State of the Empire

Jay's Workshop is my Empire.  It is an empire that exists in reality as most of the space in my garage, in imagination as a dream in my overactive brain, and as a community in the blogosphere.  How's my empire doing?  Well, let's see:

My imagination is always on.  That aspect of Jay's Workshop is strong and constantly churning out new ideas (I have a dozen draft articles and two campaigns written up for future blogs already).  The only problem here is that the imagination and the hands are rarely equally motivated.  Although I'm full of ideas, I'm short on the doing.  That's why I make such a great manager...

I started this blog back at the beginning of the year as a way to keep in touch with my friends, all of which now live hundreds of miles away.  It's also meant to give me a reason to hobby and actually keep up with it as I no longer have deadlines to meet.  In only 4 months, the workshop has grabbed 36 followers and really blown my Facebook page up with comments.  I've iterated about three different games, a few hobby skills, and even come to the defense of the all-evil known as Games Workshop the company.  But I've had my failures- notably the 'Unit a Week' series.  As I type this, I'm something like 9 weeks behind.  Looks like I'll be painting up a whole lot of characters!  :-)

As far as the physical location, well, that's the worst of it all.  Jay's Workshop isn't very people friendly.  I have to shut the place down twice a year.  I have to shut it down in the middle of December and January (it's just too cold), and I have to shut it down from May till October.  The Texas summer mixed with a lack of air conditioning means potential heat stroke on anyone trying to 'hang out'.  My insurance doesn't cover that, so it's a no-go.  Plus, during those months, I get to store all my lawn care equipment somewhere more accessible (under the game table was not cool when weekend cut-day came).  As I sit in my comfortable recliner and hobby, while watching Dallas lose the NBA finals one Lebron James play at a time, I realize that I have to go the game shop now.  Jay's Workshop has ceased being a physical place for the time being...

For the near future, I hope to catch up with 'A Unit a Week'.  I also hope to start getting some battles in and reporting them (maybe even show some battle reports?).  As always, I hope to get more followers and more feedback.  I do this for my readers (that's you, in case you're not paying attention), so check in more and leave your thoughts!

Happy Gaming!

Rare metal models, and I'm done!

I'm finally at the end of the 'Era of Building'.  Not because I suddenly have an urge to paint but more because I've run out of stuff to build.  I decided to go back to my Blood Angels because I had a strong urge to build a Stormraven.  That'll be the next blog, so stay tuned.

In any case, I needed to add the final units to my Blood Angels.  The army is nearly full of red models, from the marines with guns to the tanks with flamers.  But I lacked a very archetypical Blood Angels unit- the Death Company.  Well...  I have a unit built up, but why only one?  So I built another unit, this time without jump packs.  Now I have two huge units of Death Company to shove down the enemy's throat.  But wait, I can't use more than one unit in a normal army!

So I did what any sane, Death Company-loving fool would- I dug Astorath the Grim out.  And if I gotta have the Angel of Death in my army, it only makes sense to have the Lord of Death as well.  And I gotta have a buddy for my company Captain, so I added a Librarian with a jump pack.  And the Librarian needs a bodyguard, so I rebuilt the Vanguard Vets.  Oh yes, it was character-o-rama at Jay's Workshop yesterday.  Now if I could just get the paintbrushes moving...

Here's the pictures.  I hope seeing the doods in metal brings a tear of nostalgia to your eye.  Too soon?

And now, all the doods with primer on them...

Get your modelling on!