Friday, December 31, 2010

Happy New Year: 2010 a year of progress



The magic hour draws nearer and the guys all wanted to get one last post in before the ball drops. Rather then run through everything we are just going to to a quick recap of everything that made 2010 a great year for 40k and Fantasy. First off the updates, not just Dark Eldar, Space Wolves, Blood Angels and not to mention the slew of new kits to go with them. In 2010 we saw two dead armies be reborn (BA and DE) and got a ton of new all plastic kits to go with them. Its been a year of progress, with new codices and new kits the community had its fill of new material and new possibility's. There where also the new modules for Battle Missions and Spearhead. And then of course there was the sensational release of Fantasy 8th edition and the waves of new skaven (including the awesome island of blood set)

But not all was good. we saw price increases and scandal (well at least in the Oakridge store) With no official word on weather 2011 will see another price increase or not a lot of gamers are growing weary of the constant price fluctuations, who knows what the new year may hold for us.

For the most part how ever the community has never been stronger. With fresh faces and new talent being brought into the fold and new blogs and webcasts starting up all over 2010 has been one of the best years for growth in terms of the net community.


But the web community is not the only place we have seen growth. Our own gaming group over at Legends Games has exploded, from a couple of us meeting on the weekends and wailing on each other has grown to well over thirty people with a core of about ten regulars. We also started our increasingly popular play for paint tournament series over at the shop. With regular events and games we have seen our small group of gamers grow into a small community.

As for the store we have gone from this
To this...


We also saw the holidays go off with a bang, with Legends first annual "Seasons Beatings" tournament. Seven of the stores top generals and Seer's battled it out for the top spot.


This year also saw my transformation from a relatively casual hobbies into a "professional Painter" I went from the occasional unit to having a full workload with waiting list. D has yet to let me live down the shame of turning into the one thing I love to hate on the inter webs (mostly eBay) Which brings me to the post I should have made a few days ago, but thanks to a blizzard and several shipping delays I couldn't do so until tonight.



Yes tonight I finally got a light box, nothing fancy, but the best part is its compact and stows away easily. So expect more (hopefully decent) photos of future projects. Also I just had to break this thing in (and considering how bad my last botched light tent attempts)


Well that's about it, so tonight raise a glass to the emperor or the ruinous powers and drink deep, but have a toast for all of us to, from the guys down in the trenches to the Fly Lords of Terra. From all of us at Bay Hammer have a happy new years.


Cheers

Scott
BH Senior Editor



Friday, December 24, 2010

Happy Holidays




Well its that night of oh so special nights once more, with several drinks behind me and a groggy morning of family and merriment ahead of me I would like to say on behalf of myself and the whole crew over here at Bay Hammer. Have a happy holiday (which ever yours may be) and good new year, filled with brutal battles and plenty of plastic crack and friends and fun.


Cheers

Scott
BH Senior Editor

Monday, December 6, 2010

On The Painting Table: Dark Eldar Warrior


So weeks after the storms died down over Dark Eldar (of which I shamelessly got caught up in and bought out a few box sets) I finally got to sit down and start painting the little buggers. I will start by stating that I did in all honesty attempt to go all out with the highlight out of the box style that most people seem to be going with, after that came out looking horrid I moved on and went for the more deep blended look you see here. I still have a long way to go on this project but at least I have a theme laid down.

The flash doesn't really show the actual shading, the purple really comes out under direct light, otherwise the piece looks almost black with a deep tinge of purple which I feel adds a suitable heir of menace about them.


Cheers

Scott
BH Senior Editor

Sunday, December 5, 2010

On The Painting Table: Tau Crisis Suit Commander



The holidays are a time for merriment, warm chocolaty drinks and dragging the corpse of a recently eviscerated Douglas fir into your living room to adorn with shiny balls. It also happens to be that time of year when my wallet shrinks, so to off set this I have taken on a few small commissions. The first of which is this piece of canned sushi, I painted this guy up using my thirty minute mini technique (soon to be on dvd) For about an hours worth of work I think he came out alright. I started with a liberal brushing of lyenden Darksun followed by a good dry brushing of tausept ochre and Boltgun metal for the details. Ill do some touch up on him later today.

Cheers

Scott
BH Senior Editor

Saturday, December 4, 2010

GW Glue: The sillines continues


So the other day the shop received its weekly order and while rummaging around the latest shipment of plastic crack I happened to notice something a bit odd. GW appears to have changed the plastic glue bottle to the old super glue bottle, why they did this is beyond me as the previous bottle already had problems with clogging so anything with a narrower tip just screams wasted minutes spent with a tac nail trying to de gunk the damn thing. The reason I bring this up is because Jawaballs posted a rather decent blurt about GW glues, I myself use them mostly because I just seem to acquire them while working on projects or commissions but I have to say that I do not care for them or the price. I have not tried the new bottle out but one might assume that the new bottle and narrow aperture may mean they thinned down the mix to be less like 4 day old hair gel. What do you think about the numerous design changes GW has gone through with there hobby supplies this year?


Cheers


Scott
BH Senior Editor