It's Competition Time!

So, after three and a half years of photographing the models I've painted and tapping away at this keyboard, this humble blog has passed two pretty big milestones. For that I want to thank you all!

All 1,514 Blog Followers! I want to thank you all for your support, and over 1,000,000 page views!

To celebrate I've decided to give away my Tyranid army. I've never shown this army on my blog, as I painted it around five years ago. You may have seen it, however, in the 40K 5th Edition rulebook (photo below). There's roughly 1,500 points of Hive Fleet Kraken goodness that has never been played with, but has made a trip to the UK for photography ; )

WHAT DO I NEED TO DO TO WIN?

Well, it's pretty simple. Here are the three steps to victory:

A) Donate $5 or more to the Black Crusade 2012 by the end of August 5th. You can check out their cool charity project here. Please put your "blogger name" in the comment section of your donation.

B) Be a follower of this blog, and leave a comment at the bottom of this post that promotes your favorite toy soldier blog (not this one, but someone else's). That way we can work together to build all blog traffic : ) Again, you need to do this by the end of August 5th.

C) Sit back and relax. Once I'm back from vacation I'll be checking in with Falk (from the Black Crusade and Tabletop Fix) and cross-referencing the entries with "blogger names" and so on. Once I have all that squared away I'll put up a new post and let everyone know when the random drawing will be.

Should be fun, I hope you enjoy promoting cool blogs, and helping out the wargaming community.

Best of luck to all!

Cheers

Dave

Off to Chicago for Games Day!

Just about 12 hours until I head off to Chicago for Games Day 2012. I'm looking forward to catching up with a bunch of friends, chatting about painting toy soldiers, eating some steak, drinking a few beers, and throwing down in the Armies On Parade and Golden Demon competitions.

It has been a bit of a busy month since the AOP in-store qualifiers, but I did manage to get this guy finished. After the show, I'll go back and add a little more freehand work, but he'll do for now.

Here's the travel case, packed with most of my Procession of Morr, plus a few Golden Demon entries like my Thundertusk (on a new base).

And here's a teaser of the final unit I'll be adding to the Procession.

So, if you are going to be at Chicago Games Day, please stop by the Armies on Parade area and spend a bit of time checking out all the entries, giving the respect deserved to each army, then cast your vote for the army you think is best. Failing that, of course, you can just vote for mine ; )

I'm off on vacation immediately after Games Day, so I'll be relaxing by the pool or on the beach, and having fun teaching my daughter to swim : )

DON'T FORGET THE COMPETITION!

Keep an eye out for a blog post on Saturday about my celebratory Blog Competition. Not only did this blog pass the milestone of 1500 followers, but it also passed 1,000,000 page views too! (if only I had a dollar for each one of those!!!).

The competition will be a big one, with a relatively random chance for anyone to win the prize!

Cheers
Dave

"Voi hesh Anarch, Magir!"

So the diorama is complete. all of the pieces are glued into place, and I've actually packed it up and shipped it off to Chicago along with the display board for my Armies on Parade.

I hope you like it.

Cheers
Dave

PS. Only three more blog followers until we get to 1,500! Not too bad for a dodgy little blog about toy soldiers. I've settled on what I think will be a pretty decent competition and prize. Details to come.

The Grind

A little bit of work done on my Diorama entry for Golden Demon over the weekend. I had this idea over ayear ago, and was even able to chat with Dan Abnett at Adepticon '11 about it, refining my ideas about it all.

In Traitor General, Dan Abnett first introduced us to an iconoclave. This is typically a building/area of great significance to an Imperial populace (usually a cathedral or something similar). When a Chaos force conquers a planet and enslaves the former Imperial citizens, many of them are forced to bring all Imperial statues and icons to the iconoclave, where other citizens spend grueling days and nights systematically reducing these icons to dust. They aren't allowed to blow them up, it's not simply about the destruction of these symbols of the Imperium, but it's about the Dark Powers forcing the gradual and permanent grinding down of all that is the Imperium, most importantly the spirit of it's people.

Above is the model that is the focal point of the diorama, a nameless citizen who has paused in his soul-crushing duties to reflect on what was. I'll be adding a bit of weathering in the form of pale powders to this model, but I wanted a few shots of him before the dust went on. One other element of the story to note is the imagio on his right arm, a chaotic parasite of some kind implanted by the conquering forces and used to identify the citizen and his schedule under the new regime.

Here is one of the supporting cast, a citizen covered in stone dust from the statue being destroyed before him. He also has an imagio showing on his right forearm.

And another citizen crouched by the statue, chipping away for hours on end, and already suffering from the debilitating taint of Chaos (note the lesions and pustules).

Their task master, meanwhile, will stand high above them on the walkway you see below.

The brass-etch walkway pieces here are from Secret Weapon Miniatures and are absolutely perfect for what I had in mind. Last year, around this time, I had to make a tough decision and not pursue this diorama. I was busy with the Marienburg Land Ship for my AoP entry. But since then, this release from SWM has made it possible to bring all my thoughts together.

I hope you like it, there's still a little more work to go.

Cheers
Dave

I haven't been idle

I'm planning on adding a few more models to my Armies on Parade entry, just to give it some extra oomph for those folks who take a close look. On of those models will be a Wizard Lord mounted on a warhorse. Mounted wizards often look a bit awkward, as if they should be behind a desk rather than perched precariously above an equine steed.

For the last four or so years I've been in love with the Venerable Thaumaturge model from Gamezone Miniatures. He looks like he's at home... because he's behind a desk. So, I decided to make a "Citadel only" version of the model.

There are parts from an old Bretonnian Questing knight, Empire Wizard sprue, and a few bits and pieces from the Flagellat sprues. Plus plasticard and greenstuff, of course.

And here's the start of the Iconoclave diorama I've been thinking about since Adepticon last year.

I'm going to be busy!

Cheers
Dave

The War Altar of Morr (or maybe the Morr Altar?)

So, last week I promised you some more photos of the War Altar. Well, here they are.

Constructed with parts from an Arcane Fulcrum, a Garden of Morr, two War Altars, and ten Flagellants, this things weighs in pretty heftily on the "Oh my goodness, I spent how much on this?" scale of things. Not to worry though, I'm really happy with it : )

The wings are from the War Altar kit, and if you look closely you can see the names of some of the Empire gods on there, including my favorite - Morr!

The base is made from two of the 100x100mm Temple bases from Dragon Forge, and the chains attaching the flagellants to the big hunk o' wood are also from Jeff. Thanks for your sponsorship of this project!

Using Flagellant bodies and "plague Doctor" style heads I sculpted (as had cast), I added another five men to get this beast of a thing to move. I may eventually go back and add a few more.

You may have noticed all the open hands on the "pushers". They came from the "pullers". I had to clip nine of the ten open hands off the guys in the stocks, and replace them with fists. That was fun, I can tell you. Here's a shot of the guy with the one remaining open hand, I like to think he's waving to the kids in the crowd this thing no doubt attracts.

BLOG FOLLOWERS


In other news, this blog is only 29 followers away from cracking the 1,500 mark. That sounds like a nice milestone to put together some kind of giveaway. Well, let your friends know about my blog, and when we crack that 1,500, I'll give some cool stuff to you folks who enjoy my hobby stuff each week.

Cheers
Dave

My Leitpold the Black

I was really excited about finally getting this guy painted. It is such a wonderful sculpt from Forgeworld, so beautifully detailed, and incredibly well cast. It was quite unlike the Finecast models I've had to deal with. He also painted up wonderfully quickly. I was able to take him primed to War Games Con, start painting him on Thursday night, paint him a bit more on the Friday night, wrap him up on the Saturday morning, AND get him entered in the painting competition. Unfortunately he didn't grab a prize, but I'm still pretty happy to use him as an Empire Captain in my Army of Morr.

Tell me that face doesn't just exude arrogance!

Thanks for checking him out.

Cheers
Dave