Heldrake #2 Painted Plus Anima Tactics

The pain is over. The second Heldrake is fully painted. Now that I have both of them, my current army needs only the second Chaos Marine squad and my Chaos Lord in order to be finished. I guess my time off from work was well worth it.

Now, with two finished and ready for the table, the end of the army is in sight.

In gaming news, my fiance' and I played a game of Anima: Tactics. The groups are 200 levels rather than the usual 300 as this was a "remembering how to play" game rather than a full-on game. What we really came away with from this battle is the fact that Samiel is a complete beast. He's a Cuisinart in combat, and once he starts getting Power Tokens he's nearly impossible to kill. If you play Empire, he's pretty much an auto-include. The game was a lot of fun, even though Samiel basically ran roughshod through the Samael party.

Now on to painting those last 11 Chaos Marine miniatures!

Coming Up for Air

Well, since it's been a while since I last posted, I figured I'd give a quick status report. Entirely Anima progress, I'm afraid. Those of you hoping for some 40k goodies will have to wait a bit. I've finished painting another wanderer, Akio Kageshima, and gotten a couple of Samael figures (Fallen Angel Dinah, Fallen Angel Ophiel, Konosuke, Dark Cheshire, and Janiel) painted.
Now, however, I'm in the middle of my final for this class, a research paper on nuclear waste disposal, for which I get to read through 300+ pages of government reports (so far). This has, as one would expect, caused painting (and photographs thereof) to come to a halt. Even this post is being snuck in between reading reports as my eyes were beginning to glaze over.
I'm hoping to get my bibliography and outline done tonight so that I can start putting a dent in painting either Bael or Shinigami Ayl. At this point I can only hope. There will be a two-day gap between my class ending and my next two classes beginning, so here's hoping I can sneak in a game or two then, as right now it's totally out of the question. I'm hoping to go over to my local G.W. or over to one of my friends' places for a game of Warhammer Fantasy, but who knows?

...But for now, back to studying Yucca Mountain.

Just Before the Nose Hits the Grindstone

Don't mind that yellow dot on Kujaku's sword, it's been fixed.

Last night, after returning home from work, I suffered a touch of sleeplessness. This led me to work on Kujaku until the wee hours of the morning (well, not too wee, as Craig Ferguson had just started, but late enough). I entered a sort of zen-like trance, and just kept adding colors to miniatures.

Contrary to my previous beliefs, Kujaku is wearing a brown yukata with a cherry blossom print on it in her artwork, rather than a purple and white one. This made painting her much easier, but I still had to deal with layering pink and white over a brown basecoat, followed by a little yellow dot in the center of each flower. This girl is simply covered in flower patterns, so I had to spend quite a bit of time freehanding cherry blossoms.

One thing I didn't notice until a good deal of the way through the miniature is that she has a samurai helmet tied to her left (your right) shoulder. This came as quite a shock when I looked closer at what I believed to be the usual token piece of armor on female miniatures. Luckily I was able to catch it before dullcote-ing the mini. Once I finish the draft of this paper it's off to my FLGS to grab some Mecherite Red to start on my next miniature.

Now, focus!

For Now Blobs Of Black, But Soon...

Well, it seems The War Store is out of Infinity starter sets, and I know for a fact my FLGS doesn't carry the game, I've decided to start painting my Anima: Tactics miniatures again. Since I'm currently out of dark red to start with, my initial faction; Church is out as I'm going with a red, black, white, and gold color scheme. My Samael force is also out as I was going to go with dark red and deep purple for their colors.

A touch miffed, I went through my Saga I & II book to see if there were any miniatures that didn't require red in their color scheme. It turns out Kujaku Hime and Takanosuke (the sword carrying girl and leaping ninja respectively) have no red in their paint scheme.

Takanosuke will be a great miniature to get my feet wet with, as, being a ninja, he has a lot of black cloth accented by a touch of purple. Kujaku on the other hand will be a lesson in bringing up a black primer to light colors, as she's all whites, pale flesh, pink and pastel purple. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't intimidated by her. I probably should have primed her in white, but I didn't have any at the time, and I tend to prime in batches...

Well, it's off to get as much of a start as I can before work. Let's see how good I can paint when I try.

I Want a New Drug



I couldn't think of anything else, so have some Etna!

 I've been plodding through painting my Dark Eldar, when it hit me; I'm plodding. I'm not enjoying painting the miniatures like I should. When I paint MalifauX, Song of Blades and Heroes, or Anima: Tactics, I enjoy painting the minis. I remember painting my Confrontation Alchemists, too. They were a blast, and I spared no detail on them.

This just isn't possible with a 40k army.

Not for me any way.

What is the common theme of these mini games I so enjoy painting? They're skirmish scale. With maybe ten miniatures per side, I can lavish each one with the attention it deserves.

When you look at my Dark Eldar, you can tell there is a bit of a hurry when I paint them. Highlights aren't as crisp, occasional shading is missed, and certain reas (like eyes) are a bit "outside the lines".

Now, a portion of this can be attributed to the injury my hand sustained since I last painted a miniature to true "showcase quality", but deeper than that, I'm hurrying myself. Symptoms include, but are not limited to;

-Sloppy paint jobs
-Rapid fire unit completion
-Dipping minis
-Poor conversions
-Looking at painting as a chore

I've been exibiting all of these signs for a while now, and I can only think of one thing to bust me out of this slump. I need a skirmish game, ASAP. I've been looking for a good skirmish system for a while, and since I can't find an opponent for MalifauX, Anima, or Song of Blades and Heroes, I figure I'll look at Infinity. I'll still probably lack opponents, but damn if those models aren't sweet. The factions look like a cross between Ghost in the Shell and Appleseed. If these models don't inspire me to paint, and to do it to the best of my ability, none will. I'm just tired of forcing myself to turn out sub-par results, and with my financial status the way it is, I may have to stick with skirmish systems weather I want to or not. Right now I'm having trouble saving up for a Venom, let alone the rest of the army.

Don't get me wrong, army scale games will always have a place in my heart, but right now 40k may have to go on the back burner. Sorry to Demitra, but between time and money I just may (note I said may) have to drastically slow down the slow-growth project.

An Exercise in Painting a Ton of Black

I must say, I do rather appreciate the look of the Azur Alliance. Dark skin, pale hair, black clothes... What's not to like? Having said that, I'm sick to death of painting black and white clothes.

The darkness!

From left to right are Hel, Deadmoon, Reinhold, Harod, High Arbiter Alastor (the armor was a pain), Jerome, Kirsten, and the Colonel. Painting the Colonel's casual flaming backhand was my favorite part. Hel's dress was somewhere between a blast and a nightmare to paint.

Another faction down, now all that remain are The Church and Samael. Plus a few more wanderers. I'm really loving the progress I'm making, now to find an opponent...

Anima Progress: Wissenschaft & Wanderers

So tonight I finished up my Wissenschaft miniatures. I decided on my favorite palette, jade green, purple, and black. So far I own (from left to right) Celia (the limited edition of whom I'm looking into getting pro-painted), Lorenzo, Rayne, Alessa Raincross, Feng Yi, Cordelia Rosalind, and Veronica. I really want the Legacy of Solomon, but it weighs in at $50, so my beautiful suit of power armor will have to wait.

Wissenschaft is worth playing if only for the hotties! (^_^)

I also slapped some paint on a few of the more powerful Wanderer models- Dereck Shezard, Sophia Ilmora, and Faust Orbatos.

You'll note that I stuck to the color schemes presented in their card art rather than assigning them a faction uniform. I did this to represent these characters' mercenary nature. This way they'll stand out as individuals even in an all wanderer party.

Right now I'm in the middle of painting up my Azur Alliance minis, but I'm throwing a few Wanderers in there to break up the monotony of painting brown skin, white hair, and black uniforms, Don't get me wrong- they look really cool, but one can only paint so much of the same thing before going a touch batty.

Boredom and Games I Will Never Play

So, after listening to my podcasts and finishing Mass Effect 2 I got bored. Searching around my apartment I found my Anima: Tactics miniatures. I pulled out my miniatures and decided to paint up my Empire miniatures.

I decided to go with a regal gold and purple color scheme. I still haven't decided how I want to paint up Samael's black lions.

It's a shame that nobody plays Anima around here. The miniatures are so beautiful! The action point mechanic makes the game really interesting, though the combat is a bit defensive.


Oh, well. I suppose these miniatures will get their own shelf in my next display case just above my MalifauX minis.