2.24.2013

Back in Black (and red, and purple...)

I'm well and truly back in my game room, having successfully stopped battling 12-year olds for dominance of Black Ops II's multiplayer servers.

It's amazing how obnoxious people can get.  You've got these kids who haven't quite hit puberty spout off the most vile racial slurs imaginable, all while dropping the F-Bomb every other word.  Worse sometimes are the adults.  The other day, I was on at 3 in the morning (insomnia) with some guys in Europe.  This Brit couldn't quite take losing, so obviously somebody had to be cheating.  Or camping.  Or using the wrong gun.

Whatever.  I make use of the Twit Filter often.

(The mute button.  By the way, Aliens Colonial Marines sucks and Dead Space III is fun.  More fun is cranking out models.)

Oh, yeah.  The game room.  Kinda a mess to be honest...






...but who has time to clean?  I've got models waiting.

2.19.2013

Miniatures from Other Ranges

Right now I'm putting the finishing touches on a commission army, but my head is in a couple other places besides.

One: Infinity models!  I've got 7 painted and 6 in the works.  It's nice to have a project you can take from start to finish in with so few models...



...problem alert!  Corvus Belli has a HUGE range of Haqqislam miniatures, and admittedly I have a real plastic and metal addiction problem.  My goal, moving forward, is to limit my sickness to one army in a particular range.

With Infinity, the aforementioned Haqqis.  With Warmachine, the Protectorate; with Hordes, the Circle.  Though admittedly I include Mercenaries and Minions in the Privateer Press range, allowing myself some wiggle room for manic-purchasing.

With Confrontation - forget about it!  Every weekend we break out that dead game has me cruising Ebay looking for long OOP models.  That I never get a chance to use.  *sigh*

Which brings me to my second thought; using models across systems.  I've picked up the following models to use in my Inquisitor's Warband, hopefully giving it some additional character.  (Keep in mind, I haven't painted mine - these are downloads from the respective publisher's site.)

I've picked up some lady-friends for my Psyker Pimp.  I guess he's withholding toys for tots, or something.

This dude screams, "Badass!"  Not sure why he screams it, but there you go.

This model I converted to use as a Xenos Inquisitor.  He looked suitably different from existing models while still maintaining a certain stature.  Naturally, this one required some conversion work.



Anyway, that's where my head is at, as I finish up the Tim That Can's daemons this week.  Thoughts?

2.15.2013

Finished Brotherhood Version of Lysander...

...well, except for his shield.

And maybe his heraldry.

And, you know, I plan to do freehand.

But I got three more models for the Haqqislam army I'm putting together...


...so this is done for the time being!



Mmm... looking over these photos and comparing them to yesterday, when I tightened up the blends on the shoulder pads they became a bit more blue than I would have liked.  I washed the hammer just slightly with black, which I'm happy with, but the wash on the shoulder pads was perhaps a bit too much.

But I'm airbrushing red onto a model... no pictures of my version of her, just yet but she's front and center in this class pic:


Who said the women of New Islam can't have a bit of a manga flair?

2.14.2013

Busting Out of the Rut

I was reading a John Constantine graphic novel this morning, and Epiphany told John it was good for him to hang out with someone younger because "You older guys can get caught in a rut."

That's been me, lately.  Stuck in a rut.  My normal habit for years now has been to paint or model daily, not to mention the whole blogging thing over the past three or so years.  Last two months, not so much.

Anyway, with work lightening up and some local interest in a new game (Infinity), I'm forcing myself to put down the game controller or book and pick back up a paint brush.

Here's what I'm working on now - something unnecessary!




Not quite done here - there's nothing like taking a picture to make all the flaws on a model evident.  I've got to tighten up the blends on the shoulder pads, for one thing, and of course I need to paint the Storm Shield.  I'm planning some sort of heraldry for the chest plate, but I haven't decided what yet.

I mentioned unnecessary... I'm not actually playing the Brotherhood lately, and this model isn't necessary in the army I would run!

Anyway, off to work.

2.12.2013

Infinity Addendum; Videos from YouTube

As an addendum to the Infinity article I posted on Bell of Lost Souls today, here's some videos.  Thanks to Gauthic for the email, and making it easy to get back posting on Strictly Average!

It'll be interesting to see how quickly I can get this blog steaming along again, since right now it's deader than a doornail.  Interestingly, for the first month of practically no content it maintained somewhat well.

Not so much in January!  I'm not really that worried about it... as evidenced by not even trying to swing at the slow pitches... because in the end the motivation and time just wasn't there.  In fact, in two plus decades of this hobby I've never been this apathetic.  Maybe I'll explore that, maybe not.

Moving on, here are the Infinity videos - I'm off to watch them now!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNe1P6jLLLE - How to Play 1  (3:10)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaT-pu5Ro68 - How To Play 2 (2:53)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxl__iJTn8s - How to Play 3 (3:30)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3YBW3Xuq1c - Impetuous Orders (3:29)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owKOt7O9J98 - Smoke Grenades (5:25)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPQCI1VlSj4 - Camouflage and Hiding (3:00)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bWWveKGi1c - Camouflage and Hiding 2 (1:53)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKStC-fVV_c  - Camouflage and Hiding 3 (1:56)


(A new favorite!) Anon: I haven’t even bothered playing a game of 6th yet, cause I have read the rules, and actually understand how they interact with units. I know my armies no longer function how they should, and so I need to change them.

Strictly Average: 'cause 6-inches is all you get.

Stalking Jawaballs since 2009.

Jawaballs: "My butt just tightened up."

Brent, preferred 2-to-1 over Not Brent in a recent, scientific poll.

Brent: emptied the Kool Aid and DRINKING YOUR MILKSHAKE with an extra-long straw.

Unicorns don't exist.

Home of the Stormbuster, the Dyson Pattern Storm Raven.

I'm a comment whore and this whore is getting no play.

Not Brent hurts Brent's feelings.

I think, therefore I blog.

"You should stop writing for everyone else and worry about your crappy blog." - Anon.

Not Brent has been spotted lurking around with a green marker.

He's not like a bad guy from a cartoon, all devious but never quite evil, Not Brent is bad beans, man, bad beans.

Dethtron: "Again I feel obliged to remind you that trying to sound smart only works if you are."

MVB: "I am not one to join the unwashed masses of self-titled 40k experts out there distributing advice from their blogs about exactly how your list should be built..."

Shiner Bock on tap: that's how I choose hotels.

Strictly Average: The Home of Hugs and Gropings.

Don't feed the trolls!

MoD: "Welcome to Brent's head."

Competitive is Consistent.

Dethtron: "...you could use that extra time to figure out a way to get your panties unbunched and perform a sandectomy on your vagina."

Dethtron: “When calling someone an idiot, it's generally best to avoid making grammatical mistakes.”

Warboss Stalin: "You know, if it actually WAS funny, maybe I wouldn't mind."

Mike Brandt: "It's not a successful bachelor party if you don't misplace someone".

"The Master Manipulator (every store needs one): "...now, enough stroking."

Kirby: "I don't know about gropings. Seriously, Brent, keep it in the pants, please."

Loquacious: "No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get Hugs & Gropings or Stalks Jawaballs into Brent's little tribute."

Captain Kellen: "I rate this article a Brent on the Faith Hill to Nancy Pelosi scale!"

Drathmere: "Come for the balls, stay for the Brent? Kind of disturbing, man."

Go no further, lest thee see something thine eyes would fain look past!

Isabelle: "So, thank you for supporting your local and not so local unicorns. A noble gesture like that can show some scared kids out there that they don't have to hide from everyone and it's ok to be who they really are."

There is nothing more interesting than We The People... in all our beautiful, ugly glory!

On Internet Advice: You see, I have an almost religious belief that's it's a huge, colossal waste of time.

...I think I'll call it the Gun Shy Pattern Stormbuster, because after the Internet destroyed my first humble effort, I find I'm a bit worried about the reaction to this one.

Lauby: "Is it left over from that time you thought that you could just complete step one 12 times to meet the mandates of that court order?"

Not Brent: "I guess we'll have to read on and find out. Signed, Not Brent. Especially today."

Cynthia Davis: "I think the scrolling text is from Glen Beck's new book."

Grimaldi: "Spamming certain units creates interesting possibilities but also fatal weaknesses."

Purgatus: "Math can inform decisions. It cannot make decisions."

Thoughts? Comments? Hugs and gropings?

You'd be that much quicker to figure out what I mean when I refer to a Unicorn if I covered it in a rainbow flag.

SinSynn: (To Brent) "Curse you and your insidious influence on the internets..."

Dave G (N++): "You know you're an internet celebrity when your following is more akin to tabloids."

I prefer the term Internet Personality (or IP) myself, seeing as how I coined it.

Lauby: "Your attempt to humanize him as failed. I feel nothing but scorn for his beard - it's like a warcrime or something."

BBF: "I've always thought you are a good player but I finally figured out that you are a great player. It's hard to see sometimes because your personality is engaging, sincere and quite charming - to me that is kind of a rare combination."

'Clearly cheating?' I didn't misspeak: you jumped to conclusions. If you'd like to apologize I'll be happy to send you an autographed picture of my ass.

Ass.

I thought I was doing alright before I realized I was losing.

Age and treachery beats youth and vigor every time.

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