Category: hobby

Finecast Models: Killing Me Softly

A wholly owned subsidery of Games Workshop

If you follow table top war games at all you know that the hobby is largely at the mercy of the commodities market. Many of the models used by table top war games companies are metal cast. This year Games Workshop decided to do something about that by abandoning metal models and using a newly developed resin instead. Resin is lighter, easier to modify and much cheaper than metal. Games Workshop hasn’t passed those savings on to their customers though! In fact, in their press releases and investor’s statements hardly mention the cost savings at all! Instead they’ve highlighted the high quality of the new resin models:

Games Workshop already makes the best fantasy miniatures in the world. All Games Workshop miniatures will now be made either in resin or plastic to ensure Games Workshop customers get the best quality miniatures available. From a strategic perspective, Citadel Finecast has established an even greater quality differential for Games Workshop over other miniature makers using traditional metal manufacturing methods.

Mark Wells, CEO Games Workshop

But of course, one of the main reasons for this change to resin was quality. One thing you’ll notice immediately when you pick them up is the exceptionally sharp detail on the model, which can only be described as staggering. For dedicated painters (which we all are to some extent) this is a dream come true.

Andy Hall, Writer Games Workshop

I’m not going to contest that the new models look great and that their resin mix does an excellent job of capturing the nuances of the master molds. My problem is that these new lighter, cheaper models cost more than their metal counterparts?! The company has said this rise in cost is due to the better detail quality of the new finecast models, but the fact of the matter is that GW and Citadel Miniatures are using the same master molds as they were for the old metal miniatures. The only difference here is the new resin! The molds have already been made the costs invested and already returned from the sale of the old metal models, so why are customers now having to pay more for a model made from cheaper raw materials?!

Cast in the traditional manner using a metal alloy
The new finecast resin model

Games Workshop has been pricing me out of their hobby for years. I have a hard time justifying the purchase of a single model for $15 moving the sales point to $18.50 ($20 in the mind of the buyer) is out of the question! Who can afford that when armies consist of upwards of 100 models?!

 

How my Garden Grows: Summer 2011 part ?

Jungle-like density

Since last I chronicled the progress of the garden the pole beans have overgrown the fence and have proceeded to begin colonization of the front yard, I’ve lost an overgrown zucchini plant that spilled out of the box and then broke underneath its own weight, and some sort of animal has begun poaching all of my tomatoes! We’ve also been eating a lot of cucumbers (the regular and lemon varieties), zucchini, and green beans. We’ve been collecting so many of them in fact that almost every meal that is prepared now has one, or more of those three things in it. Bread salad is always a popular choice (seeing as it requires fresh basil and we have plenty of that as well)

The beans migrate into my neighbors yard...
Pole beans and cucumbers scale the growth screen and the fence...

That first picture is of the beans growing over one of the support ties for the tomato plants. The beans infiltrated into the tomato plants and then co-opted their supports. Next time I’m just going to plant bush beans. I can get the same, if not higher, yield, and not have to worry about the plants overcoming everything else in the garden. The second picture shows both beans and cucumber plants growing up their growth screen and over the wall.  One of the bushes in the front yard, planted to screen view of the electric meter and the fence has already been reached by a bean creeper and, I’m sure, will soon succumb to the pole beans. The funny thing is people said the soil in the garden was spent and nothing would grow! We’ve had a higher yield this year and more robust plants!

A cucumber blossom
Bean blossom
A cuke!

No picture of the harvest today. We’ve been going over the garden every day or so and so we pick a little produce everyday as opposed to a large pile of it on the weekends… This way we can incorporate the fruit into food throughout the week and have it at its freshest!

 

You can see previous entries in this series here, here, and here.

I Made Zucchini Bread or Cake

Not delicious yet...

I can only eat grilled, boiled, or fried zucchini so much before I just want to rip the plants out of the garden and throw them on the compost heap. Thankfully, those aren’t the only ways to prepare zucchini; you can also put the vegetable into baked goods such as cakes and breads. In fact, I’d say you can put zucchini in to just about anything the vegetable is mostly water and has little to no flavor of its own so it makes excellent filler. This morning while I was poking around in the fridge for breakfast I noticed one of our zucchinis was getting soft and failing to find anything to eat I decided I could use said limp zucchini to make bread. I dug out my mom’s recipe for the stuff and went to work! This is a really simple recipe so I’m just going to include it here at the top of the post instead of the bottom. (Unlike other cooking blogs that make you scroll through dozens of pictures of the dogs and kids and endless text that gets you no closer to the recipe you’re actually looking for.) Continue reading “I Made Zucchini Bread or Cake”

Painting Legion of Everblight: The very beginning

My workspace

As I’ve written about before I have quite a few tabletop war game miniatures. I’ve also mentioned how I needed a plan, motivation, or some sort of painting group in order to get through all the models I have lying in boxes and cases. Ask the Universe and it gives back they say… Not too long ago two of my friends, independent of each other, started holding group painting sessions! I used one of those opportunities to finish my Battlefleet Gothic Necron fleet and just today I went to another one to start painting my Horde Legion of Everblight models. I’ve been putting off painting these models for well, years now, because they’re mostly flesh and flesh is notoriously difficult to paint. Give me armor any day and I’ll happily slap the paint around. It’s very difficult to mess up painting leather or metal. Flesh though? That’s hard and I was scared. Scared because I don’t know how to paint it and scared because the pros who do make it look so good.

Six hours of work

Thankfully my friend is not only an experienced painter but well versed in various flesh painting techniques. I spent six hours today at a table next to him as he guided me through how to add paint flesh that looked vibrant and had depth. Basically, it all comes down to lots of layering and selective use of washes. I added the base layer and two additional layers to all four of them and then concentrated on a single model for the rest of the time in order to learn as much technique as possible; so that in the future I could complete the rest of the models at home. The final model, which took the lion share of time, has nine layers of paint, four washes and used a total of seven different colors in various blends on it. Oh, and it still isn’t complete! The mouth, including teeth, all still needs to be painted, washed, and highlighted. I’m hoping I get faster as I go along.

Base coat, and two layers of paint. You can see the beginnings of the shading here
Five+ layers of paint, includes highlights and two washes.
All done except for the mouth!
From the other side

Once the mouth is painted the only thing left to do would be to paint and flock (fake rocks and grass) the models base and I’ll be done. This wasn’t easy to do and I’m not completely happy with the results my progress throughout the day really improved. I’m hoping by the time I get to the really big models I’ll have the technique down and can turn out a really great looking model. Of course, if I do I’ll tell you about it here.

%d bloggers like this: