Adepticon Recap

Adepticon has come and gone and I'm in detox mode!  Making things up to the wife for being away so much and cleaning up the wake of my mad hobby cramming.  It was a blast.  I wish I had the chance to practice with my army, but in the end I had a great time.

Started off with the 40k champs.  I got smoked and got very minimal battle points, but it seemed like whenever I needed the game to go on, it didn't and whenever I needed it to end it kept going!  I won't use those as excuses, had 3 out of 4 games were a ton of fun. 

I didn't expect it, but my army ended up placing 2nd for appearance points.  For something I finished up late the night before (and had to take some shortcuts), I was really happy with the results. I'm thinking I should keep on the chaos kick and paint the miniatures I wasn't able to get to. Might as well while I'm still into the army even though I'm a bit burnt out. 

Friday was the 40k Friendly. Jeff and I did the Blues Battle Brothers as a theme this year and everyone seemed to have a good time. Unfortunately we were a little short staffed so I was stuck behind the computer most of the tournament.  Next year we'll rectify that... and we're very close to having a theme for 2017.

Then the team tournament.  The display board turned out great, and didn't get damaged as we assembled it on site.  Whether or not it's OK now is another story, as I have yet to reassemble it as parts are in my garage awaiting it's permanent stay in my basement.

We did pretty average on the games, I won big or lost big and ended up getting three max scores and two zeroes for battle points.  One of the losses we were in it to the end, it was close to being a tie had I played a little bit smarter. 

Here's some pictures from my camera on how the base turned out, I wish I would have taken better shots.  The lighting didn't seem to come through.

We were so trying for best heretical team.  As the awards ceremony went on, we were bummed we missed that and best display... when we got totally surprised and our team won best theme.  It's the ultimate for us, and everyone's hard work paid off. 

Over the next few days I'll post more of the miniatures I painted up over the week.  I think I've decided on my next few 40k projects. 

- Add some necrons for a few fun builds
- Work on a marine gladius list, flush out my marines
- Finally tackle the death korps of krieg. I've had these miniatures ever since they came out.  I've been dying to get some paint on them.  It might even be my big project for Adepticon next year.

Now on to cleaning the house!

Chaos Display Boards - Painting

I'm so scrambling to get things done before Adepticon.  I have about 60 figures that are 95% done.  As soon as I add the finishing touches I'll post some unit pictures. 

In between painting my wife helped me a bit more on the two display boards I'll use throughout the year and the Adepticon Championship.  After carving, I put a layer of latex paint down to help seal the boards.  Then did a few layers of greys to get a base down and some browns around the sand. 

We then started with painting random individual stones slightly lighter or darker colors.  Thanks again to my wife with the help on this!

I then put a few layers of a gloss coat on to assist with some oil washing.  I prepared a stinky batch of black/brown oil wash to line the cracks of the stone and darken some of the stones and sand. 

To add some random elements of terrain I created some more brazier "fires" and picked up a couple of fish tank aquarium decorations and painted them. The Mayan looking one will eventually have simulated fire coming out the sides that are open.  The big mouth sculpture will go over the blood river on the back of the base. 

I then sealed them with a matte coat to lock in the oils and taped off the top so I could apply a spray lacquer to the frame.  All of these coats and sprays spanned about a week of work between dry times.  The fun part was next.  Blood splatters in random places and I filled the river with the first coat of the blood.  I also did some green/brown water for the areas on the side. 

I need to wait until things are completely dry before I put the static grass on, that will probably be the night before the tournament.  There they are!  I'll get some completed pictures done at the tournament.  I'm still debating on whether I go with the large or smaller base.  We'll have to see how the miniatures fit. It'll be a long couple of late nights as I try to get as many painted as possible.

Chaos Display Boards - Carving

I figured, why not throw two big projects in while I'm scrambling to get everything painted for Adepticon.  Depending on whether I run a big or small army, I like to do two size display boards.  One is 18 x 24, and the other is 24 x 30. 

My friend was able to hook me up with some additional sheets of the high density foam.  I bought some wooden trim and framed the foam and glued/nailed it in place.  Luckily my same friend was able to make some stencils for me to knock out some chaos symbols.  I'm going to integrate some of the Dragon Forge tiles into it to give it the cool Mayan headhunter temple theme.

My wife (and cat) helped me out coming up with the pattern for each.  I have a Mayan statue that will be in the middle of the board where the river of blood will flow from.  On one side will be a path on the small board.  The big board will have two paths flanking the river.

The central Khorne symbol will be brass with rivets.  I'm debating on whether the chaos symbols should be done in metal or look like they're just carved out of the stone.  On each board I'll have a dirt area like the temple is going up against the "forest".  Plus it disguises where I screwed up the trim and had to put filler in since I didn't cut the trim to a perfect match of the foam.

 

I then went about doing super carving with the dremel in the garage to not kick up so much dust.  I carved out areas for each of the tiles so they can be set in the foam.  Since we already found out that this foam eats spray/primer, I'm going to put a heavy layer of laytex paint on to seal before I work my spray paint. 

Tonight I'll cut up some rivets and finish up my cultists.  Here's what I have to finish... all in like 8 days!

- final painting of the 20 cultists
- final painting of the soul grinder
- 14 khorne dogs
- 8 "biker" chaos Calvary
- Angroth (super thirster)

Summoned stuff I want to paint
- Skull Cannon
- 2 daemon princes
- More blood letters and dogs

TT Khorne Display Update 3 - Laying on the Details

Another successful Sunday was in the books and luckily my supplies arrived in time!  We started the phase of laying on base colors of spray paints and started to detail the parts of the board.  Unfortunately I didn't snap pictures of all of the activity going on, my hands were covered in glue and paint.

I went out to home depot with a pallet of colors in hand.  Makes it easier then guessing on the fly.  20 spray paint cans later and a bag full of craft paint and we were ready to rock.

The spraying commenced.  Got a bunch of plastic chain and jewelers chain to hold the support sections and crashed pillars.  We hand painted on some sections too where we planned on laying down grating. 

Greg designed and printed up the backdrop.  We wanted to add some painting elements so I started to hand paint on the portal opening up in bright greens.  Danny worked on some decorative pillars as scatter terrain to break up the flat areas.

Here's the first couple layers as it stands now. Greg was a champ and cut a ridiculous amount of rivets out of plastic rod.  I started applying them across any of the brass accents.   Greg and Jeff are going the distance this week and detail painting all of the rock surfaces so we can start with the oil washes this weekend. 

I'm going to pick up some craft paint metallic colors so we can work on all the brass and silver areas.  I love GW paints, but the cost is a little too high for projects this big.

Adepticon TT Display - Khorne Gladiator Construction (part 2)

We had another very productive Sunday working on the display base, racking up another 6 hours of work with the team. Gregg and Jeff also assembled the case sides during the week so we can work on it in it's cart.  Since the foam is so dense, we're able to screw it in and out with wood screws, pretty cool. 

Our goal this round was to work on the second and third levels (plus the crashed column) as well as adding some of the details.  I forgot to pick up plastic rods to make rivets so unfortunately we weren't able to knock that out.  There was no lack of stuff to work on.  The team commenced to start the stenciling and readying the pieces.

Danny and I also started working on the portcullis and gates for the Khorne dogs.  What a better medium to work with then all the plastic sprues from GW.  There is no lack of material there and will add to the rusty metal look. 

Now came the heavy carving.  We didn't mess around this time and all put on masks.  In the background I put on some dark ambient music to get us in the spirit of the project.

 

After extreme piles of dust was swept up we were done for the night.  We put all the pieces up and held the pillar about where it was going to stand.  Hopefully my supplies I ordered will arrive on time, I have materials coming for the lighting and tons of chain, plastic rod and skulls.  We tested a few of the lights that will sit within the risers.

This week I hope to wrap up painting the bloodletters and finish up my soul grinder!

Adepticon TT Display - Khorne Gladiator (part 1)

It's that time of year again, time to do some crazy hobby action preparing for the Adepticon 40k Team Tournament.  This year we want to go super over the top with a Khorne themed gladiator arena.  The concept is to go up (we like that better then wide) and have plexiglass sides to show the interior of the display.  Objects will hang down as well as across to give it depth. 

We found a new material to work with, an ultra dense foam.  It's almost hardwood quality and can even be fastened using wood screws.  It also allows us to carve it with dremmels to add detail.  Here's what we started out last weekend working on, the roughed out first level.

It was then on to carving details.  All four of us were armed with dremels and I was smart enough to wear a mask due to the immense amount of dust we generated.  Greg was able to make some vinyl patterns to lay over the top so we could use for symbols.  We'll be making those into brass (with rivets and all). 

After about 6 hours of work, we made some major progress.  Here's the first level without any of the balconies or finishing touches.

I need to figure out  how we can do a couple of things before this weekend's work session. First how to make a ton of rivets.  Secondly, I'd like some hanging braziers.  I figured I'd use battery powered flickering tea lights and cover them with cotton (blackened) smoke.  Any ideas on how to make them? 

We're definitely inspired to make it our best theme yet.  On my painting table now are bloodletters and I'm busy converting some khorne cultists with some weapon swaps off the new age of sigmar starter set.