Finished figures, Pine Bark, Magnets, and a new lens.

Hi All,

I've been rushing to get these figures finished and realized a few omissions late in the game. I won't dwell on the half empty aspect.

I give you the Blood Moon Boyz:

At first I wanted to paint them for Orctober 2013. This then got pushed back to Curt's challenge and they were supposed to be the first unit I painted for that. They sat there about 80% as i tried to meet the bonus rounds and never got done. As is usual for me they don't rank up perfectly. I tried to vary the shield position to make it more visually interesting. I thought I had some fluff already written for them, but all I found were notes.

"The Blood Moon Boyz are the militant wing of the Orcish Revolutionary Council (O.R.C.), not to be confused with the Orcish Revolutionary Coalition. Splitters! They are part of an Anarcho-Syndacalist commune that allies with other groups of Orcs to kill things and spread the words of Karl Orx and Froedrich Mangels. They have no banner, as that is a trapping of the self perpetuating autocracy, and they have no permanent leaders but rather appoint a rotating executive officer for the week."

On these guys I used my usual method of block color, grunge wash, drybrush highlight and then a few spot details. The bases are my current method with the clay, texture gel and sand followed by flock and static grass.

Next up is my Roman command:

Thentuwion! Thwike him vewy wuffly!

These guys are okay. I got into get it done mode and now see how I could have made them better.Oh well. The only thing I really worked highlights on was the lion pelt worn by the Signifer. These guys are 1/72 Italeri plastics from the Roman Infantry Set 6021.

My new strategy is to try and work on 4-5 figures at a time and get them done. That way I can stop playing with half painted armies.

Here's that pine bark I picked up near Echo Summit:

Although I already have a ton of stuff for making rocks, I couldn't resist.

Magnets:

I hadd been looking for the push pin magnets for some time and finally found them at Staples. Each pack cost me $3 and some change.

My plan is to use the push pin ones for mounting a wire to hold banners and/ or markers. We'll see how that works.

Bob Cordery showed how you could use these to hold metal base figures for painting. I read about it here, but he also wrote about it here. Or it could just be a floating disc for your wizard.

Lastly, I bought a new lens for the camera, all these pictures have been taken with it. While on vacation I got an email about an Amazon warehouse sale. One of the things thy had was camera lenses.  I found an 18 - 300 for $100 less than retail and became enamored with the idea of having one lens for all occasions when I am travelling or taking pictures at Football games and changing lenses is inconvenient. So far so good, although I still have a ways to go in learning how to use it, or the camera for that matter.

I'll leave you with a parting shot illustrating the one new cool feature. You can dial in depth of field.

For some reason I couldn't do it quite as well on the finished figures.