Blood Bowl Commission

Holy crap, two months?!

What the heck, man...

So why the long absence? Well, firstly I got a promotion at work and with that came lots of training and more responsibilities, so this obviously came into conflict with extracurricular stuff like hobbies. Also, because I was working on the commission, I stopped any projects that were personal to ensure it got done, so it became a standstill for my own work.

Although once I got done with that stuff I was out of the groove in terms of upkeep for the blog. Now that I've gathered my wits I'll make sure to get this back up and running regularly.

So with that I present the completed commission:

(So it turned out really grainy and looked much better on my phone/computer, but in the future I'd be using a camcorder and not a phone!)

This video was slapped together haphazardly, so it's not really a reflection of what I'd want to eventually do with the hobby in regards to making videos. I just thought it would be cool to try out, and I did so immediately after getting the painting done so I was extremely tired. Anyway, thought you'd enjoy it!

So what about pics?

Here's the Ork team in all its completed glory. As stated earlier I was tired, it was around 1AM on a worknight, and I couldn't find my usual camera to take photos of the job. I had to use my phone, which doesn't have a white balance option and doesn't take macro photos, so bear with me with the yellow pics.

Like I said, they're really yellow...

Initially these guys were a lot more vibrant, but due to the matte varnish it knocked the oranges down a lot and made them more muted. It did a great job blending the decals into the paint job though, and it's crucial when working with decals to have a painted-on look.

Although this guy was my test model for the Orks it shows a bit more on its vibrancy, although I had others that looked better.

The team on the field...

Now for the humans, the Reikland Reavers!

These guys turned out way better than I anticipated, and turned out to be one of my favorite paint jobs! It was a breath of fresh air painting these guys after the Orks, they have more unanimous shapes for the armor plating and the blue turned out spectacular. I had also finally worked out an effective assembly line schedule for painting and got them done much faster than I had with the Orks.

I have a ton of WIP photos for both teams, but figured it's not a crucial item to display.

I learned a ton from this commission! I finally figured out how to paint black in a way I'm satisfied with, as it's a color I struggled with much like brown a few years back. I couldn't figure out how to highlight the color without making it look too much like the highlight being the main color, for this instance grey. I also learned how to do a very vibrant blue. And although I've done green skin numerous times this is my first foray into blending it smoother, and I learned to love the new GW Glaze line they offer (it's amazing for glazing!). The most important thing I learned though was organization and learning how to effectively paint in an assembly line, since I hadn't done that since around 2007. I really prefer painting one model at a time, though, as I tend to sacrifice a tiny bit of quality for quantity.

Let me know what you think, and if you have any questions on paint recipes I'll be happy to share them! For the next update I'll post on my last two Malifaux tournaments along with a few items I've learned from them, as well as progress regarding Parker Barrows in my recent experiments!

12/10/16 Malifaux Tournament! Blood Bowl WIP! Things!

That sweet Malifaux goodness!

Wow, Ryan... a whole month with no updates, what's up with that?

Sorry folks, although I had been doing lots of hobby stuff I hadn't quite gotten enough material together to warrant an update (at least in my mind!), so I had been holding off on content for a bit. I did manage to work on a post involving some thoughts on the game in terms of strategy much like my AP post, but I didn't quite finish it.

Anyway, what's been going on? Well, for starters last Saturday we had a Malifaux Tournament at the impressive Montag's Games store. We had 8 players in attendance, including a relatively newer player I had faced before in the Henchman Hardcore tournament a while back. 

Below are the table set ups for your enjoyment...

Doug's western themed board, I like the set up and he generally has the same set up every time which is good for its symmetry but not to cuttered

Doug also used his Arena Rex mat for an interesting mat, the TO arranged the terrain and made it the definition of symmetrical

Karl's board featured on a Guild Ball mat, which conveniently marks the center circle for Strategies like Reconnoiter

My board that was featured previously on the blog, although I set it up differently every time

Brandon set this one up very quickly, although I must admit it seemed very interesting to play on

I set this one up very fast, it probably had the least elements but hardly any straight lines of sight from deployment zones

Round 1

Standard, Collect the Bounty

Convict Labor, Take Prisoner, Show of Force, Set Up, A Quick Murder

Yay! I actually remembered to post the entire scheme pool!

Mike getting ready to throw some summons in my face

My first round was against Mike, one of my regular opponents who has made the switch from Gremlins to Ressers. So far he's only used Molly so it was a safe guess that she was going to make an appearance.

The scheme pool looked like it favored my Viktorias. Recently I had been using them a lot with a good amount of success and have actually gotten worse with Leveticus - a discussion for another time. I had recently made a big change in the list and replaced Ashes & Dust and Sue with Aionus and two Winged Plagues. I had only one game with this composition under my belt but felt it was such a good addition that I was confident it could weather the tournament. Collect the Bounty is very good for the crew, and they are now very capable of handling marker related schemes like Convict Labor. Their specialty is A Quick Murder, so I decided to go with Viks for my first game.

Molly peers beside the building at my crew in the open...

Based on the terrain I saw that there were a few bottlenecks to look out for. If I went behind the buildings I'd be forced to come out toward his crew in one, maybe two openings, and those would confine my ability to move around my own crew. He deployed first and set up his whole crew behind the closest building while keeping a lone Flesh Construct on the opposite side to hinder my schemes. I noticed that if he decided to come out between the first two buildings he'd be hindered by some scatter terrain in terms of outright coming toward me, although it's a two way street and would force me to work around the terrain to get to him. If he came out between the second and third buildings I'd manage to have a much safer approach as it would take him longer to become a threat but he'd approach safer as well. I decided to deploy behind my first building instead of in the open just in case the flow dictated that I needed to change the approach. It also benefited me to help with my scheme runners on that side.

The opening turns went as expected, with a slight twist. I assumed he would keep his crew together but the limitations of space and LOS had him split his crew in two and went through both alleys. I brought my entire crew out into the main opening while keeping a Winged Plague and Freikorpsmann on the left to place markers that would go unchallenged during the remaining game turns. My right Winged Plague went to the opposite table edge and I managed to get two markers on the center line with two more creeping behind them - Aionus is able to make all friendly markers move so they can eventually come into play mid game.

Molly then summoned two Students (Viscera and Steel) to swing at Hannah, who promptly tanked them and only took two damage. Viktoria of Blood walked toward them and killed one to ensure that I didn't have to deal with it next turn. To do this, however, compromised my usual positioning and left the Viktorias exposed if they didn't win initiative. It was a gamble I was willing to take, however, as Blood would have positives for Defense and a full hand of cards and stones.

Molly promptly throws bodies at Hannah

Turn two saw the expected blood bath. I managed to win Initiative and went to work. Viktoria of Ashes put up a buff for damage, teleported Blood, and Blood chain activated. She then discarded Oathkeeper and charged Sybelle - who happened to be A Quick Murder's target. Viktoria swiftly killed her, then walked toward the Belle and wounded her with Melee Expert. Although it's not as flashy as usual (like killing 6 models at once) it did the job and scored 3VP easily. 

Viktoria, in some deep doo doo but worth it

Mike then concentrated on killing Blood while he had the chance, but it took a ton of resources to do it. Between Blood having stones, cards and a positive flip to defense it took almost his entire crew, including Molly's new summons like another Student and a Punk Zombie, to bring Blood down to a few wounds left, and she was finished by a Necrotic Machine of all models, who flipped the Red Joker on damage just when it was looking like Blood pulled off a miracle and lived.

Because of how much it took to dispose of Blood Mike wasn't in a good position anymore. I had the freedom to place markers down for Convict Labor which gave me AP to spend on mopping up the portion of his crew that was further up the field. He was also in a bad spot since his summons were further back than he'd like now and no longer had the buffer between my crew and his master.

His lone Flesh Construct was doing his best to deny markers on the left, but I had placed three or four in the area and would be impossible for him to deny with one model. Instead of attacking him I just attempted disengage strikes and would walk away just to place yet another marker. Aionus tied up the other side while placing markers and moving them around, all the while handing out Slow to the Flesh Construct on the right.

In the end I had only lost two models, which were both of my Viktorias. I didn't kill too much in terms of significant models but I had locked down my VP while denying his - he ended up taking Convict Labor and Set Up and it ended up 8-2 in my favor. If we had went to turn 5 I may have gotten full VP, but I doubt the differential would have been any different.

Round 2

Flank, Interference

Convict Labor, Show of Force, Leave Your Mark, Frame For Murder, Set Up

Doug from the illustrious Guslado Games

So for Round 2 I was paired against Doug and his infamous Sandeep list. I learned a ton from our last encounter, but then so has he. I decided to use the Viktorias again even though he knew their trick, I figured having Aionus and the Winged Plagues will help me with schemes. The table was a bit of a choke point with the way the fence was, luckily Doug gave me deployment and I picked the not-so-damning corner. In hindsight I probably should have picked the opposite corner, being that the building was bigger and would hide me better while denying him a hidey-hole. I chose Convict Labor and Leave Your Mark, although in the end it would prove to be a bad choice.

It started off fairly well. I moved my Winged Plagues to the flanks to place markers, with one ending up on top of the large building in safety. The one on the right however died very fast to Cassandra and a Mage. The Freikorpsmann walked toward the north side of the board and placed a marker, and Hannah went up the middle. The Malifaux Child put up the damage buff.

Doug learned from last time and split up his forces a lot. One the fence-side was a Mage and Cassandra. The middle had Sandeep, and the far side had two Mages and Joss.

Due to the placement of his models I heavily debated if I should do a turn 1 charge with Blood. I figured I'd be able to get the two Mages and Joss in Whirlwind, but knew that once it happened Blood will be gone. Figuring I wouldn't have another chance at it I decided to go for it and slung Blood to kill them. It turned out I wasn't able to get the third Mage into range like I thought and only managed to kill Joss and one Mage - and Joss was the target for Frame For Murder. That's when it all went downhill.

Sandeep then summons the Banasuva to kill Blood, who managed to stay alive at one wound.

Ashes joined in on the fun and the two summons were killed, but Blood now had Burning on her so she was going to die.

Doug used the remaining resources to do damage onto Ashes and get her off the field. He got her down to almost dead.

Meanwhile I spent a lot of brainpower trying to figure out how to get out of this mess I put myself in. I managed to move the Malifaux Child in range, had Hannah walk up to Blood and use the Child's healing ability. But not having the cards in hand it was a gamble - I'd be relying on flipping either Moderate or Severe to heal enough to live. Of course, a Weak flipped and it wasn't enough to stem the tide. Doug's remaining resources managed to get Blood and Ashes down to one wound, which killed them once Burning took place.

Not much to say after that! It went downhill extremely fast. If Blood had managed to get that other Mage in Whirlwind range then my Winged Plague would have been free to run his schemes, but since I didn't the Winged Plague had to be exposed to try to get in range for Leave Your Mark and died. I also should have picked my schemes better, because Frame For Murder would have been a sure shot on Viktoria of Blood, which would have closed the differential much better. The reason I didn't take it was because every time I take it against another player of ours he avoids killing her at all so it left a bad taste.

Needless to say it was pretty demoralizing for me, and unfortunately I let it affect my following game.

Round 3

Corner, Stake a Claim

Convict Labor, Hunting Party, Exhaust their Forces, Neutralize the Leader, Occupy Their Turf

So for my last game I was paired against Travis, another regular opponent and Malifaux genius. We played on the Arena mat. Unfortunately with Corner deployment I realized that no matter what cornern I ended up in I was extremely bottle-necked. As I deployed my models it sunk in even further as I could already tell this was not going to be a good game for me.

With Exhaust their Forces in the pool and Stake a Claim needing models in enemy halves I decided with Leveticus, although in hindsight I probably should have stuck with Viks. I chose Convict Labor and Exhaust Their Forces, which I realized recently that Flesh Constructs are actually really good at. I need to start forgetting about Convict Labor when it comes to Corner Deployment, I'm just too far to do the normal strategy I usually do.

I hadn't taken a lot of photos during the game, mostly because it was a terribly awful game and I was already worn down from my last defeat and let it get in my head. He used Asami and was much better equipped to be walking around in forests than I was. He managed to get Neutralize the Leader on turn two, and was getting Hunting Party every turn. I only got two points from Exhaust Their Forces and nothing else. It was bad. On top of that my flips were awful, and my control hand rarely saw anything above an 8 even after spending stones. It ended 10-2 and we were done with an hour left in the round!

I felt bad that I didn't give Travis a good game but in the end it bumped him up to second place so he probably wasn't complaining! Doug ended up winning (again, damn you!) and Karl took third.

Lesson's learned, really. I need to re-rack my brain on scheme selection and really approach every scheme as valid rather than sticking to the same ones repeatedly - not that I'm saying that there aren't any staples, just that I need to reevaluate how I approach them.

In the end it was fun but brutal on the psyche. Luckily the end of the year is approaching and the new Gaining Grounds packet should be out - it should be enough to revitalize my game and is definitely exciting. 

After the game we had Indian food for dinner and went back to Mike's for Board Game Night. We ended up playing Camel Up, which is a surprisingly fun game about gambling! We also played King of Tokyo which was cool too, and ended the night with Cash and Guns, a fun party game.

Blood Bowl WIP

So a few weeks back Guy, the owner of Montag's, commissioned me to paint a copy of Blood Bowl in exchange for a copy for myself (I may have done some coercing...). From the moment I saw the new Orks I knew I had to get my hands on a copy, and they looked like an absolute blast to paint. It took me a good four hours to assemble and cover up the bases - they have a slot to insert the ball, but it's not something Guy (or I) wanted. I finally was able to set aside some time on Sunday to start the painting process. I had to do an assembly line in order to get them done in a timely fashion, even though I hate assembly line painting.

The first foundation of Red is placed...

Guy wanted them to have the same paint scheme as they do on the box but gave me the freedom to paint in how I'd like within that range - a good thing, as my particular style doesn't match that of GW which is a rather cool one. I'd been brainstorming on how I wanted to approach the work and decided on using a technique I'd used in the past for red with a slight twist.

Over a black primer coat I sprayed Vallejo Gray highlights and color blocking. Because this "undercoating" process is used under a coat of red I had to go more overboard than usual to ensure that the red is readable in the end. Once the gray was done I used Vallejo Red Ink and sprayed several light coats over the gray. It starts off as a light pink at first but over time and several layers the red starts to show, and it is really rich. Unfortunately it looks a lot different under the light than it does in normal lighting conditions and is actually a lot darker than I'd like.

New! Now with Orange! (Also, it looks a lot more orange than it really is in this light)

I decided to add another layer of highlights with Vallejo Fiery Orange. I was worried about this step as I hadn't used orange to layer over red in quite a while on this scale and was afraid it wouldn't look good. Luckily it worked out, and it creates a really cool sheen on the armor while still reading as red. Had I took the more realistic route it would turn out much more of a pink tone, maybe less so with a Flesh Tone undercoat. I plan on knocking down the gloss finish with matte varnish tonight to see if I need to work more on it.

Up Close...

I really like the way they turned out, but I'm afraid that they are too dark and subtle to pop. I'm debating on pushing the contrast further, by shading with Burnt Umber and adding in another layer of Gray/Orange. I'm also debating on the skin tone, as I initially thought I wanted them to be more of a olive green rather than the yellow green that they traditionally are painted as. We'll see, but in the mean time I will continue to update my progress and get it done as soon as possible!

My life in hobby gaming...

So being that this is a blog about my favorite hobby I decided to just go on a tangent about my experience as a miniature gamer.

I remember my first experience being exposed to the hobby. When I was a kid I used to go to the mall a lot with my folks. As a child there was only a few things in my life I cared about: comics and video games. So back when malls had arcades I'd always plop my happy butt in them for hours at a time while my mom went shopping. This was also back when parents left their tiny children alone in malls with no fear.

So on a trip to Toronto we decided to stop at a huge mall. I do what I naturally always did and looked at the directory for the arcade's location. By a happenstance of fate I see "Games Workshop" and head straight for it.

Instead of an arcade, I had found destiny.

I remember a brightly lit store with all manners of models that were impressively painted. The shelves were lined with boxes and paints. Tables were set up with terrain and demo models for bystanders to try. A very enthusiastic employee described everything to me in detail and allowed me to play with him using the (3rd edition) starter box - which included 10 marines and a landspeeder (painted as Ravenwing) against 20 Dark Eldar. Before then I only knew of model cars, which I had extensive experience with as my uncle and I did a million of along with rockets and pinewood derby. But little dudes with guns fighting over a battlefield before your eyes?!

When it was time to go my dad found me at the would-be arcade. I showed him how cool everything was and begged him to buy me a starter. My dad was definitely more than willing to get me a new toy (ha!), then saw the price tag for the starter to be a whopping $75 and politely turned the GW employee down. I know, $75 for a GW starter is nothing anymore.

I left defeated, but I was determined to get my hands on it one day. That was in the 4th grade.

Being that we lived in Germany at the time I didn't think I'd have the opportunity to obtain the game, but I always kept it in my head as something I just knew I had to have one day. For a 4th grader to have that type of focus, it should indicate how determined I was for it. Granted, these were the days before the internet's boom, online shopping didn't exist, you didn't have a website to do research, and if you did it was very crude. I thought about it almost every day until we moved back to the US in 7th grade. When we moved to New York I still sought after finding a "Games Workshop" at a mall like I had done before. It was a good while until we went to the Syracuse Mall and I found one!

This time I managed to get my parents to buy a White Dwarf magazine and order the old Citadel Catalog. This gave me all the info I needed to further pursue the hobby - a book full of pictures of cool toys and articles on painting, a list of GW retailers, a Sears-catalog-like list of available models, and the number to their hotline! Yes, kids, they used to have a 1-800 number to call, and this is how you used to settle rules disputes or ask general questions about the game. I remember my first phone call to them asking what the rules were on painting your guys - and the confused voice on the other end saying "however you want" and blowing a kid's mind.

I showed this to my friends at school and found out that one of them actually knew about the game and had a few models for it! When I say a few, I mean like 3 space marines. We had about 3 other guys who wanted to get into it as well, but in hindsight only Brennan and I absolutely wanted to go through with it. We actually changed plans to get into Epic 40k as it was cheaper, but we really didn't an idea of what we actually wanted, just some Space Marines. I didn't even realize/remember that there was a rulebook lol.

A little further down the road we met up with a friend of his who actually had some Space Wolf models and they were painted. We were going to play a game together with what he had. I expected it to be like my first experience with the GW employee, but it turned out to be how you'd expect 3 kids to play with toy soldiers. A lot of sound effects being made and overall a recreation of a scene from Andy playing in Toy Story.

We had fun, but I sought that true experience. Fast forward to moving back to Germany. I was still hungry for the game, but hormones and high school made it take a back seat for a while. I still made model cars and military craft, but I had gotten into a lot of other hobbies along the way, like skating, playing drums, and girls (haha!). I still kept it in the back of my mind though. Around that time I found the internet, it was still a crude form of it - it was slow, you dialed-up to get on, and chat rooms were the thing. On a whim I searched for Games Workshop's website and found it! I begged my parents to help me order it. Five weeks later - shipping was also not as good back then for some reason - I had gotten my first models! I put it all together with PVA glue (for some reason I thought that was the special glue needed for the models) and read the rules. I hadn't had anyone to play it with for about a year since none of my friends knew about it.

During my sophomore year I visited my sister in New York for the summer. Didn't bring my models with me, but I did bring my rule book to read on the plane along with some comics. When I visited her she would drive me to the Syracuse mall periodically (a 3 hour drive, bless her heart) so I could visit the GW store. It had been years, but they remembered me from before! This time I came with the most important thing: money! I had bought a space marine starter box, paints, the codex, and the old SM Commander with the Storm Bolter. I didn't play any, but watched as others did and spent a lot of time with them learning how to paint, and the importance of primer. Also, to use super glue.

I remember asking what inks did (back when they sold inks) and being told that it gives definition, and having no idea what that meant and nodding.

Well I came back with tons of stuff in a GW case and got to work on it back home. I painted up my force to be all Black with Silver trim. And gold eagles. And red in random places. It was quite hodgepodge, as some newbies are prone to do lol.

As it turns out, I met a new friend who also knew about Warhammer and had some Tyranids. We would get together periodically and play 500 point games together. We still talk to this day, and he still plays Warhammer.

The next year I visited New York again, this time I had a lot more stuff and got to play a few games. I was also learning how to drive, so my sister and I took several road trips to a few different stores.

After I graduated high school I moved to Texas to go to college in a small town. I had all my Warhammer stuff with me in the dorm, but being such a small town I didn't expect to find anywhere to play locally. One day I went with a friend to pick up Domino's Pizza and on the way in the store out of the corner of my eye I saw a Warhammer 40k poster. My heart stopped and I walked inside. There I saw people playing Warhammer and a few of my now lifelong friends playing different games. I couldn't contain my excitement and started going there almost daily.

This is where a lot of my most fond memories occurred. I just so happened to have discovered the place the week they were doing a huge game event for Warhammer, involving no less than 12 players in a huge free-for-all game. I also discovered there was a new edition to the game I didn't know about that just recently released. I met a lot of people who I still play with to this day.

A really good friend of mine taught me how to play the game correctly and how to think differently when it comes to list composition and gameplay. He also taught me about painting, and I remember how he blew my mind when he showed me how to layer paint with red up to orange (a lot of things got a treatment of red after that haha). We played almost religiously and went to dozens of tournaments around Texas. I had moved from successfully playing vanilla Space Marines to Slaanesh Chaos Marines - which I actually did very well with - to my Ravenwing, which won several tournaments consistently. I vastly improved my painting abilities and discovered that it is one of my favorite aspects to the hobby by far, even winning several painting competitions and usually coming out with Best Painted in most of the tournaments we attended. After several years we took the plunge for Warhammer Fantasy and quickly discovered that it was even better!

After a few years of that we moved on to Warmachine (Mark 1) for a change of pace. Our group got somewhat smaller but we still met up weekly for gaming. During these years I was opened up to a lot more than miniature gaming. We played lots of board games - Battlestar Galactica was probably one of my favorite moments. We played Star Wars Miniatures extensively (a great game that went the way of the dodo), I was shoved into Versus and discovered why they called CCGs "Cardboard Crack," and plenty more that I wouldn't be able to recall.

After I graduated college I got married and we planned on moving to El Paso to be closer to my family, along with the pursuit of a career of some sort. Warmachine MkII just came out and we were knee-deep in the game, but when I moved to El Paso I had a hard time finding opportunities to game. There was only one shop I found over there, and they were more into Magic the Gathering than miniatures. Although I played Magic, the scene wasn't very welcoming (I find a lot of Magic stores to be less forgiving, but that's painting with a broad brush) and I quickly lost any drive to make the effort to go there. So for about two years I didn't do any table top gaming, and hardly any painting at all. I did try to get some friends of mine into it, but nothing ever came out of it.

It wasn't anything to complain about, I rediscovered one of my other hobbies I did in high school - paintball. But that's a whole other story, all that needs to be said is this - that hobby can be even more expensive lol.

My family had moved away from El Paso after two years. Being that my wife missed living near her parents and most of mine had moved we decided to come back to the Houston area. When we moved back here one of the first things I did was search for a local shop to play at. I knew Houston was a hotbed for miniature gaming and that there should be several stores nearby. I discovered my local gaming store and got right back in to the swing of things. I even met some people who I've gamed with since then.

I not only discovered my local store, I found a lot others including visiting the new location of one of my old regular places, Fat Ogre. If you're ever in that area of Houston you should definitely visit.

I got a great job and have since been rediscovering my love of painting and playing. I've probably grown more in the last two years as a painter than I have my entire painting career! I'm also into more games now than I can count, mostly due to the renaissance of miniature gaming that's occurring thanks to YouTube, Kickstarter and other internet influences. I'm closer now than ever to having one of my dreams since I first saw miniatures in having terrain and a full table to be proud of.

So we come to today. It's a day of hobby reflection for me, where I pause and take stock as to my growth as a person in this wonderful distraction of ours. Miniature gaming has taken me to become a better person, helped me meet incredible lifelong friends, and pushed the boundaries of my creativity. It really is a large chunk of my identity and I've dedicated a good portion of my life toward it. It may not be something like a career or lifetime achievement, but it is something that is of value. Gaming may not save any lives other than the pretend soldiers on the table, but it's been a driving and guiding force consistently throughout my short existence.

Statue of Morr!

I worked on some terrain last night and thought I'd post some WIP pics. Earlier last week I airbrushed this piece using the zenithal technique. Overall I left it rather light grey and decided to try my first attempt at using the dry pigments I acquired about a month or two ago. I mostly used it on the ground stones to get a feel for how they behave. Overall they're a very easy product to use and produces a very smooth blend. I used black pigment between the cracks of the stone and some of the edges. These areas needed shading but were too small to use the airbrush for. Overall a very cool effect and easy to use, it's definitely another tool in my arsenal for future projects that I plan on using often. I've also got them in white, light blue and khaki. I plan on trying to use the white/blue for OSL glows and the khaki for dirt so if I use it again I'll post up progress!

Another thing of note: I tried a slight change in how I painted skulls for this piece. Normally I have a bleached bone look but decided to make it a little more stained for this one. It appears more brown than it really is since it's placed next to a light gray but I really like it. If I can remember it I think this is how I'll do bones in the future.

Anyway, it was a fun and quick piece. I'm thinking of just doing one piece of the terrain at a time (it comes with several items like this statue) in between other models to keep my interest without burning out and slowly getting one of my favorite terrain purchases done.

GW Trees!

Now for something different... Trees!

I had gotten this terrain a while back, even started it a few months ago. I never finished it until last night. I got a bug to finish a few items here and there and though it wouldn't take long to finish this puppy out.

I like the piece, when I first saw it years ago I thought it looked silly with the leaves. It made me think of the Lion King for some reason. But without the leaves it looks awesome, it gives a haunted woods look. I painted it in browns and khakis so that it would fit in with a green table but not look corny. It also fits in with brown and gray tables as well.

I like how the trees can be taken out and used as individual pieces, unfortunately they'd be the only ones that look similar as I do not plan on purchasing more sets of this. But it can work regardless.

I have a lot of other GW terrain that I've purchased that I want to finish as well, including the Garden of Morr and Dreadstone Blight. They made some amazing kits for terrain for Fantasy, too bad they discontinued a lot of it rather quickly. I'd give a lot for the old Tower that is just huge or the house they used to make. I guess it wasn't selling fast enough for them. They made a new set for Age of Sigmar that looks incredible, with the floating stairs and the Orb looking thing. It's a tad rich for my blood being at around $50 each, but one day when I have the disposable income and when all my other terrain is painted I may pick one up.

I got a bug to place some terrain on a mat for some reason and got this:

That's not even everything I have! I want to eventually replace the hills with ruin looking terrain so that it looks a bit better. The Morr terrain is so versatile and works very well with games, providing cover and LOS blockers without much of a footprint and gives a good flavor. I got aquarium ruins for quick footprints as well and they were pretty cheap. I've also got Cathedrals from Pegasus that need roofs, but they should be fairly simple to get done, it's just a lot of area to paint. Thank goodness I have an airbrush and pigments!

Anyway, just a quick update on work I've done lately.