Welcome to the Windy City!

Finally, the day has arrived. As this posts I'm doing the final scramble to get to the airport and fly off to Chicago for AdeptiCon. I'm obviously super-excited for the show, primarily because I get to see lots of good friends I only see once a year!

I'm also excited to see hundreds of thousands of miniatures on the tabletop and in the cabinets, all lovingly assembled and painted with care. Speaking of which, here's my finished model for the Crystal Brush, The Toad. I've shown you a few WIPs before but here he is now, complete and sporting a crumpled broadsheet decrying him as "The Devil of the Docklands".

The Toad is from Infamy Miniatures, and will play a major role in my collection for the game Infamy: Welcome to the Big Smoke. I hope you like him.

Woohoo! - And an Update

Thank you all for your votes on my models, I expect they had a great deal to do with my success in the Historical Single category. A Silver in that category was very exciting, up against competition that I thought was going to blow me out of the water. The Gold in Historical Unit was also welcome, as second place went to a mate of mine who has been coming on in leaps and bounds over the last few years (nice work Rob!)

One letdown was the Gold in Historical Vehicle. Why would a first place be a let down? Because it was the only entry. I'm hoping that next year, particularly with all the great tank kits available, that there'll be a whole bunch of entries. Some competition to help drive an improvement in my painting.

BUT, the biggest letdown of all was being awarded the Silver in Historical Single category at the show, only to find out this morning that I hadn't won it at all. It seems that the wrong slides were put into the presentation and I was actually amongst the trophies. I must admit I agree with the "actual" list of winners and they truly deserve their awards, but it doesn't lessen the disappointment I'm feeling right now.  I know mistakes happen in the rush at the end, I've made one or two myself in the past when running Golden Demon, but perhaps it's the nudge I needed to steer me clear of competitive painting and keep busting out armies. Hmmmm... decisions, decisions.

Head to Cool Mini or Not to check out all the entries and the final winners in each category. Lovely stuff all round.

Cheers
Dave

PS. My minis and lights are going back to the east coast on the Battlefront truck, via next weekend's Chicago wargames show Little Wars, so I won't have too many new photos until wednesday of next week, although I might post a few of the Adepticon action between now and then.

I completely forgot!

In all the hustle and bustle of getting ready for our Guns Of April game at Adepticon, I completely forgot to remind you all to head on over to the Crystal Brush website and vote for my entries. I've only brought Historical stuff this year, and surprisingly enough it seems that these categories are still completely undersubscribed.

In Single I have my 7th Hussar in Egypt

In Unit I have my 1st KGL Hussars

In Vehicle I have my Water Cart

Please show them some love here. There are only three more hours left in the voting!

Oh, and enjoy all the other figures there too!

A little bit of Napoleonic help please?

Ok, so work continues on lots of different things for Adepticon next weekend. I've just posted a couple of photos of completed ox-drawn water cart objectives over on the Guns of April blog, go check them out ; )

Above you can see the work in progress photos of my 7th Hussar. Things are trucking along nicely, but last night I hit a bit of a snag.

On his left arm he has this little band. It is neat, and doesn't really look like a bandage, but it also doesn't look too much like a black band of mourning (or something like that). I'm guessing it might be an identification band, marking him out as a member of a particular troop or squadron.

Do any of the Napoleonic buffs that check out my blog a) know what it is and b) what color it should be?

Cheers
Dave

The 7th Hussars in Egypt

With Adepticon rapidly approaching, I'm pleased to say that it seems we'll reach almost all of our goals for our Guns of April project. Lots of last minute painting (most of it seeming to be the cavalry components), and a little bit of fun modeling and objective building, and we'll be there. Expect to see a lot of posts on the GOA blog over the next two weeks.

Anyway, with that wrapping up, it seems I might have time to try to get an entry sorted for the Crystal Brush. Inspired by several paintings by Keith Rocco of a trooper of the French 7th Hussars in Egypt in 1798-99 (two of which you can see above) I've started on the model and have most of the conversion work done now. I've take a Perry Miniatures Hussar officer (from one of their 1815 command packs) and swapped his head for one from the plastic Hussars boxed set. A little putty work to give him the early Hussar boots, extend the flamme (I think that's what it's called), ensure his cap cord was attached to the mirliton headwear, and give him the late 18th Century hairdo was all that was required.

Next up is adding the final basing material and priming before I get stuck into the fun painting!

Wish me luck : )

Cheers
Dave

Adepticon Swag! and Boston BrawlCon

Well it's been a week since the wrap up at Adepticon 2011. It was such a big weekend it has taken me this long to get back on track, just in time for me to head off to the UK for a week (including working at Salute, the big daddy of historical shows in England). There has been plenty of great coverage of the Adepticon show (and the Crystal Brush) and you can find some of it here:

• Rankings HQ

• Cool Mini or Not

• 40K Radio

• The Independent Characters

• Bell of Lost Souls

• Beasts of War

and dozens of other podcasts and blogs in the aethersphere...

I mentioned in the week leading up to Adepticon that the swag bag was going to be pretty big this year. Well here's a pic of one of the first 1,000 swag bags.

On the left of this photo you can see a lot of the "paper product" that was in the bag, including two copies of the Game Forces magazine (both with some wonderful eye candy in there), a Black Library preview booklet, and promo flyers for stores, events, and even one for the Heroes of Armageddon Charity Project (thanks to yours truly). In the lower right of the photo you can see some of the models and bitz that were included in the bag. There's a Hannah Valerius model from Chris Borer, a cinematic effect from Armorcast, magnets from Amazing Magnets, items from Mantic, Soda Pop Miniatures, and Spikey Bitz. In amongst those you can see the Gale Force 9 Warlord Crom that I showed off in my last post here. The biggest item in the bag? A Warmachine starter set and quick play rules to go along with it. Privateer Press sprung a nice surprise on the attendees of Adepticon, and I have no doubt they'll be able to recoup the cost of this "marketing exercise" numerous times over.

There was also the opportunity to buy some nice stuff at the show. Actually there were plenty of opportunities to do just that. : )

The photo above shows the additional items of swag I bought or picked up at the show:

Some more "rubber steel" sheets for my new Empire army movement trays, greenstuff, brownstuff, and greystuff, a couple of 15mm Soviet snipers, some gangsters from an upcoming range called "Bootleggers", a "stubby holder" from my mates at Podhammer, a hat and a set of casino-quality dice from my mates at Rankings HQ, an Alfred the Fearless Monster-Killer model from Scibor Miniatures, the latest Horus Heresy book, and a wonderful hard copy version of the web comic Free Mars (written by my friend Dave Pauwels, with a foreword by Dan Abnett). Not a massive haul laden with Forgeworld goodies, but just the right size for me, perhaps a touch on the extravagant side.

And here are the two Crystal Brush awards I was able to bring home : )

Once I get back from the UK and pick up my lights from the office I'll take a few photos of my winning entries, but here are the links to the CMoN coverage:

• Gotrek & Felix

• Etruscan Chariot

And finally, my friend Alex Akers (from Battleroad Games & Hobbies) is running the Boston Brawl again this year. It's the first weekend in July outside of Boston, MA. You can find out about all of the action here, and buy your ticket here. Should be a fun weekend!