Improving my Angels of Redemption Painting

In between playing Torchlight and the family and life stuff we had happening over the weekend, I managed to fit in a bit of hobby time. I pulled my landspeeder bits out again with the aim of getting the two crew members painted up.

While I've been pretty happy with my Angels of Redemption colour scheme, it's far to time consuming - I've spent hours and hours and turned out 5 almost complete models and a bunch of half-done ones. So I decided to try streamlining it a bit more.

I primed the two crew with white gesso rather than black - previously having to build up the white half from black took ages, and I was hopeful that it would make getting the green a bit easier too. I then put down a layer of gnarloc green on the green half, followed by dark angels green.

I should have tried just straight dark angels green on the white gesso, because the result was still too dark. I tried a quick coat of clover green, but it looked messy and the wrong colour. So I did a 1:1 mix of dark angels green and clover green, thinned it down a fair bit and slapped it on. I was pretty happy with the results.

I hit the white half with skull white, and then all but the deepest recesses with a slightly lighter skull white. The second coat didn't really change the colour very much, and it was still far to yellow. So I then hit it all with an almost 2:1 bright white/skull white mix, which came out much better.

Trying to paint the Aquilas gold over white failed, so I went over them with black before going the gold again. Since I had the black going, I also touched up the soft areas of the knees, elbows and necks (as well as tidied up some of the sloppy areas.

I took to the faces with light brown, then 1:1 light brown and flesh. I then hit the raised areas with flesh and the top of the bald head with skull white. I was pretty pleased with the initial result. I then hit the eyes with black, which worked nicely on the bald head, but caused me more problems with the hairy head.

All up, I probably spent about 2-3 hours. I'd estimate there's probably another hour in highlighting, black lining and other detailing. If I fix a few of the mistake I made this time, I should be able to knock that paint time down even more.

The biggest issue I had was I wish I had left the arms and maybe the heads off until after I'd painted the torsos. I also have issues with the white in hard to reach parts - if it was black, then you just wouldn't notice. All lessons for next time!

Currently Playing: Torchlight

A little while ago I decided to sit down and start playing Torchlight again. I was feeling in the mood for bashing some monsters, and it's pretty perfect for that. As others have said, it's like they took Diablo and took out all the boring bits.

This time around I decided to roll up a Destroyer, having previously played a Vanquisher. And then I proceeded to run down through the levels of the dungeon, splattering anything that crossed my path. I was initially making really good progress, but then I realised that I'd missed killing a monster on one of the earlier levels. I tried to backtrack, but after working my way up a level I discovered I couldn't get back through a locked gate. So I had to return to the very start of the mine, fight my way back down again, kill the monster in question and then continue on my way.

On the plus side, re-fighting a few levels was pretty easy as a higher level character, and the extra XP was very nice.

I've also rediscovered my other big love in Diablo and Torchlight - gems. Turns out, I have the soul of a dwarf. I have this obsession with hording every gem I come across and trying to turn them into the next highest level. Thanks to the shared stash, I had access to all the gems from my previous character as well. So all my gold goes towards buying more gems, and all my magical items get transmuted into gems. I don't want to actually put the gems into any equipment until I have the very best quality ones. So really they're just something pretty to look at. My preciouses...

I've managed to push deeper into the dungeon then I did last time, and I think I'm nearing the end. Which really just means getting closer to rolling up another character!

Weekend Hobbying

I got a reasonable amount of gaming-related time this weekend, largely thanks to the mother-in-law staying.

After meaning to for a couple of weeks now, I finally sat down with B and let him have a go painting. This is his first job - he spent a lot of time painting the ground and one of the horses' back legs. I was actually really impressed by his fine motor skills! I think his favourite bit was putting his brush in the water and wiping it clean. I might do a more detailed post about it all later.

While I didn't do any painting of my own, I finally got around to taking some photos of my (nearly) finished Angels of Redemption (clicking the images should show you slightly bigger ones).


I'm quite pleased with how the highlights have come out, particularly the white and the purity seals. For the most part you can't "see" them, but they make the lighting of the figures look a lot more natural. I'm also reasonably happy with the basing - I was trying for something simple and effective, and that's what I think I got. You don't really notice it until you see them standing next to something with a plain base.

Most of my gaming time this weekend was spent playing Torchlight! I was really in the mood for some monster killing, and that's what Torchlight does the best! I started a new character (A Destroyer), and in no time had cleared the mines and was halfway to the sunken gardens. Then I remembered that I'd missed a quest back on level 3, and had to back track. Which pretty much involved going back to the beginning. But it does mean I've been cutting a bloody path through all that come before me!

I also spent a bit of time hacking away at my 4X project. I'm reasonably happy with how it's progressing. I now have planets with resources that you can exploit through various facilities. Or at least, I've got the code to support that - I need to add the actual details.

Weekend Update

I spent a bit of time modelling over the weekend. I really need to post some pictures, but I haven't been bothered to take any.

My Angels of Redemption still need a chapter emblem. I really don't like the actual Angels of Redemption logo, and the Dark Angels logo decal is white, which obviously won't show up on a while shoulder pad.

I had a go a painting a free-hand celtic design, but it quickly turning to rubbish. I also tried a ying-yang symbol which came out better but still didn't look very good. I think I would like to do something celtic-themed, so I'll have to keep thinking about it.

I pulled out the bits of my partially assembled speeder, and primed some of the parts the will need to be painted before I finish assembling it. I'm going to try priming the marines in white to see if I have an easier time with my paint scheme.

I also cracked open the box of Space Wolves troops I picked up a little while ago, and started to clip and clean the pieces. Those sprues are jam packed full of bits! It actually really makes me want to start building a Space Wolves force, except I don't like the colour scheme. I had picked up the troop box for something else, but now I'm seriously tempted to use a whole lot of the bits with my Angels of Redemption.

Getting Started with My 4X Project

I mentioned a little while ago that I'd been back over some of my mental notes about a 4X game, so I thought I'd briefly write about where I'm going.

Core Idea

The idea I've had for a while now is the player acting as a fleet commander. The player issues orders to the other ships in the fleet, and relies on the abilities and competence of the captain and crew on board each ship to complete their missions. Due to the way communications will work, it may take several turns of orders to even reach other ships, and knowing where each ship currently is may be an issue.

Back Story

The idea that started it all is trying to rebuild a galactic empire after some catastrophic event. The player starts on what was some distant backwater that has managed to survive, and only has a basic shipyard and one ship at his disposal. The player needs to send the ship out to rediscover other colonies, trade with the friendly ones, resettle the destroyed ones and conquer the unfriendly ones. The planets will provide the resources needed to develop the various industries on the colonies, start rebuilding a fleet and the empire.

Getting Started

I've got lots of ideas about features I'd like to see, but I've decided I'm try for an extremely iterative approach. I'm going to start by focusing just a few core elements to begin with, and then once that's done, add the next few features.

Planets

I'm going to start with the planetary governing stuff. Each planet has some traits that describe it (an earth-like world is very different from a gas giant, but both may be equally useful to control) - environment, size, natural resources, existing facilities and current population.

• The population is the pool from which you can draw workers to build stuff, research stuff, extract stuff or fight stuff. Some planets naturally support a large population, others can't support any population.
• Facilities are the buildings that have been built on the planet. Farms, mines, generators, research facilities, ship yards, etc. Different planets will need different facilities built.
• Resources are the raw materials you can extract from the planet to use. They can either be used right there (so food grown on the planet might go straight to feeding the planet's population) or shipped off else where (metal mined on one planet may be transferred to another plant to be turned into more ships).
• Size and Environment determine the how large a population can be supported, how many facilities and how large the natural resources are.

And that's where I'm at so far!

Wish List

The end of the financial year in my house typically means it's bonus time, and this year (thank goodness) was no exception. While the majority of my bonus automatically goes straight to boring real-life expenses, I've managed to skim a small proportion off for toys!

As always, there's a lot of stuff around at the moment that I've very much like to have. But leaving aside the extremely valid questions of time to enjoy them and space to store them, there's the simple fact that my toy budget won't stretch anywhere near that far. Plus, it's no fun if there's nothing left to look longingly at.

So, partly to help me prioritise, and partly to keep track of things, here's a list of the stuff I want at the moment. Other than vague groupings, there's no real order to this list:

40K

Ironclad & Venerable Dreadnoughts - what can I say, I like dreadnaughts

Space Wolves Battleforce - perhaps combined with a regular Space Marine battleforce

40k Battle Missions - I suspect this would be more useful than the standard game for me

Terrain

Imperial Bastion - or two

Watchtower & Fortified Manor - to build this (bottom left, one in)

Malifaux

Rule book

A Starter Set or Two - enough to paint up and play

Mantic Games

A Skeleton Troop box - so I can see if I can put them together in 11mins or less

Warhammer

Warhammer Rule Book (8th Edition) - it's a beautiful book that's sparked my interest.

Boardgames

Battles of Westeros - I will possess this game, but I'm going to hold off until after September in case someone wants to give me a copy for my birthday

Battlestar Galactica

Living Card Games

Game of Thrones - I love some SoF&I action!

Warhammer: Invasion - mostly because I know I can get it from Maelstrom Games pretty cheaply