The Gate to Awesome

As Art Director for the Sons of Vulkan contingent of Team Snake Eyes I'm in the midst of the final brush strokes on a few key models for our Adepticon army. My mind is now beginning to focus on a way to properly display these models in a way that won't embarrass us while keeping the wives and our aging backs happy.

The vision I have involves a lot of black and lava, but there needs to be something...else. In my quest for ideas I found Quantum Gothic. Naturally they're in the UK, so their borderline reasonable prices become less so when converted to dollars. But their stuff is (to quote my hero Peter Griffin) "Freakin' sweeeet!". The gate piece pictured here opens in a fashion where the front and back panels fold down, forming a little ramp for troops and vehicles to move over. The gate is wide enough to allow bikes through, so it's a bit on the small side. However, you can purchase additional gates to sit side by side, thereby creating as wide an opening as you wish.

They have an impressive list of terrain and fortification options from which to choose. If I were made of money the display board would be en-route to my house from the sceptered isle right now. Oh cursed fate! Why did you make me sexy instead of rich!?

Anyway, if you're in the market for some sweet resin bunkers, walls, sentry guns, craters, etc. check them out. For that old guy on the golden chair!!

DOUBLE RAINBOW!!!

What does it mean?! We here at TSE are constantly striving to take our painting to the next level. Well, okay, to be fair we're constantly striving to take our GAME to the next level, but personally I know the only factor I have any realistic chance of improving is painting, so there's your honesty for the week.

One of the blogs I frequent is The Painting Corps. If you take a few moments to visit you won't be disappointed. They offer extremely good tips, tutorials, videos, and discussions on everything from putting your models together to making them look awesome either on the table or for competition. Their Friday Quick Tip alone is worth a click, and this week the tip was so fantastically useful I just had to share it.

The tip dealt with the simple but often overlooked tool: The color wheel. Now we all know what a color wheel is (assuming we took art class in elementary school), and most of us probably have at least a basic understanding of how it works (primary, secondary, complementary colors, etc.). The Corpsmen offered a link to a tool I will find endlessly useful, easy to use, and kinda fun to play with.

You can find it here. It's called "Color Scheme Designer 3" and it's full of win. Say you're about to start a new army. You can do like Chosen1 and prime some test models, slap down a basecoat of a given color, get frustrated, set them on my desk and wait for the paint elf to work his magic, still not like the way it looks, strip said test models in Simple Green, prime and repeat until you find a scheme that works.

OR...

You can go to the link above, select any shade on the color wheel, and see shades, highlights, complementary colors, triads (three colors that work together), tetrads (harmony based on four colors), and more. With a few clicks (literally) you can try out as many complete color schemes as you want and not lift a brush. Once you've found your scheme you can even export it to XML or text (in the customary numerical format that HTML uses to translate colors) so you can reference it easily later. If the color wheel doesn't have the exact color you want, don't fret. Just use the Hue Adjuster to alter a color that's close and BAM!

Check it out and don't forget to show Grey_Death and the rest of The Painting Corps some love. Happy painting!

Raffle: "Sin of Alacrity" Modular Space Hulk Terrain

You want the opportunity to get a ridiculously cool, modular, space hulk style terrain board? You need to go to A Gentleman's Ones right now and donate to the raffle.

For the small price of a donation ($10 minimum entry) you can potentially have this elaborate piece of art shipped straight to your door.  If I win, I will ask my wife for forgiveness rather than permission.  :)  Kudos to b.smoove for it's creation and subsequent offer with the raffle!

Agent Orange's Imperial Fists

What's the best sign that your empire is vast, sprawling, and without end?  When you have members in your gaming club that you've never even met.  Unfortunately I think that speaks more to the fact that I moved out of the Carbondale, IL / Cape Girardeau MO area to the St. Louis Metro-East area than it does about the size of our club...but it was fun to say regardless.

Without further fanfare, or bad puns on my part, here are some Imperial Fists.  Please note the name on the dreadnought, he was a legendary veteran sgt. whose continued service is a credit to his chapter and the Emperor!

Here are some shots of the Fists taking it to the Orks on a snow covered moon.

Gateway Grand Tournament, June 3-5, 2011

HOST:
DieCon 11, June 3-5, 2011 @ Gateway Center Collinsville, IL

Tournament length:
5 rounds: 3 rounds Sat June 5th and 2 rounds on Sunday June 6th.

Tournament :
Begins at 10am (1000 hrs) on Sat June 5th and Sunday June 6th. Please be on time.

Army Size:
Warhammer 40K 2000 pts

BONUS:

Five battle points will be awarded to early army submissions. Submit your army list to armies@Omegahobbies.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it until May 20, 2011.
DieCon 11 pre-registration required to receive bonus.  Bring 5 copies of your army list to the tournament for your opponents.

Painting:

While it is not required to have your army completely painted to participate in this event, it is highly encouraged, and recommended. If you choose to participate in this tournament with an unpainted army, just keep in mind, you will NOT be eligible to win the "Overall Champion" award, nor "Best Appearance".  You will however, still be eligible for "Best General", and "Best Sportsman". So, if at all possible, get that army painted, and help us make this tournament not only fun to play in, but amazing to see as well.

Prize Support:

1st Place : $300.00 **
2nd Place : $200.00 **
3rd Place : $100.00 **

Best Appearance, Best General and Sportsmanship awards will be handed out, as well as random prizes on Friday during open gaming of any GW game being played.
See omegahobbies.com for details.

Gateway Grand Tournament Registration:

$30.00 from now - March 1, 2011 *
$35.00 March 2 - April 17, 2011  *
$40.00 April 18, 2011 - June 5, 2011 *

Pre-Registration