maandag 30 september 2013

Night(s) of the Living Lead

So, there I was, cheerfully minding my own business, gearing myself up to do some =I=Munda stuff again (see the Priest in the previous post)... The great Purge of the Garage is also progressing steadily, I am gathering the nerve, and time, plus sorting room to straighten out my cubic yard (at least) of materials and miniatures I've gathered for the Space Hulk 3D project.
Then this post comes along on the Lead Adventure forum.
I couldn't resist... I mean, come on, we're talking zombies here!

I think this is rather timely, some way. I found the last two weeks I couldn't get myself started or keep going on hobby stuff (besides reading the new Space Marine Codex).
I was wondering why, and this dare made it clear to me; the last few things I've been doing were for projects with a big picture, something I felt I needed to "get right" (WHQ for the misses, Howling Griffons army, =I=Munda, which I more or less think of as doing "art", plus prepping to take on Space Hulk 3D again. All long term projects too...). 
I guess I just need to do some one-offs. Just do stuff, without the weight and distractions of a greater project hanging over them. Stuff I can dive into, enjoy the "doing" of it, without considering if it will fit and match with any other stuff or needing to race to the finished product because there is so much more in the project, and once done, put it in the cabinet and not need to think about until the next game I need it for. Cleanse the palate as it were.

I think I'll have go have a root around in the box marked "zombies and survivors" tomorrow... :-)

woensdag 18 september 2013

The Deacon Reclaimant

Well, the new miniatures cabinet has been filled up. I had hoped to have some extra room for future expansions. But once I added all the miniatures I had roaming the house because they didn't fit in the previous cabinet any more, the new cabinet was full. True, I arranged my mini's for display now, and left a little bit of room for expansion here and there, so I should be able to compact some set ups once new stuff is added.

Speaking of adding new stuff, here's a wee man I worked on today:
He will be part (the nominal leader) of an Ecclessiarchy warband. What I still need to do on him: Greenstuff the various seams from the mini's assembly. Sculpt the stylised sunburst around the skull on his Big Man Hat, so that the combination of skull, filigree and starburst resembles the Ecclesiastical "I". Oh, and he'll need a base too I guess....
He will be unarmed, and utterly useless stat-wise (I'm thinking juve stats in =I=Munda, generally old-man level stats in Inq28, but with hig Sag and Will.) Everything about him just screams self-righteous, pompous and overbearing, but utterly useless in combat. A nice liability for the more combat-oriented members of his retinue to protect. :-)

Background-wise the good Deacon will be a member of the Order of Blessed Reclamation. They're a variation of the Imperial Creed that is focussed on finding, and reclaiming, the various Relics that have been lost or misappropriated over the long Millennia of the Ministorum's existence. Some members are Indiana Jones type figures, specialised in retrieving relics from former (or active!) battlefields, alien-occupied territories and the wild space between and beyond the reach of the Imperium. The good Deacon is not one of them. He specialises in reclaiming Relics from other Imperial organisations or noble families through diplomacy. His favourite tactics is to use his skill at oratory and wide judicial knowledge to bore his target into submission... You see, the Relic in question belongs to the Church, it always has and always will, simply by dint of it's nature and existence, he just has to make the current caretaker see that truth. Usually by talking and talking and talking and.....
In the end, most "caretakers" will eventually gladly give up the prize, if only to shut the Deacon up!

zondag 15 september 2013

A new home for my miniatures, pt.2

Phew.... Just finished giving the display cabinet a thorough clean. Boy, did it need it!
Storage hadn't been kind to it, grimewise, and apparently a previous owner had it in a room in which his or her pet birds were allowed to fly free.
I had to chisel some amount of, erm, "birdstrike" off the top. Luckily it hadn't eaten into the wood, so I got rid of it in time.

Degreased the windows, got them nice and shiny and transparent again.
Here she is, airing out the smell of cleaning agents:
Looking at how well it cleaned up, and the price it cost me, I'm currently as happy as a bivalve mollusc!
Tonight or tomorrow I'll take my time to transfer my mini's over (maybe give them a little clean as well, they've gone somewhat dusty in the old cabinet...).
But for now, I'm going to take a moment, and enjoy the shininess of a well-cleaned glass cabinet*.


*: Just compare the pic above to the uncleaned one in my previous post...

zaterdag 14 september 2013

A new home for my miniatures...

No, I'm not selling off my collection, or anything that dramatic!
I got a new display cabinet.

The current (previous?) cabinet was full to (beyond) overflowing, and has been for a while.
In fact, I couldn't fit in the new miniatures I painted during the last three years or so, maybe even longer.
And that was with the least played army in storage in boxes.
So, my recently painted miniatured have had to suffer the indignity of having to linger on my painting table, or get ignominiously stuffed back into the project trays and boxes they came from.
No longer!
Today I went to pick up the new display cabinet I found through an online marketplace.
It needs some cleaning up, having come from someone's storage, but then I'll be able to give all my painted mini's the space they deserve.
I'm a happy camper today.... :-)

Anyway, this was the old situation:
This pic is actually a few years old now, since then the Ork army has expanded to occupy three layers and the bottom two layers have been compressed together onto one plate. Pretty sad, isn't it?

And this is the new cabinet, I just need to give it a good clean and fill it up with my (and the misses') painted stuff:
 
Sexy, isn't it? Can't wait to get the lights hooked up and put my stuff in.

Have a nice weekend!

maandag 9 september 2013

The Great Terrain "Stuff" Purge of 2013.

I've been wargaming for close to 17 years now...
As any wargamer does, from time to time you come across bits and bobs that make you think: "That would be great for terrain!" If you can get away with it, you take the item with you and keep it until you can use it.
So did I the past 17 years, I too collected "Stuff"
As you can expect, "Stuff" tends to accumulate faster than you can process it.
The last decade, I haven't had cause to sort and clear out this accumulated "Stuff". Unsurprisingly, the mound had grown to some size. It was also packed in a dreadfully inefficient manner.
Today, I  initiated a long overdue purge. I took part of the mound of "Stuff" from the garage, and went through it.
I threw away all stuff that, in hindsight, was "useless", very common, and thus easily replaced, or didn't fit with those projects I was realistically ever going to work on.
Parts that I knew were irreplaceable, or just too plain cool,  I granted clemency from this regime.
What remained was organised, put in smaller containers and repacked.
This is the result of my efforts:

Before:
 

 (Yes, I'm a hoarder... If we had cats, I'd end up on one of those reality shows)

After:
Note: Each box missing in the second pic is room I now have to store terrain that I build with the "stuff" that is left. (I haven't built new terrain for several years now, simply because I had no place left to store it...)

Now remember, this is just the "generic" stack of  "Stuff", I have more...

"Stuff" I still have to purge/organise and store properly:
-The "Stuff" I accumulated/bought for a multi-era city project.
-the "Stuff" I set apart/gathered specifically for my Space Hulk 3D project.
-"Stuff" that just got stacked in between somewhere, and didn't even make it into proper boxes...
- "Stuff" I got from a friend, along with his modular bunker/underground complex terrain.
-Proper materials (aka "non-Stuff Stuff") like plasticard, plastic tubing and rods, flocks, expanded foam sheets and foamed PVC sheets.

The Purge continues....