November 17, 2006

Chris Little for the win :)

October 19, 2006

Well here we are in week 4. What have I done? Well for one, I have based my whole army. I decided it would probably be in my best interest to do it before I got too far with the painting. The army is large and I know I am going to have to go back and touch up all those guys I got paint on from drybrushing the bases. It would be easier to base then paint the robes, as I would have to black them down anyways! I have decided to think the process through before I get too far, and save myself some work in the long run.

Beyond doing the bases up, I also got the Squig Hopper unit finished. With the release of the Night Goblins Shaman blisters this week I can get those guys up and going as well. The only thing I still have to get for the army is one more box of Night Goblins and Skarsnik and Gobbla, when they come out.

I have the next week off, being vacation time. I hope to get a move on the army, and have lots done by the end of it.

October 13, 2006

Well here we are at week 3 of my challenge. I was going to have some goblins painted up for you fine readers for this week, but I decided not to rush to get some results but to stick to my assembly line painting. The skin on all my goblins is painted. I am still waiting on a box of the new night goblin regiment to round out one of my units, and I will have almost everything I need. The horde is starting to look like goblins! A ton of little green faces are looking back at me from their black hoods. I have broken off into painting a regiment at a time now for the details beyond the skin, so that means progress will look more forthcoming in the future weeks ahead.

In some delirium I have decided to do a checker robe design on my fanatics that I am painting up, so they are not going as fast as I would have hoped. Though, I hope they will look striking on the battlefield….haha…get it…striking….ok I digress.

I also built my movement trays for the army this week. I decided to go for the new textured movement trays that we came out with not that long ago. A lot of people look at them and see only one size square, but not me! A sharp hobby knife, and some superglue and a straight edge and presto any size bases you want! I have been busy joining and cutting movement trays to get the size I need. All you need to do is run your knife along the inside edge of the movement tray wall to get the edge to pop off, and just score the bottom of the tray to be able to snap off the off cuts where you want them too. With this in mind, be careful you don’t cut yourself, but it is a lot easier than it sounds. If you are in the London area I can show you how to do it if you want to come in for a lesson!

October 5, 2006

Well, this week was productive, but nothing to show you guys just yet though. Oxymoron? No, I've decided to change some things around in my army as well as figure out colour schemes for my guys. I have decided on going for your classic black robes, and to have white flames and checkers as accents for my 'gobbos'. I also decided to do something different for my Goblin skin, as I am starting them with a Catachan/Camo Green mix, and highlighting with Camo Green and Rotting Flesh. Its different than what most people use, and hopefully it turns out cool!

I started off painting the skin on my 'gobbos' this week. I decided to do all the skin across the whole army at once. Crazyness you say? Nah, I am used to doing large batches of assembly line painting. I am probably am the only person I know that paints a whole army as assembly line. I know it would drive most people mad, but I guess I have the patience. Once the skin is done on all the main troops I will probably break them up into smaller batches of perhaps 25 or 50 to finish the army painting. As it stands right now I have basecoated the skin on about 120 goblins, and I have started highlighting about 50 of them.

I really do recommend doing the assembly line method, as it really speeds up your painting, you don’t need to switch colours all the time and you get used to painting certain areas, so it is easier to go faster, and you don’t have to keep changing your style all the time. It also makes missing things harder if you know you need to do the same thing over on a group of guys, try it out for yourself! Perhaps do 5-10 guys, you don’t have to be insane like me, and do a whole army.

I hope to have a sample unit finished for the next extry. For any of you that are interested I am going to put my army on display in my store so you can see my progress. So come check it out in the London Store if you have the chance.

September 28, 2006

Hello fellow hobbyists! My name is Chris Little and I manage the London Ontario Games Workshop store. Once I heard about this project I knew I had to get in on it. What fun is it if you don’t challenge yourself a little bit? So why not go big and do a swarm army, and what better swarm army then the beautiful new Night Goblin minis that just came out with the Battle for Skull Pass boxed set!

I knew this was going to be a daunting task getting almost 190 models finished in the time allotted but that is where planning comes into play. You just can’t go into something like this blind. I have done the math and as long as I can do 2-3 models a day I should be fine. That being said, I have spent the first week building much of the army and cleaning off the mould lines etc. So I have a bit of catching up to do. I have no fear though, as I 've saved some time from having to stop and build my models during the challenge.

One word of advice to leave this week with…..REGIMENTAL BASES!
These things rock, I advise them to almost any fantasy player. Never heard of them? Track them down at your local store or check them out on the online store. They are basically four bases made into one. They make ranking easier, and the setup before the game is a snap. Just make sure you don’t put everyone in the unit on one or you won’t be able to take out casualties. Large armies like skeletons, skaven, goblins etc it’s almost a must to have regimental bases. Usually with these armies you are taking multiple casualties in a turn anyways, so taking 4 off at a time is no biggie. Only taking 3 off? No problem, just put one of the loose models back in the unit and pull a regiment base off.

See you next week, hopefully with painted goblins!