All ahead full and damn the torpedoes!

Well, to (most likely) no-ones surprise, I didn't stick to the plan...

You see, Battlefleet Gothic happened...
Or rather Battlefleet Gothic Armada II. And my enduring love for BFG combined with the stockpile I still have for it.
So last weekend, I took advantage of my airbrush and quickly cranked out my Chaos Fleet.
I had these stood around assembled for a while now, so it was a matter of priming, then shading/basecoating, followed by drybrushing final highlights and detail painting.

I also discovered how easy starfield bases were to do with the airbrush:
Put in your favourite white, pump the trigger a few times to get a drop of paint in/on the tip and then push down on the trigger, causing that drop to come spattering out! I then added a few nebulae/dust clouds with the remainder of the white and some earth colour:

Anyway, here is the fleet itself:

The painting was very quick: primer black, preshade with Vallejo Air Golden Yellow, basecoat (lightly) with Vallejo Air Red Gore, then a topside highlight with Vallejo Air Scarlet. Then on to brush painting: drybrush with regular Vallejo Scarlet, followed by Vallejo Bloody Red. Paint all the bits that need to be metal black, then GW Ironbreaker. Wash the metal parts with GW Nuln Oil Gloss. Paint bridge windows and navigation lights with Vallejo Golden Yellow, as well as the occasional dotted in windows.  With the points added for a Chaos Lord and maybe a reroll this comes out at 1500 points. If I can find extra models, I may expand it in the future, perhaps some extra escorts and a Grand Cruiser, if available.

As you can see, this fleet serves the Word Bearers Legion. (the icon is a 3d printed shoulder pad icon from shapeways, glued onto the bridge.

Speaking of Word Bearers... While the game states that it was a Black Legion vessel that is trapped inside the Blackstone Fortress Warhammer 40,000 Quest game I decided mine would be Word Bearers. So while I had the airbrush out, I quickly painted their main colour (same recipe as for the chaos fleet):

I also basecoated the skin for the Negavolt Cultists and for the Kroot tracker, but neglected to take pics...

And while I originally bought Tooth and Claw for the Genestealer Cult content, the Space Wolves have forced their way, howling and panting, to the front of the queue. Here's a (gloomy) photo of the first Blood Claw pack and Smash-Jarl assembled and ready for basing and primer:

Yes, the special weapns marine is magnetized. ;)

With regards to the social part of the hobby my (ir)regular gaming buddies and I are discussing starting up a BFG campaign. As several have interest in an Ork fleet, but no ships, we're holding a scratchbuilding day in a few weeks time. I plan to take along my unassembled Ork ships, partly to assemble and partly for size reference. I'll also be bringing a handful of spare bits for them to use and for me to try and build a few drifting/burning wrecks out of.
I'm also resisting to start spending on BFG again, I feel a powerful craving to order sets of 3D ordnance and Voss/Armageddon style prows, but I have enough stockpile of BFG I feel I should attend to first.

Oh, and the Necromunda Sump Pools didn't end up completely as intended. Here they are, just after I finished doing the basic painting by airbrush:

 And just after I poured the resin:

Sadly the resin didn't behave exactly the way I had hoped it would. It lifted a bit from the edges in places, leaving a visible 1mm gap between the resin and the edge of the pool. The surface also remained tacky. I tried to solve the latter with gloss varnish, but it dried up too matt and killed the depth effect. 
I don't want to trash these pieces as they look too cool, but I'm still pondering how to fix it. Maybe use some acrylic water effect over the top? Or use a thick layer of gloss varnish from a spray can (and then matt varnish the ash edges of the pools and rusty stuff)? I'm still considering what will work best.

See you all next time!

New year! New.... well, nothing really... Just more of the same...

Another month, and another year have passed...
What have I been up to, and what do I intend to be up to?

Well, the past few weeks have been very busy, holidays, busiest time of year at work, and health worries about my mother, plus frustrations about not being able to get her the care she needs (and we need her to have) have kept my energy and time for the hobby low.

I've kept going on the Blackstone Fortress set, and have the first character and two sets of monsters done:

Espern Locarno and the Spindle Drones (Sounds like a band name...):

Ofcourse at this point I realise I forgot to paint the trim on the inside of his robe...
Bases will be done at a later point, all at once.

And the Ur-Ghuls

(In this foto I hadn't done the mottling on their backs, I'll do some glamour shots later, once more is finished).

The Multiverse Gaming terrain hasn't progressed since last time, I still need to get my feet wet with LEDs, before I dare continue...
Doesn't means I've been sitting still on the terrain front, though.
Last week this arrived:

So, I can get started on building some containers/container shanties for Necromunda.

As always, it'll work fine for 40K and Kill Team as well.

Additionally, I started a little conversion for the fun of it:

 Not the final head or shoulder pads. I may end up going with larger shoulder pads and a Ruststalker head instead. I just need to source the bits and see if I like it. It will most likely be an assault/labour servitor or a midget Ambot or some such.

As I got a pot of resin for Christmas, I needed something to try/practice it on. So I started making some toxic sump pools for Necromunda:

The sand-PVA mix on them is drying at the moment, hopefully paint and resin next week.

Past year's paints:
I've also taken the time to look back at what I painted last year, and I managed to get 47 figures painted, 2 scratch-built Necromunda terrain pieces, and one of my 4 sets of Multiverse Gaming Terrain. For me, that is a reasonably good year, these days.

Looking to the future:
So, what are my plans for the coming year?
Basically for the next few months I want to finish on two main projects:
-Blackstone Fortress: I want to get all the mini's painted and start playing it.
-Multiverse Gaming Terrain: I want to finish my set of Multiverse Gaming Terrain, so I have a decent set of Zone Mortalis (esque) terrain for Necromunda and Kill Team.

However, me being me, some secondary projects have popped up.
-LEDs: For the Multiverse Gaming Terrain, I want to incorporate LEDs, but I need to do some practice pieces to build confidence.  So, I will have to plan and build something that needs lighting up (any suggestions?)...
-Resin: I have a pot of resin now, and I intend to use it before it goes off. The Toxic Sump Pools above are just the trail project, to see how I should handle resin. After that there are various, still vague plans. I hope to incorporate the resin in the Multiverse Gaming Terrain project as well, to use as leaks and the toxic pools shown on some Necromunda terrain boards.

Both  the above projects tie back in to a main project and will teach me new hobby skills so I'm okay with that, and the side projects were more or less planned.
Less planned is the Space Wolf Army that seems to have spontaneously materialized... I bought the Stormclaw at the time for the Ork content, and to get Space Wolf Terminators for the Space Hulk project. Now I ordered the Tooth and Claw set, to use the Genestealer Cult models for the Space Hulk Project/Necromunda/Kill Team project.  But now I'll have a Primaris contingent of Space Wolves as well... Plus the remaining metal Wolf Guard, Wolf Scouts and Characters I kept from an aborted earlier edition Space Wolf army...  And an airbrush to paint all that grey quicker... And a clear idea for the colours to use from the Inquisitor scale Space Wolf I did last year. The snowball is rolling and growing, and I'm sure I can hear wolves in the distance... ;)  It's not like I have a Howling Griffons army to build, or a Word Bearer one hiding in boxes for assembly...  But on the other hands, it would mean some opposition for my Orks, so I could host games and maybe introduce my son to 40K.
Eh, I have a whole year ahead of me, we'll see how it goes.

See you all next time!