Back from adepticon

Well I apologize for not posting these last night as I caught an earlier flight out of my old home town chicago due to being extremely sick. Suffice to say I even left work early today as I couldn't get my temp below 100degrees so ya fun times right:) Anywho was a great event, and loved running into old friends and chatting them up. Joe Orteza introduced me to some great individuals who I count myself lucky to get to pick their brains apart. The premier class off the weekend though was Mr. Matteui Fontaines and let me just say he made it worth going alone. Here is a great guy, and a rather funny french canadian, who was an amazing teacher. Now my class with the Wappels was fun too hands down, but I have decided if I can go next year(possible afghanistan deployment looming over head atm) then I will only do seminars and some historicals.

Now quick shout out to my mates Jason, Dave, and Joe was a blast and hope to see you guys at baltimore. Now on a sadder news I am cutting back my commissions from now on and will only take on 3 clients a year. Now with this I am doing this to concentrate more on getting their progects done respectfully and forth with, also I am trying to advance myself and you may see some minis comming up for sale shortly under the guise of my company Rogue Valley Minis. As a hint ACW, now if your on my list on clients right now I.E Jim then have no fear perminate spots are open, but here next month I will be taking on one more client for the years as I have another already lined up. Onto the pics.

Wedding over and onto adepticon

Well with my wedding over I am now cranking towards adepticon. This week will be light on posts but expect a TON next week people. Just to share a fast pic of my new wife and I having our final dance of the evening.

Criticism vs advice

So recently I was perusing some forums while waiting for data to upload at work,and I noticed some talk about a amature company I really like. Now this company is all about giving new sculptors a break and I for one say cheers to that and as such they have produced some really solid stuff. some realy crappy stuff too but lets be honest even GW has produced some horrible minis(more then people will admit too). Now I mossyed my way over to warseer and read up some threads there and noticed some chatting about this company I so love and read the forum threads post for post and let me just say wow!

Several individuals were just bashing and saying they were offering criticsm and advice, but no were did they say what they would like to see or how to achieve the constant "advice" of "more detail". This was their "advice" in their posts and had nothing to the effect of hey maybe add a holster or a couple of straps across the back in an X shape as this will do this effect. Nope instead was "you suck, they suck, and MORE DETAIL".

Now when do "advice" cross the threshold and become pure negative critcism? Now I admit too I have said some mean things at times to painters,as we all have, but I tell them what I don't like and why. I don't just leave it as "you suck now improve" as this no matter how tick your skin is will hurt your feelings. I was a grunt in the Active Infantry for almost 5 years and am still in the military(computer now though), and if you just kept saying over and over that I suck but not give any actual criticism well I would probably pop you one in the eye. I hate to say that as I am relatively a non-violent person anymore in my life, but that just "grinds my gears(here's to you peter griffon)". So I want everyone to think because it seems negativity is streaming more so into our hobby and people are removing the fun and social side of it and replacing it with the holier then thou belief.

Now I feel if you don't know something then learn it don't complain to others so I ordered myself some dollies from reaper, some brown,grey, and green stuff and some clay shappers, and away I go.

Adepticon entry and trollforged models... OH MY!!!

So fast post here is my historical entry for adepticons rogue demon. I am horrible with photography so if you are at adepticon come see it as the photographs don't do the model any justice. Secondly is a troll forge Big mutant that I am doing cause well I love their site and great models for show. This is just a fast update as I have to pack for a drill weekend with the Gaurd...Cheers!

Saying Thank you for tournies!

Well time is fast appraoching for two mondo events for me this month and I am extremely excited for both. I have my wedding as well as adepticon one weekend after the other. I am not going on a honeymoon this year as I bought a house instead(and I like being able to pay my mortgage), but I did however start a new job that pays better so this will relate into my hobby fund nicely. I wanted to chat for a minute though on tournements and criticism.

Now recently one of my tournies sponsors held a tournement. Sadly I was not able to go as time/money restrictions with everything going on atm, but I stayed abreast of the situation and waited patiently to find out the results. Sadly on the Dakka Dakka forums several people who didn't go there started flamming him over how he ran it due to one persons unhappiness. This ended up turing into one long flame session that honestly made me rather upset. As I have found recently a lot of time, money and heart go into creating one of these events and it shames me when people who aren't even at the event start bashing the organizor.

Now out of 50 people you are never going to please everyone, and this is always going to be the case, but for those few 3 or 4 you don't they will ruin it for others suffice to say as they will often badger the organizor so much that they won't want to run it again and so 4 people ruin it for 46. So here is what I say if you go to an event no matter how big or small afterwards if you were unhappy then have the balls to say hey I think you could have improved on this event for X and X reasons, but otherwise I had fun and thank you and your family for the time you committed for us. It takes months of prep work all for a 1 or 2 days event and weather you won or lost it will be the grown up and sportsmanlike thing just to say a simple "Thank you". No two words will make a person happier then "Thank You". so to that organizor and all the others out there I say even if I am unable to be at your event....."Thank you for all your hard work".

To Infinity and ADEPTICON!!!!!!

Ok so sorry for being so long between posts. For those of you who don't know I am organizing a charity warhammer 40k/warhammer fantasy tourney for here in boston for may of 2010 called the Boston Brawl. This will become a fixture for a tourney so hopefully one of these years you can make it out:). Also my wedding is in less then 30 days s cheers to that:). Now on to the pics. Recently I started collecting Infinity figs as well they are cool as sin. Here is my first one for my army who is still WIP but hope you all like him.


Here is a front view of the sapper. I decided to go with orange for goggles, as I felt they would help the face standout. I still may redo the face, but all around I like were the model is heading.

A side view so you can see the little french flag I painted on him.


Back view to show off the web gear.

Next we have my traitor gaurd stormtroopers for adepticon. I used green, and grey stuff to add shoulder/knee pads as well as create a smoother link from their masks to their packs. I used IG flamer ends cut off and shaved down for the barrels. Hope you enjoy.


This is the first of what will be 2 tanks for the army at adepticon(SPOILER ALERT). I am by no means an expert at weathering, but I figure nows as good a time to learn as any. I painted the model then used liquid mask found at any art supplies store(about 5 bucks a bottle) in splochy(ya totally misspelled) patches on the model. Once dried I painted over and when complete with the layering I rubbed YES rubbed off the liquid mask and painted in Mithril silver into those spots. I then used weathering powders I bought from AwsomePaintJob.com . Cheers all!




As usual any comments good or bad appriciated. Hope you enjoyed and I will update you all further next week I promise.

Tournements and why we love them:)_

So I figured it has been a little bit of time, and I have been busier then I have been in months. This is both a pro and con as it leaves me little time to post updates, but it makes time fly by. Well I thought I would take this time to chat about Tournements and why it is we as gamers young and old love them like we do. This topic is being brought around because I have of coarse been working on my own indy GT for May, but also working on my armies for Adepticon, and Astronomicon.

To start I personally find the tourney scene fun as heck because it is usually a garunteed amount of games that I get against people I am not used to playing. This brings about the social aspect which a lot of gamers are into more then the actual game. Anywhere you look people like to congregate together and chat about similar intrests and it enforces the "Community" in everyone. Now for some of you readers you will get what I am talking about but for others it comes down to competition.

The competative side of tourneys can like anything else be rather nastey in and of itself. This is shown recently as Conquest North West were the winner(not naming names) was caught on camera cheating. His title was revoked, and thankfully he did not get the coveted golden ticket to the Las Vegas GT, but he raised a lot of awareness as to the lengths at which some people will go just to win. This rather saddens me because it brings to light those so called golden demon winners who did not actually paint their entries. I ask you the reader is winning the trophey our rights to say yoru the winner worth it if it wasn't actually earned? Personally I don't think it is as this is not just a hobby but a passion for me and I love to embrace all aspects. This leads into the final part of this disscussion, Modeling.

Yes I know sportsmanship is another topic, but i really don't want to head down that road at this time. I do however want to discuss why some people go to tournies in the fact of modeling/painting. I know most people will spend 3-6 months on average working on an army night in and out just in the hopes of taking that coveted trophey and I applaud these people. Even if they didn't win the next day they will be back at it comming up with a cool new idea just for the next time, and because of this they will learn new techniques to improve their selfs and I think that is really what this is about. I love seeing at tournies the dedication somone has put into an army because to me it shows their passion for the game, and I feel a common intrest with them. Most gamers will love to have pictures and talk up their army because well they earned it.

In conclusion whatever your reason for going to tournies it comes down to common intrest. We all love these hobbies otherwise we wouldn't do them. As such we want to show off the fruits of our labour with others and for that I say "LET THE DICE FLY"