Tau Ghostkeel Battlesuit - 4 Hour Speed Paint

As a bit of a challenge, and for a bit of a change of pace, I painted this Battlesuit (and the 2 drones) over the weekend. I had the idea that I would try to paint it to a high standard as fast as I could. With that in mind, I thought I would aim for about 3 hours on the main suit (with some additional time given to the drones that I didn't really factor in). In the end, he came in at 4 hours 30 minutes, but that includes 30 minutes on the drones. I also ended up applying the undercoat with the airbrush rather than a spray can due to the cold weather and that ate up at least 20 minutes or something. Still, I'm happy with the results and it made for a great Sunday afternoon slice of hobby.

Colour wise, I painted the body with a black through to white blend (2 layers of grey there in the middle). I went back and added a bit of Vallejo Dark Prussian Blue to the recesses to get some interest and to stop it being so monotone. I highlighted the upper edges of the panels with Vallejo white.

I painted the base with Vallejo Cavalry Brown, washed it with Khorne Red and then progressively drybrushed Vallejo Orange Brown, Rakarth Flesh and Pallid Wych Flesh. For the OSL bits, I airbrushed in a dot of Vallejo Escorpina Green. I then washed the area with Waywatcher Green and highlighted with Moot Green and then a mix of Moot Green and white.

That pretty much sums it up. I hope you like the finished mini. Did you notice the incredibly unintentional mistake (one of his lower legs is on the wrong way round! Whoops!!). I plastic glued it too, that sucker is permanent! Luckily, it doesn't notice really. I only worked it out half way through painting him.

100,000 Hits - A Benchmark in Blogging

Well, I finally got to 100,000 hits! I haven't been very active on the hobby front for a month or two, as I've been taking a bit of a break from all things Wargaming related to focus on a few other hobbies that I have going on at the moment.

Regardless of all that, I logged in this morning to the rather pleasant news that Tabletop Apocalypse was still chugging away and that over night Google had delivered the hundred or so hits that I needed to reach 100,000.

I would say that I feel surprised at how successful things have been, but honestly when I started, I figured almost anything on the internet would generate thousands of hits regardless of how interesting it was; I mean there are a lot of people out there and they use the internet a lot right? Blogging should be easy .... right?

Unfortunately, it turned out to be a lot harder than I thought. That said, I get a few hundred views most days now, but when I started it was hard to get a few dozen. In particular, the fiction seems to go down like a wet balloon with several holes in it, but as I enjoy writing it, it won't be going anywhere soon. I guess nobody really wants to read infantile comedy fiction on a blog that is mostly about painting.

Advertising wise, that ad for Play Asia has generated a wallet-crushing $2 of store credit for me. Maybe in another 10 years, I can get something in the sale. Well worth the effort! On the upside, winning the GK competition has left me with a rather large backlog of free anime figures to paint ... probably at least 2 years worth...

Overall though, I'm calling it a win. I haven't been posting a lot lately, as like I said, I've been on a bit of a break. With Christmas on the horizon, I'm sure there will be a few miniatures coming to drive me out of temporary retirement!

Thanks to anyone who reads the blog regularly, as I doubt I would still be posting without  regular commenters and fellow bloggers. If there is anything you'd like to see more of, chuck a comment below and I'll see what I can conjure up! (People want a lot more Bungo the Barbarian right????....right???)