Butcher Heart of Darkness Theme Force

I've been wanting to chronicle a set project for some time, and I've settled on a theme force that I want to build based purely off aesthetics, the Butcher's Heart of Darkness theme.  I love the idea of Khador heavy armor advancing slowly, shrugging off damage and then wrecking face as soon as they get within range.  Also, this article over at Muse on Minis gave me a little bit of a kick to make the theme a little more special.

Here's the list, 75 points

The Butcher of Khardov

Berserker

Berserker

Destroyer

Man-o-war Bombardiers (Leader and 4 Grunts)

Man-o-war Demolition Corps (Leader and 4 Grunts)

Man-o-war Shocktroopers (Leader and 4 Grunts)

Man-o-war Shocktroopers (Leader and 4 Grunts)

Widowmakers (Leader and 3 Grunts)

Man-o-war Drakhun (with dismount)

Man-o-war Kovnik

Man-o-war Kovnik

Manhunter

Manhunter

Widowmaker Marksman

Yuri the Axe

The idea is to advance the Bombardiers and Demo Corps behind the Shock Troopers, who are taking all the damage, and then cut loose once I close.  The Manhunters, Marksman, Widowmakers and Yuri are there to harass the frontliners until the heavy armor can close. 

It may not be the most competitive list, but it's fun, and I think it will look good on the table.

I'm going to try to post regular updates on the work of this every Friday, so stay tuned!

Jessie

Avenger kit

Just wanted to throw this up so people can see what the kit looks like.  I'm looking forward to getting this guy put together and painted!

Caine

So, plans changed and I'm not going to Gen Con.  I have managed to get some painting done however, and here's some proof.  My apologies for the cell phone picture, my lightbox set up is in transition.  Once I have it up and running again, you'll see better pictures.

Enjoy!

Gen Con is approaching...

...and this blog may be unmanned for a while.  I have been painting up models for play recently, but now thats going to have to go on hold as I start painting entries for some competitions!  I've got some ideas bouncing around as to what I am going to paint, and I may post some of my thoughts as I progress through the figures.

Stay tuned!

Archduke Runewood

He was a fun model to paint.  Painted him up in about an evening, this guy is going straight in a Constance tier list!

The Thunderhead

I've had this model for a while, since it was a gift from a friend when the model first made its debut.  I painted it once, and through the years I grew more dissatisfied with the result.  So I chucked it in the stripper and started to paint it again.  Life happened, it sat unpainted for a while until I was able to turn my attention back to him.  I touched up quite a few areas and after a little bit of work, I'm happy with the results.

Thanks for looking!  How about liking my Facebook page!

 A contest may be coming in the near future....

Photoshop is your friend

So, if you look at my last post, you'll see that I am playing around with my lighbox.  I still need to make some adjustments to lighting and my Camera's settings, but boy howdy, Photoshop can work wonders in a pinch.

I made two edits to the images, and check out how much better they look.

Hydra gallery

So, I've been able to set up a photo booth in my basement.  I piddled around with it tonight and was able to get some somewhat decent shots of a few figures.  I still need to work on getting the lighting just right, as some of the pictures came out dark, but I'll just have to play around with the settings on my camera and the placement of the lights.

On to the interesting stuff, a Hydra for your enjoyment.  He came out a bit shiny due to some bad sealant.  Comments and critique welcome!

The Mountain King!

So, Privateer has previewed this baddie:

And he's pretty exciting from both a painting and play style perspective.  I'm used to painting nothing larger than a Warjack, and the only occasion I've had to use my airbrush is to lay basecoats on figures.  This guy, though, will definitely require my airbrush. 

Plus, those whelps are so doggone cute, that's reason enough to pick this guy up!

Workspace photos, now clickable!

For some reason, the photos in my previous post are unclickable. Here they are again, so you can view them in all their clickable glory! Until I figure out how to make my images clickable again, photobucket will have to do.

Edit: And of course this makes the formatting look awful. Sorry!

New work space

So, many things have happened within the past year. I graduated college with a History degree, got married, got an awesome job working with my brother, and I bought a new house. And with a new house comes a man cave, and an awesome hobby work space in that man cave. My old work area used to be crammed into a desk with a simple hutch built on to it, but I still had a flow with it that allowed me to paint figures. Now, I've been able to expand that work area and and expand the flow along with the amount of figures I have painted. Now, on to the tour!

The first stop, my to-be-painted shelf.

This is where I line up all the figures I want to paint before a new wave of figures takes their place.

Next up, the main work area.

It's pretty self explanatory. It's where I paint. And read Lost Hemisphere. And watch King of the Hill on Netflix.

And finally, the display case. This is pretty much the main motivator for me to paint. The whole time I'm painting, I have the display case sitting next to me, beckoning me to place freshly painted figures in it.

It may seem simple, but it's a pretty effective process for me to paint all of the unpainted figures I have. I've set a goal to paint all the figures I have before I buy anything new. It's pretty intimidating looking at all the figs I have, and it's pretty hard to keep my self from buying shiny new toys like the Minute Man, but this process has helped me paint a great deal of figures I've had for some time.

So, no matter your work space size, get a flow going! If you want to get through that mountain of figs, painting time and a good flow to your work space will really help get you motivated. Set goals too! Have a place to proudly display your work! This will make you want to add newly painted figures to the mix, and you'll be amazed at how quickly it fills up!