Workbench of a Madman

2012-06-25 22.26.35, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

It has been a whirlwind summer so far. The wife and kids left for Germany even before school was out-- but no rest for the wicked, as days later, I was off to Las Vegas for a work-related convention.

More 40k Deathwatch

A couple of more 40k Deathwatch space marines I painted up as a distraction. I expect a large upsurge in Deathwatch interest soon! Since Deathwatch marines come from other chapters to serve the Inquisition, I selected two of the more esoteric chapters I could find-- the sergeant is from the Death Eagles, and the heavy bolter is from the Flame Eagles. The sergeant's back banner is free-handed. It's not great, but it's not that bad. Not being an artist, I'm not too disappointed.

Mines, Bombs and Booby Traps

The last piece from the GW 40k Mines, Bombs and Booby Traps set. I didn't think any of the other pieces needed a base, although it came with one of these large 40mm bases for each piece. This spindly piece would never stand on its own, though. Plus, it's perfect for an objective marker, which doesn't hurt to have with well defined sides. The set includes two more of these; when I get around to painting them up, I will include some Imperial Guard detritus from the bits box. That might be a while, though-- 15mm France 1940 is in full swing! I painted forty figures for ten infantry bases just yesterday alone.

Mines, Bombs and Booby Traps

I also painted up some of the elements of GW's Mines, Bombs and Booby Traps. This is a fun little box set with a variety of markers. As objective markers seem to be the hot thing in rules today, and I'm not particularly productive or creative, that's a useful set to have. I especially like the Space Marine helmet wired to the hand grenades, although you're really going to have to yank that helmet to actually pull the pin on the grenade, which wasn't pulled beforehand!

40k Deathwatch

I finished up enough late war Gepanzerte Panzergrenadiers (2 platoons and an HQ, plus a Sig 33 platoon) to field on the table. Now it's time to work on early war in earnest. However, I was getting really tired of painting the little guys, so I took a break and painted up some Space Marines that had been in a box for a while. The heads, guns and left shoulder pads are a metal accessory kit sold by GW, so it was a bit of a mix and match putting them together. I'm pleased with how they turned out. I free-handed all the shoulder pad decals.

More Moonscape

Hey, found a nifty way to post pictures directly from Flickr, that's cool! I'm trying it out with this new picture of my two latest Moonscape pieces I've finished. These do look really nice, although I wonder if I shoudn't have chosen a color other than grey. In they pictures, it almost looks like I just drybrushed the bare plastic. In reality, they look quite good, I can't wait to get some games in on them.

Speaking of scapes, I see Drunken Samurai has an extensive write up on how he finished his Blastscape pieces. Somebody suggested using insulating foam to back these, and I couldn't image how you would contain it. Drunken Samurai doesn't, he just trims it to shape once it dries. That's an idea, I might do it on the Blastscape pieces with the higher raised areas.

Finishing GW's Moonscape

Got some new terrain done. Here are the first two craters I've done of the GW Moonscape set. I also have the Blastscape set and the old Battle for MacCraggae terrain to do, so I'm looking at around 6-7 square feet of terrain to do...it may take me a bit.

I cut most of the MDF for the bases tonight. It was hot and took me a couple of hours, and the bases for the largest Blastscape pieces wound up warped, so I need to do them again. Yay!

There has been a ton of negative criticism about the Blastscape pieces. Mine don't seem that fragile, but they definitely aren't as crisply detailed as the Moonscape pieces.