Shooting Stars and a Studio

The Orionids were last week so I decided to take my camera along with me to the mountain. Managed to catch a few shooting stars and a satellite! (though you can't really tell the difference between the two) Then there was an article in Astronomy on photographing the meteor showers so next time I should be able to get even more. I wasn't too far off the mark but it is apparently better to aim between the radiant and the horizon not directly at the radiant, which makes sense when you think about it. Also, next time there is a meteor shower forecast to be really great I am going to try to get the day off. Trying to do all that while working was a bit tough and I don't think I excelled at either of them that night.

Here is the best of the pics and the pre-sunrise Eastern horizon from that morning (10/22)

that white line is a shooting star! (Orion center right) 

mad coloring that morning 

Now that I lured you in with some pretty pictures read the rest of my blog you bums!

On a gaming note the camera store that I bought my new tripod at had a mini-studio for taking nice pictures of small junk. So I picked that up too! The lighting is amazing! Much less shadowing and my camera has a white balance setting specifically for the bulb so there isn't any weird coloring. Took these pictures as a test, still some kinks to work out. Mainly the lint on the black background and I think I have to take the camera off the tripod and just hold it right in the light box itself (Warhammer minis are quite small) So the photos should get nicer and nicer.

So I did quite a bit of work the other day. I spent most of the day painting but I feel like the progress was kind of slow. There was a lot of 'what next' etc. The next batch of them should be faster as it is only repeating the process.

Here is a basic tac. marine that I finished the weapon and base for. I need to fiddle with the focus and depth of field or whatever. The bolter first picture, you can tell that the focus is on the bolter and the rest of the model is slightly blurry. Great coloring and you can finally see the highlights though! Bolters done in Black with adeptus battlegrey highlight/ Gunmetal, black wash and then vallejo chainmail highlight.

The right knee pad will get a squad marking soon 

The bases are Secret Weapon Miniatures Urban Rubble 25mm resin bases. Painted Army Painter Desert Yellow, sepia wash, desert yellow dry bush and then bleach bone dry brush. Planning on eventually getting a Zazzy terrain mat so I wanted some bases that would match that for my home field.

Had to cut the shoulder pad off of the Plasma gun so that the shoulder pad would fit on when I finally got it done. Also, it is magnetized so that I can swap it out for the melta-gun that I painted.

The sergeant. His banner was freehand but I am not super impressed with it. I need to sharped up the blood drop and maybe add something to one of the quarters, it's just kind of bland right now. I was happy with how the two tone turned out though. Arms and head are magnetized (weapon swap and Red Thirst/ Sanguinor Blessing head swaps)

Striping is obviously not perfectly even but looks good from a little bit of a distance. Also, no thanks to you bums for not participating in my quick online survey last post :-(

Pistol with a scope!

Some washing and blending on the cloth and purity seals. Don't know if I am satisfied with the purple on the seals, I might do an orange, green, or yellow instead.

And finally, kind of random but here is a picture of my DC (Chaplain) Dreadnought. I painted him quite a while ago but I just wanted to show off. I love how the skulls on this one turned out. I need to remember what I did lol

Got a couple of days off next week so hopefully I can finish, completely, the 5 man squad and then get them varnished. I'll get a pic up of the completed squad when I am done!

On a final note, I know I sound like a fanboy, but Mantic is just an awesome company. They have an official podcast and while it doesn't come out too frequently, they interview the owner and the game designer. They talk about upcoming releases and their plans. Which is a huge breath of fresh air when compared to how GW operates. Obviously the size of the companies is incredibly different but still, it feels like they care about keeping their players 'in the loop'

Also, new Warpath Rules (yay, hope these are better than the first ones...)