The Week in Hobby 19/1/14

This is the 2nd in what I plan to be a regular segment on the blog. Each Sunday I'll be summarising my hobby and gaming activity during the week as well as providing a glimpse into the week ahead. I'm still not totally sold on the name of this segment, so it may change and suggestions are welcome.

The Blog round up
First a quick summery of this weeks blog posts. On Tuesday I posted the Tyranid Gallery a picture heavy post with many pictures of my painted aspiring horde.

Then on Thursday I posted The Swarm Evolves the second part to the previous weeks

The Swarm Approaches, a kind of before and after look at my Tyranid army with the new Codex being released in between. The post also contains some pics of some old games from 2012.

My hobby week

I have to admit, my hobby week has been a slow one. I started playing Minecraft again after seeing some cool lets plays, and boy what a time sink that game is.

All week I've been saying to myself that I need to do something just so I have something to write about today. And today I did just that.

First up I needed to sort out my painting table. While the table itself has been set up in my new house since I moved in, my paints, brushes and other tools have all been sat in boxes. In fact my painting table has been used primarily as a desk since I moved. Recently it's housed my laptop and it's become my writing desk. Well it was time for that to change.

I realised earlier today that this has been a hindrance mentally to picking up my paint brush and I was suddenly reminded of an old blog post I wrote 2 and a half years ago Good habits and getting distracted . Particularly the section on establishing a painting area and the benefits of having a dedicated painting table.

My painting table, relatively clutter free and ready to paint Tyranids

So now once again my painting table is organised with everything I need for my Tyranids close to hand making it so much easier to sit down for a quick half hour session when I get a chance.

What's more I actually put the table to good use today and spent a couple of hours working on my Hive Tyrant and I think it may be finally finished after waiting 18 moths in a half painted state. I still need to finish up the base and in fact as I'm just waiting for the Nuln Oil wash on the base to dry I figured it would be a good chance to write this post.

The finished Hive Tyrant with just the base to finish and after looking at this pic, perhaps a couple of touch ups

Going back to a point I brushed over earlier (excuse the pun), I want to add that it was a great motivator knowing I had to write this post today and I wanted to have some hobby progress to show. I can't guarantee that I'll have hobby progress every week but in those weeks I don't I can guarantee there'll be a heavy air of shame about the post.

The Week Ahead

Hopefully I'll get another 2 blog posts up during the week. I want to update you on The Dark Pact and I haven’t decided what the other article will be yet. I'm not sure to what extent I'll stick with the Tuesday and Thursday schedule either. I definitely want to maintain the Sunday post, I just don't want to get burnt out on the blog by forcing myself to commit to three articles each week. Like I said last week this is still very much a work in progress.

As for my hobby week, I think next on my painting table will be my Broodlord and two Zoanthropes. I figure they should be relatively quick and easy to get out of the way. After that more Termagants. I'm think another 12 to get the unit I have up to 30, and will probably aim to have 10 of those armed with Devourers.

Not saying I'm going to get all of that done, but that's the order I'm tackling things.

And that's it for this Week in Hobby.If you like the post comment and share it with your friends

Till next time... 

 

Tyranid Gallery

I'm still working on the promised second part of last weeks article The Swarm Approaches I should have that up on Thursday. In the mean time I wanted to post a gallery of my painted Tyranids so far.

Some of these pictures I may have posted on Twitter around the time I first painted them but that was a long while ago now, plus I wanted to collate them all in one place for posterity. They're ordered chronologically based on when I painted them.

In the future I may update this post as I complete more units or if I can figure out how I'll create a separate area of the blog where I can store galleries.

I will create a painting guide at some point for these too. When I do I'll update this post to include the link to that here.

Initial Test models

The colour scheme is surprisingly easy to do. It was inspired by Citadels new paint range when that was released 2 years ago

Obviously the scheme for the bases was decided on later

These last two models were another colour scheme I was considering.

While I really liked this scheme I decided on the yellow and blue mainly because it was more striking

Gaunts lots of gaunts 

Note: This is the same group of Termagants photographed from 3 different angles

I really wish I had already painted this many

Big time...

There are 18 Termagants and 18 Hormagaunts painted here. They're a funny number because 4 were used for test models.

And it really bugs me that they're not an even 20. An extra 2 models for each unit is a priority.

Fun fact: I painted all 38 in one big batch...never again will I batch paint with that many...I wanted to rip my eyes out

Tyranid Warriors

6 Warriors with Death Spitters and a barbed strangler. You might notice some odd specks on their carapace.

That's the snow, the powder got everywhere, like sand from a beach. I've cleared it off the models now.

 Carnifex

 

My first go at a monstrous creature. After all those troops I decided I needed a treat.

I really love this model. I'm particularly proud of how I've posed him.

Although I did that several years before I painted him

 Group Shot

 

These are the majority of what I've got painted so far

I really like how these guys look as a swarm. The yellow and blue works well in large numbers

I'm looking forward to the day I can cover a gaming table with these critters

Fun Fact No.2:
I went for snow basing largely because I had some GW snow lying about for years and wanted an excuse to use it

 Genestealers

 

Once I painted these I obviously decided they didn't warrant another set of group shots. They also only got 1 photo compared to 2-3 for all the other units. I'm sure they feel under appreciated and thus under perform in battle to spite me

 Work in progress Hive Tyrant

 

Yep, if you've paid attention to previous posts you may have worked out that this has been a work
in progress for about 18 months. He also only gets a portrait photo rather than a proper landscape one.

I don't know what the Genestealers are grumbling about