Heavy Support: Centurions

Today I want to present pictures of my recently completed Devastator Centurions. These models have been on my hobby desk for about 3 weeks but I recently managed to sit down, put in a good shift and get them finished. I hope you enjoy how they turned out!

This is the unit Sergeant, equipped with Omniscope and Grav Cannon/Grav Amp.

I'm reasonably happy with how this unit has turned out. I did have to paint the majority of the squad with a paint brush that had certainly seen better days and once it had given up the ghost I was forced to conclude the painting using a fine detail brush... I guess this contributed to the drawn out final 10 hour painting session I fought through to the get the unit completed.

Becoming One With The Hobby

Immersing ones self into this hobby of ours is a wonderful, but also potentially hazardous journey. Let me explain... so, as mentioned previously in my post about painting progress, momentum and how easy it can be to get bogged down, I feel that there is a huge 'mental' element involved in painting/hobbying for a lot of us toy soldier collectors. The exposure to, whether on Blogs or Facebook groups for example, gorgeously painted models and thus the ability which many experienced hobbyists possess can be quite off putting if compared to ones own standards (if they aren't quite as good).

I was having a conversation in the pub recently where I was showing a couple of non hobbyists work chums my work (specifically my Cypher and Drod Pod) via photos on my iPad. This conversation took place a good 4 or 5 pints in to the evening so was rather lively but I remember saying that although objectively I am happy with my standard and I can see that my ability is slowly improving, on one level I am always disappointed with my models and that they are a million miles away from the quality of some painters. I cant imagine that I am alone in feeling this way and so find it fascinating that something which we love doing can elicit such contrary feelings.

Of course the flip side of any potential negative effects of getting balls deep in to the hobby is that there is no limit to the potential inspiration one can find out there on the t'interwebs. All our hobby blogs, Facebook groups, gaming clubs etc are such a wonderful source of ideas, tips/tricks and general awesomeness.

Personally I love seeing what others create and the blog scene is fantastic and I would love to hear anyone's thoughts or experiences relating to what I have written in this post.

Thanks for reading :)

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!

Bonus Time!!

Thanks to a very productive year at work I have quite a nice bonus to spend on hobbying this month. After hitting Forge World and my local GW store here in Bath I am happy to show off the new additions to my army!

In this picture you can see a Storm Raven, a Storm Talon and from Forge World; a Contemptor Dreadnought and Legion Praetors (still on their sprue's). I also put in an order to the brand new GW web store in order to take advantage of the 'free' limited edition Space Marine Captain- this order consisted of Inquisitor Coteaz, the Emperors Champion, Vanguard Veterans and an Aegis Defense Line. I don't want to think about how much these all cost but f**k me they are all sexy models! :)

My plan was to buy enough models to keep me going for the rest of the year. Considering I still have many units built and not painted already I am confident that I wont run out of things to build or paint; and that with the exception of purchases from Games Day I should be sorted until the end of the year.

Dedicated Transport: Drop Pod

Another week, another unit to complete. This week it's the turn of my Drop Pod. I am rather fortunate to have the opportunity to complete this model as it was very nearly smashed into a thousands pieces by a dozy school kid at Warhammer World (you should have seen the look on his face when he realised he had knocked my unit onto the floor while putting his coat on! bless him).

Anyway, in preparation for painting my new Imperial Knight, I wanted to practice masking areas off and then using the airbrush to paint hazard lines and I figured that painting them on the edge of each door would be perfect to test this out. The photos below show the first attempt and I am very happy with how it turned out. There were a couple of instances of seepage when I used this technique on the other doors but it was nothing too serious and didn't ruin the aesthetic I was trying to achieve.

And here is the finished unit. In total it took me a good 2 weeks to complete this model; mainly due to its size! I'm really happy with the end result, and I think the hazard lines really set the model off. Here is the unit, with doors open and with Lysander to provide a reference for the drop pod scale.