GenCon Pictures

And before I forget, I got the handful of pictures I took at GenCon posted to my Flickr site. Mostly random snapshots of things I thought were cool enough to cause me to think about getting out my camera. In particular check out the outstanding Tzeentch chaos marines army fielded in a 40K tournament. Pictures can be found here.

Cruisers ready for priming

After another session spent hunched over my desk, scribing tool and X-acto blade in hand, the last of my Iron Dwarf cruiser squadron has had its panel lines sharpened. All that remains is the battleship which, due to its size, alone will likely take me as long as the entire cruiser squadron. Once that's finished, barring a quick once over of the frigates (which will remain unmodified), I need only wash off the newly accumulated resin dust, affix flagstaffs (which will require some putty work to smooth the join), and prime the fleet. Unfortunately the rapid onset of fall and some unseasonable cold, rainy weather means that priming will have to wait a few days. With any luck I'll soon have posted pictures of the ships just prior to going under the brush.

In other dwarf news, could this signal the return of the Squats? I definitely hope so. I've missed the little guys ever since I used to kick them around the field in 2nd edition 40K and would love for my small coven of chaos squats to have some stunties to face off against. :)

In Drydock

No pictures tonight, simply as they'd be none too exciting. I spent my time rescribing the panel lines on 1.5 of my Uncharted Seas Iron Dwarf cruisers. While most of the panels are defined by prominent dividing lines, a number are sufficiently shallow that I'm afraid even primer will obscure them. I'm not sure if they were an afterthought on the part of the designer, but a fair amount of tedious work is required before they'll "pop".

I've also drilled holes in the cruisers and the battleship to accommodate flagpoles. I wanted to do something to make the figures distinct from the out of the box standard - considered adding bases with sculpted waves, ship's boats on davits, or air vents, all of which one inspiring poster to the Spartan Games forum did - but also wanted to get some paint on these guys so they could join the growing flotilla of painted ships appearing within my gaming group. So banners alone will likely be the only addition. I opted not to add flagstaffs to my frigates simply because I couldn't find a location on them I liked. Instead they'll be painted with distinguishing marking atop their turrets - better for the Iron Dwarf airships to identify them by!

Lillith

So this was my competition entry for the GenCon 09 painting competition. I originally purchased her from Wyrd games when they were still producing quirky, non-game specific figures. With the release of Malifaux though, Lillith is now one of the Masters of the Neverborn faction. I'm not sure if she'll end up being a gaming figure for me, as I'm currently working on assembling a Resurrectionist crew for Malifaux, but undoubtedly the siren song of yet another cool game will ensure that a single faction won't be enough for me. sigh :)

GenCon '10 - 330 Days and Counting

So GenCon '09 has come and gone and, like just about every year, I had a great time. Much money was spent, a ton of games were demoed and played, and I walked away with several new games that will likely be taking over my painting table and/or have already started taking over my gaming nights - Uncharted Seas, Malifaux, and Memoir '44. What I didn't walk away with was a place in the GenCon painting competition. I've come to expect this lately as the competition level posed by the elite painters in the hobby are simply too much to compete with. Unlike some, I'm not opposed to the participation of "professional" painters as I recognize it fuels my ambition to get better. Now if only I could find the time to match my level of ambition.

I did however manage a respectable 4th overall placing in the Reaper speed painting competition. Considering the competition consisted of 5 round of 15 participants each, I was thrilled to even qualify for the final round, much less place. And the brief interaction I had with Marike Reimer, the overall winner of the competition and perhaps my current favorite professional painter, made it all the more memorable.

I'll get the handful of other GenCon pictures I took, as well as some shots of my painting competition entry, loaded shortly. But, for now, I'll leave you with a shot of this year's loot pile: