Warhammer World 2017 - Part 1: Visit & Swag!

Whilst on annual leave a couple of weeks back my wife and I dropped in to Warhammer World. This was my 4th visit and my wife's first. I haven't visited since GW re-modeled the entrance and exhibition areas; so was very excited to see how it had changed.

The visit was also a week before my birthday and so my wife was armed with her credit card. At one point I had to refuse her offer to buy me the exclusive Warhammer World Space Marine tank bundle. Yep, she's a keeper! Whilst on the face of it, refusing such an offer would be bonkers, I can't complain about the haul I did leave Warhammer World with (and its nice to leave something for me to pick up next time I visit!):

Since reading the initial Horus Heresy novels last year I have been captivated by Loken and Abaddon. Therefor when I had the chance to pick up whichever HH Character Series I desired, since there is no Sanguinius (yet), it was an easy choice!

The next item on my shopping list, and a book I've wanted to pick up ever since I bought Volume One in the series, was the Imperial Armour Model Masterclass Volume Two. I haven't had the chance to analyse the techniques included in this volume in any detail yet but I'm looking forward to testing out the techniques and following that, during future projects.

Finally, I picked up two of the exclusive Warhammer World miniatures. As I seem to have 'accidentally' started a Stormcast Eternals army (I have the Storm of Sigmar starter set), I figured the Errant-Questor would be a good purchase. Alongside him, I've always wanted a Josef Bugman model... so he ended up in the basket as well!

Overall it was a fantastic day out. I took lots of photos, bought some cool swag and drank some nice ales at the home of GW. This post is the first in a small series of 5. The following 4 posts will cover photos from the Exhibition Centre- which is bloomin' epic!

New Man Cave!!

After moving in to a wonderful new home with my other half, I have been able to set up a pretty sweet area of manly hobbying within our home office/study/man cave (delete as appropriate!). Here are a few pics of not only an awesome desk also a display case!

One of the best things about where I now live is that we have LOADS of space. As such this is the first time since I moved out of my parents 18 years ago that I have the room to sort out a board and actually play some games (40k, X-Wing etc.). I have a plan for this and will post info when things start to happen.

Work Station 2: The Return of the Killer Work Station

So I recently wrote an article about Work Stations. I mentioned that I would be 'upgrading' my set up; following a recent trip to Ikea I am happy to show my new and improved work station.

I now have a sexy chair, very good spot light and a nice big A3 cutting mat. To highlight the difference a good chair can make... yesterday I spent 10 hours painting! such a session would have been impossible on my old chair. Happy days!

Work Stations!

As with all activities which can involve sitting in the same place for hours on end, I think the comfort of our hobbying work stations play a massive part in allowing us to achieve the results we want to. When you consider space, permanence, lighting, equipment etc, work stations can vary massively.

This is my workstation and to be honest its a pain in the ass! the only source of light is the main bedroom light which is positioned directly behind where I am standing whilst taking this photo and there isn't much room for a decent chair so I'm stuck on a small Argos £10 jobby which makes my ass numb after an hour of sitting on it.

But I have no other viable alternative at the moment so just get on with it. I am planning on improving the lighting by investing in a couple of decent lamps and potentially getting a better chair however I do feel like my work station is a hindrance.. and I wonder what everyone else has for their hobbying activities? for all the amazing work stations out in hobbyland there must be many of us who have awkward spaces to work in?

But what is the perfect hobby work station? For me, I was lucky enough to be visiting Bob on a warm summer weekend last year and we spent much of that time (when not gaming) sat around the garden table in the sun with beer in hand- painting. For me, as massive part of what made this great was the company, and how it was awesome to be having a conversation with someone, showing each other our progress, sharing ideas and generally making it a much more collaborative experience. We had loads of room, the light was perfect and it was comfortable.

The question is, does the quality of ones work station really effect the standards one can achieve?

My New Airbrush!

Sometimes (especially last year!) I found my painting progress to be 'biblically' slow. To help combat this I picked up the GW airbrush and although it has its problems (e.g. reliance on canned propellant) I enjoyed experimenting airbrushing and so planned to pick up a more versatile solution. Cue my awesomely sneaky girlfriend! Having noticed that I was looking at them on my ipad I was lucky enough to be greeted by this bad-boy at Christmas!