Lights! Camera! Smash!!!

Ahh, the fun I have trying to take pictures with our trusty Olympus digital camera. While it is really not a bad little camera, that manages to take some rather desirable photo's regularly. It chooses to push my buttons when it comes to the task of photographing my miniatures.

Too dark, too bright, out of focus, too close, too far away. You name it, this camera (or my exceptional photography skills) causes a problem. You will see a fine example of my camera's abilities to your left.

While it currently looks not that bad, I dare you, I double dare you to click on the link! My painting is nowhere near Eavy Metal standards, nor will it ever get anywhere near that level of skill. But at proper size, this picture makes my painting look abhorrent.

Anyways, I will get a new camera into the new year. It won't be expensive, though this one I am using now was inexpensive 3 years ago. So it will have to be an improvement... I hope :)

Rules, Rules. Rules

Talk about needing the brain of an elephant. I have been playing Warhammer (40k) for a few months and am still trying to get my head around all of the damn rules.

The worst ones are hit and damage. So many points to hit this particular type of person, animal, monster, alien, etc. Then so many points to wound based on Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill, Strength, Toughness and which way the wind is currently blowing. One day I will somehow work it out. By that time the whole game will probably change, and I'll have to re-learn it all again.

Anyways It's still a fun game to play. But my son is getting bored of Warhammer and is looking at branching out to different games. Namely Necromunda, Warmachine and Blood Bowl.

The advantage of these over Warhammer is space. While Warhammer needs a specific sized table, which is bloody huge, the others can be played on a normal old dining table. Which means we can play them at home!

Which one of you bastards stole my Meltagun?

Rant time! I have been scratching my head and feeling my face grow red with anger over Games Workshop's concept of supplying parts.

If you have been following my blog, you would know that I have been currently putting together Chaos Terminators and Plague marines. Now, the dilemma with this is I want to have Lightning Claws on the Terminators and 2 Meltagun's on my Marines. Are there either of these in the boxes? NO!

My choices now involve 2 things. Try and source the Bitz or chuck the shits. While chucking the shits will make me feel happy for a short amount of time, it won't fix my problem.

Sourcing the bitz involves paying Games Workshop $17AU (Australian) for 5 Meltaguns and $37 friggin dollars (!!!) for 5 sets of Lightning Claws. After shelling out $50 for each set, they can get fucked if they think they're going to get another $55 for crap they should've supplied in the box!

Anyways, I really have no choice when it comes to Meltaguns. So it's off to Games Workshop for these. But I will be buying some Space Marine variant of the Lightning Claws from any of the decent bitz stores.

The point I'm making here is if you are just starting out in the wonderful world of Warhammer, be ready to be screwed over and ultimately let down by Games Workshop. If you are an established Warhammer player/modeler then you will feel my pain :)

Sticky Fingers

I've been putting together some of the models that I had gotten for my birthday. This includes a squad of Plague Marines, Daemon Prince and Chaos Terminators.

While the Prince and Terminators are relatively simple affairs, the Plague Marines are a royal turd. The reason for this is because they are metal. Gluing metal to plastic is not too much of an issue, gluing metal to metal, that's another story!

Some things you can do to alleviate the pain, frustration and obscene language involved in gluing metal parts is to (what I call) checker the joins before gluing.

I will get my trusty blade and slice a checker board style pattern on the joins before gluing. This will give the glue a pitted surface to adhere to. You could also go over the joins with emery cloth or a file.

If this doesn't work, then you can try pinning. I haven't done this yet, so will have to post my results in the future.

Mousling progress

Hey all,
Well I've been making slow progress on the Mouslings for the wife. I have gotten the Rogue and Knight done, which were quite simple, but am having a harder time with the little swashbuckling Errol Flynn one.

I really would like to post pictures, but my camera sucks. Or is it a case of my camera using skills suck? Anyway, the camera is around 3 years old now, so I will have to buy a new one after Christmas.

In the meantime I'll keep on trying to take pictures with the hope of getting some decent ones.

Where Have You Been? (Pt 2)

well, what can I say? Laziness, boredom and and laziness (yes I'm an extremely lazy person) has gotten in the way of both my painting and blogging as of late.

Anyways, time is ticking and I thought shit, I have to get these Mouslings done! Which is precisely what I am doing. I got the little Rogue (posted last month) done and have to say that these models seem to be a cinch versus the Games Workshop stuff.

Whilst it's no 'Eavy Metal, I'm happy with the results and hope my wife will be too. I won't be able to post the results anytime soon, but it may pique my interest in getting some of my other model done.