Scenic Distractions VII

Walk Up And Down Outside The Wall

For some reason I have an obsession with painting bricks the brickety-brickest red I can achieve.  Is this because I grew up in a series of three different brick houses?  If I had grown up in the Southwest would all my scenery be adobe structures like the old 2nd edition Ork huts?

Scenic Distractions VI

To the Barricades!

Army Painter Wasteland tufts seem to be a good turf color for "space junkyard".

This gorgeous resin barricade is available from Spellcrow miniatures an awesome producer of miniatures and scenery in resin from Poland.  They have all kinds of great conversion bits for 40K miniatures and their own line of fantasy skirmish minis and a game system to go with it.  If you have ever wanted to make a super detailed Salamanders or Space Wolves army this site has all the scaled armor and wolf pelt pauldrons you could possibly want.  There are conversion bits for several different chapters, as well as some cool ork conversion bits as well.  Also available on their website are some great pieces of scatter terrain sized scenery and if you order over $80 worth of stuff international shipping is free.

Scenic Distractions V

Imperial Army Checkpoint TK 421

Not a mighty fortress just yet, but certainly enough for a security perimeter around a supply depot...

This Imperial Guard checkpoint is a perfect example of the way your hobby can spiral out of control in a constructive way sometimes if you follow your imagination.  All these items came in a sampler pack of terrain from Ender Toys Terrain which I have mentioned on this blog before.  When I first looked at buying some Ender Toys Terrain on Amazon, I was a little cautious because of how low their prices were so I bought a variety pack that contained a wide range of their terrain items so I could gauge the quality of their offerings. These pieces were primed white for a year after buying the set, but as I started taking in game pictures for this blog the bright whiteness of the bunker in particular was driving me crazy.  On a mostly basecoated board with a lot of the other terrain in various stages of painting, the primer white bunker stood out like a sore thumb.  Follow along after the jump if you want to know more about the rabbit hole I fell down thanks to these scenery items...

Scenic Distractions IV

Can I Get A Forestry Service Merit Badge For This?

Since I stay home with my kids, on my birthday my wife gives me a day to just go out and pursue my interests kid free which usually involves trying to hunt out a new hobby shop in my region that either I have never been to before or possibly haven't been to in years.  I really lucked out this year and found a huge gaming store about 45 minutes from my house, Huzzah Hobbies.

Great Rao! The tornado swept almost all the trees off the hillside...

WIP Scenic Distractions

Kingdom of Foam

Why is it that you don't think about where you're going to store 2' x 2' x 1' hill board sections until after you build them?

WIP Scenic Distractions

All In All They Were All Just Bricks In The Wall

I can't seem to stop painting scenery lately...

Scenic Distractions III

Heroes Of The Imperium

The tribesmen of Craxis would always remember the sky gods and their firecasters that had cleansed their world of the four armed claw beasts that had long haunted the deep forests and dark places.

This conversion was the result of getting an EnderToys scenery sampler pack and not knowing what to do with the one half classic column that came with the set.  Then I remembered I had a lot of the old push to fit, 2nd edition Space Marines waiting for a purpose.   After some careful slicing with a box cutter to match the angle of the space marines feet to the angle of the top of the column, I glued one of the flamer marines onto the column.  Before painting I added some Armageddon Dust around the base and at the feet of the miniature to make the angled surface of the top of the column look more textured.

The statue was painted with Screaming Bell, drybrushed Brazen Brass, and light drybrushed Boltgun Metal for the final highlight.  The column is Zandri Dust, Ushabti Bone, and then Screaming Skull highlights.  I think the static monopose of the original miniature lends credibility to it achieving the desired look of a statue.  All in all, not a bad result for a few hours painting and converting a piece that did not initially look like it would fit into the world of the Grimdark.

Scenic Distractions II

Objectives!

In thirty years of purchasing GW and other miniatures you accumulate some strange bits...

Scenic Distractions I

Another Brick In The Wall?

I expended an absurd amount of time trying to get the brickiest shade of red on these rubble walls...

Fall Hobby Goals

Would fall hobby goals taste like pumpkin spice?  Do Orks like Pumpkin spice flavored squigs to eat in the month of October?   Is there a shrine to the elusive pumpkin spice aspect on every craftworld? I wish I could say all the answers to these questions will be contained in this blog post, but I'm actually going to use this space to lay out what I'd like to get done hobby wise before Christmas.

Attending the NOVA Open this year for the first time was an awesome experience.  Even though I have been reading WD and playing 40K for 29 years, I had never been to a gaming tournament or convention bigger than a in-store event.  One of the many products of the inspiration gleaned from that weekend is to approach my painting and model building in a more organized fashion to get the most enjoyment out of every thing I have for the hobby.  Using this space to bore fictitious readers and keep track of my hobby ideas at the same time seemed like an original idea until I reviewed many of my favorite blogs and realized I've been reading other people doing that for several years.