New pics of my Ultramarine

Got some better photos of the Marine - turned all the camera settings back to Automatic, switched on Macro mode and 2 second delay, and as they say, "Robert's ya Mother's Brother"! Not perfect, but they'll do

And while I'm at it....

There are often threads on forums asking people to post their workspace... well, here's ours!

First Space Marine in a long time

I've been thinking about painting some miniatures to put up on Ebay, but really procrastinating about what to do (as I do)... but I finally settled on a Space Marine veteran of some sort I found in my bits box. I have gone for an Ultramarines colour scheme and based him on a standard GW 25mm round base inset in a 40mm square attached to a plinth...

Its all still pretty WIP, but I have laid down most of the colours on the Marine now, and got the rough layout for the base done, but there is still quite a lot to do. I see his niche in the market being army centrepiece/display model hence the removable base, and an attempt at quick but solid painting rather than an ULTIMATE paint-job... here are some pics:

The base:

And then the bad-boy himself:

 

I seem to be struggling to get good photos of the Marine - I think I need to work harder on the lighting... These were relatively quick shots taken tonight

 

 Thats it for now - more pics soon!

-Peter

Finecast

I thought I'd better post something model related...

So why not look at the new Citadel Finecast models from just a plain 'user' perspective. There was a thread over on Platoon Britannica which looked at it in quite some detail - Finecast Thread - or click 'Read More' below to see my thoughts (lots of pics):

Well, back home now with our haul... was an interesting time and we had a VERY good look at pretty much all of the new blisters in the store. What a mixed bag! Oddly, the Lord of the Rings stuff seemed to be a whole lot worse than everything else, and those Gandalf's they keep showing were disgusting...

The rest of the stuff was also very hit and miss. We picked up a number of blisters but had to go through all of the blisters on the shelves to find ones we thought were acceptable. So we got ourselves a Queek Headtaker, a Vampire Lord and a Urien Rackarth.

The pics are a bit grainy, but I must say, they seem to be of a VERY similar quality to what everyone else has posted above.

After speaking with the Manager we decided to gamble on a small box each under the proviso that we would open them in the shop and return/exchange them immediately if they were sub-par. We both went for orcs riding boards - Toosh got the Shaman and I picked up a Gorbad Ironclaw. The Shaman was fine and actually quite an impressive cast (there were issues such as no fur on the back of the boar, but I think that is a problem with the model - a converted plastic kit - rather than the material change). The rider was really good, with the only slight downer being a wad of flash between his legs. 

 

My Gorbad wasnt nearly as good...
The belly of the boar was really thin but also really rough so any clean-up would definitely have ended up with a huge hole - one which I was not really happy to put up with at that price (£30). This was on both sides, and I showed it to the staff member immediately, and to give them their dues, they replaced it immediately and went through all the replacement pieces of the kit with a fine-toothed comb. I think I have ended up with a model I am very happy with.

Overall the quality in the shop ranged from a 4 to a 9/10 

QC definitely needs improving, to the point that I think we should all make a concerted effort to write/email GW with our concerns. I think in the long-term it will be a great change for the hobby as the models seem to have a whole lot of potential. The resin is much nicer to work with than metal, and if the quality was monitored more they could have blown me away today. I wouldnt recommend buying FineCast by mail order for a while yet...

Well, thats a start - I did go back and buy some more finecast from the store and again made them open the box. It was a box of Dark Eldar Mandrakes and we went through two boxes to get a perfect 5, but what we do have is now really VERY good!

Peter

Posting Cycles

Its quite odd - I have been looking at old blogs that I started but never really got off the ground - I think these urges are cyclical... last post on my rambling scrawl was June 2010 and here I am starting another. Ho-hum!

Bodging

Still trying to work out exactly how I want to set up my new site.

I like the idea of a blog at least for the homepage, but I am now playing with how to integrate it within a 'proper' website with galelries etc, or whether that is even needed these days...!