Gamesday 2011!

Here I am, sitting in the chicago airport.  We intended on going to the battle bunker today so booked a late flight home, but it turns out the bunker is not open today.  Damn.  So now we have an 8 hour wait at O'Hare.

I will be posting up some stuff on BOLS but for now I wanted to share a bit.  I have about 3 hours of coverage I need to edit and post up on youtube.  I will work on that this week.  No pics because I didn't have a working camera.  I will rely on Fritz for that.  Here we go!



The Heroes of Armageddon:

We set up the four armies on display for all to see. Mostly we were trying to raise awareness because it came to our attention that there actually is a 40k world out there beyond the blogs.




The models looked fantastic on the table, and Brian Niro did a beautiful job on his first major table building project.  We were concerned that it would be too big for the armies, but once they were on the table, that was definitely not a concern.

I also hit up the Banner Contest again!  This was my third year in a row entering the contest and I wanted to go big.  So I painted up the Heroes of Armageddon banner full sized!



And here I am talking to the local paper reporter after taking the win! There were a lot of great banners this year, but the power of the Heroes of Armageddon proved too strong. All of the fans who stopped by to see the table throughout the day showed up to cheer on my banner for the victory. Thank you all who screamed, and thanks to the other banner's for entering the contest. I will see you next time!


What is Gamesday without a giant marine?

The horde unleashed!

The anticipation. Most guys crammed in to try to be first for Forgeworld.  It was a mad race to the line once they let people in.

That is it for now. I will be doing up a more detailed post on BOLS this week and adding some video and more pics from Fritz and Mike Cho.

Oh Mike Cho! Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you Battle For Salvations own and only Silver Golden Demon winner. My buddy Cho entered his Juggernaut into the competition with high hopes for a first cut finish. He was pleasantly surprised when we went up to check on the results, and found a SILVER finish next to his model.  :)  




Beautiful job Mike! Pics of his model will come soon.

Thats it for now. More to come.

Jawaballs

Painting Blood Angels Scouts

Nova is a month away. And I have decided on my army.

I have decided to focus on a list that I feel I can get painted in time for the weekend.  As such, I will not be bringing the most optimized list, rather, I will simply be bringing something fun to play yet competitive.

In that list I have scouts!  Two squads of them.  I've always liked scout models. Both the close combat and sniper ones. I have them here, so figured it would be the perfect time to get them on the table.

In my CC scout squad I am playing a Power Fist, Combi melta and 4 cc scouts.

Here are some pics of the cc scouts!






I started these differently than my assault marines and again, don't bother looking too close.  The digital camera brings you much closer than your own eyes will get in person.

  I sprayed them black, but painted the armor with mechrite then blood.  With a lot less armor, I did not want to have to paint over all the non armor spots of Dragon Red.  I still wanted to go for the striking edgy style I discussed with my assault marines though, and you can see that in the khaki on the legs and especially on the weapons.  I decided to try to explore the grey non metalic option.  I based them with Adeptus Battlerey, then layered on Codex, fortress, astronomicon and finally white.  In there some place I used some blue wash to reinforce the contrast and help push out the edges.

I will do a step by step post of painting the sergeant, and the next sniper that I do.

Oh and a huge grats to all the winners of The Heroes of Armageddon!

I am floored by the statistical freakshow that happened during the show.  The charity project raised 31000 dollars. I would guess that about 5 to 6 thousand people donated. That is with 5k people donating the minimum and another thousand donating more.  Those are meaningless numbers, except for this one cool little thing.  About 85 people were watching the live drawing, which would be roughly 3% of the total participants. Well from that amazingly small number, 3 of the winners were drawn!  Thats right.  3 of the winners were among the 85 actually watching the show.

What I did first was use random.org to generate 4 numbers.  The first three numbers were pretty low, and the last was in the second half of the donations.  Then John looked up those corresponding numbers in his donation charts to find the winners.  To satiate my own curiosity, I went back and generated 30 numbers using the same parameters. You might be interested to know that I came up with 9 in the tens, 11 in the teens and 9 in the twenties and yes ONE in the thirties, with the highest being 30002 and the lowest being 893. That is about as random as you can get!

Back to the point!  I could not believe that as John read off the names, the winners kept popping up in the chat.  Amazing.  I guess there is something to be said about watching my live show!  I think the biggest thing all the winners had in common was that they donated small amounts, but often.  One of them donated about 100 bucks in 20 dollar chunks throughout the course of the time period.  Another made slightly higher donations, but still spread them out.

No matter what though, lets not lose sight of the point that the real winner here is Doctors Without Borders. They will be getting a big fat check from The Heroes of Armageddon and they will do some good with it. Every one of you who donated should feel satisfied about that.  I sure am.

Congrats to every one. The live show was fun and I will be starting up with more of them soon. Feel free to tell me what you think of the scouts! Just remember to give constructive input on how you would correct or do differently. :)

Jawaballs

Live show starts at around 5pm.

Hi guys, the live show will be starting early, around 5PM EST. Depending on when my wife lets me. :)

The drawing will start around 6PM.

Feel free to pop in and chat. I will answer questions and share some of what has been going on in Jawa-land.

Some of the painters in the project will hopefully be joining the live stream and will also be able to answer questions.

We will be asking 40k trivia questions and giving away a few prizes.

The way the drawing will work is that I will randomly generate a number, 1 to whatever the total donation came out to be.  Then John will look up that number based on it's corresponding donation dollar.  Every dollar you donated has essentially been assigned a number. If you donated 50 bucks, you have that many "tickets".  So once I read out the number, John will find the winner. It will take a few minutes for him to search through all the donations to find the right one but we will make the process as fast as possible.  We got much more than expected!  Well done every one.

See you in a couple hours. I will be on and off testing the broadcast this afternoon.

Jawaballs

Jawa Nation is ready!

Go ahead and nab this official Jawa Nation logo and display it on your blog!

Today EA announced the preorder status of Star Wars The Old Republic. Finally! The game launches on December 31, 2011.  But it is available now for preorder. Come join the Jawa Nation!  We are forming a guild that will launch with the game. We currently have 24 members and are growing with many of them already having purchased the preorder.

What are the plans? Well, to get together to create as fun and group oriented experience as we can.  I have set the guild for a PVP server to start.  But we will focus equally on questing, PvE and PVP.  We are set up on the sith side.  Visit the GUILD SITE to join! Here is the GUILD BLOG.

That is it for now. Get your self registered for the guild, and get that preorder!

Jawaballs

The Heroes Drawing is THIS SUNDAY

I know, I get caught up in the fever of a project. My blog will be returning to my regular nonsense soon. For now though, I have more Heroes of Armageddon stuff!  I finished the banner!


This banner will be included with the Blood Angels army to be given away THIS SUNDAY!  Click the countdown clock on the top right of my blog.

Here are some detail shots.


For the death of the Greenskin...
For the fallen man,
His Emperor's loyal...
For all of time...

The Angels of Death have Descended 
upon Armageddon.

Lord Dante

That bit of copy was inspired by Ron Saikowski. The images he chose for the artwork were an ork skull impaled on a lance to show the destruction of the greenskin, a human skull to show the sacrifice of man, and an hour glass to represent time running out.

The other images are what I believe to be the Armageddon badge, and a star map created by Ron Saikowski.



This banner stands about two feet taller than me, and I will be flying it proudly in the Gamesday, Chicago banner competition.  I will hopefully find a few minutes to touch up a few details before I mail it out to Chicago ahead of my flight.

If you have not donated yet, what are you waiting for?

If you have, DONATE MORE!  Now that you have seen the entire BA army, as well as all the rest, and this banner... you must get in on this goodness.

Good luck!  The drawing, again, is this Sunday at 6pm EST, LIVE on my show. The clock will bring you there.  :) Oh and there will be some nice giveaways on Sunday during the show as well. Brush up on your trivia!  Here is a pic of one of the sweet giveaways.



Jawaballs

To paint a banner... life sized...

Hey folks!

So the Heroes of Armageddon project is coming to a close. There is roughly five days left until the drawing.  But if you are a Blood Angels fan, or a 40k fan in general, I have one more surprise for you.  Not to be outdone by Dave Taylor and his team's absolutely fantastic IG army, I pulled out my secret weapon.

I mentioned it before, but due to the fact that my supplier stopped supplying, and I had no room to work, I did not think I was going to get it done. Well, I am proud to say that I indeed will be finishing it. What is it?

A full sized Armageddon Blood Angels banner. After Ron Saikowski so masterfully painted the miniature size for the standard bearer, I made up my mind, I had to make it happen. Here is some work in progress.

First of all, Ron's banner.


Gorgeous, I only hope I can do it justice.

Here we go!


First step was to get the lines drawn out, and lay down base color.
I used a dark umber for the brown, and a 50/50 Paynes Grey and White for the wings.


Then things start to happen fast. I layer up from the Umber using two lighter shades of brown.
Then I add Unbleached Titanium into the mix.  Since the skulls, robes and scrolling are all about the same color, it makes it easy.


Since the skin needs to be darker than the robes, but is still the same basic color, I do more layers with light brown. I will layer thinner layers of unbleached titanium.


The wings get the same treatment. I layer lighter and lighter shades of white, starting from the ends and working my way up.  I painted the straps with the same browns as the robes, but only use the unbleached titanium as a highlight. I painted the hour glass grey, and stippled unbleached upon it to make it look like it is filled with sand.  I will add a darker shade.

On the robes, I went back in with darker browns to add more contrast and make the lights jump out.  Remember, when you put a dark next to a light, it will push the light closer towards you in space, creating the illusion of depth.  See how the foot and robe look like he is almost stepping off the banner?  The darker colors of the scroll create that illusion.


For the hair, I used pure Yellow Ochre. I will add lighter shades of yellow.
The face and skulls require more work than the robes and skulls because I am painting rounded shapes that have shadows.  I do this by stippling lighter and lighter shades of brown, starting with the raised areas like nose bridges, eye brows and cheek bones.

Then I go back in with some black and push out the highlights with a nice shadow. Look at the ork skull nose area for a great example.



I used some Hunter's Green for the stripes on the bottom of the robes. The green had a fantastic translucent quality. It built up on the edges of the points, creating a natural shadow. Those took just a few seconds, but they look outstanding.


Now to lay in lines. I will be framing the entire image with a red box. Because of the organic irregularities of the banner, It is very difficult to make the box the right shape without it being all misangled. I think I did a fairly good job using a long ruler.

I started laying in some more green to create the horizon at the bottom.  

The next few steps? Tomorrow I will lay down masking tape to help paint the lines. I will also mask out the lines to create the lance that the ork skull is impaled upon. Then I will do the lettering on the scroll, and finally go over all the edges with a thin line of black.  

EDIT Pic added.

Phew!  Almost 8 straight hours of work. :)


This 3x8 FEET banner will be included with the Blood Angels army for the Heroes of Armageddon giveaway and will look beautiful in your game room. As well as serving for my entry into the banner contest at Gamesday!  If you are at Gamesday make sure you come out and scream for me!  

Just as a reminder. It is not too late to donate.  There is now a countdown clock at the top right of my blog. This is ticking down to the live drawing!  Click on the clock and it will bring you to my ustream channel where the drawing will be taking place at 6pm EST this Sunday.  

You do NOT want to be left out of this drawing.

If you would like to see more of my banners, check the links on the right. Let me know if you want one!

Jawaballs





The heroes Blog is up! And the countdown begins.

The drawing is set. This Sunday, at 6pm EST. (Sorry brothers across the pond.)



The drawing will be held live on Jawaballs Live. Come join the fun!  Expect special guests, and of course John Dickerman will be connected to read off the winners as I draw them.

Here are some last few pics of the finished Blood Angels models by Tim Williamson.






 Check out all the rest of the Blood Angels models at the Heroes blog. They look great! Don't forget to look at all the other armies while you are there.

There is still time to donate. I believe we are accepting donations until Friday night.  Git er done!

Jawaballs

New Jawaballs Army. 4 down 36 to go!

Here are pics of my first 4 new Assault Marines for my Nova Open army.  Lets start by saying that they are not meant to win Golden Daemons. And remember these pics are taken from 3 inches away. They look very different from arms length, which is my goal.  I am painting these to look outstanding on the table, and to be eye catching. I is my experience that armies painted in this "impact" style tend to do better than armies that stand up to close scrutiny even under an Ott light.  While there is quite a lot of blending, I have also employed very bold brush strokes and hard edged lines.   

Some times paint judges overlook perfect blending in favor of striking edging, no... often times. Lets be honest here, I have seen the girlfriends of TOs, ignorant to the skill that goes into painting and judging on taste alone, act as paint judges. Frankly I have to admit I don't really mind that. It is sort of an innocent equalizer. While there is quite a lot of blending, I have also employed very bold brush strokes and hard edged lines.  

But lets look at judging a bit more closely before I get into these models.  How often do actual painters really judge painting? Probably most of the time.  But just how experienced are they?  For example, do they know just how hard Yellow is to paint? Black Matt for example, scored terribly on painting at Da Boyz last year with his amazing Imperial Fist terminator army. (It won Players Choice when he unveiled it a few years ago at the GW GT in Baltimore, no small accomplishment.) Matt is the king of yellow and his models show it.  But I can see how a yellow ignorant paint judge would over look their beauty.  

Without tooting my own horn, not that I am afraid to do that, I can say the same about red.  Blood Red is hard to work with.  Especially compared to blue. Blue blends easier. But it is not just about paint qualities. Some colors are simply more eye catching. Salamanders, painted well with Snot, Goblin and Scorpion are more eye catching than Blood Angels painted well with Blood, Blazing and Fiery. The Green and Yellow-green are simply more eye pleasing than red and orange.  What I am saying is that a red painter has to work harder than a green painter to get good results.  Sometimes paint judges are ignorant of that fact. No... often times.

Part of playing the "painting game", is using the same strategies that I employ on the tables.  Instead of playing an army that can do well against most armies, I usually play armies designed to beat the armies I suspect I will be facing the most, then try to hold my own if I get matched up against the others.  I have found this to give me quite a lot of success.  The same can be done with painting.  Rather than killing myself trying to get a perfect red blend, and hoping a paint judge notices, I think that punching them in the face with well painted but bold edged highlights will serve me better.

It is my belief that paint judges are more likely to be wowed by the army that simply looks good on the table, rather than the one that may be more technically sound.  So I relent.

In remaking my style, I have decided to draw on what I have done in the past, and mix it with what I am doing now.  I won my first few best painted awards using a simply extreme highlighted scheme. White prime, blood red base coat, Blazing Orange highlight, Fiery orange finish. Impact, eye catching, winning. 

I got away from that in my endeavors to win a Golden Demon. I entered a beautiful squad in the competition, painted to the best of my then ability, utilizing extreme highlights, only to watch every demon of the day go to armies that were dark, muddy and lacking of bold highlights.  So I changed my style, turning my back on the highlight and attempting to use blending to show the edges of the armor, with little to know highlights to speak of.  I can say that the armies were technically painted better.  But on the table, they looked just dark and boring.  I stopped winning painting awards, watching them go to guys who paint like I used to.  Talk about banging your head against a wall huh?  

That brings me to now. I decided to bring back the bold Jawa highlight.  But I am not forgetting what I learned with the attempts at blending.  In these most recent models, I am attempting to do both. What it comes down to is I am painting each model twice.

First, I am spraying them black. Then I am using Dragon Red.  When used carefully, the paint is the best. The DR alone starts off my dark blending.  From there I use a mixture of Blood Red and Valejo Glaze Medium, probably about 50/50.  Sure the glaze further dilutes an already translucent paint, but that is the secret.  It allows me to build up layers and layers of color, letting the dark under coats show through while making the red on the edges more opaque.  Look at the legs and feet of the third picture.  

Now, at this point the models are already good. I could maybe add bit of orange into the mix and continue blending, but that is where I switch up. I go bold instead of subtle. After I layer on Blood Red, probably hitting some spots with 5 or 6 layers, I apply Blazing Orange, using the same glaze mixture.  And I do two or three applications of BO.  Then I edge with thin lines of Fiery Orange. It is now discontinued, but once I saw that they did that, I went and bought about 8 pots.  When it dries up I will weep.  

Then comes my secret weapon. I use a special pot of Baal Red.  BR tends to have a mat, dull finish, but for some reason this pot I have leaves a very rich satin finish.  Perhaps a mess up in the mixture that day at the plant, who knows, but you can see this nice satin effect on the models. It gives a chewy luster to the models. People ask me how I get that cherry red look, well, there is the secret. Finished of course with Valejo Satin Varnish. (I have not applied VSV yet.)  I hope I finish this army before I run out of Baal Red!

So after I hit it with my satin Baal Red, I go back in and bring out the edges again with a touch of Fiery Orange.  And that is how I get the effect that shows up in these four models!  The power sword is stolen right from Tim Williamson.  The angel wings, which I managed to improve on by pic three, which is the fourth I painted, was stolen from Tom Schadle's Dante painted for the Heroes project.  I wish I could keep that model.  :)  Learning from our peers, by emulating them, makes us better ourselves.  I think I actually improved on Tim's power weapon with a richer blue.  My application was a bit clumsy, but I will get better with that on the next few tries.  There is definitely no confusing the sergeant in this squad!  

So now the questions for you. What do I do with the bolt pistols?  While I like the flamer's red casing, it sorta gets lost with the rest of the model.  Should I introduce blue on the guns?  Does any one have any recipe suggestions?  The other day some one suggested some sort of color on the tips of the wings.  I think they are right, but the question is what?  Maybe a touch of black? I will be keeping the frame of the wings black and edging them with grey. 

My first goal is to get all 40 of these marines painted up to this level. Then I plan on pushing them beyond all together.  Hazard lines on the chain swords, further highlights on the white feathers, squad markings and what have you.  I won't be putting the squad marks on their knees because of the cool detailing, but I will be able to put it on the jump pack. 

Any way, I time to put these four away for a couple days while I wait for my reinforcements from Spikey Bits.  I have no more SG models! Thats ok, I can focus on finishing a terminator commission, hopefully tomorrow. One thing I can say is that those terminators are reaping the benefits of my new style!  :)  

Don't forget that there is still time to donate for the Heroes project. I will be posting up the last of the pictures of the Blood Angels army Monday morning.  The transport is here and they look outstanding. I will also shoot some video of them on Moday as well.  

Jawaballs
























New assault marines.

New Jawa army.

So the first of 40 new assault marines has taken the battle field.


Better pic



Now the question is, can I paint 40 new marines before Nova?

My hand screams at the thought.  

:)

For the emperor. 

Jawaballs