Scaling Back

 Don't worry, I'm not selling off my collections...

Between heatwaves and busy weeks causing my long covid symptoms to flare up  again, hobbying had petered out over the course of july. These interruptions had caused my enthusiasm for the Division project to slowly peter out. So my hobbying scaled back quite a bit.

Then I discovered Bloodsong by Death of a Rubricist... Ork and Eldar Titans for Adeptus Titanicus was exactly what I needed to relight the hobby fire! So I scaled my hobby back from 28mm to 8mm... ;p 

I've long been of the opinion that Games Workshop shot themselves in the foot by chaining modern Adeptus Titanicus (and by extension Legions Imperialis) to the Horus Heresy. The joy of (previous iterations of) Epic scale games has always been the spectacle and challenge of diverse and eclectic armies and factions battling it out. Seeing mobs of Ork Battlefortresses charging a lance of Imperial knights as a squadron of Baneblades manoeuvring to get a shot on an Ork Gargant. Or Eldar Titans dancing around a Warlord as it struggles to get a bead on them. A line of doomed Guardsmen facing down a charge by Tyranid Bio-Titans...

On a modelling level, it was just great to see the massive warmachines and other bizarre contraptions of the various factions of the 41st millennium that are just too large for a 40K table.

Just look at this stuff! Look!

But I digress. With inspiration and a goal in hand, I scoured the internet for suitable printable Eldar and Ork warmachines to combine with the ones I already had. Some were a bit harder to find than others, but soon I had enough for a maniple (or their particular equivalent) of both Orks and Eldar, and I set my printers to work. In the meantime, when circumstance allowed, I dug out my old Warlord titan to paint while I complete the weapon loadouts I wanted to 3d model for the Ork Gargants (Using Red Nebular's Collossobots). 

A nice afternoon spent airbrushing the Warlord bits

One of my already painted Reavers supervises the proces and serves as a colour matching aide.

A quick test spray of my intended colour mixes of my Biel-Tan titans.

Meanwhile, printer goes brrrr....

And I'm cheerfully bashing away at Fusion.

Two down, half a dozen more to go to get the full loadout options.

While the Collossobots are deeply retro-Ork styled, I want my guns to hit a sort of halfway point between the classic retro Ork style and the more modern Max Max-ian style. 

I'm also feeling the desire to add to my Legio Astraman force, and incorporating some more retro styled bits as well.

A Reaver shoulder pad I modelled based on the older metal Reaver shoulder.

Anyhow, when weather and health allows, I'll be chugging away happily on this little big project!

See you next time!

Sorry about neglecting this blog...

 Life has been coming hard at us the last few months, long story short: My estranged (we broke contact due to her manipulative ways and unrepentant alcoholism) mother turned out to have cancer, after which we quickly got news that it would be untreatable and terminal. So we spent the months trying to rekindle some sort of contact, so we could at least say our goodbyes. After that there was the funeral, deciding whether to accept or reject the inheritance, cleaning out her house and a lot of emotional unpacking and processing along the way, which is still ongoing.

I have still been hobbying though, as that has been my mental lifeline. Prepare for incoming photodump, after the break!

Well, life happened at me, a lot...

Yeah, so I had a two-month stomach bug, followed by a corona scare. Luckily all is well, but I'm still rebuilding my strenght/stamina after barely holding on to nutrients during the stomach bug.

Which left little spare energy for hobby.

I did manage to squeeze these lot out: 

A Squig with a fancy hairdo: 

Naturally, I also participated in the Iron Kingdoms: Requiem Kickstarter, and this has once again urged me to do a bit more on some IKRPG character miniatures:

 

 

They're two minis for the same character, a Knight-Ironhead. As the new version of the IKRPG doesn't work off combining two archetypes, I'll have to figure out how to make him work, ruleswise.

 

Also, ofcourse I pre-ordered Cursed City. Warhammer Quest, but horror, and with a strong Eastern European vibe? Perfect.

So, not much to report. See you again next time, whenever that may be!

And yet, I live....

Well, we survived 2020...

And I seem to have been neglecting this blog, my apologies. Between corona, depression and a busy year at work, what rare time and motivation I had for the hobby, I elected to spend on the hobby itself, rather than posting about it.

Anyhow, time of a big catchup dump of pics, and then on to the next year.

Ofcourse, the Indomitus box got acquired:

(And ofcourse the image is rotated... Sorry.)

I also managed to snag a piece of classic Space Fleet art:

Which reminds me, I still need to get that framed... What do you think, a clean, sleek modern frame, or go baroque and gothic for it?

I printed the start of a Japanese village, for a long suffering medieval/mythological Japan project: 

As frustratingly many projects this year, I lost steam before I actually got them painted...

I printed and built some more Necromunda stuff (again abandoned before I got to painting, see a pattern?

Around this time, our PCs main storage HDD was starting to give out. (I've yet to recover all files on it, including notes for a decade+ spanning DnD campaign....)

I built another Destiny 2 Ghost, again a gift for a friend from across the Channel:

(The overspray on the icon on it had been fixed before sending it off.)

The unpainted Necromunda terrain I had set up in previous post did finally get painted, even though it took until Oktober:

Hmmm, tasty....

Ofcourse I had to join in the McFarlane Primaris craze:

Can you guess from this pic, which Chapter I will convert and repaint him into? ;)

Fine, work in progress pics to give some hints:

 Because my Howling Griffon would be a Lieutenant, he needed a Power Sword, just a small one:

Again, this project has yet to see paint...

Gears once again shift, now towards Orks:

Freebooters to be precise:

Ofcourse, Freebooters need to ride in style:

True to form for this year, paint is yet to come...

Final leg of the year, and final projects (still ongoing): Cyberpunk City. A third building was erected:

 While working on this, a long-awaited treasure arrived:

I'm waiting for work and life to ease up again a bit to properly get into this and read it from cover to cover. Hopefully next weekend!

That brings us back up to current affairs. This weekend I added lighting to my Brutalist Cyberpunk building: 

 And with that, that project is ready to receive paint as well. :D

Till next time, hopefully sooner than last. ;)

Time for an update!

So, it's been a few weeks since my last post. But I haven't been idle. (Just lazy with posting... My apologies!)
Time to catch up. What have I been up to?
Mostly, I've been spending my hobby time experimenting with the airbrush and finding it quite entertaining.
Here are some of the projects I've been working on, most are an excuse to get time in with the airbrush, get used to things.

A Zero:

 This plane is a trial run for the J7W1 Shinden kit that I have. I want to get colours and techniques sorted out before I start on that kit. At this stage it needs decals and brushpainted details.

To keep in the Japanese theme, I've also been slowly but surely working on a 90mm display model of a female Samurai. With this one I'm taking my time as I want this one to be display-worthy, not just a throwaway practice project. The model and subject simply deserves it. To that end, I've also made a (simple) display plinth for her:

(As you can see in the background, I also hammered out a quick squad of Necrons for 40K/=I=Munda skirmishes.)
The lady Samurai has also reached the brush-painting stage this weekend, so I'll be spending some time with her on the painting desk over the next couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to the final result, but I'm not willing to rush the model. Best take my time for optimum result. With this model I've really discovered the joys of Blu Tac masking.

The final (current) airbrush experiment has been a Warhammer 40K Eldar Vyper. I don't play Eldar, or own any more models of them beyond this one. I just got this one once from someone who knew I was "into that Warhammers stuff", and maybe I could do something with it. So a good excuse to tackle a model and a colour I wouldn't quickly choose for other projects:

Main lessons from this one: Airbrushing is really, really cool (but that's really a lesson learned from all these projects!), have the patience to wait for things to dry, and don't remove masking until you're ready to either stop painting or can safely put the masked item aside from any overspray....

I've also been building some Deffkoptas and painting another trio of Meganobz for my Ork army.

And with the weather being as nice as it is the last few weeks, I've also taken the occasional night off for some late night flame staring sessions:

I've missed out on Militracks this year, due to budgetary and planning constraints, but will be sure to rectify that next year!

What is in the project qeue after these? 
There is still a piece of Necromunda terrain to airbrush the base colours on, my Goliath gang needs finishing, I'd like to do some more on my Orks, especially the Stompa is starting it's siren call for the airbrush... I still want to build a skimmer boat inspired by the Mare Solum facebook group (an alternate Necromunda setting, placed on an ocean world, really intriguing stuff!). And I have a pair of larger scale Battletech/Macross robot kits that I'd like to paint. GW has announced Adeptus Titanicus for August and the models are looking mighty appealing.
Plus I'm still combing through my stockpile for quick projects that allow me more airbrush practice...
Whew! I need longer weekends!

Here we are, all caught up...

See you next time!