A sudden surge of progress

I finished work a few days ago for Christmas and I've been hobbying like mad.

I've built another wraithlord, complete with another full set of magnetised weapon options.  This one's jogging into battle.

Here's the second one with the arms of the first:

 And here's the first one, with the arms from the second:

The plastic arms from wraithlord 1 are on here for now because they can be posed better than the weighty metal ones, but they're all fully interchangeable. I've loved these metal Eldar dreads since I was a kid. I have more bits of them in my bitsbox, so I might get around to another at some point.

I wasn't sure how to basecoat all of the weapons easily since they're all small and I didn't want to have to do them in two halves, so I build a little rack with non-ferrous wire and then added a couple of lines of steel wire for them to stick to.

I also finally basecoated a section of fence we've had built for ages and some resin crates.

I made some objective markers from air-drying clay and Wilkinson Christmas decorations (£2 well spent).  They need painting, but I like how they look so far.

And I'm finally ready to start paining my Swooping Hawks.  I spent a long time posing these guys to make each one as different as possible with the small number of poses available, so a squad of 10 doesn't look to repetitious. They're the metal ones everyone seems to want to get rid of. I added wings made from trimmed "wing pendants" bought for a couple of quid on e-bay. I've basecoated them with Army Painter Crystal Blue, ready for shading and detailing.

And finally, I've been painting the sniper model from Deadzone.  Santa is bringing me the prerelease box for Christmas, but I picked this model up so I had something to paint in the meantime.

Now I think about it, I really don't know why I thought I was short on things needing to be done. Everything in this post is half done and needs work.  I also have built the last of the young Nephilim from the Lilith Malifaux starter box I bought ages ago, basecoated and washed another squad of Eldar Guardians, picked up a whole bunch of jetbikes that need stripping, fixing, converting and painting, started working on two Eldar heavy weapon platforms using a mix of the too-small metal weapon platform bases with over-sized mega weapons from wraithknights (I think, I have lots of random bits).

Here's the tray of stuff needing a basecoat:

I made a couple of 2'x2' boards which have been worked on since the photo below, but are still very much unfinished, too.

I'm also scratch-building a Deff Dread for my son's Ork army. I'm probably going to burn out and go back to writing code instead soon, but hopefully I can actually call some of these complete before then.  

Hill progress

I've been quiet for a while due to the volume of work lately, but although I haven't been posting, I have made some progress on the hobby.

First, the poundland hill.  We got some small rocks on, filled in with some decorative rocks (99p for a big jar full of silver rocks) and flock to texture the top surfaces.

When the glue was dry, I doused it with GW's Purity Seal to keep all the bits in place.  Well, it hasn't been much good for anything else yet, so I was glad to actually get some out of the can. And it needs it, too, because there's everything from small rocks to ground coffee on this thing.

Next, I sprayed it all black and white.  The black bits will just be washed and dry-brushed, but the white bits will be painted grass green.

Poundland finds

OK, so the craft knife that snapped was not a good purchase.  However, these  kneeling pads are quite good.

The kids and I have been making them into a suitable hill for the gaming table.

The pattern will be smothered by poundland grout, which should also make the shape a little less regular.

Terrain progress (28m)

 Sam and I played a game of 40k last week.  We really need to get moving on the terrain.  The coffee-jar lids stacked up will make good sci-fi towers, I think, when they're glued and painted to look like cement.  And the yeast tin should make a good oil tank.  We have a bit of fence/barrier that needs finishing.  And some cone shaped things that need to be painted too.  Lots of stuff, none finished.  I'm trying to avoid the typical ruined gothic manufactoria that seem to litter the 40k universe.

Some new minis...

I have a bunch of bits and pieces from Rebel Minis that arrived yesterday.  I have the "remote gun" basecoated and ready.  I'm most excited about the Saber (sic) class dropship and the VIPER, but want to see how painting the gun goes first.  There are a bunch of minis in there as well as some scenic odds and ends (shipping containers, barrels and crates).

I still haven't finished the Helbrute and Kranon figures from the WH40K Dark Vengeance set yet, either.  Too much to do!  I can only imagine how much time it must take if actually play these games, too.

Plants from old Christmas decorations

We finally got rid of a garland/swag/thing decoration this year. It's something we've had for a long time and was always put across the fireplace.  As I was stuffing it into a black bin-liner, I realised it had a whole bunch of interestingly shaped bits and pieces attached to it.  I plucked them all off and kept them.

Here's what some of them turned into:

I mounted them on 2in squares of plasticard, modelled exposed roots with epoxy putty and added tendrils made of wire coming from the openings.  Painted, I think they look quite good.  I like the dotted lines that make some of the spheres a little melon-like.

I'm imagining them having special rules in some games.  Like this: you can use them for cover, but for every save made because of them, you have to roll another D6.  Should it be a 1, the bulbous gas-sac explodes and does template-based damage in a given radius. Maybe they could even be targeted  exploding on a penetrating hit.