I have now renovated an old room into a stock room for all my hobby and gaming stuff. The old china cabinet (which I now use as shelf space for most of my Khador, Necrons and Vampire Counts) and toolboxes are all there. Ideally it should be more organized, but I have other plans for that room, which includes extending it into the small unused hallway into the old comfort room. Once that's done, I will look into getting those big plastic containers to keep my stuff dust-free and resembling some level of organization.
I recently bought a small but serviceable computer table for the PC, and I keep a Monobloc table besides the computer now and I use that for painting my miniatures when taking a break from work. It is strewn with brushes, paints, CDs, DVDs and various other geeky stuff. It started clean and organized but expectedly a few days later, it's utter chaos (pardon the pun).
Revisiting Games Workshop
I started into miniatures through Warhammer 40,000. I originally wanted to play Chaos Warriors in Warhammer Fantasy but back then, 40K was THE game local players played. At current writing, the momentum behind the WARMACHINE/HORDES push has slowed down. Contradictory to what others may believe, I have never left nor sold my Warhammer armies. I still play, paint, collect, organize tourneys, help with tourneys for events in 40K and WFB via Lito Tan's Rolling Hills Gaming Club. Although my first fully-painted army was my Khador, I am now going to correct my past mistake with my GW games and start painting my old armies.
Space Wolves
I bought two boxes of the new Space Wolves and several Thunderwolves from Paul Laya (dpaul). I'll be using the odds and ends of my somewhat sizeable collection of Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines to populate this army. I will be shaving off the Chaos iconography, but I think I will keep the spikes.
I have been juggling numerous ideas as to what to do with these - which included a Samurai-themed Marine army, a Khador Space Marine Chapter, a chapter which I planned to paint in Eldar Harlequin colors, 13th Company Space Wolves - but I just got tired and settled with good old Shadow Grey standard color Space Wolves.
I have been asking several more regular players as to what list I should build. I'll be following Patrick Chua's (spacemarine) suggestions but it means me getting three Rhinos. He has traded me five Heavy Bolter arms which I will use on my Long Fangs (trade for an extra Eiryss) so I'm planning to get those done after the Thunderwolf Cavalry.
At the moment, I am painting my first Thunderwolf Cavalry model. It is being done in parts which I will outline here:
The Base
The base is one solid chunk of resin, 60mm in diameter. It feel like it will break when it falls, so I better make sure it doesn't.
- I superglued some large pebbles on the 60mm resin base that came with the model. Then I let it set for several minutes.
- I superglued some smaller pebbles, keeping the scatter random across the base. I let it set further for several more minutes.
- I used a mixture of Elmer's Carpenter's Wood Glue and some water and brushed it over the remaining surface of the resin base, including the nooks of the previously superglued pebbles. I then spread some sand on the resin base surface. I let it set overnight.
- For primer, I used Bosny Primer Grey on the entire resin base, sand and pebbles and all, including the bottom of the base.
- For initial base color, I used P3 Battlefield Brown over the sand, pebbles and rim of the base. I let it dry completely.
- For my first drybrush color, I used P3 Rucksack Tan. I used one of my pig-hair bristle Jianghai brushes since it's cheap and it can withstand a lot of abuse.
- For my second drybrush, I used P3 Menoth White Highlight, blending it in with the previous brush off of the Rucksack Tan.
- I painted over the large "rocks" with P3 Ironhull Grey, and progressed to highlight it with P3 Menoth White Highlight.
The Thunderwolf
It was one whole piece but since it is resin, more care of handling should be observed with the actual transporting and playing of the model.
- For primer, I used Bosny Primer Grey on as much of the model as I can get, but taking care not to spray on too thick as to obliterate any detail.
- I drybrushed P3 Ironhull Grey onto the entire model.
- I took a dilution of P3 Thamar Black and washed it over the entire model. I was impatient with this step so I took a hair dryer to it to speed up the process.
- Once fully dried, I drybrushed another coat of P3 Ironhull Grey over parts of the model with an abundance of fur.
- I built up the fur by blending in P3 Menoth White Highlight to the drybrush.
- For the power armor parts on the wolf (including the legs and lower torso of the rider), I brushed on GW Shadow Grey. I let it dry evenly, brushing on more thin coats as not to leave any brush marks.
- I washed all the power armor parts with diluted P3 Thamar Black, and left it to dry.
To be continued.
