Hello Tubez,

Hope everyone is well.

Just a quick show and tell for all y'all out there. This is a Vampire fantasy model, anbd is the first fantasy model I've ever painted. Initially I thought the model seems really flat, but after painting him up I have actually started to really love the face and some of the other features.

Overall I think it is a nice model, and it's basically right out of the blister. Its a little weird for me that the only 'assembly' was gluing him to the base, he did come with a little thingy that is supposed to be floating out of his cape but I didn't like it so I left it off.

As always comments are welcome, tell me what you think, is his skin too green?

Cheers,

Hashshashin

Smoke Blood for the Blood God

Product Review: Plano Pistol Case

In the interest of storing and transporting my army, and saving more then a few bucks; I've purchased two pistol cases. My man Hashshashin tipped me off to these cases, one of which he originally bought at Wall-Mart. They are the: Plano Four-Pistol/Accessory Case, model # 1404-02. I picked mine up at Jax, a local Colorado outdoors type store, for 15.95 each baby. That's right $32 for total storage! So what's in the case? Well first off the case is about 16X14X6 inches. It comes with three foam trays. Two with egg crate on one side and flat on the other, these pieces are 1.75 inches thick. The other tray is the pimp shit. This one is 1.25 inches thick and is made of a grid of half inch plugs that you can tear out at will to fit different things. I ended up using just an xacto to cut the small connecting bits from each plug to remove them. Tearing them out was too reckless and ended up ripping connections you didn't want to rip. But even then a little super glue fixed that right up. And there you have it.

To custom fit my Ultramarines army, weighing in at around 2500-3000 points, I used both cases I purchased, making one for infantry, and one for vehicles. The infantry ended up fitting the following, with room to spare. 52 marines, 16 terminators, this includes a few fancy models that take up more room than others (see pictures). In this case is the two “pull-foam” trays for the infantry, also one egg crate between them, and one egg crate on the top lid. The vehicle case has an egg crate on the top and bottom with the following in between. 1 Land Raider, 1 Vindicator, 3 Rhinos, 3 Dreadnoughts, 1 Land Speeder. There's not much room to spare but they fit comfortably and with the lid closed there is zero movement inside.

So at the end of the day, 32 dollars went a long way. I can easily store and transport my army. I can even spray paint some cool decals on the side, which I plan to do soon. On top of all that, these cases are still easily customized further with different foam tray and the like. Why spend more? If you're rich I guess. This has been John Henry for The Buddy Times with Product Review.

John Henry out.

+Blood of Skulls: Tournament debrief+

Hello Intertubez,

Yesterday was a small 1850 tournament at one of the FLGS in the area so John Henry and myself cruised by to see what we could get into. I brought my Blood Smoker Legion of Khorne and John Henry feilded his 4th company Ultramarines. I will post my list and pics of the Army sooncome. But all in the all the event was quite nice and much fun was had by most, there'a always going to be some haters wherever you go, ya' know?

I again finished somewhere in the middle, but I was able score the Adapt of Mars award for best appearance. O.o Wow didn't expect that. I always put alot of time energy and effert into my painting and modelling but I often feel that really I'm just gearing up and someday my creations will really look the way I want them to, but that now ity's just a WIP. I gotta say this award is making me reconsider that concept, and maybe I'm making more progress then I thought initially. Anyways I was stoked to be acknowledged for my energy spent painting and modelling.

So now for just some quick show and tell:

Here's an old Death Wing Chaplin I've had bumpin' around for awhile I don't think I shared here yet.

and also a shot of the rear of Sasquatch Kharn's back so you can see the GS work that went into him to fill out the proportions.

A note to true-scalers the Chaos Lord Kit is actually a bit larger than a standard Marine Termie so If you use it as a basis for a TS marine he'll be a bit bigger then even a 'normal' true scale.

This is a little duel diorama I made, you can really see the huge-ness of Sasquatch Kharn in this:

Cheers,

Hashshashin

Smoke Blood for the Blood God

+65 Years Later+

Hello People,

Just wanted to remind people that today is the 65th anniversary of when the US dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan. There are many different ways one can approach this subject and debate on whether the A-Bomb should have been used or not. I will avoid all discussion of that here and just remind people that this happened in real life and it affected the all directly and indirectly involved as well as change the course of human history from that day forward. Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction.

+Hashshashin

Life releases unseen photos here

Also here's an interesting blurb I found on the AP:

From the AP:

(AP) HIROSHIMA, Japan -- A U.S. representative participated for the first time Friday in Japan's annual commemoration of the American atomic bombing of Hiroshima, in a 65th anniversary event that organizers hope will bolster global efforts toward nuclear disarmament.

The site of the world's first A-bomb attack echoed with the choirs of schoolchildren and the solemn ringing of bells Friday as Hiroshima marked its biggest memorial yet. At 8:15 a.m. - the time the bomb dropped, incinerating most of the city - a moment of silence was observed.

Hiroshima's mayor welcomed Washington's decision to send U.S. Ambassador John Roos to Friday's commemoration, which began with an offering of water to the 140,000 who died in the first of two nuclear bombings that prompted Japan's surrender in World War II.

Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba is also hoping that President Barack Obama will visit Hiroshima, an idea that Obama has said he would like to consider but that would be highly controversial and unprecedented for a sitting U.S. president.

"We need to communicate to every corner of the globe the intense yearning of the survivors for the abolition of nuclear weapons," Akiba told the 55,000 people at the ceremony.

+Incoming: MORE Forgeworld+

Or, inform my wallet to brace for impact...

Well when I was browsing the Forge world website this morning I noticed something very interesting.

Adding tto the MkIII set they announced last week we are now treated to the MkIV armour and more Bolter alternatives, and these have Sterngaurd written all over them.

Cool, hope everyone enjoyed the little newsflash.

Cheers,

Hashshashin

+Buddy Hobby Time, Buddy+

Hello Everyone,

Just some hobby thoughts today about adding personality and character to your units.

Lately whenever I model a squad I always try to give the sergeant a little extra personality. I then use his personality and perceived action to set a theme for the squad. This is a style I developed during the making of my DeathWing Army. The Fluff for the DeathWing is that only the most trusted most Bad-@$$ doods even even become 'normal' DeathWing. So this led me to the idea that the DW Sergeants Should be even more of that stuff (trusted, awesome, etc). So I went on a quest to collect every 'special' terminator I could get. Any captain, hero, Chaplain, Forge World models I could find I would convert into DeathWing Captains or whatever.

^He's pointing and they're all walking that way^

Anyway back to my point which is if the captain is walking then the squad should look like walking as well, or at least in motion. If the captain has a static look the squad will look good in static poses as well. I know some people prefer 'dynamic poses' and some people prefer more posey poses but I think they all work just within the context of the Squad. Granted that context can be expanded to include the whole army so that everyone is charging or whatever but from a strictly logistical point of view in every kit there's a couple sets of lees walking/running, and couple sets posing. Obviously there are exceptions to this like Assault marines but as a general rule I find this to be true with 40k kits.

^These guys are all bustin' Caps^

So this gives a great opportunity to look at the different bitz options you have available and make the squads have a unified feel. These guys are all holding up their Bolters and shooting, or these guys are just striking a victory pose after a hard fought win, and so on. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying that you can't mix up the bits, nothing would be more boring then if every model was posed identically (that would be like... fantasy...;)).

^These guys are in the strike a pose camp^

^These are just some different sergeants from my DeathWing^

This idea has just been on my mind lately as I build this guard army because my intention in making this army is equally in making a effective gaming force as much as an awesome opportunity to really take my modeling to the next level...hopefully.

Cheers,

Hashshashin

Smoke Blood for the Blood God

+Renegade Guard Platoon: WIP+

Hello Tuberz,

Back to share another quick hobby update, I've had these guys sitting around for awhile and thought I'd throw some pics up for all to see. This is squad one of my first renegade guard platoon. No pics of the sergeant turned out so I think I will make a post just highlighting the different sergeants maybe in the next few days. For closer shots of the Heavy weapons team you can look here.

The theme of this squad is that they are ranking up and flashing their flashlights in the general direction of the enemy. So about half of them are kneeling and the other half are firing while standing. I think it gives my army a nice feel to have each squad doing 'something' as a cohesive whole.

And lastly this ^ Meltagun guy actually got recruited into the Squad of Freaks not only because he has a melta but to try and tie the command squad into the army a bit more. Since each member of the command squad looks very different then each other and evveryone else. Which I was going for bit I still wantt to maintain a unified appearance throughout the force while emphasizing the individual freaky-ness of each faction of the army.

Cheers,

Hashshashin

Smoke Blood for the Blood God