Dwarf Warriors - Complete

Right.  I finally got their bases completed.  They're not amazing, unfortunately the milliput was a little too sticky and so stuck to the stamp in place, so some of the bases have little tears in them. :(  But they're not so noticeable.  As usual my camera has washed away the blue tone of the unit. I really don't know why, but it does look a bit closer this time.  But, they're done:

And, an extra treat... this is my "completed model" shelf I have with me at uni.  I have more at home, but not many pictures of them. 

Dwarf Warriors - Almost there!

Right then. Update time! 

The unit is finished, except the bases.  I have fifteen of those to stamp out, and should hopefully be finished sometime next week.  But for the moment, here are some pictures of the front rank with shields. 

Command group - Musician and Veteran

D

Detail of Veteran's axe

Warriors

U

Unit Standard Bearer

So, what do you think?

Also, I believe the template for my blog is playing up - the background image has gone.  I am sorry about that, I'm going to leave it until the weekend and then if needs be find a new one.  Shame, I really liked that template. =(  Oh well. 

What do you think? 

Dwarf Warriors, WIP redux

So, midterms are now done and dusted, and I have been given some time to get a little bit of painting done.  They were pretty much done last week to be fair, I just added some more to them.  Almost finished now, just to finish off the banner, shields and base them.  I'm quite happy.

The banner.  Now, before anyone suggests it, I won't be doing NMM on the axes.  Mainly because I don't like the style and I am not happy with my blending skills as of yet.  So I'd rather practice on something I can strip easily or not care if I mess it up etc.  I am quite happy with the design of the banner.  The axe heads are not that good - different sizes and I just couldn't get them to look right.  Ah well.  I still have the axe shafts to finish, going to attempt another go at wood grain.  Oh and the runes at the bottom are for the clan and it is: Silveraxe Clan.  :)

Oh and my unit's champion is the one in the first photo on the right hand side.  I am not happy on him.  He doesn't stand out that well - I changed his weapon (hard to see from here) and his helmet is entirely bronze.  I am not that big a fan on it at the moment.  I need a better way of making his hand out without using the horns or wings.

Musician and Veteran

 Rank and file

Standard Bearer

Tacticus Hobbicus

This is going to be a new series I will be writing.  I am by no means the best blogger; painter, hobbyist out there but I have relatively decent experience.  This series will be my thoughts on the hobby side of the miniature gaming pastime, from blogging all the way to painting.  I will be posting this series at Libararium-Online.com, as well as in my blog there.  As well as on the Battlereporter forum, The Trading Post blog, and my own personal blog.

I do not know how often I will do these, but will try to keep them semi-regular.  Any tips or comments are welcome, feel free to PM or email me on the usual channels.

Anyway, moving on to the first part of the series.  To jump right in, I thought I’d discuss blogging.  Something that has become a big thing for hobbyists on the net now, whether it is on forums or other sites.

Why blog?

Blogs are a useful tool for the hobbyist of the modern era.  They are a place where one can show off their work and seek advice, but are also great for keeping track of tasks, paint jobs, tutorials and other such things we hobby fellows do.  Blogs are great place to keep your projects in order; you might not even use it as somewhere to parade your work, but rather as just somewhere to store it.  You don’t have to be an amazing modeller; they don’t even have to be about painting and modelling.  But it is generally important to have some idea of what you want your blog to be about, it helps draw people who are interested in that to it.  That said, a general blog works just as fine – my very own Grumpy Stunty is quite general of my own gaming experiences.

Where to blog?

One question for new hobbyists who come to face when considering a blog, is where should they set up their blog?  There is a myriad of locations to start, from a forum your regular visit (such as Libararium-Online, Dakka Dakka, Warseer etc) – this could be done in their painting sections, as often forums now have a specific area for painting blogs (or plogs), or in a specific blogging section of the forum.  An alternative is to make one on a dedicated blog site such as blogger or wordpress.  These are the main methods used, but there are other options out there.

The Blog

(N.B. Some of these will apply only to blogger/wordpress)

When you set up a blog, there are a number of things to remember.  .  One of them is the look.  It doesn’t sound important; I mean who cares as long as you like it, right?  And that is a fair point really, it is YOUR blog.  However, if you want people to view it, then it needs to be user friendly.  Having lots of add-ons that distract from the content might put people off.  The same applies to the template you use.  Try to consider and think of a good looking one, but try to avoid ones with added images in the background – they make it look cluttered.  There are loads of templates out there, find the one that suits your blog.  And remember, there is nothing wrong with testing them out.

If you are doing it on a forum, consider how long you might use such a blog, how popular it could get and how to make it easy to navigate.  Take my own blog as an example.  It is nearly three years old, and has nearly nine hundred and fifty posts in it.  That is a lot.  And so as you can imagine there is a lot of stuff in there, so to make it user friendly I added a contents page (click link to see it).  This hold links to the individual posts of my completed projects.  This makes it easier for people looking for something on the blog to find it or to just navigate around such a large blog.  It is regularly updated with each project, for ease of viewing.  Simple touches like this will make your blog a bit more rememberable and make people want to check it for new updates.

Another thing to remember is colours.  It’s understandable that you’d like to make your blog stand out among the crowd, and the easiest way to do so - it would seem – is to add colour.  This can be fine, but be wary when using colour, font types and styles; as too much can make it look bad.  It is important that you make your blog your own, so experiment, but do remember to keep a thought on “How readable is it?”

Comments

Everyone loves to be told that their painting/posts are a work of genius.  A pure work of art.  But that never happens.  Sometimes there are no comments.  Not one.  This can be very disheartening, especially to new bloggers.  There are ways of getting people to look at your blog, and hopefully comment, and the simplest way is to comment on other people’s posts.  I don’t mean go spam other blogs and telling them to go look at yours, and this is likely to annoy people.  Instead, seek to add constructive posts, or keep a link to your blog in your sig/profile.  Just make it accessible.

Do not worry if you don’t get comments.  Remember, this blog is for you.  I regularly don’t get a lot of comments on blogs, so I just look at it like this – “it’s nice to get comments, but meh” and continue to post when I please.  It you try and make your posts provocative or outlandish to get attention, and then perhaps blogging isn’t for you.

Once final point I would like to make about commenting is, if you get a comment – reply!  It is quite important this.  It shows you have interest and interact with others will increase the chances they’ll return and comment again.

Posting

This is going to be brief.  I just wanted to discuss posting on your blog.  To get interest you need to have a good topic, but just as importantly you need to write well.  Now, I’m not saying that you need a degree in English Language but watching your grammar and spelling is quite important.  I personally have found it off putting when people start to hugely misspell or use “text speak” during a post.  It is not difficult to write out full words or run your post through word – or download add-ons for your browser (I have a dictionary for my firefox, along with a spell-checker).  Also consider the manner, of which you are writing, make it easy on the eye.  Blocks of text is not appealing and people are just as likely, if not more so, to not read it than they are to spend the time reading.  Simple uses of paragraphs make a world of difference.  Language is also an issue to be aware of.  Most forums will have a swear filter on them, designed to filter out swear words – blogs do not have this.  You can swear all you want, but bear in mind many find it a disgusting habit; so consider whether you will swear on your blog.  Ideally I would suggest not doing it at all.

Another thing to bear in mind is not to feel pressured into posting lots just because there are others out there who do it every day.  Every blogger has their own pace, once you find yours stick to it.  It is better to post only once or twice a week with some good, solid interesting posts than to do multiple lesser posts.  It might be useful to have some saved – either on your hard drive or as a draft post – so that you won’t be too rushed to go and can post at your own speed.

Take time with the images you post.  There isn’t much point in putting up something blurry, as you’ll be told it is blurry.  There are plenty of tutorials and guides out there on how to take decent photos.

Below are some links you might find useful

http://corbaniaprime.blogspot.com/2009/05/thoughts-about-blogging.html

http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2010/01/10-ways-to-improve-your-blog.html

http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2010/01/analytical-look-at-ftw.html

 *******************

Dwarf Warriors, WIP

Right then.  Finally got the second batch of five complete.  Again, no base but they'll be done at the end.  So here they are:

I am not fully happy with parts of them.  For example, you can just about see my attempt at wood grain.  I need to practice this more, it came out OK in places but I had trouble with getting it to look like dark wood.  I did however do better at the runes on the shields.  Still cannot get them looking symmetrical or the same size, but they look decent.

Next up, after these is the front rank and command.  Still not decided what to do for their banner, but I have a few ideas.

Dwarf warriors.

I have done a small amount of converting to them. One thing you'll notice, when I get a picture of them, is the lack of horns and wings. Only a couple of my minis will have these added to the helmets. For the most part, I dislike them. I just really don't like them on the dwarf helmets, and want to come up with a better idea of changing them. Its something I want to do with my army. I have been playing collecting dwarfs for a long time and have recently realised that none of the army incarnations have actually been MY dwarfs. They've always been in the GW scheme or used a typical dwarf army straight out the box.

So, with this army I have a plan. I want to make it mine. Using what skills I have as a painter/modeller I want to make this dwarf army HUGE and MINE. So small conversions, and larger ones. I am not building it to game with (though, I will be doing so) but rather as a life long project that is Kuffy flavoured (with a hint of outsiders). Its a very long term plan and will be built alongside my greenskins, along with fluff and all other stuff. I want this army to hold a very personal connection for me.

As to your point about the longbeards, I still have a unit of the beautiful metal ones to repaint. But I will also be seeking a new method of making them stand out from warriors. I don't know just yet, so I'm not going to dwell on them until I feel I am ready to tackle them.

Another point, I never explained the runes from my army. The runes stand for "Ungorwutraz Karag" or "The Delving Spear Mountain". I have some skeletal outlines of fluff, but haven't really planned much further than that yet.

Hobby Experience

 In other news, I find myself liking the idea of Warmachine more and more.  I currently posses the MKI rules for both Warmachine and Hordes, and have always favoured Hordes (due to the stronger fantasy style link) but I don't possess any army or have attempted to make one.  In fact I own a single model, a Trollblood yeti creature (Frost Troll?) which I attempted to paint for a contest but just never liked it when I put brush to metal.  

One reason why I put the rules aside is that, I don't really game and I found the rules confusing.  I'd need to watch a game and probably have someone run me through the rules to properly understand.  However, I am now beginning to consider my hobby more.  I am, at heart, a GW fan boy.  I own all the Fantasy army and rule books from the 4th ed onwards (except 4th/5th ed Lizardmen and Chaos Dwarfs) as well as most of the Fantasy based background books and a lot of the novels.  The same goes for 40k, all codices since 3rd ed.  I also own various supplements and game add-ons (Planetary Empires and Apocalypse for example) and use a lot of their products (spray, paint etc).

So, my hobby experience has firmly been embedded in the GW world.  I have only recently begun to look outside their main two "headliners", so to speak.  I have played Mordheim a little bit, and have a great love of Blood Bowl (though, I am only currently playing it on FUMBBL.com).  These games are a lot of fun, don't cost so much and allow for more personalisation.  However, what do they all have in common?  GW no longer supports them, in fact they have seemingly recently shafted the BB community with the way they have handled the new rules set.  And yet, they all have a large cult following.  BB is perhaps the most supported by the players, with lots of tournaments going on and a very strong community.  Mordheim also has this, albeit to a lesser extent.  

I find these other games to be a lot of fun.  The rules are generally well done, with a few problems here or there.  I just wish GW would give them some love, rather than abandoning them in favour of 40K and Fantasy, and to a lesser extent Lord of the Rings.  A single updated FAQ or something each year would be great.  That said.  I have seem some great fan based websites and designs for Mordheim in particular.  I have also considered picking up LOTR.  I will admit that when GW announced they were making a LOTR system and it grappled its way into the third slot for the 'Headliners" I was a bit upset and annoyed.  Hoping it would die and swearing I'd never play it.  This was, and is, a naive and stupid view.  I still haven't played it but I have had a look at the rule set and I was impressed.  It is simple, quick and well written.  I think it sits sort of between Fantasy and 40k in that its simple, quick and easy to play - like 40k - but also involves some complicated rules to make it a bit more challenging - like Fantasy.  To this end, I have considered picking it up as another game.  Or just some stuff to paint.

Back to my first point about Warmachine.  I like the minis and the rules, from what most say, are easy to understand and play quite smoothly.  So, I am considering picking this up.  Khador appeals to me.  It will also be something extra to expand my gaming experience and perhaps stop me viewing GW quite so often through my rose-tinted glasses.  We shall see.

Oh yeah.  [SHAMELESS PLUG]   Go check out the Fantasy Hub of http://the-tradingpost.blogspot.com/ and tell others to join.  The more the merrier!  Any ideas, blogs to add or anything please email me on thetradingpostblog[at]googlemail.com

Dwarf Warriors WIP.

Right then.  I finally got some painting done, uni has been keeping me busy, and I have five whole warriors to show for it.  I am pretty happy with them, however I have noticed that my bronze is not consistent across the board.  I need to sort that out. I need to keep practising on my freehand.  Its OK at the moment, but still quite sloppy really.  Anyway, three pictures of five dwarf warriors, sans bases.

 

  

  

 ___________________________