Attack Bike and Inventory Ideas

Well, I'm certainly not going to finish all my vehicles before the end of the month.  Part of that is because, well, I've been painting a lot of blue boxes lately and I'm a little tired of it.  So I've not been painting as much as I could have.  Shame on me.

Tonight, I decided to paint an attack bike instead of another box.  I think this makes 6 or 7 of them now.  I'm not sure.  Took a little longer than I remembered, but not much.  I think I'm getting my painting fu back.  Well, maybe not.  I've been noticing lately that I have much more of a "publish and the rest be damned" mentality.  I don't care about a lot of mistakes because I know that most of these will never be seen at much less than arm's length anyway.  I'm less interested in "pretty" than I am in "painted and done with".  I guess that's always been the great strength and secret of my army: even though I have some nice minis, most people like to play against it because it's painted and uniform.  How many people can boast a painted 15K+ army?  Not many, I think.

In line with my curiosity about how many attack bikes I have, I think it's about time to pull everything out and look at it.  I'm not even entirely sure what all I have anymore.  I have some good guesses, but I'm not entirely sure.  Besides, when I see chapter elements incomplete (I'm probably two or three squads shy of three companies [and one of those is the Termie quad that will complete my Terminator Company]), I get inspired to actually complete them.  I already know that I have a couple of Dev squads that need doing to fill in a company.  I'll probably put the unpainted Predators and Rhinoback on hold for a while...  There's a small chance that I've already made a dent in a fourth company.  Yeah, I think I'll whip it all out in the next few days.  Of course, I'll post pics.  Not often I have it all out for viewing.  I may even pull out my new allied Templar force.  It's probably good for a thousand points on its own.  And once I have that done, I may try to take an inventory of what I have unpainted.  I've never done that.  And I know I could make an entire new Marine army with the stuff I haven't painted yet.

Most importantly, when am I going to find the time to do all this?

Vindicator and Attack Bike Touch-Up

Alright, the second Vindicator is done.  Took me long enough, right?  It's only been two weeks since the last one.  Actually, I did most of this Vindie last week, but didn't feel like getting back to it.  So, I guess this means that I won't have all my vehicles done by the end of the month.  At least, not unless the wife and kids disappear for a week...

As for the attack bike, well, I noticed that I had never gotten around to painting the multi-melta.  So I did.  It's a bit of a rush job, but it's good enough.  With the others, you wouldn't even notice the rushed nature of it.

My best friend got three Dark Vengeance box sets.  I must say that the Chaos stuff they have in it is pretty freaking good.  Not all that jazzed about the Dark Angel stuff, but I have more than enough infantry so no big deal there.  The important thing is that he gave me one of the mini-rulebooks.  Awesome.  Nothing beats having dead trees in your hands.

Lastly, it occurs to me that one day I'm going to have to replace my paints.  I do not look forward to that day, thanks to the new paints.  I find it hilarious that neither Calgar Blue nor Guilliman Blue are good old fashioned Ultramarine Blue.  No, that honor goes to Altdorf Blue.  Altdorf?  Is that some kind of Fantasy crap?  Not a clue.  But it is dumber than the proverbial sack full of hammers.

Vindicator

Well, that's one Vindicator down, one Vindicator left to go.  It's funny, but I don't remember these things taking so long to paint.  I've been noticing that for the last few weeks.  I assumed, at first, that I was just out of practice.  Now I'm starting to think that maybe the greater detail is causing me to be more...careful about what I'm painting.  Or perhaps it's a combination of the two.  Either way, this one take took me most of a day.  Bit of a shame, really.  I had been hoping to get more done.  That and I've got quite a bit left to do.  I've still got a Vindicator, two Preds and another Rhino-Back, not even to mention multiple Speeders and a Dred or two.  At this rate, I might not even have my vehicles done until the end of September.

Note to self: don't acquire any more vehicles in the next month (Though, who am I kidding, because I don't think that's going to happen and not that I'm going to turn down anything anyone just decides to give me).

Veteran "Rhino-back"

The Veteran "Rhino-Back" (as I believe I will now call them) has been completed.  Nothing special here; just highlighted the raised bits and corners, painted the special doo-dads I attached to it in the first place and that's pretty much it.  With removable top plate (shown above) it's ready for action as soon as I put one of many Rhino doors or Razorback weapons on.

One minor aside, but something I thought worthy of mention in a weblog of this type.  A few days ago, I showed my 3-year-old daughter that I paint and what I paint.  She found it interesting enough that the next day, we (her, my 21-month-old, and I) had art time together, them coloring in their sketchbooks, me paint this bad boy.  The jury is still out on whether I want to attempt such a thing again.  Though they like art time, they get bored fairly quickly and the older one kept wanting to get into my brushes and paints and whatnot.  Fun time was had by all, but I'm not sure I want to join them in Art Time again quite yet.  We shall see.  I do not foresee painting again until this weekend, however I think real progress will be had since the kids will be visiting their grandparents and my wife wants to spend a sizable amount of time writing.  Guess I'll just have to start painting that Vindicator...  Actually, I think I'll base the other Vindicator tonight and tomorrow and work on them both at the same time.

"Whirlwinds"

So, I got the launchers finished and another frame done.  Did another set of top doors.  This means that I have two Whirlwinds that are ready to do double duty as Rhinos or Razorbacks.  W00T!

I will also say this: I'm really liking the wet palette I made.  It's a little annoying how the paper in it rolls up, but it's been quite useful.  I'm glad I've got it now.

My only other thought for the moment is that I've been looking at my paints and they have been a little wanting.  No more, though.  Five drops of water and some vigorous shaking seems to do the trick for bringing them back.  Considering their age (2-3 years with 1.5 years in storage), they're turning out pretty good.  It also is a testament to the paint pots.  From what I understand the paints in black fliptops and the old school Citadel fliptops will last forever.  On the other hand, I was given a Warhammer paint set a week ago with all screwtop pots.  They were all in terrible shape.  Just tossed the entire thing.

Oh, well.  Time to call it a day for now.  If I can find some more time this weekend, I may try that Veteran Rhino.  If not, it can wait.  I'm happy with my progress at the moment...

Rhino Frame and Top Plates

Holy crap!  Does this mean that I actually applied pigment to plastic?  Why, yes it does! 

So, I got one frame about 95% painted.  All I have to do is paint some chapter symbols and do a little highlighting.  I also drybrushed a top door so I can run it as a Rhino, and painted two weapon mount panels so I can run it as a Razorback, Whirlwind, or sponsonless Predator.  I think this weekend I will paint up my Whirlwind launchers and see if I can get another frame done.  Then I think I will be cooking with gas!  That would just leave me with, what, five more to paint?  One will be easy.  I have it doled up with bits to be a Veteran Rhino/Razorback.  Since my Veteran stuff is black, all I really have to do is paint appropriate black top plates so I can switch between the two, paint details and flair, and highlight.  Heck, with luck, I might even be able to squeeze that one in, too.

That, and it felt good to just paint again.  There have been a lot of things in my life that have kept me from doing it.  Even if I had the time, I've suffered from an overabundance problem.  I have more than enough painted to play almost any size game so it is difficult for me to get myself to paint more stuff.  That's why I have three or four speeders unpainted for almost a decade.  I already have 5 painted.  How many more do I need?  When I first started out, I decided I would acquire/paint enough so that I could field whatever gonzo type of army I wanted to field.  Of course, that was three editions and twelve (?) years ago.  I'm now a little short on some things (Vindicators) and quite long on others (Tac squads, Vet squads, Assault squads).  But as long as I have stuff, I'm going to paint.  I may take year long breaks, but painting never stops.  Not as far as I'm concerned.

Vindicator and Based Vehicles

Look at all those Rhino Frames!

So, i assembled my last Vindicator tonight.  Nothing special there.  Over the last few days, I've been basecoating all the other stuff I've built over the last couple of weeks.  Not pictured here, but soon to be added to the pile, are two Rhino frames I basecoated forever ago (at least two years).  One of them is rigged up as a Veteran Rhino/Razorback, but has never been finished.  The other is meant to be a convertible Whirlwind.  I've got two Whirlwind launchers also so they'll be painted along with the others.

Most importantly, I believe that covers all my Rhino frames.  Once I paint these, I'll have no more tanks to build or paint.  So, I think, after I'm done with these, I'm going to go on to the four or five speeders I've had sitting around for more than a decade.  Jeebus willin' an' the crick don' rise, I will actually apply pigment to miniatures this weekend.

On a slightly different thought, I know that Games Workshop is coming out with new paint pots and new colors.  I have no doubt that they will have some approximation of Ultramarine Blue, but there's a little part of me that is afraid that they won't.  Stupid, I know since the boys in blue are one of the most important armies in the game, but these are the things you think about when you're me...