Genesis of a Demo Board

I finally got the bug.  After weeks of not picking up a paintbrush or a hobby knife, I finally broke down and forced myself to do it.  The great part is that I actually had a buddy over and he willingly helped, so the motivation was certainly injected from an outside source.  Regardless of why I finally did it, the fact that I did some hobbying made me proud.  And, of course, this should lead to more.  Much more.

I'm going to show off pictures of the stuff I started working on last night and then talk briefly about what I'm going to do about it.  This will eventually lead to pictures of this new terrain project being finished and posted up here, and will lead to me using it to recruit even more hobbyists

First comes the tabletop itself.  I have 5 display boards, but they're all 16"x20", and that's just too small for a proper demo game.  While I worked for the company, we moved from 4'x4' tables (way in the early 90's) to 2'x2' tables for our demo games.  And rummaging around, I found this perfectly-sized board in the workshop!  Yay!  Notice that it's already got a texture to it- this was achieved by priming and drybrushing the rough side of the hardboard.  The bottom (not seen in the pic for obvious reasons) is the smooth side, which is unnecessary for this.  The board, with its texture, is perfect to as the base of a city, which is altogether perfect for this sci-fi game...

I built some buildings many months ago (in fact, it was soon after my accident and I used this assembling to retrain my shattered arm.  Buildings are simple and fit that perfectly).

And I have three more kits to make more buildings.  I don't have any idea yet of what I would like to use for the demo board, but having too many buildings is better than not having any or enough.  Plus, this demo board will be modular and I plan to use whatever goes on this board on the main table also, when I feel the urge to rock some cityfight...

This kit was what got my buddy excited.  He had never seen it before and, after laying eyes upon it, ripped the box open and slapped the parts together.  After all, what good is an Imperial City (even in ruins) without a giant Space Marine statue?

While still working for the company, I had the urge to buy some Forgeworld models, and HQ didn't have anything I was terribly interested in.  So I found this crater set and grabbed it instead.  Paying far too much for it, I was proud to have craters that would grace my planned ruins table.  Funny enough, we released the plastic craters only a few weeks later.  I have them, but I needed to get these FW ones done for fear of forgetting that I had them.  If you look closely, you can see one of my favorite aspects of GW models ever- nothing but the feet of a Space Marine in the middle of a crater!  It's the little things...

Finally comes the 'bitz' for the battlefield.  Tank traps, barrels, gas cans, and a few other items shall add that extra something to the board, giving troops something other than windows to hide behind.  Again, it's the little things...

That's it for today.  I plan on doing some drybrushing, some 'rusting', and some other painting to get this stuff done soon.  My goal is to have a complete demo board done by next weekend.  Will I finish it?  A little motivation should see this happen, even if I start my new job this week.  After all, how long can it take to paint this stuff?  Stay tuned!

Happy hobbying!

It hath happeneth!

First off, I apologize for not putting up a blog in the last two weeks.  I have been busy with a couple of big things- getting a job (I have one, yay!), being a Daddy in a very intensive way, and prepping for something big.  But mostly, it's been a lack of motivation or inspiration.  And stress.  And distractions.  And all kinds of other things that I'd like to make into excuses.  But it's really only about what I haven't done in weeks now.

I haven't hobbied now for more than a month.  I haven't even looked at any of my toys with the exception of the Chaos Codex.  I have the Dark Vengeance models begging me for attention and they're stacked on my work-shelf and slowly being forgotten about.  I have many of my CSM models begging for more than the basic drybrush and I haven't even decided which unit to start on.  In fact, the only thing I've done in the workshop is organize my paints.  Why?  I'm still trying to figure it out myself.

But here's the second part, and the reason why this trend must now end-

My buddies and I are part of the few that were able to purchase our Adepticon National 40k Team Tournament tickets!!!

Last year the tournament sold out in 17 hours.  One of my other friends is a member of the Adepticon Council and we spent hours discussing how amazing this was.  This year, the tickets sold out in 53 minutes.  53 MINUTES!!!  Luckily, my team captain was on point and was able to get them purchased instantly.  Needless to say, I was very stressed out and waiting for confirmation the way an astronaut waits for the countdown to end and the engines to start up.  I was eagerly patient, that is until an hour had passed and word that the tournie sold out so quickly and I had not yet received word.  A flurry of phone calls and texts later and my fears were allayed.  I went from stressed to excited in the span of milliseconds.

I've already been to the Team Tournament and competed with a team that actually scored 2nd overall and won for 'Best Theme and Presentation' (look us up, Adepticon 2009, team name 'Cede Malis').  My team this year is not nearly as skilled at the game and hopes of winning are managed to non-existence.  In fact, we're pretty much using this event as an opportunity to present beautifully-themed armies and have a ton of fun, while also getting to see each other for the first time in years (we all live in different parts of the country). And if we happen to win half our games then we'll consider it a successful venture in the gaming arena.  If we win for 'Best Theme and Appearance' then we can call it a successful mission altogether.  Do we expect to?  Gosh no.  But we're sure gonna try.

Do it again, DO IT AGAIN!!!

The best parts of this are two-fold- a) My old partner in crime in service to the Emprah and I get to return to our old stomping grounds and receive the old 'hero-worship' we used to get.  It'll be nice going to Wisconsin to visit our respective stores and see hobbyists that we created all these years later.  And, of course, we get to have our egos stroked just a bit.  More importantly is b) the other three members of my team get to compete in the largest tournament in the US and specifically one of the most well-known formats in recent history.  My partner has competed with me multiple times in the Lord of the Rings Team Tournament, but I'm the only one that's done the 40k.  And the other two members of the team have never even attended this massive event.  So I'll get to witness at least two sets (and maybe three) of eyes filled with the shiny excitement of wonderment in this trip.  I always get excited to see other people get excited.  It's kind of a weakness on my part...

All this being said, I guess I have no choice but to start actually hobbying on my army now.  Which requires me to know what I'm going to use in my army.  Which will probably require me to buy a buttload more models.  Which means me getting a job couldn't have come at a better time.  I WILL be using my Word Bearers (I'll explain the theme later), and I will be restrictive in my unit selection, but I still want to be at least a little competitive.  Now onto a whole new level of stress...



More to come about this later.  But for now, forgive my lack of consistency in posting recently and bear with me.  I promise I'll make the wait worth it.  :-)






Happy Hobbying!