Here Ye, Here Ye

I will post some pictures early this week.
I need something though. So, Im going to just put it out there. The hobby Gods listen sometimes!

Pheonix Guard. Yes Pheonix Guard, I need em and want em. A themed army is in the making, but I dont have enough models, nor can I afford off the shelves variety. So if anyone reading this has any extra or knows someone with some, please let me know!!

cheers, Bard
p.s. Tommorow I am back to work. There goes another glorious summer holiday!

High Elves

The Pheonix Guard are the first High elf models I have. I started putting some paint on one just to test the colors I have chosen.

PP3 paints Trollblood blue base and highlight, and Menoth white base and highlight, with the usual GW elf flesh, some golds and mithril. The pictures show some areas to clean up, but over all I think I can live with the colors.

cheers,

Bard

O and while I remember, I want to put up a picture of someones Dwarven Lady Sheild. It made me laugh. Whomever it was, nicely done!

On a side note, I have finished assembling my Lion chariot. It looks great, but I have kept one of the riders off in order to spray and paint seperatly.

Elf Progress

Not a huge amount of progress, but cleaning models is never fast. Especially when you aren't dedicating a lot of time to it. Less than a week to go before I am officially back to work. Ive been back, and my room is a mess. Computers on floor, piles of stuff everywhere, books especially everywhere. I don't know where to start on the cleanup project there to be honest. With models, however, its best to start by getting them ready for paint, and so I have a picture that shows what I have and the paint choices I will be using. Privateer Press paints are my chosen color palette. I don't use them much, but they are easy to use and look good. The elves are typically painted blues and whites. I dont want the usual. So the colors Ive chosen are slightly off the norm. A friend of mine is starting an elf army and has chosen red as his complimentary color. Doh, thats what I had originally thought of too!

15 phoenix guard, a lion chariot and some paint

Let me know what you think of my innitial plans / thoughts!

Potential High Elf bases?

I havent written much either for my story arc, but I have written a few introduction pieces, including one that is short but I like it.

Cheers, Bard
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Wandyr of Baal
Wandyr glanced over at the little kobold crouched beside him. It was looking up at him intently and he knew it was waiting for instructions. His eyes went back to where the target hid amongst the boulders and scrub, and then his hands took over. When he was done the kobold nodded and in turn used his own hands to communicate with the Kobolds sitting patiently on their gecko like mounts. They quickly rode off, flanking the position within moments.

 The small kobold beside Wandyr then stepped forward and yipped in halting common “You will come out now” he paused expectantly. No answer was forthcoming. He cleared his throat and continued “Come out, we will not kill if do”. There was still no response, and he looked back at Wandyr and shrugged.

 Wandyr hated the orders that had come directly from the Temple. Capture and enslave before killing. He sighed. “My friend is right. Surrender yourself now and work for your freedom as a member of the Baal or die and adorn a pike here and now!” He finished in a louder yet emotionless manner.


The humanoid creature they had been chasing stood up slowly. His arms were held outwards and his hands were empty showing his resolve not to die. His eyes were wide and the whites showed clearly.


Wandyr sighed again, his hopes for bloodshed dashed yet again. The third one captured this week. He reached back to his horse, pulled a set of irons from a padded sack and tossed them to the small Kobold at his side. “Ko’gath, secure him and bring him back to the camp. No bread or water till tonight” The small Kobold called Ko’gath nodded and scuttled forward with the irons ready.


Wandyr of Baal mounted his red eyed mount and used his legs to turn the horse back towards the camp while he hung a shield more comfortable across his saddle horn. Once the land they had chosen was secured they would ride to war and their enemies would feel the ground tremble under their feet. He smiled at the thought and kicked his horse into a gallop, enjoying the feeling of fresh air across his face. It was good to be free!

New models

I love new models!
I got to see the new Warhammer box set and fell in love with some of the goodness found inside! The High elves are spectacular, starting with a mage with some water/power effects swirling at his feet. Like wow. It was enough to make me hold this model and stare at it for a good 10 minutes. And then there was the Griffon and rider. Just holy wow! It was all painted up and I love that model! The only part I wasn’t super keen on were the silverhelms? The riders themselves were good, but the horses while new, look like long legged not horses to me. Id be tempted to build using woodelf cavalry bits instead. The spear men were awesome too. The shields have raised dragon and water to represent Lothern Sea Guard. So much goodness, it was crazy! The Skaven were pretty sweet too! I already have the clan rats, but the new special characters were fantastic. It also came with the unit attachment war machines. They were gorgeous and so much prettier than what Ive put together for my own Skaven so far. It also came with some new Rat Ogres that were just awesome.
Is that enough Awesome for you?
Why does GW have to put out such fantastic models every time I try to pull myself away? And they are plastic. I love plastic models. They are so much easier to convert and rid of mold lines and did I mention paint doesn’t seem to rub off of sharp edges just by looking at them? I may have picked up a lion chariot to paint up. I have always loved that model, and this will be my chance to see if I enjoy painting these guys enough to resume assembling a playable army rather than just painting the off figure.

Frank Frezetta's Death Dealer

Besides that I have found myself gleefully involved in a story writing arc. While visiting my cousin, he introduced me to a never ending story writing campaign. You write stories and send in orders for each “turn”. I have only just begun, but have enjoyed it immensely. I only hope that when work begins anew for me that I can devote enough time to continue growing my “people”. The people I have created are strongly influenced by not only literature that I have enjoyed but art work too. Frank Frezetta has always been a huge favorite of mine. The Death Dealer series were always some of my favorite. Also, I have enjoyed reading and viewing Conan the barbarian books and art. Add to that a company called Rackham which has pretty much died off, and doesn’t even carry images of their older metal models, used to produce a group known as the “Drune”. They are a dark and nasty group and I always enjoyed reading and painting Drune.
I called my people the Baal, and can’t wait until they ride to war accompanied by stories that my imagination has come up with.



Cheers for now,

Bard

Back to our own bed!

Trip down to the cochon deign

I loved our holiday, but like the title says, man its good to sleep in your own bed! We had a great time in Quebec. We spent most of our time in Vieux Quebec, which is the tourist area. Its basically where the fort was and towards the old city at the docks. One fun little road trip was to the Fireworks competition called "les grand feux", which was fantastic and very well done, with bleacher seating and great views. We had a great time exploring and eating at some of the wonderful resteraunts! Our favorite was "le petit cochon deign" (little bronze pig) where we got mouth watering pasteries to go with our coffee. O and do try the maple sugar pie if you are ever in Quebec, man was that good! All in all, good job Quebec, you made my wife and I feel welcome, and I would recomend a trip there to anyone!

Fireworks in Quebec

We then rented a car and drove down to the United States. We drove through Vermont and New Hampshire and ended up at my cousins. WOW. Just wow, I had no idea how beautiful it is there. The green of the trees was overwhelming. I loved driving down the interstate and being told I was going through a city but not seeing it because of the number of trees and the massive amount of greenery! I got to go fishing, eat at good resteraunts and generaly had a relaxing and very enjoyable time. I would recomend a trip there to anyone! Again, a congrats to those two states for their hospitality.

cheers, Brad

Fishing!

Chaos Knights, Progress report

Here we have it. A collage of photos (Thanks Picasa) that show the completion level of my Knights. Some individual shots to follow. The post will end with a shot of the goblins I have finished. Then I am afraid posts will be a bit slowed down until after the 14th, as we are off on holiday.

Cheers, Bard

All your base are belong to us

Today I finished a Nurgle knight and started taking a closer look at the bases for the army. I had to admit to myself that I was not thrilled with the overall appearence. So, I hoped on to the intraweb and zoomed through cyberspace to a fantastical website called http://www.microartstudio.com/ where I looked at various idea possibilities for bases. Here are some of the ones that, in my book, rate.

temple ruins

infested

Swamp

winter shale

dark temple

wasteland

Now, each one of these examples are for what might look good for a chaos army. I am undecided with wich look to go for. Food for thought anyway.

Cheers, Bard

Picasa 3!

Picasa three is a wonder! I installed it and couldn't believe the results in my photographs. Here are two examples. A before and an after picture. Same picture using my new Light Box, but an obvious difference in quality.

After

Before

Also, as you may have noticed, I have made a new Header for the blog. I took a picture of some of my finished goblins (haven't posted pictures of all of them yet) and did some color saturation, lighting etc, cropped the image and then sepia'd it. I was also able to put some print over the picture. I think it looks great, but that just might be me being overly proud.

 Yesterday and today I was also able to get some work done on the 6 bases for my river trolls worked on. I didn't do a good job on the water effects the first go round. It seeped through the tape I had bordered the base with and had poured water effects on. I have to do some online research on how people are doing it properly. I also have one of my chaos knights finished. I just want to add some layers to the green on the horses armour and the base and he will be done!

More later, Cheers, Bard