More bases for the DA

I'm still working on that twenty page monstrosity of a paper, but in the meantime, I thought I'd go ahead and throw these up here.  Not quite sure I like them, but it's a start.  I'm toying with the idea of starting with a fresh slab of Sculpey, sketching out a graphic on it, and then cutting it up into pieces for the bases so that when all the squad is pushed back together, it forms the picture again. 

I'm not sure that what I just said makes any sense.  I'm a bit tired.  Oh well, here are the ones I've done so far.  I'll see about working on the other idea for later.

Here's a dreadnought base that I'm starting, too.

Games!

The other day*, me, my wife, and one of our friends were sitting around and we decided to try out some new board games.  We tried Tsuro, Death Angel, and Settlers of Catan (thanks geekandsundry.com!).  Each of them has its merits.  Tsuro is an interesting game about following lines.  It reminds me a lot of that old snake game where you try not to run into the sides or your own "tail."  Not quite the same thing I guess.  Oh well. 

Image copyrighted by not me.

Anyway, buy it and play it.

Image copyrighted by Fantasy Flight, I assume.

Death Angel is another good one.  The rules are a bit complicated to start with - steep learning curve.  But after one play-through, it's pretty straight forward.  I like the game.  I'd like the original Space Hulk board-game version better, but since that's in limited supply and generally costs more than I want to spend at one time, I'll stick with this.  Buy this, too.  It's definitely worth trying.  And if you get bored, it's also a good solitaire game.

Last was Settlers of Catan.

This was my first time playing Settlers (yeah, late to the party, I know).  I liked this on best.  I think I was frustrating people with my use of the bandit, though.  And the monopoly development card is kind of awesome, too.  My wife pretty much dominated that game, though.  Definitely buy this one and play it.  Multiple times.  You can buy it multiple times, too, but really just play it multiple times.  Lots of fun.

That it all.

Christmas tree?

So I learned from my boss today that I've got to whip up a twenty page research paper by the end of the week covering a topic about which I know nothing.  No painting for me today.  Instead, I'll post a nice picture of our Christmas "tree."

That's right, it's a heavy bag with lights on it.  You know, something you'd see at a bachelor's house.  Funny thing is, my wife put them up!

More DA Stuff

So I think this might be a better picture of the chaplain.

I started in on robes for one of the next set, too.

I think I've got too much bleached bone on the front of the robe there.  I might have to go in and fix that up.

Some more DA vets

Since the chaplain didn't turn out completely disastrous, I went ahead and started on some of the others.

Doesn't look like much yet, but hopefully it will as I get further along.  I started by priming them all gray using Vallejo model air 71.097 gray primer.   Funny story: I began priming the first half with my airbrush.  About halfway through, it started to sputter, so I went to go give it a good clean . . . and I dropped one of the smaller parts down the sink.  Okay, not so funny after all.

So after finishing the other half by brush, I then painted all of the armor parts of the torsos with 3:1 dark angels green (now caliban green - though I haven't gotten around to buying the new colors yet): chaos black (probably not abbadon black).

 

First DA Model

Okay, so here's my first attempt at a DA model.  I built this chaplain using the robed body and power weapon from the DA vet squad box and the head and shoulder pads from the death company box.  I thought they worked well together to make a good chaplain look.

Okay, so my photography skills are obviously lacking.  But you get the idea.  (Still, I'll see if I can scrounge up some better lighting and location to get a better shot at it.) 

The base is sort of a crude attempt at making a marble look.  (the technique for which I borrowed from wappellious.blogspot.com).  Hopefully my further attempts will be cleaner, but this works well enough for beginning I think.

New 40k DA Project

In the 40k gaming world, I'm gearing up for the (hopefully) soon-to-be-released 6th edition Dark Angels codex.  So in that spirit, I've finally started assembling and painting some of the DA models I've got sitting around the house.  I'll be posting WIP pics and such, you know, as soon as I figure out how.  That's right: techno-n00b.