Painting and podcasts and singing along to pop music

I’m tired tonight (Monday) so I’m not doing my evening spot of painting. I usually fit in half an hour or so most evenings (except Friday) as it’s a way to relax away from my computer screen after work.

I went into my local Games Workshop on Saturday for the 25^th anniversary event there (I missed most of it unfortunately). Normally the staff there are fine and genuinely helpful but this time one of them was in full sales pitch mode. It was probably my fault to be honest, I spotted the March White Dwarf and saw that the picture on the front was from the Lone Wolves graphic novel (http://www.blacklibrary.com/exclusive-products/lone-wolves-direct-exclusive.html) (which is absolutely brilliant) and mentioned this to my boyfriend who promptly disappeared to the books section while the guy tried to sell me the new models. Unfortunately he overdid it to the extent that I forgot that actually I do want/need Fenrisian wolves for a current project and that ordering them might have been a good idea as I want them before April. As part of the sales pitch the staff members suggested coming there to paint as, to paraphrase them, you can paint and talk and it’s all good fun. They were kind of put off when I told them just how slow a painter I am. Mind you, after half an hour of my usual painting running commentary I’d probably be banned from Games Workshop for life!

Anyway, I was thinking that I have actually got a bit of a routine going regarding painting and what I’m listening to. I have to admit that I don’t like painting in silence, there has to be some sort of noise, even if its the banality of Sunday morning TV. Normally though it’s audio only. Sometimes I listen to music, but Tuesday tends to be podcast night. On Sunday we tend to have last week’s chart show on and I paint to that, which usually ends up with me either singing along or making silly comments about every other song.

The podcast that I usually listen to is The Overlords (http://www.theoverlords.co.uk). I know that I’ve been listening to it for at least a year now as its the podcast that got me into the hobby (see my first post). It’s not the most serious podcast out there, but that’s what makes it enjoyable, I guess. Sometimes I also listen to The 11^th Company podcast (http://www.tangtwo.com/11thcompany), but The Overlords is the main one.

Occasionally we get involuntary music. Sometimes, as is the case with the municipal music festivals, it can be very good, however there are times when its so irritating (street organ, accordion, drunk student) that I end up sitting by my PC, grumbling. Perhaps that’s the time to get off my backside and go to GW to paint after all!

Tonight though I crashed on the sofa and read The Gildar Rift (again) (http://www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer-40000/the-gildar-rift.html). I also thought of something terribly nerdy that I’ll blog about when I’m not too tired to remember the formula for the volume of a sphere!

I’ll be back to splashing blue paint on my Blood Claws tomorrow though. I’m getting there slowly, but I’ll be happier when I can get onto the detailed work and give my guys some personality. I’m itching to paint shoulder pads and faces but I’ll just have to go over it again if I do, because I can guarantee that I’ll mess up with the blue-grey somewhere!

Still, Tuesday is Podcast Night, so at least I’ll have something to paint to!

 

Blood Claw pack Nóh

In my introductory post, I mentioned that I have a slight problem with painting troops. It’s the size of the unit I think: ten Blood Claws is a good few weeks solid painting and although some things are faster when I can do them in batches (mixing and splashing on the blue for the armour comes to mind), I am a little bit fussy and I want all of my guys to be painted to the best of my ability. However, I have just lost three 500 points games in a row and something that I realised (and that has been pointed out to me) was that my list contains two Independent Characters, an elite slot (either a Lone Wolf or Wolf Scouts) and only two packs of five Grey Hunters. I really need more troops!

So I have put the half-built Land Speeder to one side, and left the new box of Scouts on their sprues and am about to start on Blood Claw pack Nóh (Target).

Now, when I was starting my army I looked around and saw that people were saying that Blood Claws “suck”. However, I like the guys, they are young, rebellious, totally flipping crazy and, to be honest, I’m never going to be a tournament player, so I can make a fluffy list that feels like what I think Space Wolves should feel like. I’ve always had a vague interest (and admiration) for Vikings and, as mentioned in my introduction, Prospero Burns really inspired me to start this army, so I want to have a touch of the raider in my army, with lots of Fast Attack (but not Thunderwolf Cavalry, thank you very much). Blood Claws fit quite nicely into this theme and would make my army feel more complete. Besides, if they are totally awful all I have to do is paint over their shoulder pads and, voilà, instant promotion to Grey Hunter.

So I am about to start Pack Nóh, which, as far as I can tell, I’m not a speaker of any Nordic language, means “target”. There is a reason for this. My first game was a doubles game in my local Games Workshop store with a Space Marine player against Orks. As my guys were getting slaughtered I joked that I should paint a target on each of them and this blossomed into the idea of building a Blood Claw pack called well, Pack Target. A bit of quick research with Wiktionary and Google Translate gave me “Nóh” as the closest translation for target.

I always name my guys, so each Blood Claw will be named as I paint him, I won’t know until then what name is best, so at the moment they are just “guys”, or “models” or “*&^%ing bits of plastic” or even “little men” depending on just what mood I’m in, and what I’ve done wrong this time.

At the moment they’re glued together and (mostly) primered with Chaos Black. They’re just models from the Space Wolf box, although one now has a meltagun, a metal meltagun, that didn’t quite fit, or come compatible with the arms that I had available, and is apparently made of the only known substance to repel Citadel Primer. The next stage is to paint them all blue. I use a 2:1 Space Wolves Grey to Shadow Grey mix to paint them, I found the suggested mix (from the now vanished GW painting guide) of 1:1 too dark and blue, while Space Wolves Grey on it’s own is a little too bright and light. Once that is done, I’ll start base-colouring the shouder pads but I’ll talk about that later as I have had trouble with it in the past, so it deserves its own special post (and some extra preparatory work).

Who am I and why on earth am I blogging when I have more than enough to do these days…

Hi,

Welcome! Thanks for taking the time to read this. This is not a serious blog, I am not a serious player. I am, in fact, a newbie. I was introduced to the world of 40K about a year ago now when I was wondering what my Other Half was chuckling about. It turned out to be a podcast on 40K which he obligingly put on the speakers. Being a curious sort, the Elephant’s Child has nothing on me some days, I wanted to know more, so he decided to conduct an experiment, he decided to see how readable the Horus Heresy books were for somebody with no idea about 40K lore. Very quickly I began to hanker after a Space Marine army. Then I read Prospero Burns. Before I had even finished the book I had decided that I wanted to build a Space Wolves army, they were just so… awesome!

So I bought a pack of Grey Hunters and a codex and began to build and paint things. At the start I was a bit worried that I’d be useless at painting, I’m vaguely practical, but I’m not exactly arty, partly due to my atrocious hand-eye co-ordination. However the first guy came out, well, ok, in fact I was quite proud of him. Looking at him now I know that he needs a bit (lot) of work but I’d got the painting bug.

I’m not a fast painter (it has honestly taken me four weeks to paint a figure and it regularly takes a fortnight) partly because I have to paint in small bursts and partly because if I rush I get wobbly lines and blobs of paint everywhere. However, I’m now up to 500 points (ish) constructed, painted and based and I’ve played three small games and lost three times. This is partly due to my love of painting stuff other than troops (I am a terrible procrastinator) and partly due to my total lack of experience.

This blog is just a way for me to share some of the experiences I have had. I can’t promise that I will update it regularly, I am in the final year of my PhD, and I’m also easily distracted by… ooh… shiny!… so, I’m not going to make any promises about updates, although I will try.

Finally, I guess that I should explain a little bit about who I am. I am, as you may have already guessed, a girl. I’m also, as just mentioned, a PhD student. I’m a physicist and I’m currently based in the Netherlands although I’m originally from the UK. I read… a lot, usually science fiction and a bit of fantasy, but I’m also keen on old detective novels, the occasional Napoleonic War book, pretty much most things except for romance fiction. Beyond 40K, I also enjoy knitting, although I haven’t done much recently. So, if that hasn’t scared you off, welcome once more!

Cheers!

Write to you again soon,

L.o.F.