King Alrik and shieldbearers

King Alrik is another very nice dwarf miniature. This was my first real challenge with pinning, but it was nessessary because the fit of the hands were not too good. Also, the shield is quite heavy, so to be able to keep it all togheter pinning was needed.

I decided to keep the King separate from the shieldbearers, as it would make it a lot easier to transport the mini around for games and stuff. It might cause me a little concern when it comes to moving the mini on the table, but for display purposes it doesn't matter.

Some pictures promised long ago

Long time ago I promised to post pictures of lots of my minis. Now is the time to honor those promises. I don't think I can post everything today, as some pics need to be taken or re-taken, but lets start off...

Here are some dwarf miners. This is the most detailed boxed set I have built so far, with all the spare parts and extra stuff. The grudge ponies need to get new photos taken, so they will come later (promise!). There are two things left to do with this unit. 1: Find a battle mark for the banner and the banners for my other dwarf units. 2: Find a way to paint the horn to give it a good depth-effect.

The guards have risen...

I couldn't keep my hands off yet another army as I mentioned in the last update, and the Imperial Guards are on the move in my workshop. Originally my idea was to have a very small army using one or two Valkyries supporting my 2nd Ultras, but as I talked with what I assume is experienced players on the Warhammer Forum, it seems like this might not be such a good idea in the newest edition of codexes. Still I plan for the two armies to fight side by side from time to time, as it is a good concept for games of Appocalypse (but I am a long way away from having an army for that at the moment).
The first 5 guards are standing in attention on my workdesk, waiting to get based and get their unit insignia painted on. The insignia painting depends a little on how my success is with painting insignia on to my 2nd Ultras Space Marine force. I plan to make it quite simple so I don't think it will give me too much trouble. For the Guards I am thinking of using a unit number on one shoulderpatch and perhaps a unit insigina on the other. I will check a little bit to see what other IG-players have done with their troops as I don't want my units to disobey some unwritten rules of the game.
The fluff is far from finished on my Guard army, but what I know so far is that they are mostly based on Cadian figures (some exceptions for variation ofcourse), and that their uniform colors are grey and black. Dark grey pants, light grey jackets / coats and black boots, black armour and black helmets. Their lasguns are black and silver, and the insignia of the all-mighty Emperor is shining silver on their armour and banners.
The way I'm thinking now is that they might be the Royal 101st something-something Guards (something-something will ofcourse be replayced by a real name), and I will either paint 101 on one shoulder guard and a unit insignia (like a simple crown or something) on the other, or they will have unit numbers on one of their shoulders and 101 or a sign on the other. The tanks and transports will have the full insignia no matter what I decide for the troopers.

I plan to include some of the special characters from the codex, but since I have my own army I intend to give them new names. One of these will be Sergant Harker who will be renamed Gunny Highway (Gunnery Sergeant Highway) in recognition of Clint Eastwods character from the movie Heartbreak Ridge. Also I'm thinking of a Colonel Hogan and an Ogryn Bone'ead named Schultz (both from Hogan's Heroes). Lt. Fuzz (from Beetle Bailey) is already standing on my worktable getting combat ready, and the Ogryns Dawg and Mootch (former Beetle Bailey side characters) are laying in pieces as I haven't gotten my glue to bite on their giant bodies yet.
I will not name the individual troopers as it looks now, but I might name some if they stand out for some reason.

The entire army so far is restricted to 5 regular troopers with lasguns (painted), a 6 man Command squad (in painting) and 3 ogryns (one bone'ead) (still in pieces waiting to get assembled and primed). On the shelves I have two units of Cadian Shock Troops, yet another command squad (5 men), one box of 3 heavy weapon teams, and a Valkyrie. So it will take some time before this army is ready to see action on their own.

Back to everyday life...

My mother passed away a month ago, and life is slowly returning to normal (or as normal as it can be after something like that). 

Among the christmas preparations I am finding a little time to spend in my workshop again. Slowly the big group of Space Marines are taking steps towards being operative units in the 2nd Ultras. I have decided to go for the regular Ultramarine "patch" on them, but some tests done on previous Marines have showed that using watermarks is a bad idea (at least for me), so I have decided to paint the logo on to the shoulders of the Marines. I will try this for the first time one of the first days, and the result will be shown here when I feel it looks ok. I fear that a few troops will have a heavy blue coating on their shouldergards from where I've had the need to paint over bad U's. But that is some of the charm of the hobby. I am not now, and I will never be as good as some of the painters I see in White Dwarf Magazine or on the Warhammer Forum, but I feel that I paint well enough for tabletop quality, and I have been given credit for being accurate and good choise of colors (for my Space Marine army). 

I will try to to put together a fighting list of Space Marines from the minis I have finished and still have on my shelves, so that I can start to go a few friendly rounds at my local Games Workshop Store in the new year that is closing in on us. 

I also have an Imperial Guard army now, that has seen the light this autumn. So far 5 regular troopers are standing on my work table waiting to get their basing and unit markings done. As with the Space Marines I will go for hand painted markings, but I think it will be mostly unit numbers painted on to one shoulder guard. Perhaps a very simple logo on the other shoulderguard some time in the future, time will show...

What has he been doing?

Quite frankly not a whole lot!
I have finished my room and moved in. It looks very nice, and I will try to take myself by the neck and post some pictures of the finished room shortly. Come to think of it, I do believe I owe you readers a whole lot of pictures by now. I promise to read through the blog and post a big picture post one of these days as I have most of the pictures on my computer, I just need to post them here.
The hobbyroom didn't turn out quite the way I had thought, as the furniture took a little more space than anticipated in the "design" phase. The stone walls are also a little weaker than expected, so I don't get to put up big shelves on one of the walls where I had planned to do so for my dioramas. But in some areas it actually turned out better than my fears, and I am quite happy with the solutions I have ended up with.
I managed to get my old worktable in, along with a desk drawer where I can keep my diorama stuff, two glass cupboards with lights (for finished miniatures), and shelves to store the unfinished models. I also managed to get a rack for all my Citadel and Tamiya paints set up at the wall directly over my worktable.
I got my old and faithful desk down with me, so I have the old computer and some space to do paperwork and work with stuff that doesn't smudge too much (like finally getting to build some buildings out of cardboard and stuff like that).
I also have a filing cabinet where I will keep my sheet music, so my wife can get her linnen closet back. As a big band leader for about 10 years I have collected a lot of sheet music, and it still seems to drop in new stuff from time to time. This used to float around the house until it finally got stored in and on top of the linnen closet, but now it will get a good home in the filing cabinet. This piece of furniture will also work as a stereo table, so I have a place to keep my amp and cd player.

The worktable is now filled with a 1:35 diorama of a German self propelled flak gun from WW2 (don't remember the name of it right now), and it stands on a base along with a ruined farmhouse and some trees. The plan is to make some mud, so that the flak gun stands partially with it's tracks down in the mud. This is because it was the first model I made after starting up again and I was a little clumsy with the hot iron when I was supposed to weld the tracs tight around the drive sprockets. The result was that I needed to use staples to keep the tracks in place, so that needs to be hid. Also a soldier climbing up onto the firing platform from the ground has his foot a little bit above ground, so by adding a thin layer of mud he gets his foot on the ground.

Along with this diorama is a whole lot of Space marines in different stages of production and painting. Many of them are based on Dark Angels or other special chapters and will work as elite troops in my 1st Company. They will get the look of the 2nd Ultras, but still keep some of their special characteristics. They are all based on spare parts from the bit box or pieces bought on Ebay, and some of them also gets some modification work done to them.
Also I have a cowgirl waiting for the final stages of painting. She's a little larger than the usual miniatures I build, and the plan is to mount her in a small plastic box and make a mini diorama with her.

I don't know exactly when all this will be finished, as my mother is terminately ill with cancer and is in the hospital. So at the moment most of my spare time is spent there. But I will return to my hobbyroom when I get the time and keep on working.

building update

jut a small update on the state of my room.
We got the walls and the door up yesterday, so now it looks like a room. All that is left to do now is to get the door to the storage room next door to my room in place, and build a new roof all over the basement. We will start on these tasks on friday.
Then after this is done, I can get the roof painted and put the carpet in to the hobbyroom, and then I can start to get my furniture back in. I will have to buy some new shelves, and I have an idea of what I want, but I will have to take some final meassurements before I go out and buy anything.
Then later on I will get the electrical work done, but this doesn't have to be in place before I start using my room.

Hopefully I can move in to my room in my holliday.

Why isn't there any updates?

These last few weeks have gone really fast. I have started on more Space Marines, this time it is a specialist Veteran force based on marines from the Dark Angels chapter. They will still fit in to my Second Ultras, as they have arrived to fill up the thin ranks and provide specialist expertise for the 1.st company. I haven't worked out all the fluff yet, but since they are mostly robed and mysterious looking and armed with either guns and chainswords or just with bolters they are probably there to provide expertise on hunting down a race that they know alot about. Don't know enough about the Dark Angels to say who that is yet, but I'm reading up on them and painting them in accordance with the secund Ultras fluff and adopting them into my unit. Hope the fluff is ready about the same time as the minis are finished.

If you are wondering about the picture in this post, wonder no more! This is the beginning of my new and improved workspace. The wife and I have been tearing down the old cellar walls, so all my miniature stuff (except for my mobile workstation with the above mentioned marines, two chaos knights and some paint and glue) is neatly stacked in our small sauna. I really didn't know how much 1:35 scale models and warhammer (Fantasy & 40K) miniatures I had until I saw it stacked in the sauna. Granted the sauna is small, but still it was a suprise!
Spent the last few weeks on clearing everything away and tearing down the old walls. The clearing things away is what really took time, 'cause where do one move it to? The solution was filling the sauna and neighbouring areas.
As you see, the re-building has started. My workspace will be in the room with the window (where the ladder is at the moment). It gives me a lot more space, and improved storage of both finished and unbuilt models and miniatures. The finished miniatures will be showcased in glass monters. I am looking to find a way to showcase the finished 1:35 dioramas as well. They do look really good in the glass monters, but because of their size that is out of the question for now. Guess I will have to see if I can get some glass doors on the shelves where I stack them (or something similar).

We start to install the walls tomorrow afternoon, and hopefully we will get quite a lot done on friday as well. Will keep you posted on the progress, and you can rest asure the new room will be presented properly in a post in here as soon as it is ready.