Building my Asteroid Base, Part II

Just 2 quick pics of the progress I made. All the pieces are glued down except over the Hanger Bays so I can get in there and paint and install LED lighting. I did a test LED light last night and it looks cool. Of course, given more time I would go nuts in there building a Hanger Bay diorama, but time is not something I have a lot of. Got the edge painted black. On a test piece I got my texture and paint scheme worked out. I'll go the craft store tonight and buy some cheap paints.

 Edged in black

Hanger bays. Still have to do a little detailing.

Working hard, Xin

Building my Asteroid Base

In seven days I'm going to Cold Wars. Time is ticking down on completing my Asteroid base for the X-Wing game I'm running.

Here are some work in progress pics:

Gluing down the first layer of the crater wall

For the 2nd layer, I needed to match the shape of the crater wall. So I smeared paint along the rim of the crater, and then pressed the next layer down on top of the rim. That marked the cut out for the 2nd layer and so on.

2 down, 2 to go.

A good start but a ton more work to do.

Carving out the Rebel base

 Third layer

 4th layer being laid down.

Gluing it all down.

Adding some detail to the interior of the base. AKA Mission creep

So much left to do.

The Desolation of Smaug Limited Edition Blu-Ray/DVD

On April 8th, DoS is getting released on DVD/Blu-Ray here in the US. There is a limited edition box set that is also coming out.

It contains of course, the DVD and Blu-Ray, 3D Blu-Ray, the Digital Download, but most importantly, 2 Erebor statue bookends. Check these bad boys out

These are really cool. I can see building an Erebor battle table now.

They are up for pre-order on Walmart and Target

Walmart Pre-order

Target Pre-Order

Cheers, Xin

Too many pokers in the fire?

Or perhaps I should title this, instead of WIP, it should be "Too Many Works in Progress" or TMWIP?

I swear, I have Wargamer's ADHD. I have the hardest time staying on one project. I want to paint and play with everything.

 Little over a year ago, I made a commitment to myself that I would get all my LOTR stuff painted, as I was excited about the Hobbit coming out.

Since then I have painted a lot, I really have. However, forces beyond my control has forced me to purchase even more figures. I was trying to organize my random assortment of LOTR figures and it has revealed holes in my forces. Then I started running SBG games at conventions, so I needed more troops. Then to top it all off, GW is letting some of their line go OOP. So that has induced some panic buying. Ebay is an enabler.

It does not stop with LOTR. I game just about everything. So I've squeezed in some SAGA painting, some Fantasy painting, and lots of terrain making. Here are some shots pics of what I got going on in Studio Xin.

It took me a year to realize I didn't have any orcs, so here are 24 orcs almost done. With another 24 to follow this group, and 22 to farm out to a friend. Can you have too many orcs?

A few weeks ago, I painted up a test figure, a Reaper Bones Werewolf. I wanted to see how well the Bones took paint. So I picked up another, modified the body position a little and started painting. I don't even have an immediate game use. Just like the figure.

If you want me to buy a figure, just tell me it's OOP! I was watching ebay for the figure Gildor Inglorion whic is OOP. On one auction, I almost spent $100 for the box set, Defenders of the Shire, but pulled back at the last minute. Then going thru my stuff, I found a box of "Rangers" I picked up at a HMGS flea market years ago. It was the box set I was looking for and had all the time. So now they are on the painting table.

I am running an X-Wing game at Cold Wars, and like an idiot, I planned this elaborate table top, that needs to be built in 10 days. So I started yesterday.

 The initial cut out is done. Well for the first level, at least 2 more levels.

Gluing everything down. Do you think it would help to drink the Henessy or Irish Cream as opposed to using it to hold down the foam till the glue is set? Hopefully I can get another layer down tonight and start a layer of texture on the base.

W

You wouldn't leave Isengard without a battering ram would you? A glaring hole in Saruman's army that HAD to be corrected. Almost done with this.

Thanks to my obsession and Ebay, I manged to track down all 9 different metal sculpts of the Ringwraiths. Not that Finecast crap GW is now producing them in. 5 are done, 4 to go. One had a busted sword, which I think helped keep the price down. Easy peasy fix. Bonus points if you can identify the bitz it came from.

Erestor, Glorfindel and Elrond 99% done. The figure up front is being painted up for my kids. She is a character from the video game The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, Andriel, Elven Loremaster(wizard). A friend of mine, Lou did some minor conversion from the Plastic Wood Elfs. Now I need 2 more, for the other characters, Eradan(Ranger) and Farin(Dwarf).

So 7 active projects, not to mention maybe a bunch of projects on hold, Vikings/ Saxons/ Terrain upgrades and repairs/ Starship Troopers/ Mirkwood Spiders/ Re-painting Haradrim and Warg Riders/ Mumak/ Viking ship/ Jungle Terrain

Do they make a drug for Wargamer ADHD?

That's all for now, Cheers, Xin

Beorn in Bear Form

Games Workshop has rules for Beorn and Beorn in Bear Form, but no bear Model yet. The DoS rulebook has a picture of Bear Beorn, and most assume it will be a future release. But for some reason I didn't quite care for it. And if it gets released as Finecast, that is a deal breaker for me.

I didn't think it would be to hard to proxy him so I started looking around on the web for a replacement bear. I found one I liked on Ebay, a D&D pre-painted bear. I was about to click, "Buy it Now" when I remembered I had one! Digging once in again in my boxes of, too much stuff, yielded a mean Cave Bear!

He could be a bit bigger to represent Beorn, but you can't argue with free. So Cave Bear is my Beorn Bear

He was a little small for the 60mm base, so I wanted to "spruce it up" some. Lying on my painting table, I found a Warg that I stole the base from a while ago for some other project. He would make a good victim...er visual effect. I glue him down, more like mashed him down. And textured the base.

Those 24 Orcs will have to wait, Beorn has been bumped to the front of the queue. Inspiration has struck and my muse will not be ignored. Painting the base and Warg

With the base textured and painted, I got to work on the Warg. I spent 30 minutes looking on the web for a good painting guide when the book I needed, Scouring of the Shire, was sitting 10 feet from me. It has a very decent, and most important quick paint guide for Warg's.

Beorn Bear was very easy. Paint black, dry brush light grey to pick up the existing fur texture. Looking around for pics of bears, I noticed most black bears have a tan snout. So I dry brush some Americana Honey Brown(thematic) on his snout, then go back and paint the nose black. Pick out the teeth and claws with GW Bleached Bone and we are good to go.

Dead Wargs need lots of Blood

 I was going for a "throat ripped out" look, but I did not mangle/cut/gouge the throat area enough. So that just means more BLOOD!

For the claw marks, I just used a knife and gouged out the claw marks. The Blood is one of GW's new Technical Paints, Blood for the Blood God. It has a nice deep red color and drys shiny. I'm sure it is not hard to replicate, Red Paint and Gloss Varnish, but I like it.

So that's Bear Beorn, and that means back to the Orcs.

Cheers, Xin