Laurelin's Tower

For a long while now I've wanted to get some Hirst Arts molds so I could build some castles.  Some, of course, would be for gaming, but I also thought it would be great to use as craft projects to do with my daughter.

So for our first project I decided to do a simple round tower using the 4" Circular Tower Mold #52.  In the end I ended up doing most of the work, but she contributed significantly in every step of the process, and had a lot of fun doing it.  There will be more castle projects in our future!

Raven Guard Captain

Here is my latest creation, a Raven Guard Captain.  Arguably he could also serve as a decent Chapter Master for the Raven Guard, and I'm thinking I might field him that way.

Brazen Claws: Completed!

It took me far, far too long to paint them, but here they are.  It is with a sense of accomplishment and no small amount of relief that I present them:  the Brazen Claws 2nd Company, a detachment of support units and the Chapter Master his retinue.  I think it is fitting that this is also my 300th post to Arcadia Prime.

Inspired by Art (2)

A while back (yipe, almost two years ago!) I made a post called Inspired by Art, where I showed a bunch of pictures of models that I had converted that was inspired by 40k artwork.

A Matter of Scale... (Part 2)

In the last post I talked a little bit about scale of 40k miniatures, and I used the calculated scale (1/57) to scratchbuild a rudimentary M1 Abrams tank.  But how does this hold up to the scale of the miniatures themselves?

A Matter of Scale...(Part 1)

Warhammer 40,000 miniatures are described as "28mm scale". That translates into roughly 1/56 or 1/57 scale, depending on how you do the math. We all know that this is a joke--the miniatures themselves are not "true-scale".

Plans for 2012

With two kids now and a wife who works most weekends, I find I have less and less time to paint, and almost no time to game.  The lack of battle reports up on my site is testament to that.

But even so, I have ambitions for the year to come, and many painting/modelling projects running in parallel. Some of them are doable within 2012, while others are ongoing projects that will likely span years.  Making plans like this will hopefully keep me focused, and prevent me from going off the deep end and buying randomly.

So here are my plans for 2012.  I hesitate to call them goals, since I know that many of these will remain works in progress.

Warhammer 40,000

• Brazen Claws.  I'm really close to finishing these guys now.  This one is going to happen.  Once I finally finish these guys, I'll be able to move forward and work on other things, like...
• Blood Angels.  This is still in the planning stages, but my ambition is to field the Blood Angels 8th Company.  I figure that since the Blood Angels are the "assault" chapter, I might as well go all out and field 100+ jump packed marines.  So far I've only a tiny fraction of that number, and only six of them are painted.  So this one will take a while.
• Raven Guard.  This force I intend to keep pretty small, and I'll mainly be building it in parallel with the Blood Angels.  Every time I get an Assault Squad, the Raven Guard will get any and all Mark 6 equipment, and the rest goes to the Blood Angels.  My intention is to make a small strike force consisting of a few assault squads and a few tactical squads in drop pods.
• Imperial Guard.  For a while I've been itching to get back into my Imperial Guard.  I've been listening for rumors about plastic stormtroopers, but so far that's all they seem to be--rumors.  So until those come out, I'll have to wait.  But that doesn't mean I have nothing to work on--I have many ideas for scratchbuilt vehicles and a bunch of tanks that still need to be painted.
• Orks.  My Ork army will be built around my Ork Land Battleship, which has been spending the past several months hiding in a closet.  I haven't forgotten about it, and I have plans for it, but other priorities have taken center stage.  I hope to get back to it soon.  I have a bunch of orks who will be needed to man this behemoth, and once the Brazen Claws are done I plan to work on some of them.
• Tau.  These guys are all planned out, and when the Tau get a new codex this year, I'm sure I'm going to want to add to my army.  But for now I still have plenty of miniatures to paint--they're just stuck behind all the other projects above.

At this point I need to stay away from starting any new armies.  I had some plans a long time ago for an Eldar Army and a Word Bearers army.  But those are going to have to wait.

Warhammer Fantasy
I have two armies in Fantasy that I'm interested in right now, Vampire Counts and Wood Elves.  Both armies are still in the very early stages with only a few miniatures painted. (one Wood Elf Hero, and a unit of Skeleton Warriors)  I'm sure that these will progress very slowly, mainly as I just paint a few miniatures here and there for variety's sake.

The Lord of the Rings
I still have a ton of these miniatures hanging around, and I'll get to them someday.  I don't have any major plans for them right now, so if I do anything, it might just be a few miniatures here and there to help stave off boredom.  When The Hobbit movie comes out at the end of the year, I'm sure I may want to buy some more stuff...so maybe this will wait until 2013.

Dreadfleet
Yeah, I have it.  Will I paint it?  Someday.  I'm sure this will go the way of Space Hulk, which took me two years to paint after I bought it.

Flames of War
*Gasp* A non-GW game!  This has been piquing my interest for a while now, and I might cave at some point during the year.  But not just yet.  I want the Plastic Soldiers Company to keep adding to their range!  In the meantime I'm trying to resist picking up the rulebook.  I want to check it out, but I know that if I do, I won't be able to stop myself from getting some miniatures!

Balrog: Part 4

Primed. I'm considering painting the flames using the technique I've never tried before. This worries me a little bit, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Balrog: Part 3

Did the assembly and some gap filling.

Balrog: Part 2

Finished the assembly of the miniatures themselves, next step is to fill in all the joins with green stuff. Did some looking for a base to mount them on, and wasn't all that happy with what was available. I'll be looking for something more suitable at the hobby store later this week if I can make it down there.

Balrog: Part 1

I had originally posted this on my defunct fantasy blog.  Since I'm getting back into finishing this project, I figured I'd post my updates here instead, but that means a repost or two until I catch up to where I left off...

I received my first miniatures commission recently. Well, sort of. It's more a favor for a friend, who promised to do it for another friend, but doesn't have the time (she has a good excuse--she's leaving for the Peace Corps soon). Lest you think I'm doing this solely out of the kindness of my heart, since my friend will be out of country for a few years, she kindly sent me all of her paints, plus some stray miniatures that she's had in storage.

The End is Nigh...

For a long while now I've been working my Brazen Claw army--specifically, the Brazen Claw 2nd Company. It's been a long road filled with distractions due to other projects, as well as burnout painting so much red and blue quartered paint schemes.

Recently I've been trying to inject some self-discipline into myself and not buy any new miniatures for a while. Then I saw my Brazen Claws sitting on the shelf. The company is almost done, mainly just the above miniatures left to go. Painting the whole company seemed like almost an insurmountable task in the beginning. But now, I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Finishing the company before I buy any more miniatures seems to be a reachable goal. Also, as it's going to take me a while (at least a few weeks) to find the time to finish these guys anyway, it'll also help my wallet a bit too.

Ork Land Battleship, Part 16

I'll tell you one thing.  Riveting isn't.

Port-forward track

Starboard-forward track

Port-aft track

Starboard-aft track

These pictures just shows the exteriors of the tracks--I had to do a bunch of riveting on the lower parts of the interiors of the tracks.  I estimate there is something like 1,300 individual rivets on these pieces.  The work isn't hard, it's just very tedious.  In the end I think it's worth it, as the rivets add a lot to the model and make it look ten times better than if all the rivets were not there.

Ork Land Battleship, Part 15

Ok, an Ork Battleship needs gunz. Lots of 'em. So here we go.  Six supa-gatlers. 

These guns are mounted underneath the bow of the battleship, facing forward.  You don't want to be facing them.

Next step I'm working on the forward assault ramp, and lots of riveting.  More to come.

Ork Land Battleship, Part 14

Just a quick update as I got some more structure done. Soon I need to start working on detailing, which is going to take forever...  Here's a (admittedly bad) picture of part of the superstructure, with some detailing on the after part:

The reason being is that I'm mounting another section on top of it--it will be visibile through the trusswork, so I need to put in detailing now.

Adding on the bridge section and another deck leads us to here:

And finally the top of the bridge:

Next post will have some detail work, as I've begun that now.

Ork Land Battleship, Part 13

When I first posted this as a "mystery project", it seemed to generate some interest in figuring out what it might be.  Responding to that, I attempted to do what I could to provide little hints, but without revealing the whole project.  Well, I'm sick of that now--I might as well just start posting progress.

So this post is a sequence of pictures as I assemble the various parts of the Land Battleship from the bottom up.

All of the pieces I'm adding will remain removable in the final product, so I can add detail in each stage, and the various Ork krew will be able to fit inside.

Starting to get big...  I still have some superstructure left to go, mostly in the after section.  Once all that's in place, I'll start detailing everything up!

Ork Land Battleship, Part 12

This will be a relatively small update, showing some of the parts of the superstructure I'm making. Lots of these pieces are material intensive, so I'm finding that I've been using up my stocks of plasticard at an alarming rate.

With the lack of large materials, I suppose I could start on the detail work, but I really want to finish the main structure first, then start on the details from the bottom up.  Here's some pictures of some of my progress:

This is part of the superstructure that will contain a turret and aft of it, a control room.

Same thing, but with the turret ring in place.

An after section, which will go on top of the above section.

And finally, the bridge section.  More to come soon.

Ork Land Battleship, Part 11

"It's not big enuff."
"Wot?"

"I can't fit all da boyz in da front part."
"Da bow."
"Da bow?"
"Da front part."
"Whaddeva.  It's not big enuff."
"I already extended it once for you."
"You wot?"
"Made it bigga."
"Well make it bigga again, ya git."
"All right."

"Gotta give it some supports, like."

"See, 'dere you go.  It's bigga."
"What's wit da...hole thing?"

"Da wot?"
"Da two parts don't touch.  You cocked it up, ya git!"
"Yeah, well, my foreman messed up with his measuring tape with the first hull extension, and one side was too long."
"Wot about da foreman?"
"I killed him."
"Good."

 "See?  All fixed."

Ork Land Battleship (formerly Mystery Project), Part 10

This weekend I will heading off to the land of James T. Kirk's birth visiting family, so I'll be away for a little while.  But I figured I would post some pictures before I left.

The commenters have guessed it...it's an Ork Battleship.  Sort of...  More like an Ork Land Battleship.

You know that when something requires trusswork that it's going to be big. 

Here's a picture of one of the engine room control panels.

And a picture of the engine room--still a work very much in progress.

And finally, here's an early picture of a cargo bay.

"What, it doesn't look big to me..." (no, I didn't photoshop this picture)

Mystery Project 1, Part 9

Well, I finally broke, and am posting something that's going to give away lots of information.

And finally, this last shot gives a clue as to what army this might belong to: