Thursday, May 29, 2014

Review: Paintier 80

     Lately I've been giving my hobby area a considerable re-working - since we bought a house, I have a space in the basement, but it's also being used for storage until we get around to finishing it, and it's a mess.  Previously, I had been using the P3 Paint Bag for my most-commonly-used paints & tools - it was nice because it zipped to my Warmachine bag, so I could grab the whole thing & head out to a friend's house to build & paint some models without trying to throw a bunch of stuff in a shoebox or something.  The downsides were that 1.) it made my bag a lot bulkier & heavier; 2.) it didn't even hold the majority of my paint collection - I still had two P.A.C.K. 216's with over 150 bottles of paint that I'd have to grab if I thought I needed more than the basics; and 3.) I recently changed shifts at work, and it looks like I'll eventually be free to do a lot more painting at home as opposed to on-the-go, so the P3 bag didn't make as much sense anymore.  I started looking for solutions to have all my paints available at my desk, and after searching the blogs & forums I came across the Paintier 80 Carrousel Organizer:


This had fairly good reviews, so I figured I'd give it a shot - I new I'd need at least two to hold all my paints, but I thought I'd order just one at first to see how it would work out.  You can order it directly through their website, but I was able to find them a bit cheaper on both Amazon & eBay.  If you want a smaller version, they also offer a 40-slot version for a bit less.

I was a little worried about it being plastic - after it arrived, I removed all the parts from the box:


I wasn't worried about how sturdy it was after seeing the parts - the plastic is thick & sturdy.  (Think of the plastic used in those heavy five-gallon industrial buckets, and you're not far off).  The "lazy susan" attached to the bottom tray is steel and obviously heavy-duty.  It also came with bolts of various lengths for assembly, top cap assembly, pastic tubing for the center column, and instructions.  

There are four different configurations you can choose to assemble - since I have many different paints from GW, Reaper, Vallejo, PW, Badger, Tamiya, etc., and will be using the Paintier to also store miscellaneous bottles, of glue, weathering powders, fixatives etc., I just picked the configuration that would give me the most space between each shelf - the instructions aren't terribly helpful (you can't really tell which length bolt or piece of tubing to use from the simple drawings), with a bit of fidgeting it wasn't too hard to figure out.


Next, I started loading up all my paints:


Overall, it worked great:


In fact, it worked so well, I went ahead and ordered another:


(I actually screwed up here, I should have put the dropper bottles in the Paintier that I assembled in the taller configuration.  Oh well - I'm fairly sure that as I live with these far a while, they'll get rearranged many times).


...overall, a good solution for organizing your paints.  It's a bit pricey, but holds a ton of paint, and is surprisingly sturdy (I doubt you could even accidentally break it, I think you'd have to intentionally smash it into a concrete floor to crack it).  It does take up a lot of room, so if you're hobby area is a small student-sized desk or something, it might not be for you - but if you've got the space and are looking for a way to organize your stuff, it's a good choice.

Thursday, May 8, 2014

New Project: Dark Angels

Scored some used models off the Intarwebz a little bit ago:


...I saw a post on a local forum for a moving sale, and there was a casual mention of "some Warhammer stuff".  Just for the heck of it I emailed the guy - turns out he had three 3,000+ pt. armies for sale!  Unfortunately I didn't have much in the way of spending money at the time, but I was able to strike a deal for most of the unbuilt/partially built DA stuff he had, plus a ton of miscellaneous sprues & terrain.  In all, it looks like I got:

- The DA half of the Dark Vengeance box (Company Master, Librarian, Tac squad, Terminator squad, Ravenwing bike squadron)

- another Tac squad

- another Termie squad

- another bike squad

-2 Dreadnoughts

- Rhino

-Immolator

-2 boxes of Cities of Death terrain

...so overall, a good start.  I'll probably build the Immolator first, as an Exorcist (I already ordered a resin turret & some Scibor bits for it) since it can be allied with my Grey Knights & (I think?) my Black Templars.  And both those armies are... um... still waiting to be built.  Along with several thousand points of Orks.  And a Fantasy Orc army.  And a Kreig army...

I'll get to it, I swear!

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Doctor Who Diorama



(This is a project I actually did quite awhile ago that got a good response via Twitter and some forums, but I never got a chance to write it up here.)

My brother-in-law is a big fan of Doctor Who - last Christmas, it seemed like there was a "homemade" theme happening with the gifts on that side of the family, so I decided to make a diorama for him.  I had seen Slayer Sword winner David Soper's amazing take on a Doctor Who theme, and decided to give my own a shot.  (Spoiler alert: mine's nowhere near as good as his  :-)

The first thing I needed was a base, but I needed a fairly large one for what I had planned - I found this one on eBay:


It's a little bigger than six inches across - it's meant for 1/72 wargaming (it actually came with a 1/72 tank and some ruined terrain, which went into the bitz box).

Next I cut some foamcore board to a random shape and glued it down:



Then I mixed up some plaster of paris and spread it on with a plastic knife (just like buttering a big 'ol biscuit:)



For the miniatures, I used a Nerdlord II and an Emily Lake from Heresy Miniatures:




I started mocking up some scenery with some tree & root armatures from Woodland Scenics:


...and some tombstones from Antenocitis Workshop:



The T.A.R.D.I.S. is a police box from Ainsty Castings:



The Weeping Angels are "Scary Statues" from Crooked Dice:


Primer:



Painting:








Working on scenery:













I re-scaled some logos for the police box and glued them to some thin cardboard:



I wanted more scenery details, so I picked up some various types of foliage from Army Painter and Secret Weapon Miniatures:







I thought it needed a "final touch", so I found a seller on eBay to make an engraved nameplate for the piece:


Final product:


Overall I pretty happy with how it turned out - it could have been a bit better, but I was under a deadline.  I might have also ordered enough other models to make my own Doctor Who diorama (with my favorite Doctor & companion), so look for it in the future!