Thursday

Guess who I found outside my front door this morning?  Yep, my bat is back.  Apparently he must really like my front door.  Though, today he was on the wall next to it.  I'll have to see if I can get the Humane Society to take care of him tomorrow.

Anyway, uneventful day at work except that IT messed up our mail server for pretty much the entire day, though it didn't affect me too much and the agency director sent us his want list for the upcoming Spring community service day.  He actually wants even more stuff this time than in the past.

I've been feeling antsy to get home all day today.  I've just been wanting to get back and bust out the paints.  I just did a little work just before posting this.  Here was tonight's dinner though.

Kimchi Ramen with a side of white rice.

Believe it or not, I actually have a hobby update.  As I mentioned, yesterday I was experimenting with painting using just washes.  I'd like to share the results of that experiment.

I tried out two washes straight and one combo.  Each figure was base coated in white and then received several layers of the wash over that.  Black and green received just the single color, the bottom one received two layers of yellow followed by a red.

Black turned out pretty good.  I got the idea to try this from a poster on Dakka Dakka who mentioned he paints his Black Templar marines using this method.  It isn't bad, but it certainly wouldn't win me any awards.  I'd say this is pretty decent for tabletop standards though.  I'll probably go ahead and finish him up as a Black Templar.

The Green turned out surprisingly well.  This is only two coats of the Biel-Tan Green wash.  I really like how this looks, but I'm not entirely sure if I want to keep him like that.  The colors remind me of the Death Guard.

Yellow/Orange.  I suppose this turned out okay.  This is my least favorite.  I was hoping it'd get more of an Imperial Fists shade of yellow, but it didn't.  It actually looks a bit better in the photo than in person.  I'll definitely be stripping the paint off of this one.  Future plans for this figure is to try and do him in camo.

Some of the other things I was working on were my Aspiring Champions.  I've got three, but only one is actually finished.  These guys will be going with my Plague Dogs Chaos Marine chapter and squad leaders.  The idea is that since they're big bad officers, they try to go for more opulent armor than their troops.  Only problem is, as Aspiring Champions, they hold favor with the Chaos Gods and since these guys are dedicated to Nurgle, that means their armor is going to be in a constant state of decay and mutation.  These guys probably have armies of slaves working to keep their armor nice and shiny.

Here's the first I've completed.  He's uses Sanguinary Guard legs, an Anvil Industries backpack (not visible, obviously), a Chaos Terminator's trophy rack, and the head, torso, and arms from the Chaos Marine box.  He's had his topknot removed, big goggle eyes sculpted on (to match the hazmat gear wearing troops), had his arms repositioned using Green Stuff, and received a pair of extra hoses on his chest which came from a GI Joe.  Oh, and the base is an Anvil scenic base.  His colors do work fairly well with his troops, but I wanted him to stand out at the same time, so the gold/brass scheme actually matches up fairly nicely.  Oh, and you'll also notice, I sculpted tentacles coming out of his right leg and there's Nurgle growths on both lower legs and some nice, shiny slime running down his legs.  This guy will likely be in command on my Havoc heavy weapons team when I get around to making it.

Of the two still being worked on, he's the closest to completion.  I really like the sculpts on GW's newest monopose Chaos guys, but I think they're a bit too detailed for their own good.  He's covered in all kinds of details and if I started painting them in, he'll just look too cluttered, so I decided to try and keep it simple and just pick out certain details, like the fleshy hoses, the demon face, the horn, his loincloth, and eventually also the chain and insignia hanging from his belt, his rifle, the rifle's strap, and probably I'll add more details to his Power Fist.  He has an eye sculpted into his chest, so I painted it to look like it's giving off light.  I think it turned out fairly well.

I REALLY like this guy, but he suffers from the same problem of being over detailed and it's really apparent on him.  I'm going to try and take a minimalist approach to him too and just pick out certain details.  Both this Aspiring Champion and the one above will be receiving rusted equipment too, so that they'll fit in better with the troops they'll be commanding.  Also, he has no base unlike the others because his is a scenic base unique to him and I will probably work on that last.