Procrastination by Numbers

[cunningmatt]

Mmmmmmmmmmm, that is a secret I want to know, though it will have to try hard to beat the Lindor Shakeaway. Mmmmmmmmmmm x 1000

[cunningmatt]

Update 15 – Thursday 22nd September 2011: Disc you'd believe he'd done any painting?!

Welcome back to planet Procrastination, and well done to Dave who's noticed that I haven't actually done any painting for a while. He can't be fooled by battle reports, Shakeaways and conspiracy theories, damn him.

Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves

But he needn't despair (presuming this blog is all he cares about in his life), because I've actually done some painting. Yep those deliciously vicious Swordmasters finally got finished. So in all their glory here they are, for those of you uncomfortable with changes of photographic background, be warned there's lots of different tables here!

Stage 2 – Swordmasters of Hoeth









Base: *NO CHANGE*
Skulls (on base): Wash Badab Black
Cloth: Layer 1:2 Astronomican Grey : Skull White
Plumage: Layer Golden Yellow
Armour Trim: Layer Ice Blue
Silver Metal: Wash Badab Black
Gold Metal: Shining Gold
Leather: Wash Badab Black
Flesh: Layer Elf Flesh
Hair: Vomit Brown – washed with Ogryn Flesh. Dheneb Stone – washed with Badab Black. Calthan Brown – washed with Badab Black
Banner Field: Layered with Regal Blue

Stage 3 – Swordmasters of Hoeth











Base: *NO CHANGE*
Skulls (on base): Layer Khemri Brown, then layer Dheneb Stone
Cloth: Layer watered down Skull White
Plumage: Layer Sunburst Yellow
Armour Trim: Highlight 1:1 Ice Blue : Skull White
Silver Metal: Highlight Mithril Silver
Gold Metal: Wash Gryphonne Sepia
Leather: Highlight Scorched Brown
Flesh: Wash watered down Ogryn Flesh
Hair: Vomit Brown – washed with Ogryn Flesh. Dheneb Stone – washed with Badab Black. Calthan Brown – washed with Badab Black
Banner Field: Layered with Ultramarines Blue

Stage 4 – Swordmasters of Hoeth











Base: Drybrush Bleached Bone, flock with Static Grass
Skulls (on base): Layer Bleached Bone, then highlight 1:1 Bleached Bone : Skull White
Cloth: Highlight Skull White
Plumage: Wash Ogryn Flesh, then highlight Bad Moon Yellow
Armour Trim: *NO CHANGE*
Silver Metal: Highlight Mithril Silver
Gold Metal: Highlight 5:1 Shining Gold : Mithril Silver
Leather: Highlight Beastial Brown
Flesh: Wash watered down Ogryn Flesh, then Highlight Bad Moon Yellow
Hair: Vomit Brown – highlighted with Bleached Bone. Dheneb Stone – highlighted with Skull White. Calthan Brown – highlighted with Bubonic Brown
Banner Field: Layered with 1:1 Ultramarines Blue : Enchanted Blue*

The blue and yellow details on the banner were painted as the normal trim, the sword was painted Adeptus Battlegrey, then layered Codex Grey and Fortress Grey on alternate panels to give shading to the sword).

Those of you with obsessive compulsive completion disorder, like myself, will be excited to know that (bar the spare command models/characters) I've now painted up the entire contents of two Isle of Blood sets and this is what that looks like:



Fun isn't it?! It amused me anyway.

The Swordmasters have already been out on the field of battle, after taking on a horde of stinky Beastmen. I was impressed at their choppy up ability (technical term) successfully slicing through lots of Gors – and yes Ol I should have deployed them with a wider frontage! I was playing a 2,400 point battle which my new Elves haven't done before as I don't have enough. This allowed the Swordmasters to come, but I had to expand the Lothern Sea Guard with 6 proxied Spearmen. I hate proxying (doing it myself not other people doing it – I find only playing with painted models being what they actually are, keeps my buying in check, if I played with unpainted models I'd have nothing stopping me buying everything in Games Workshop). Anyway I found 24 Lothern Sea Guard, 4 ranks of 6, a tasty proposition as they were able to bring a lot of spears to bear, so maybe an extra rank for them to come. Sadly it wasn't meant to be, my Ellyrian Reavers got rolled over by a runaway chariot, and my shooting couldn't whittle down the mass of Gors heading my way in time. The Swordmasters were the last to fall hexed to buggery by the 4! (that's "I'm shocked it was 4", not 4 factorial – mathematicians may have been confused) Beastmen Shamans. Still it's always nice to see the Beastmen win and I'm not bitter given the number of times they've lost pathetically for me. It's really bloody good to see the Beastmen win. No not bitter at all.

The Scions of Tzeentch

In other painting news, yes people there is other painting news, haven't I been a good boy?! I've been assembling lots of characters for my Warriors of Chaos army, you could say I've been character building. Character building get it? Character building? Oh piss off, you try and write something funny about assembling some plastic and metal models.

Having beefed up the core with lots of lovely Marauders last month, I felt it was time to build up the characters, sadly all I currently have is an Exhalted Hero and Sorcerer on foot (just on foot no one mounted on anything – I know, oh dear).



You may notice one of them is the old Aekold Helbrass model, well done bonus points to you.

I'm currently constructing a number of characters, primarily as I had a load of models I hadn't got round to painting which hopefully should give me a bit more choice. I'll show off some more next week, but for now here's my new Lord on Disc of Tzeentch (who will be a Chaos Lord/Exalted Hero/Sorcerer Lord/Sorcerer as I see fit).

A couple of weeks ago, I posted this random photo to get you all excited about something (that I then forgot to write about):



Well this is the base for my Disc rider, I was reading the various Chaos Army books and was intrigued by the description of Tzeentch's crystal garden so I thought it would be cool to have crystals sprouting from the ground at the Disc's feet (if the disc had feet).

The crystals are large pieces of slate from the Warhammer Basing Kit. To make them look more like they'd burst through the ground, I moulded green stuff around the base of each crystal to represent displaced soil before covering in sand as per usual.



Hopefully by the end of it you'll be convinced?! We'll see. Oh and apologies, it's quite difficult to photograph models well, when they're still in bits!!

Stage 1 – Tzeentch Lord on Disc









Base: Khemri Brown
Crystals: RED: Mercherite Red; GREEN: Dark Angels Green; BLUE: Necron Abyss; PURPLE: Warlock Purple
Disc: Hormagaunt Purple
Flame: Skull White
Silver Metal: Chainmail
Light Gold Metal: Tin Bitz
Dark Gold Metal: Tin Bitz
Flesh: Tallarn Flesh
Horns: Khemri Brown
Pale Blue Robes: Shadow Grey
Dark Blue Robes: Necron Abyss
Leather: Scorched Brown

Stage 2 – Tzeentch Lord on Disc









Base: *NO CHANGE*
Crystals: RED: Drybrush Blood Red; GREEN: Drybrush Snot Green; BLUE: Drybrush Regal Blue; PURPLE: Drybrush Liche Purple
Disc: Layer 1:1 Hormagunt Purple : Warlock Purple, then layer Warlock Purple
Flame: Layer Bad Moon Yellow, then layer Sunburst Yellow, then layer Golden Yellow
Silver Metal: Wash Asurmen Blue
Light Gold Metal: Burnished Gold
Dark Gold Metal: Shining Gold
Flesh: Layer 1:1 Tallarn Flesh : Dwarf Flesh, then layer Dwarf Flesh
Horns: Wash Badab Black
Pale Blue Robes: Layer 1:2 Space Wolves Grey : Shadow Grey
Dark Blue Robes: Layer 1:2 Enchanted Blue : Regal Blue
Leather: Wash Badab Black

Stage 3 – Tzeentch Lord on Disc









Base: *NO CHANGE*
Crystals: RED: Drybrush Fiery Orange; GREEN: Drybrush Scorpion Green; BLUE: Drybrush Enchanted Blue; PURPLE: Drybrush Tentacle Pink
Disc: Layer 1:1 Warlock Purple : Liche Purple, then layer Liche Purple
Flame: Layer Blazing Orange, then layer Fiery Orange
Silver Metal: Highlight 1:1 Chainmail : Mithril Silver
Light Gold Metal: *NO CHANGE*
Dark Gold Metal: Wash Gryphonne Sepia, then highlight 5:1 Shining Gold : Mithril Silver, then highlight Mithril Silver
Flesh: Wash Ogyrn Flesh
Horns: Layer Khemri Brown, then layer Dheneb Stone
Pale Blue Robes: Layer 1:1 Space Wolves Grey : Shadow Grey
Dark Blue Robes: Layer 1:1 Enchanted Blue : Regal Blue
Leather: Highlight Scorched Brown
Stage 4 – Tzeentch Lord on Disc













Base: Drybrush Bleached Bone, then flock*
Crystals: RED: Wash Baal Red, then drybrush Blazing Orange; GREEN: Wash Thraka Green, then drybrush Scorpion Green; BLUE: Wash Asurmen Blue, then drybrush Ice Blue; PURPLE: Wash Leviathan Purple, then drybrush Tentacle Pink
Disc: Layer Wash Leviathan Purple, then highlight edge Liche Purple
Flame: Layer 1:1 Fiery Orange : Blood Red
Silver Metal: Highlight Mithril Silver
Light Gold Metal: Wash Gryphonne Sepia, then highlight 5:1 Burnished Gold : Mithril Silver, then highlight Mithril Silver
Dark Gold Metal: *NO CHANGE*
Flesh: Highlight 1:1 Dwarf Flesh : Elf Flesh, then highlight Elf Flesh
Horns: Layer Bleached Bone, then highlight 1:1 Bleached Bone : Skull White
Pale Blue Robes: Layer 2:1 Space Wolves Grey : Shadow Grey, then wash Asurmen Blue, then highlight Space Wolves Grey
Dark Blue Robes: Layer 2:1 Enchanted Blue : Regal Blue, then highlight Enchanted Blue
Leather: Highlight Beastial Brown.

With regards to basing I used burnt grass near to the crystal eruptions to make it look like the crystals have seared their way through the ground, using normal scorched grass further away, the snow was then flocked, but keeping it away from the crystals to give the impression it had melted as they erupted.

And hopefully it looks alright? Thoughts people I need constant attention!

A couple of announcements now, first up I'd completely forgotten that back in Update 9 (oops) I reopened the What's In The Box? competition, as I've forgotten, you may well have two! So if you'd still like to select a box between 1 and 36 then you've got a week to do so. Full rules/point to the whole endeavour in Update 9.

And a quick note that on Saturday I will be taking part in the doubles tournament in Waaagh X at our very own OG Club. My Tzeentch Warriors of Chaos, led by their new Lord on Disc, are pairing up with Steven's Skaven – what could possibly go wrong, bar spelling, punctuation and grammar. If you can't make it, shame on you, but technology willing (and that's a big statement) you can follow my day at my new Twitter page linked to this blog. Just got to www.twitter.com/ProByNumbers (as Procrastination by Numbers is too long for a Twitter name) to see live (yes live) battle updates from the tournament of how we're getting on! What's the betting the first update will be my Chaos Lord's flying base has snapped?!

And of course I'll give you a full update on here next week. See you on the Twittersphere. Go on follow me, like a psychotic stalker, you know you want to!

[Dave]

But he needn't despair (presuming this blog is all he cares about in his life), because I've actually done some painting. Yep those deliciously vicious Swordmasters finally got finished. So in all their glory here they are, for those of you uncomfortable with changes of photographic background, be warned there's lots of different tables here!

Phew, I can relax again.

I've now painted up the entire contents of two Isle of Blood sets and this is what that looks like:

Where's the skaven  (and the second griffon and mage... Pedantry for the win!)

Really like the disk rider, I'll need to try and work on fire at some point as I'll be needing it for some malifaux figs I'll be picking up shortly.

and if I'd not said it before, box number 1.

[cunningmatt]

Where's the skaven  (and the second griffon and mage... Pedantry for the win!)

Ok you got me on the Skaven, but I noticed you ignored the line before what you quoted for me that said: (bar the spare command models/characters) which I took to mean the Griffon and Mage!!

Really like the disk rider, I'll need to try and work on fire at some point as I'll be needing it for some malifaux figs I'll be picking up shortly.

Cheers mate, the trick is just layering every shade of yellow and orange you can find, only use a hint of red else it looks too cartoony!

[Dave]

Ok you got me on the Skaven, but I noticed you ignored the line before what you quoted for me that said: (bar the spare command models/characters) which I took to mean the Griffon and Mage!!

Ok you got me, I only skimmed it 

[cunningmatt]

Ok you got me, I only skimmed it 

Well get back to reading, I didn't skim write it! 

[cunningmatt]

Update 16 – Friday 23rd September 2011: Terror available freely for NHS patients on the High Street

Think your life is bad, spare a thought for people like me and Cinderella in fact for Cinders it all got a bit too much...



...as I discovered on a walk near my house this week. Sorry children if you're reading, it probably wasn't a painful death!

What Cinderella clearly needed was a stay-cation, for those of you not wanky enough to know what a stay-cation is, it's basically where you take a vacation but stay at home. Stay-cations are excellent for those people without any friends or loved ones to go on holiday with, step forward me. One advantage of the stay-cation is that you can get all manner of things done. You know all the things that you really should get done in the weekend, but can always far more frivolous things to do and thus put them off. Leaving tasks like sorting out your house, cleaning the bathroom and finding a purpose to your life all undone for weeks on end. A stay-cation can be perfect because it gives you an opportunity to get these done, primarily because you run out of things to put them off with after seven days. Obviously I didn't get any of these things done, what with having the attention span of an attention-deficient child who has just been fed a skip filled entirely with sherbet dip.

Rather than doing any of those important tasks I decided instead to go and give my body a full MOT. I managed to go to the doctors, dentists and opticians all in the same day. A list of activities that can feel even the bravest man with fear. Often it depends what you are going in for, as to which of these is going to be the most scary. Obviously if you've got an entire volume of Encyclopaedia Britannica wedged firmly up your arse then I'm guessing that the doctors will top the fear list, that and you've probably recently been banned from the popular reference section of your local library.

However typically the dentist tops people's list of terror, for some unknown reason the thought of someone boring into your mouth with Channel Tunnel drilling equipment whilst charging you an amount somewhere in the region of Greece's national debt for the privilege, isn't top on people's to-do list. I have to say I never really had a big problem with the dentist; my top reason for not going is laziness. Despite this I finally made it in, during my stay-cation allowing someone to poke around in my mouth like a squirrel searching for where it buried it's nuts made of plaque. Turned out I needed a filling, now don't judge (I know I do when I hear someone's had to have fifteen teeth removed, invariably telling you as the down a six-pack of Coca-Cola), but I didn't need a new filling, an old one had broken. In fact my teeth are doing better than the fillings, I've got enough dental floss coming out my mouth to string up the Blackpool Illuminations. So there Mr or Mrs Judgmental.
I've never been that bothered by the drilling part of the dentist, largely because the provision of anaesthetic generally counters my primary objection to a fully operational dolls' house scale set of power tools being operated in my mouth. Though I must admit the angle grinder attachment that comes out to sand down the finished teeth is a little disconcerting and if anything feels like a little too much craftsmanship. My main objection to the dentist is the vacuum cleaner like hose that is inserted into your mouth to presumably suck up flying bits of tooth, gum or tongue that occurs during the construction work. The sensation of a high powered suction pump pull air at force ten gale speeds through your teeth is probably one of the most unpleasant things I've ever experienced. It's like having your tongue extracted by a Henry Hoover without the reassurance that at least it can offer you a dam good blow job when it's finished.

Bit much? Sorry.

On this particular visit, the experience was not helped by the fact that the operator of said "Suction Tube of DeathTM" was a ruthlessly efficient German woman, who never once raised her surgical face mask and only ever replied to any statement with the word "Yah". She showed approximately 5% more personality than the Cylons from Battlestar Galactica or about 150% more personality than Piers Morgan for those requiring a reference other than Battlestar Galactica.

However for me, it's not the dentist that evokes the greatest sense of dread as I walk down the High Street, no it's the opticians. Don't agree? Well I ask you this, which of these sounds most like the goings on in an underground government torture facility, having your teeth drilled into whilst under anaesthetic, OR having metal frames strapped to your head whilst an array of powerful lights is shinned into the deepest recesses of your eyes and you're ordered to recite a jumbled list of pointless letters off the wall. See. On the gates of Guantanamo Bay there's a sign that reads "twinned with Dollond & Aitchison, Swansea Branch".

My regular opticians is Boots the Opticians whose tagline, coincidentally, is Should Have Gone to Specsavers, this has been earned to the general haphazard nature of the service provided. It's not that any, ok not that many, of the front line staff I've met haven't been anything other than pleasant and competent. It's just that they're invariably always reporting on some calamitous disaster that has happened behind the scenes, like the inadvertent fitting of the lenses of the Hubble Space Telescope into my new glasses during the manufacture or accidentally placing of next month's contact lenses in the eyes of a passing badger. It's almost like the head office is being run by the Chuckle Brothers, ably assisted by Jedward as their PAs. In fairness they clearly employ clever mind-reading staff though, as every time they detect me wavering and considering moving to another optician, they offer me a discount and suddenly it all becomes right again. It turns out I am happy to trust my eye care to a bunch of cretins who couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery, even if the instructions were written in a chart of decreasing font size on the wall, so long as they offer me a hefty discount.

For those of you who, unlike me, weren't blessed with the optical strength of a rusty teaspoon at birth, and therefore would have at least a decent chance of reproducing were the government to reintroduce survival of the fittest as a policy again, you might not be familiar with the journey to hell (on a rail replacement bus service) that a typical visit to the opticians represents. First up you're seen by assistant, rather than an optician, it's their job to operate on you with the shop's latest torture devices. Previous examples include the device which blasts a jet of high pressure air directly into your eyeball to see what reaction this produces. Invariably it causes me to flail around uncontrollably until I punch the assistant in the face, at which point they usually stop. This time the latest device of mass destruction was a piece of equipment designed to provide an exceptionally detailed photograph of the back of the eye. Which it captures, apparently, by detonating a naval grade distress flare approximately two nanometres from the surface of your eyeball, the resulting flash of light being enough to stun a fully grown African Elephant. Still all these escapades pail in comparison to the time when I was given drops to open the pupils of my eyes for an in depth examination. I was told the drops took about thirty minutes to kick in, but it was an exceptionally hot day, and the air conditioning in the waiting room had broken so the helpful optometrist suggested I go for a browse down the High Street. Approximately twenty minutes later at the height of the midday sun, my pupils opened to their maximum aperture on a permanent basis. Thus causing me to have walk back to the opticians in absolute agony, shielding my face as best from the sun as possible, whilst forcing my eyelids to go against their every natural desire and stay open in the blinding sunlight. I had so many tears streaming down my face I looked like a pre-pubescent teenage girl who'd just heard that Take That had broken up.

Those who survive the first round of pain, which feels like it's been closely modelled on the first round of Total Wipeout, are then allowed into the optician's examination room, a Santa's grotto of torture equipment decorated with cross-sections of the human eye. Although worryingly my opticians has now started doubling up doing hearing tests, so this time round I had to sit next to a fully annotated diagram of the ear. Which given the usual competence of Boots the Opticians lead me to worry that someone might try and fit a hearing aid under my right eyelid. However there's no time to panic, as instead a giant metal arm swings round to pin you into the Mastermind style chair. The opticians then proceeds to shine a blinding light into your eyes whilst commanding you to look left, look up, look down and blink on command as they invade your personal space. After five minutes of this they ask if you ever experience sore eyes or see flashing lights, "YES" straight after you decided to blind me for a laugh. Next up they proceed to cover one of your eyes whilst showing you the traditional optometrist chart depicting the letters of various sizing. Unfortunately despite having the modern technology required to actually project the chart on the wall, most opticians appear to have only one set of letters, meaning the examination of the second eye simply becomes a memory puzzle to see how much you remember from the previous eye.

After all these you are presented with your prescription, which unlike an NHS prescription costs a dam sight more than £7.40 when they utter the immortal line "you need new glasses". Yes, because if it wasn't enough to be born blind enough to mistake a hat stand for your parents, over the next twenty years of your life your eyesight will deteriorate faster than the Liberal Democrats opinion poll.

Choosing glasses is always a horrid affair fraught with danger, even if you have contact lenses you're probably going to need to spend a good proportion of the next few years of your life with these glasses proudly displayed on your nose for all to see. There aren't many facial features you get to choose, and the process of choosing glasses proves that in most cases you're better off sticking with nature's lottery – unless of course you're me and you look like you were constructed by a deprived child using the Halloween Edition of Mr Potato Head. Unlike a t-shirt which can be subtly placed at the bottom of a drawer after a few wears once the realisation sets in that you've made a bad choice, glasses that turn out to be a rash purchase remind you of their existence for a long time to come, unless you're prepared to shell out a three figure sum for another set. This can be where it's a good idea to take a friend with your for honest advice, though don't take a wise guy joker as you'll probably end up looking like Deidre from Coronation Street's less fashionable cousin.

Of course if you don't want to pay a fortune you can always ask for NHS glasses, provided of course you can convince them you're a small child. At this point a secret drawer will be opened up beneath the lush display cabinets of glasses, the inside will be filthy and its contents will look like a lost property cupboard in a school populated by only those with no taste. I don't see how it's any cheaper to make glasses that look as bad as these glasses actually do; in fact I suspect extra money has been spent to make them look hideous. I think the deal is that if you want the rest of the tax paying community to pay for your eyesight that's fine, so long as you're prepared to go around with pieces of plastic strapped to your face that look like they would survive orbital re-entry to give everyone who has paid for them a good laugh.

Sadly at the young age when I first needed glasses, my parents had a different philosophy. They firmly believed that if you're going to wear glasses you should be proud of this fact and wear the biggest and boldest rimmed spectacles you find, much
like Dame Edna Everage, except without the comic irony. Effectively they paid to put me in NHS glasses, as at that age my only aesthetic requirement was that they be blue. And maybe this one fact explains my true terror at the thought of revisiting the opticians.

Still with glasses like that it gave people something to laugh at other than my face, in some ways it was a welcome relief.

Oh and on that tragic note, just a reminder that on Saturday I will be attempting to tweet from Waaagh X as my Warriors join forces with Steven's Skaven to lose badly at every game we play. You can follow all the tweeting at www.twitter.com/ProByNumbers

[cunningmatt]

Apologies for highjacking my own blog. But Procrastination is Procrastination so I guess anything goes, and it's to help a friend of mine who works on Big Brother.

He would like to say: "Audience spaces for Big Brother's Bit on the Side with Emma Willis are available up to the end of the series. Please email audience@bbbitontheside.com or call 0208 324 2764 must be 18+"

Normal service will resume shortly, thank you for sitting through the adverts!

[Annie]

I'd vote for Ol!

[cunningmatt]

Update 17 – Monday 3rd October 2011: Procrastination about Projects

First up apologies for my lack of blogging activity last week, what can I say, I had things on! Primarily involving preschool children, but that's between me and the high court judge.

With the sunshine beaming down on us this weekend and me lacking any social life to speak off, I've used it as an opportunity to finish off a load of odd bits and pieces that I started over the summer. Sort of representing a nice book end to the summer. It sounds planned, it's not. It just adds some useless back story to an uninteresting blog, in the vein hope you'll muddle your way through the plot to the end of the post, much like and episode of 24:

Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves

Phoenix Guard

After quite a few test runs with my High Elf army I've come to the conclusion that I like Phoenix Guard, whilst they're primarily a defensive unit with their hefty ward save they seem to do a reasonably good job at being aggressive too. However 10 models isn't really big enough in my book for a full defensive block, I can't throw these in the way of an approaching Bloodthirster baring down on me desperate to rip off my Elven testis  (metaphorically speaking, hopefully). So I finally got round to finishing off the second box of 10 I have, look at that juicy unit now:





Here you can see them marching under the all-seeing eye of Smirnoff.

Caradryan has clearly been promoted, possibly for making a mess of the Black Guard in my last battle report. I won't bother you with a painting guide for these, if you're interested check out pages 24-28 of the old Tale of OG Gamers – High Elves blog (which still seems to get an inordinate number of hits given it hasn't been updated for months – more so than this blog, sad times!).

High Elf Hero

I also finally got round to painting up a High Elf hero that I purchased and basecoated back when the High Elf army book came out a couple of years back when mullets were in fashion and mobile phones were the size of family pack lasagnes. In the interests of tedium I've not put a stage by stage guide up, as there are lots of bits to get through this week, and it's primarily the same colours as usual – if you do want one send a stamped addressed envelope to the usual address, including a postal order for £4.50 made payable to The Procrastinator and I'll send you a fact sheet.







For those of you interested it's a Direct Only model from the then Collectors Range, which I particularly liked. Hence I bought it. See logic.

Tale of OG Gamers – The Scions of Tzeentch

As I told you about the other week, I've been character building this summer, literally character building!? Still not funny? Even now you've had a week to think about it? Come on, it's genius?! Oh well.

First up I decided to paint the two new plastic Chaos Sorcerer models that came out recently. These were actually started painting on a work trip where sadly I was unlucky enough to have to spend a week filming on a Mediterranean Cruise – sad times, I know feel sorry for me.

Seriously feel sorry for me, look at how much of my suitcase I had to fill up with scripts!!



No room for many paints – sad times.

Now if you weren't already sad for me, you should be because it only bloody pissing well rained all week, look, here's the deck in the rain



And here's exotic Naples after we nearly got struck by lightning



Still could have been worse at least Vesuvius didn't erupt, that would have been annoying:



Anyway with all that rain there was plenty of time for some cabin based painting; here you can see the two Chaos Sorcerers getting a lick of paint:



And if you're still not feeling sorry look at that alarm clock, set for 6am, that's surely not fair. Oh and I also got stalked by Alexander, the strange man who cleaned my room (for a hefty tip – which I didn't realise at the time) and left behind these freaky towel constructions in my room:



What the hell is it? Some screaming baby monster, what's more freaky is it's head is a separate flannel as I found out when I picked up the creature and it was left behind like a scary head in my bed, like a present from the bath robe mafia. Incidentally you could buy a towel folding DVD to replicate this "creation" yourself for only $9.99 I was tempted – there's a few people I don't like, who it would make a good Christmas present for.

And finally am I the only person who finds this picture exceptionally annoying:



English should be represented by the Union Jack, bloody Americans stealing everything -piss off. It's only because otherwise they'd be too stupid to find the English button. Mini-rant over.

In exciting news this has really helped boost the resident five year old's chart of all the locations I've painted in:



Anyone fancy paying for a holiday so I can add some new legs to the journey? No. Spoil sport.

This weekend I got the Sorcerers painted up and here they are:

Chaos Sorcerer









This is the unaligned Sorcerer model, but the presence of the eye on the staff allowed him to easily look Tzeentch with an appropriate colour scheme.

The skin is layered up from Enchanted Blue through to Ice Blue with some Asurmen Blue wash applied. The Eye is layered all the way from Necron Abyss through the full range of blues to 1:1 Ice Blue : Skull White (borrowed from the High Elves) with a line of pure Skull White in the centre and some of the blue painted on the surrounding gold to give a glowing effect. The blue robe is Shadow Grey layered with a number of coats up to Space Wolves Grey and washed with Necron Abyss.

Chaos Sorcerer of Tzeentch

And here's the "officially" Tzeentch one:









In this case the pink skin was a base coat of Warlock Purple layered up to Tentacle Pink and washed with Leviathan Purple.

Chaos Lord

I also got around to assembling and painting up this Chaos Lord on foot:



It's the exclusive model from Games Day 2009 which I purchased from eBay. Really loved this model when I saw it and wasn't disappointed in the flesh. I've always been a fan of Chaos back since 4th edition when it was one giant army, but even with the myriad of Chaotic beasts available for me Chaos is always best represented with a Warrior encased in Chaos Armour (and with a proper helmet, none of these exposed heads/skulls malarkey, that's not proper Chaos). I've added a skull to the base from the Warhammer Basing Kit, but otherwise it's as is from the packet.

Finished up he looks like this:









Now if you've kept track of this blog (I hope you are, I will be asking questions), then you'll know one of the reason I've been adding Chaos characters is to expand my selection from one Hero on foot and one Sorcerer on foot, so you'll probably feel the above characters have failed in this mission (you'd be right), but they were nice models so I got them done – plus a handful of Sorcerers is always helpful for Storm of Magic.

But to expand my selection I've also painted up a few different bits:

Daemon Prince

I've been reliably informed Daemon Princes are rubbish, which given my playing style makes them the perfect addition to my army! Now has anyone else had that annoying experience of picking all your favourite elements of the frame of a multi-part kit with multiple options only to realise you've created the exact model on the box? Well that's what happened with my Daemon Prince, but I felt I had chosen the most Tzeentch-esque parts:



To give him a bit of a character and a Matty touch (don't be rude!) I decided to give him two Pink Horror "pets", which I've chained to his armour using some chain I cut off a cheap necklace I bought in the Debenhams sale (specifically for the purpose of stealing the chain I should add). We probably shouldn't think about what happens to the Horrors when the Daemon Prince actually takes flight!





Fully painted he looks like this:


















The Daemon Prince's skin starts off with Moridan Blue on the feet and Hormagaunt Purple on the upper body, layered to Liche Purple and Enchanted Blue respectively (washed with Asurmen Blue and Leviathan Purple) in the central areas I've mixed the base colours and washes to give a graduation. Which I found was helped by highlighting the wrong way round so to speak (so the more blue areas of mixed skin were highlighted in Liche Purple and the more purple with Enchanted Blue). The membrane of the wings was painted Warlock Purple and highlighted by adding increasing amounts of Bleached Bone to the Warlock Purple (again trusty Leviathan Purple was used). The Pink Horrors were undercoated Liche Purple and painted all the way up to 1:1 Tentacle Pink : Bleached Bone, and then washed 1:1 Baal Red : Leviathan Purple.

I think to represent the Pink Horrors on the base in the game, it would be fair to give him a bonus 3D6 Strength 8 attacks in combat – sound fair? Either way I think in a Storm of Magic game he'd be good a character (given magic levels) as on a fulcrum he'd have the profile of a Chaos Lord, a 2+ Ward Save and only one model can engage him in combat a turn! Winner (or maybe you can spot an obvious flaw?)

Chaos Warrior Battle Standard Bearer

And finally I painted up another Chaos Hero on foot, but don't worry this one I converted to carry a Battle Standard, so he will be useful! Surprisingly, despite their use under 8th edition rules, a number of the armies don't have an official Battle Standard Bearer model from Games Workshop and the Warriors are no exception. But given that, unless you're prepared to fork out for a Chaos Lord, the best leadership you can muster is 8 (gone are the days of a hefty Ld 10 Warriors from 4th edition), a Battle Standard Bearer seems invaluable – the number of times my Chaos Trolls have rolled a 9 for their stupidity test defies probability, so it was time to get converting.

To make mine I cut off the axe from a Chaos Warrior on foot model (this is the old metal version, as this model is now in the Finecast range), and added the standard from the Pink Horror plastic set.







The standard pole is almost dam near straight, much like Heart DJ Toby Anstis. Given the model comes posed with one foot on a rock I added a load more bits from the Warhammer basing kit to give him the impression of striding through some rocky terrain (or maybe the ruins of a building he's recently toppled).

Finished off he looks like this:










So there you go in a couple of months we've gone from a paltry two Warriors of Chaos characters to a mighty eight!



What a busy weekend of finish off models?! Hope you're happy.

Now given this weekend probably marks the final death throws of summer – only 84 days until Christmas after all, and I've managed to finish off a load of part started bits and pieces now looks as good a time as any to have a review of all my current painting projects and see where I am at:

Current Hobby Projects

Beastmen



Regular readers of my work will know I have a massive Beastmen army (5,500 points), currently these have fallen a little out of favour – Beastmen fatigue! Don't worry they're certainly not forgotten, but I'm rather fortunate that I am in position to be able to store and support a number of armies, rather than having to get rid of an old one to find money/space for a newer one. Which means I can switch between them as and when I get bored, saying that there isn't much more to add to the Beastmen. All that I have outstanding to paint are the parts to convert a Razagor Chariot, but after the mission I had assembling my other Razagor I'm not sure I can face it – and given that after painting up four Beastmen chariots they all collapsed during their first battle I'm tempted to wait for all the bits to be available in Finecast. Which may seem wasteful, but it may save a large therapy bill in the long run.

On that note I've made a decision that I'm not going to buy any new metal models – sick of them collapsing in transit, so anything that is currently in metal I'm going to wait until it hits the shelves in Finecast. This rule pretty much hinders any further Beastmen purchases.

Here's what I'm current looking to add to the army:

•   Cygor & Ghorgon – not really sure how I'd convert these (maybe a Cygor from the Giant kit, but no ideas for the Ghorgon).
•   Minotaur Lord – awaiting Finecast
•   Razagor Chariot – see above
•   Special Characters (other than Malagor and Ghorros) – I love painting special characters, a really nice chance to work on usually a very well crafted model with a bit of extra character (even if no one wants to play them). But much like the Lord awaiting Finecast.
•   Minotaurs – could probably take another unit of Minotaurs, they were fun to paint and my vast horde only includes six. But might wait until I get a lord.

So probably no further Beastmen just yet.

High Elves



My army has exceeded it's original 2,000 points (shown here) with Swordmasters, extra Phoenix Guard, Alith Anar, extra Reavers (for limited purpose) and a couple of Nobles. But I would like to add some extra bits:

•   White Lion Chariot – the only unit I've never painted up for the High Elves (including my old army)
•   Dragon/Dragon Mage – still never painted up a High Elf Dragon, admittedly in gaming terms it's just a more expensive Griffon to be shot at, but for character alone I need to paint a Dragon for my High ELves.
•   Dragon Princes – a second box of five would be nice to add to the unit.
•   White Lions – the only new models I don't have, with the Phoenix Guard and Dragon Prince being such amazing kits I think I need to get myself some of these!
•   Spearmen / extra Lothern Sea Guard – the army only just struggles to enough core for 2,000 points, so an extra rank of Lothern Sea Guard and some Spearmen would address that.
•   Special Characters – again I've painted the only High Elf Finecast model at present (not in Finecast), but I'd love to add Tyrion, Teclis and Eltharon (if only for the fact they were the classic characters from 4th edition!).

In recent months I've done a good job clearing the Elven backlog, all I've got left to paint are a couple of chariot kits (which will do me my White Lion Chariot), a Dragon kit that I've had for ages, Korhill who again I've had for ages and some Spearmen left over from my batallion. So hopefully they can get done.

Warriors of Chaos



With the last few months painting of Marauders and a host of characters, I've cleared all my backlog of unpainted Warriors bar the new Manticore kit:



Which I'm currently put off assembling by the decision to use magnets to allow me to switch between the various builds (thanks for all the advice by the way), it still scares me to the point where I'm wondering if it would just be easier to buy two more kits!!!

Though I have found you can make a Zombie Manticore where he looks like he's pulled off his own head really easily:



There's an idea Undead players (though I believe you can't have Manticores any more) - rubbish.

Here's what I'd like to add to the Warriors one day:

•   Chaos Warriors – I only have 15 of these which is pretty poor, after all this is the unit the army is named after so definitely want some more of these.
•   Foresaken / Warshrine – don't really have any ideas for converting these up so have to wait for new kits here!
•   Chariots/Ogres/Hellcannon – all these models exist but not yet in Finecast (though I think I may have some Chariots which I bought way back in 5th somewhere!). I actually like the Chaos Ogre models, but can't be arsed with assembling the metal versions and as for the Hellcannon...
•   Special Characters – not many Tzeentch special characters to go with here, bar Galrauch who again is metal and potentially an arse to assemble!
•   Dragon Ogre Shaggoth, Mounted Chaos Lord – both these have made it to Finecast and I think may well get added to the army soon. Could these be my first Finecast models? Who knows, who cares, who's still reading?

So as you can see until some more Finecasting or new modelling occurs, not too much I can add to the Warriors.

Dwarfs



My first painted army way back when 7th came out were the Dwarfs, they haven't been out for a while. But with a new book planned soon (hopefully with some new big guns), they may make a return. Though I'm not sure I like the grass bases any more, but can I be bothered to rebase all hundred of those I've already painted – no. I've got most of the units painted up already bar Runesmith and Gyrocopter so even when they do come out shouldn't be loads to add! He says now.

This will be the first time an army I've played with regularly and fully painted has got a new army book (all my other armies I've waited until a new book before starting), so we'll see how annoying it is when they change all the rules for my favourite units.

Bretonnians



I've always been a fan of the Bretonnians, and I have a load of 5th edition models, plus the current set look quite tempting. A new book is rumoured for them soon (too many new books too close together) so this could be the start of them. I actually like the idea of doing individual heraldry for each model (well I do now, I'll get back to you when I'm on my tenth knight!). Shakeaway heraldry anyone?

Orcs & Goblins



I've always been a fan of these, but been daunted by the idea of starting them as they have so many unit options and model kits I'd be bankrupt starting a new army. However I recently got out my old 4th edition models and found I could do a decent 3,000 point army without buying any new models. So maybe a 4th edition Orc & Goblin army could make a nice/cheap project, monopose Goblin spearmen for the win?!

Terrian



You may remember at the beginning of this blog I made grandiose plans about finishing a battlefield full of terrain by October. This has failed. Let's move on!!

Talisman





Recently I found my copy of the 3rd edition Talisman in the loft, and thought this would make a fun little project to paint up the models, and some nice variety too. I did look up the prospect of buying the expansions off eBay but unable to remortgage my house I think this may be a pipedream.

Dreadfleet



Sorry best picture I could do!

So temptation swallowed me any I purchased Man O'War, I mean Dreadfleet. The idea of a little painting project which won't lead into me buying any new expansions kits or models really appealed. And then when I found it each ship was from a different race giving me a load of painting options, I was drawn in hook line and sinker! Still at least it won't take up too long, maybe?!

Warhammer 40,000

It would be a bad idea to start up a new game system... wouldn't it?

So there we go there's all the potential projects I could be getting on with. Thoughts on what I should do are most heartedly encouraged (please reply in the usual manner), though they may be ignored. And yes I have listed about a billion pounds of models that I'd like to paint, god dam it!

And finally, thanks for all your What's In the Box? entries, I've decided to do a celebrity draw, for this month's winner – more on that later. And I did promise photos/feedback from Waaagh X, as Twitter followers know myself and Steven came a respectable 8th. Sadly it was out of 8. Photos and lamentations to follow.

See you next time!