Jawaballs Nova Army 2011. 1st squad is finished!

The first squad of my 2011 Nova Open army has rolled off the line tonight. Done, based and ready to fight!

I give you Scout Squad Ellis. Attached to the Blood Angels 2nd Company under Lord Mephiston. Ellis is the sniper without the cloak behind the broken cross tombstone looking down range.  These guys have been ordered by Lord Mephiston to take up position in an ancient cemetery and hold for orders.  Their instructions are to engage enemy scouts from range. But Bior, the scout with the Missile Launcher, may have bigger issues on his hands...

For this squad I used a combination of Long field grass, scorched static grass

and olive green moss as complimentary green to the reds. I will use this theme throughout the army.

This scout found great cover behind a tombstone.

Ellis relays communications to the rest of the army inbound.

Awaiting orders.

Scanning the horizon.

Ants in his pants?

Thats no moon!

Something moved out yonder...

Ok folks. I'm getting a bit loopy. These five guys might not be all that effective in game, but I think they will add a great element of cool to my display.  :)

Oh, I just got notification that I will be playing the one and only Rob Baer of Spikey Bits fame for the Whiskey Challenge!  I have played him several times in various tournaments, and I don't think I have ever beaten him. Knowing Rob, he will be packing a nasty Crowe Gk list. I hope so!  I would love to test my list against one of the best.

Time to get your lickins Baer!  See you Thursday.

Jawaballs

NMM Sanguinor and Jawaballs Nova Army WIP video!

Hey folks!

So I have been working like mad trying to finish my army for The Nova Open.  My intentions? I want to compete for Best Painted and/or Renaissance Man.  Haha, lofty goals huh?  Well, last year I was .01 points away from winning Ren Man with an army that I admit was not my best.  This year I decided to bring nothing less than the best I can do, on every model.  To a degree. There are many different interpretations of what is "best".  Some people think nothing but flawless blending with no highlights at all is best. Some think that purely realistic with massive wear and tear is.  I have decided that this time, my best will be a very stylized and almost "cartoony" army.  I am working Non metallic metals, and all of my models have many layers of shading, blending and layering, but they are finished with a bold, stylized line edge.

Joe Johnson proved that you can win Best Painted with a very untraditional style of painting.  His "Salmon Pink" creamsicle marines have won the award many times out here on the east coast.  It was his inspiration, along with techniques I have developed recently as my painting style evolved that brought me to my current army look.  Rather than trying to copy what has come before, I wanted to create something new and different, but no less beautiful.  That is evidenced in my scouts and assault marines.

With that I give you my Sanguinor model. I decided to include him in my list very recently, and wanted to give the model my first real try at NMM gold.

Here he is mostly finished! I just have to do the peripheral details that will take just a few minutes. 

And if you want to see the rest of the army check out my video:

I will post an update of this soon!

Let me know what you think.

Jawaballs

Busy Day! PIC HEAVY

Fist of all I wanted to share links from the GW website:
I won Best Banner at Gamesday and they got it posted up!

But they misspelled my name... :(

But I didn't stop there!  I made their website again as part of the Heroes of Armageddon club table!

Fritz managed to sneak in there as well!

The club table won Best Theme!

I have more Gamesday videos coming soon.

Now for the real purpose of posting today.  A step by step of my new model:

The Sanguinor:

I am following the Sanguinor guide from Whtie Dwarf, April 2010

The first layer of paint is a 50/50 mix of Calthan Brown and Snakebite

Then Snakebite with a pinch of Bleached Bone.

Then a 2/1 Snakebite and Bleached Bone

Then a 50/50 Snakebite and Bleached

All the way to a 1/2 Snakebite Bleached

Then a wash in the recesses with Dark Flesh

Then some Dark flesh mixed with black

Then pure bleached bone highlights followed by extreme highlights with White

Then a wash with watered down Sunburst yellow to make it more goldy

After the yellow wash I hit it with a watered down Leviathan Purple in the recesses

and did the details like wings and such my standard Codex, Fortress and White

Finally I retouched the highlights on the armor with bleached bone mixed with Glaze Medium

and then the final white highlights again. 

At this point I glued the backpack to the stand and base coated the scrolling Bestial Brown.  I cannot work further on the model for fear of damaging the paint.  I will get pics of him finished up as soon as possible!

Assault marines next... :)

Jawaballs

The dog days of summer?

I'm back from vacation!  But I barely managed to get any thing done while I was away...

So here I am, the Dog Days of Summer! Crunch time.

We leave for Nova in 13 days.  That is the time I have left to finish my army.  But four of those days are weekend days, and three more of them Jack will be home because Daycare is closed.  That leaves me with 6 quality days to work including today.

I did manage to get home at a decent time yesterday and pumped out this priest...

Of course he needs a lot more work but the bulk of it is done.  

Of the 16 assault marines I still have to paint, work is mostly done of four of them.  I think I can bust them out though in 5 days.  That is my mission for next week.  Today? The Sanguinor.  I primed him last night and he is waiting my NMM attempt!  I will take pics of the stages for you here.

Oh and some where in there I have to build my display board and base all my models... Gulp!  

In Nova news, I believe there are about a dozen spots left in the big tournament.  It is not too late to get one! I would love to see some of you and have a beer.  Oh and I think I have an opponent for The Whiskey Challenge!  More on that next time.

Jawaballs

Funny new blog! My crazy wife.

Hey guys, some of you may remember the blog my wife was writing during her pregnancy. Well that now defunct blog has been replaced with a new one! She is a great writer and when I told her that guys at Gamesday missed her blog, she decided to start anew. So, she is writing about every day things that just need to be laughed at. Work, Family, food, you name it.  You can find her blog HERE.  Please check her out, subscribe to her blog, and have a laugh.  Thanks for supporting her!

Oh and as of 3:30 EST today I have nearly completed 4 of my 16 assault marines.  I also ordered a new Sanguinor model which is already enroute, and ordered up materials to make my new display board and bases.  I have about 10 days of work time after vacation and before Nova.  I plan on making every minute count. And yes, I am doing The Sanguinor NMM.  I will definitely take pics of that!  More to come.

Jawaballs

Working Furiously! Sanguinary Priest just about done.

Here is one of my new JP Priests for my new army.

Remember this picture is 10x as big as the model.

Non Metallic Metal Gold!  My first try. Good enough for now!  For this model I used Lemartes, a command squad apothecary arm and a sang guard power weapon arm.  I had to cut a thumb off a bolter marine and use it with this arm so he could actually hold the cup. I got the cup from maxmini.eu.  

Because there was so much going on with this model that was not red, I did not spray him with Dragon Red. I used Mechrite/blood on the red parts. I will get more pics when he is done!

Now I have a batch of five assault marines that are next. I am leaving on Vacation this Saturday so won't be painting, but will be taking my marines with me so I can assemble and shave them when I find time.  When I return I have to paint:

16 assault marines

1 more priest with JP. I am using a skulled chaplain model.

The Sanguinor

fix mephiston's head

fix up the land raider

and if I find time, five new assault termies.  

Oh and a display board and bases for all.

Gulp..   The emperor protects.

Jawaballs

The Nova Open and Gamesday!

Hey folks, back to work for me!

I just got back from the occupational therapist who I have been working with to fix my arm issues.  What a difference! I should have gone a year ago.  Maybe then I would have actually been able to paint something for Golden Demon and Armies on Parade.

I have two things to discuss with you right now. The Nova Open and Gamesday.  First of all, the Nova Open.

The Jawaballs 2010 Nova Open Army

I gushed about this event before. As you know I spoke pretty highly about it, ranking it up there at the top of the big three events that I have attended, Mechanicon and Bolscon 2009 are the others.  I plan on attending DaBoyz this year (provided that comp is not part of tournament scoring) and Adepticon so I might have to create the Big Five.  But until then... The Nova is my August retreat.  Why? Well it is close of course. (relatively) Flying to Chicago for Gamesday reminded me about the only drawback of Bolscon 2009. The distance.  But Nova is on the East Coast in the DC area.  Perfect!

This year I'm playing scouts!

Let me tell you now, if you are on the fence about attending, decide now. You are in.  While Nova is a highly competitive Grand Tournament played over 8 games, it is also noobie and hobby guy friendly. I spoke to my buddy John Steining, who only played one actual game over the last year, and HE is going!  He is a great painter and enjoys the hobby aspect, but after we talked about the noob friendly atmosphere of The Nova while eating steak at Gamesday, he decided to pull the trigger.  John is a great painter and really only collects 40k models. He barely knows how to play.  But he is in!

Why is Nova noob friendly?  Well, it is not entirely.  Let me be the one to say that if you are a tournament inexperienced noobzor, you can expect to take some lumps on day one. Hell, I expect to take some lumps of my own due to the list I am bringing, but that for another post.  But that is OK! Even if you lose all 4 games on Saturday, you can rest assured that you will be in another separate tournament on Sunday, playing four games, against ONLY other guys who went 0-4. Or at least as close as Brandt can make it.  That means that the part timers like John, or Drathmere online, will be sure to get in some games they have a chance to win instead of being fed to the wolves, (Or knights, pirates or vampires.)

The Nova is not just about the GT though. On Thursday night there is The Whiskey Challenge where 40k personalities including yours truly will be squaring up or taking challengers. By they way, this is your chance to drop the gauntlet on me.  I as of yet do not have an opponent.  Think you got the minerals?  Let Mike Brandt know you want some Jawa Loving and I will send you packing home to mommy Thursday night.  (For the humorless dolts out there I am just playing.)

On Friday there are two major events. The Nova Invitational where some of the top players in the country are going to fight it out for cash prizes by invite only, and the Trios team event where players are invited to form teams of three and engage in friendly but competitive face smashing.  I actually chose not to play in the invitational because the Trios sounded like too much fun!   Im sooo looking forward to having beers with The Stout Smurf, Joe Johnson, Ted Nagel, Bill and the rest of the bunch.  There has been question about why I chose the trios, but that is the answer. Sometimes 40k is more about having fun than it is winning.  Sure I would have a shot at that invitational thousand dollar Renaissance Man prize, but I will be fighting for glory amongst the best of the best in 8 games on Saturday and Sunday, I figured I could use a little social time on Friday.  Know what I mean?

So as of today, there are a handful of spots left in the Nova GT and maybe a spot or two in the invitational.  I believe the hotel block is filled or close to filling.  In other words. Don't wait any longer.  Get your ticket and reserve your hotel. Definitely stay at the hotel by the way.  40k is about being social and this is one of the top social events I have attended! There will be 24 hours open gaming.  I personally plan on taking on all comers Friday and Saturday nights.  If you are traveling to the Nova and want a shot, send me an email to schedule a game!

Now for Gamesday.  There is a lot to talk about and I will be doing a pretty big post on BOLS soon, but the weekend was fantastic!  I actually managed to get to some of the events like the Speed Demon competition this year and met a lot of readers and fans.  I spent the entire day with a smile on my face and enjoyed some tasty eats and drinks with good people.  Over the next week I will be uploading videos from the show. I didn't get any pictures because I only had a video camera. But I got about 3 hours of content!



Some Gamesday footage.

Alright, time to paint. My goal is to finish all of my scouts today.  :)  I will do an entire Nova army post soon.

Jawaballs

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