Stripe Happy

As the basecoat extravaganza continues I found myself working on the drones for my Devilfish last night. I know that a lot of the folks in the Tau intertron-meta scoff at drones on Devilfish in favor of Smart Missile Systems, but I have a very good reason not to use them. That reason being, the Devilfish kit doesn't come with Smart Missile Systems, and I will be damned if I am gonna buy them as bits. Tactical, naw, but 'eff it.

Because of my blatant disregard for strategy in favor of a lesser fiscal burden, as well as my love for Fire Warriors in APC's, I end up with a lot of friggin' drones on the board during the games. In the past, this has caused problems for my opponents because it is seldom clear which drone is with which other drone/s... because my shit wasn't painted. Now that my shit is getting quasi-painted, I wanted it to be pretty clear what drones are what. The drones I had assigned to various crisis suits I just painted the squad marking on, to tie them into their suits.

From Mars Project Blog

For the sake of identification I blocked in the markings, not worrying too much about how fine the lines were. This doesn't differ at all from the way I normally freehand. I will always block in the basic design, then wash it it, shade, it, highlight it, and clean it up as I am doing the same thing on the rest of the model with the other colors.

After looking at the various squad drones I realized that, because the Tau markings are often just lines of varying height and thickness, the drones still kind of looked the same between squads. Not a huge deal because there were suits next to them, however on the the drones that operated independently, I could totally see grabbing one and moving it with suits unless there was a noticable difference.

Most of the men in my family, myself excluded, have served in the Armed Forces in some "grunt" capacity. Not too many of my kith and kin joined up for job skills. I remembered one conversation where-in someone in my family accused the Airforce of being "stripe-happy" as it pertained to rank. Real quick, let me just say that I have the utmost respect for anyone willing to give of themselves and risk their life for the defense of this country, so I am not taking a shot the brave men and women of the US Airforce. More to the point, I bring this up because this was the basis for my design on the Devilfishs' drones. I wanted their markings to be fancier, somewhere between like what you would see as Tau Sept markings and the logos on F-1 racing cars. Not only does it add to the futuristic feel, but I figured the hot-shot pilots would their drones to look fancier.

From Mars Project Blog

The design is vastly different from the crisis suits drones, easily identifiable, and still within the feel of the Tau, so all in all I think it worked, I guess we will see in my game on Friday.

Thanks for reading,
T

4 Months Today

The clock is ticking, by this time in August I will have to be done. No pressure right?

I have 16 Kroot, 9 Kroot Hounds, 3 Devilfish, and 6 drones to block in still. Then I make with the details till the deadline.

In the words of The Joker, "And...here...we...go!"

Quickie

Just dropping a line very quickly to refute the the fact that my last post did not contain any lesbian bondage. It is there, layered deeply in subtext and metaphor. I blog like a fucking Russian playwright. Dig deep, and you will see it, and so much more.

On an actual working note, I did some last night, but not in the Tau direction. I got my Warstore in order so I assembled some Circle Orboros stuff I had coming. Among them was the Pureblood Warpwolf, which I really dig. Most of the time, because of the huge amount of character PP models have, I build lists that would look rad to me in a movie, or a short story. This weekend I placed in a tourney and was able to pick up Kromac without spending any money, and risking the ire of the wife. From there a 25 point list that I was really excited about sprung forth. I can't wait to get my brush to some of these Circle models I have been accumulating.

As far as the Tau/Astro extravaganza goes I am trying to secure the use of an airbrush and some expertise for the vehicles. It will greatly speed things up. I have one big and one little squad of infantry left to block in the colors on, so nearing the finish of the first lap.

Thanks for reading,
T

Preparing For The Worst

Been a while since I have posted, and a couple people this weekend made sure that shit was flipped for it. The reason is not because I am not working on anything. I am, diligently, and often to perturbation. The lack of communication has been because I haven't finished anything.

See, unless it is a tutorial, I actually hate work in progress (WIP) pics. I guess I also don't mind them if someone is asking for help going forward. While clearly an unsuccessful tendency for someone making an effort to blog about their toy soldier exploits, it is how I feel. Under my new plan, pretty much my whole damn army is a WIP progress pic.

See, even now, with a little more than four months to go before Astro I have realized that I will probably not be able to do the entire 1,500 points up to the standard of my Pathfinders and Fire Warriors. Feel free to chastise my painting prowess and speed, that is what the comments section is for, and odds are you will just be parroting what I have already told myself.

Instead of this realization taking me off course, I have decided to go another way. Each week night, barring catastrophe, I have been sitting down at my painting table for an hour and blocking in color on all the minis in the army. Squad by squad I am laying down base color and dry-brushing their rock bases, then moving on to the next. This has become much easier since baseball season started, as I love baseball but it is not the kind of sport one needs to watch constantly.

Once all the color has been blocked in the models will be based with three colors, a.k.a table ready. Once the color blocking has concluded I will do the same thing with washes, and then with the remaining time detail squads until I have to play int he event. It should be noted that I am not resigned to the fact that my army will not be painted up to my standards, however I feel like a realistic approach is better way to go.

Anyway, once the color blocking is done I will throw a pic up in the name of progress. In the mean time I have been trying to drudge up a few games to used to the list. My usual opponent has kind of fallen off the planet (which is weird because he actually moved geographically closer to me now) so I am having to look elsewhere.

Thanks for reading,
T