up @DocBungle I know it's hard to believe, but it's true.

So I'm sitting here wondering, what on earth should I blog about today, there's bound to be something.

Well, Games Workshop has got a new tool set out, limited Edition (Ooooooh....shiny)  and at the risk of being classed a naysayer, I'm not terribly impressed.

For £90 I think you can buy better quality, that will last you a lot longer. As an example of that, I've had a pair of Xuron micro shears that I've been using regularly for getting towards 15 years that are still as good a tool now as they were then, with just a little care.

Price wise, you can buy a pair of these for the same or less than you would for a pair of Games Workshop clippers.  I'll let you make your own decision on that. 

And now a little update on The Dreaded Trees!

As you can see.. hopefully... they are starting to come along. I've made several changes, I've striped all the wire for starters, sometimes I use 8 strands, sometimes I use 6 or 7. I think Trees usually only bifurcate  but hey, they are twisted mutant trees. Just go with it.

And this is just a photo of my workbench in it's current state. (Which is messy but hey, that's the way I work at times.)

Anyway, catch you later!

Meanwhile, in the wild west....

Hello again!

5 days running? Must be the end of the world.

Those of you that know me, or have listened to the podcast that I do with @DocBungle, @KevinBryant76 and @TheBlueHeretic  on twitter, might be aware of the fact that I am a total Maliwhore ™.

To this effect I have decided to try and build an old west board to play on, because my first choice of crew has and likely always will be, the Latigo Posse as lead by Perdita Ortega.

Back To Basics... Again...

o.k, o.k, I know I used that pun yesterday, but bear with me.
Today I'm talking about the Basus Basing System from Wargamesbakery.co.uk and available for sale from zinge.co.uk.

Lets go back to basics..

Or maybe that should be back2base-ix.

So who are they for starters? Well, they are an Australian company that makes paint racks and work top organisers and the like out of laser cut MDF and laser cut acrylic.

It's really quite nice. This is going to be the first of 4 reviews for their products that I own. To day I'm going to be talking about their R.A.F stand.

R.A.F in this case stands for Rank And File (Clever, eh?)

When it's built, it should look, something like this.

Each of those stands has a magnet at top and bottom and is magnetically attached to the base itself. So if you are one of those mad magnetisers (you know who you are) then this kit is a little bit of a wet dream for you.

O.k, This was the last of their kits that I built, so I'd say I'm fairly experienced with their style by now. This is by and far the fiddliest kit I've built by them. The frame everything stands on is easy peasy, but it took me several false starts on the stands.  Be careful, think it through, watch the videos. 

Advice- Lay the kit out first, and pair the magnets up. Also, when you're tightening the screws, to tighten them too much where the magnets are or you run the risk of cracking them. Like I did.

Here's a really neat thing about it. Once assembled (correctly) you can do this with it.

I gave it a good shake and none of them dropped off, so I can definitely recommend the thinking that went into that.

So I suppose, if you're using all plastic models, once attached to the bases and everything is properly magnetised, you could turn them outside down and nothing will fall off. (Although way you would want to do that, is beyond me.

So all in all:-
Ease of build - 6/10
Practicality 9/10

Overall rating A solid 8/10. I would definitely recommend this to die hard painters that like things orderly.

TREES! AKA- The Way Of The Bear

So after much taunting of @DocBungle on Twitter for the mess he made of his house with model  trees and the grief he got for it from Mrs Bear (Alex to her friends, Mrs Bear to you lot :P) I've decided to have a go.

As I was Wickes earlier buying some of that elusive pink foam  (Space Board Eco being it's real name, apparently) I decided to pick up what I thought I needed.

Proof that it does exist outside of the wilds of Nottingham!

Anyway, I grabbed the wire, some spray adhesive (Protip- Use outdoors, make sure anything you value is covered up) steel wool and some cork tiles, because, hey why not.

I had a go, my first attempt (before painting, because it's well established that I don't know one end of a paintbrush from the other) looks...well... put it this way, I should finally be able to get those really tough tea stains out from my mug.

Yeah, it's not exactly genius. I finally found this tutorial, which just showed me how off base I was, for starters, I need different wire entirely. Oh well, that's next on the shopping list!

I haven't forgotten the promised reviews, they are coming! Hell, it's not like I've got any followers left anyway, lol.

Marc

Holy Shit...

Has it really been 3 ish years since I bothered to update this?
Wow, that's just...lame. :D

Anyway, here's an update.

Salute 2014 has just been and gone. It was awesome, no Bring And Buy this year though. No idea why.

We're getting ready to record episode 15 of the Flock And Awe podcast tomorrow, can't believe it myself. How we're still going is anybodies guess.

Since my last blog I have turned into a real maliwhore ™  especially with the new plastics, which are awesome. If you haven't seen them already head on over to just about any LGS or just google Malifaux or M2E.

My desk has undergone yet moor evolutions, as it is want to do over time. I've replaced a lot of the hardware that held my paints, changing back to paintiers for the most part. As is the norm, that's not to say that things will stay that way, but... it will do for now.

O.k. So more news on the podcast.  You can check us out here   flockandawepodcast.wordpress.com or go looking for us on itunes.  We've got some great guests lined up for the coming months,  it's going to be a blast, so please tune in and enjoy.

Also, there will be some reviews coming. I don't get a lot of painting done, but I do like to buy shinies, so expect reviews to become a common thing :D

That's all for now folks!

Marc