Stupid Graffiti Paint

. . . it shot out really fast and was super thick, so now my goblins that I spent weeks slowly cleaning and basing in spare moments look like a three-year old dipped them in blue sludge.  Oh and I got it all over the cement on my new courtyard and all over the keys on my laptop.

I’m pretty annoyed, I planned this really carefully and it was supposed to be a triumphant display of ingenuity and new materials.  Oh well, back to the drawing board I suppose. The thing about deviating from the way things are normally done and taking risks is that sometimes you crash and burn.

Looking forward to the tournament on Sunday though.  We’ve managed to play a few practice games and it’s got me excited for 40k.  I’ll report back how it went in the next post.

Two Hobby Victories and a Thought

So the last month or so of my life has been a total blur.  As well as baby-wrangling I’ve been battling against house-unpacking and marking people’s assignments (which takes WAY longer than I anticipated) to try to get just a little bit of game stuff done.  Now the house is pretty much habitable and I’ve managed to steal some tiny hobby victories:

Victory One: My regular opponent Cap’n Stoogey and I are going in a 1200 point doubles 40k tourney in a couple of weeks, 600 points each.  For the first time his Ultramarines and my Guard will be fighting side by side.  600 points is not much and we aren’t aiming for the top tables so we just decided to choose a few must-have units that we really wanted to field.  I’ve mustered a rag-tag band of misfits – two squads of penal legionnaires, my ogryns, and my demolisher Anathema led by a Primaris Psyker.  In fact this little army has really captured my imagination, and got me thinking about a full-sized force of penals, abhumans and psykers, supported by assault battle tanks.  I think an army like that would be fun to play and really capture the weird undertone of the Imperial Guard fluff that lurks underneath the “normal army dudes” surface.

Victory Two: After unsuccessfully scouring every art, hardware and car store in town (and the internet) for matt finish spray paint for my Night Goblins I noticed a street art and graffiti shop hiding up some pokey little stairs in the city centre.  They had 200 colours imported from Germany for ten bucks each, and the guy even threw in a smaller nozzle for free for detail work.  It was just an amazing lucky break.  Anyone who’s been to Canberra knows that shops like that don’t exactly grow on trees here so I hope they stay open.  The owners were super-cool and there was all this loud hip-hop and mad pieces on the walls yo, and I felt like a total dork buying graffiti paint for my Night Goblins.  I just kind of pretended I was an aerosol artist (despite having no real idea how an aerosol artist looks or acts).  It was awesome.

Oh yeah, I was listening to the D6 Generation’s 100th episode the other day and all three of the hosts (who are crazy hard-core gamers compared with me) were saying that they were past the point where they could ever see themselves buying an army for an army scale miniatures system ever again.  Not just GW, but any army sized system (I think they specifically mentioned PP, Battlefront and something else as well as GW).

I know how they feel (uh… despite what I just wrote above!)  It made me think about this post where I suggested that all these miniature games companies have really jumped the shark if you’re an adult gamer with grown-up responsibilities.  And by responsibilities I’m not just talking kids either, I’m talking real jobs and other games to play.  All of these things make the demands of games like 40k and HoMachine seem ri-godamn-diculous.

I’m genuinely curious about how the demographic will change in the future.  Are we stepping boldly into a world where Little Lord Fauntleroys with weatlhy absent parents play vast games of Warhammer against each other, while the rest of us whip out our phones or throw down a quick skirmish game?  Who knows?

Till next time.  Hopefully I’ll have pictures from the tournament

Night Goblins!

I found this nice Night Goblins picture on Deviant Art, click for original link.

I’ve been thinking more and more about what I wrote in this article, about finding imaginative ways to quickly paint the large armies that the current editions of 40k and Warhammer demand.  I’m getting excited about the project, so I’ve decided to give it a go and start an army for a system I don’t currently play or have any models for – Warhammer Fantasy Battle.

I was going to go with Skaven.  The new models just look fantastic.  But I’ve discovered that a potential future opponent has already claimed them.  I’m glad really because it made me think about something different, and brought me back to an army I’ve always wanted to try: Night Goblins.  Ever since the 90s when they first appeared I just really liked the hooded creepy-cute look, and the background about them being madcap mushroom-eating freaks with units like fanatics and squig hoppers was just the icing on the cake.  They’re evil little goblins, they’re cute, they’re crazy and they’re fun.  Heh.  Night Goblins rule.

So, since I don’t do things by halves I’m now set on coming up with a super-efficient but great-looking way to paint an army, and I’ve gone with a horde.  Good plan right?

My basic plan is this:

1. Base them with gravel
2. Spray them all midnight blue
3. Blast them from above with a lighter blue for a bold zenith highlight
4. Wash them with black and brown and other dirty colours
5. Give the impression of glinting weapons and shield rims with some quick strokes of metallic
6. Pick out the eyes in bright yellow

If this works I’m thinking it’ll give them a sort of two-tone anime style light-and-shadow effect and make them look like they are scuttling in the dark with glowing eyes.  Something like this:

Drawing by me.

For consistency I need to do everything the same way, but I know it’ll be hard not to put extra touches on the characters, so I’ll try to give them reeeally subtle highlights at the highest points that blend into the lighter blue.  Oh and I’m doing the army on the cheap too because I don’t hate myself that much. I’m really looking forward to making some awesome unit fillers for extra cheapiness.

So I grabbed twenty gobbos from eBay and they’re waiting.  The first hitch has been sourcing midnight blue matte finish spray paint.  It’s harder than you think.  Even artist quality spray paint seems to be made in gloss only.  Buying gloss and then spraying them all with a matte sealer seems a bit wasteful, but I might have to.