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40K · Age of Sigmar · Uncategorized · Wh40K

Warhammer Club.

DebbieForsterLeave a comment

As most of you know, I am leaving the profession of teaching in search of pastures new. I have a few reasons for doing so, which I will not go into here. One of the saddest part of this change on career will mean I am no longer able to run Warhammer Club on Tuesday lunchtimes. I told the children today and they were suitably disappointed. This club has become the best part of the working week and I will be sad to see it end.

Today, we used our miniatures to play through the first Age of Sigmar tutorial game. It takes the form of a race and is designed to get the children used to moving their miniatures around.

Here are some action shots – though I have not put the children in the pictures for Child Protection reasons:

We didn’t have any scenary to put in the way as obsticals so we used paint pots instead. The game was easy to play, a lot of fun and highly enjoyable. The boys didn’t stop laughing at one another’s dice rolls, one boy in particular rolled terribly all the way through. It was wonderful to see them enjoy something that I have gotten a lot of joy from too.

The other reason I love doing this club is it gives me the chance to inspire the next generation of Wargamers. Without them, our hobby dies out and that would be a true shame. After introducing them to the hobby using the Warhammer Alliance starter kit, they boys went out and bought their own gear. They always bring it in to show me and enthuse about releases and what they have learned and discovered. I’ve spent many a play time ‘geeking out’ with the club members.

Here are some pictures of their work:

I have also taught them some of the basic painting skills, including how to dry brush. It’s been a real honour inspiring these kids and I really hope they go on and continue to enjoy the hobby.

This is one of the parts of my job I will truly miss.

40K · Age of Sigmar · miniatures. · Uncategorized

Miniature Update

DebbieForsterLeave a comment

Part of the weekend was spent working on building the miniatures for the diorama I am making for Golden Demon, as you will have seen in one of my other recent updates. After I had put them all on corks to be undercoated, I discovered there was no spray paint in which to do it with. Instead of heading out to get some, I decided to finish off a couple of other miniatures that have been lingering on the table for a while.

The first ones were these lovely looking fellows, who I painted for the husband:

He helped me with the corking so I thought it fair to assist with these two lovely fellows. I am not big on nurgle but he has a sizeable force of daemons and space marines. One of these days I will get to paint Mortarion, maybe when I finish Magnus some time this millennia…

Then I was forced to paint an Ultramarine, which was not the nicest part of the day.

I don’t think Haarken is my best ever work, but I am pleased with how he turned out. He is not a display piece, he is for being used. I am pleased with how the gold looks. I think the edge highlighting could be a bit neater, but maybe I am being overly picky about it.

I love the miniature and the character is shaping up to be really interesting. I’d certainly like to know more about where he came from and what he has done to earn his place. A few friends and I suspect he was once a Night Lord, but this is mere speculation on our part.

40K · Uncategorized

Drawings – Part 3

DebbieForsterLeave a comment

I have had a bit of time this weekend to do a couple more drawings of the people I write with on Tumblr. I am very much enjoying drawing these ‘cute’ versions of some 40K characters and I hope they give some of that enjoyment to others as well.

AhrimanAlethea

First we have Ahriman, who is written by yours truly. Below that is Inquisitor Alethea, an original character by one of my friends.

I have a few more to do but will consider requests for other characters as well.

Like my work, consider a ko-fi Ko-fi.com/hereticdeb

40K · Uncategorized · Wh40K

The Black Legion

DebbieForster2 Comments

In my last post, I talked about the amazing new miniature that was Abaddon the Despoiler and the levels of excitement he managed to produce in myself. I felt that I should perhaps talk about his pals in this post.

Let’s start with some quality pictures I have collected of my particular favourites:

Haarken Worldclaimer was what sparked it all off. He was announced at the Open Day in December while I was at Warhammer World. I remember thinking he was stunning then and that I had to have him. I’ve collected Black Legion for a while and as they were the first Chaos Army I have for 40K, I have a bit of a spot for them. What I love about Haarken is the dynamic pose he is in. I can really imagine him getting all stabby in someone’s face.  I look forward to getting him on the painting table.

The Master of Possession and the Greater Possessed are also lovely miniatures. Again, the posing on them is sinister, interesting and look like a lot of fun to work with.

Now let’s have a look at some new troops:

The new Chaos marines look way, way more interesting than the old ones. I have had some of the old ones on my painting table for ages now but don’t really do anything with them other than use them for testing paint and different schemes here and there.

These new ones will not be getting that treatment. They looks as bulky as you would expect but interesting as well. Ther also seems to be some scope for individualising them as well, but I will see when I get a chance to look at the sprues when the multi-part kit comes out. The terminators as well, though I am not sure how different they are from the old ones.

Then the man with the bog chopper was announced today. The Master of Executions looks like he will be a barrel of laughs to face on the battle field… Or not.

What I am trying to say here is that I want them all and I need to paint them up. I then want to go and smash people with them. That would be a great deal of fun!

40K · figures · Uncategorized · Warhammer 40000 · Wh40K

Abaddon the Despoiler.

DebbieForsterLeave a comment

Some of you may be aware that I have a bit of fondness for Abaddon. I didn’t to begin with, there was a time when I painted over the Abaddon part of Abaddon Black, but those days are long gone and I have seen the error of my ways.

If you have not encountered my unending enthusiasm for the character, you might want to head on over to http://www.abaddonandteal.wordpress.com for some of the stories I have told about him. (Warning: contains silly)

So, when I said I would rather like to paint the miniature and get myself a Black Legion force, some friends said I should wait, he was getting a new miniature – that was eighteen months ago and a patient woman I am not.

I ended up with this guy and for a long time, he was my best painted minature:

 

The Wargames Exclusive miniature was a beautiful mini to work with and far better than the old Abaddon by Games Workshop. I will not put a picture of him here.

So, I still waited in hope of a new one but I had this guy as a back up. He went out, wrecked a few faces, a wall and a tank in one game, and utterly annihilated in another one.

Then new Black Legion miniatures started to be announced. I was very excited. People around me commented on it. I contained it as best as I could.

When the new Abaddon was announced and revealed, I may have exploded a little. Here is why:

 

First off, he is stomping on a baddie! Awesome.

Second, LOOK AT HIM! The details on that miniature are everything I wanted them to be.

Third, he has three head options. I put up Horus face because it’s my favourite, but you could have screaming mad Abaddon, or face covered by a rebreather Abaddon.

There is battle damage to reflect that the Chaos/Traitor Legions haven’t got access to the same resources as the Imperium and he has been in there for ten thousand years. The Talon looks wicked and the faces on Drach’nyen are still there.

Above all, he is huge. He should be huge. He was always described as huge. (Although Tarik Torgaddon was taller for those of us who remember such details.)

For me, it was everything I wanted from a new Abaddon Miniature. I am really looking forward to getting my hands on him and painting him up. Soon, Abaddon will be the best painted miniature I have, again.

40K · Uncategorized

Wicked Wednesday – 1

DebbieForsterLeave a comment

After the massively positive and popular response I got the other day around my poll for featuring hobbyists and other animals here, I am pleased to introduce the first one. Here are the thoughts of ‘Captain Nice Guy’ himself:

Tell us a bit about yourself.

I go by Pandora’s Bitz Box throughout the various online communities I’m a part of, and I live in a small city called Hereford in England.

How did you get into the hobby?

There have always been board games at home, I have brother that’s 5 years older than me and we played a lot of the games together (even if I didn’t really know what was happening a lot of the time while I was young). I remember playing a lot of games that had miniatures like Hero Quest and Space Crusade, but also looking through brochures for new minis for Advanced Hero Quest. I properly started to dip my toe into table top wargaming when I was about 11 or 12, when I started playing Warhammer Fantasy with a couple of friends. I played that for maybe 5 years or something, but at some point we stopped (I cant remember why) and by the time I tried to find my minis again they had sadly vanished. Then when I was in college I was walking past Games Workshop in Cardiff and my friend said “oh I used to play that, Warhammer 40,000…”, I told him I used to play Fantasy.  We went in, played an intro Game of Battle of Macragge, and then left with the starter set and a starter army box each, I bought Tyranids.  Its been over 15 years since then… now I’m up to about 11 factions of 40k of various sizes, I have about 8000 points of Tyranids now.

What is your favourite aspect of the hobby and why?

This is easy, its the social aspect. I obviously wouldn’t be playing if I didn’t have people to play but I also wouldn’t bother painting the minis either. I don’t derive a enough personal achievement working on these things to do it for myself, I really enjoy the engagement with others. Until relatively recently this was limited to my small circle of friends that play, but about a year ago myself and a couple of friends started a blog together.  We were getting frustrated by the lack of hobby feedback we got from our own circle of friends in a chat app we use to keep in touch. It felt like the same few people were answering all the time, so we decided to combine our efforts and see if anyone in the aether of the internet would be interested in giving us feedback on our minis.

After we started the Krakendoomcool WordPress blog I decided to promote it on the forum Bolter and Chainsword and on Twitter. So I just started to involve myself in those communities. Suddenly I was immersing myself in these communities I didn’t know about and the really breathed a new lease of life into my hobby. 

So in a way I feel like I’ve “got into the hobby” about 3 times… so far.

Which is the best faction, in your opinion?

Yikes… This feels like a can of worms waiting to be opened, after all “favourite” and “best” are two very different things! I honestly cant make a meaningful choice as I like them all for different reason. I think one of the things that Games Workshop has done so well over the years has created (or borrowed) so many interesting concepts and put them together. It was something I appreciated in the Dawn of War game too, each faction played quite differently but had a really decent balance between them. Not to mention the really rich lore to each too, even the younger additions. If I was pushed on it though… Probably Tyranids. That’s at a push though, I could easily argue against it. When I was a kid I never drew people, it was always robots, aliens and monsters. Things that were as far from people as possible… so in 40k, that would be marines, they are the faction that appeals to me the least. Certainly the vanilla codex anyway. Another thing going for Tyranids is that I like nature and they are basically animals, like super scary space locusts… and arguably the least morally corrupt race, as their motive is plain and simple, indiscriminate consumption of all organic matter. Not evil… just dangerous.

Has the hobby helped you develop as an individual? How has it done so?

When first read this my initial thought was no… after all I’m 36 and I have done a whole lot of developing in that time, none of it hobby related. Then I started to think about the last 6 months though.  It may seem like a minor thing, but since getting more involved in the community I have noticed myself pushing to do some more things/trying harder in my hobby where previously I wouldn’t have considered it. So, putting myself out there more… offering my opinion, saying yes to things like this, or even pod cast interviews, painting for a Golden Demon competition, even considered taking part in a friendly (non GT) tournament. While it’s very hobby centric, I think this is a development of my confidence in how I present myself socially.

Oh Also I have plans to do some charity stuff, using the hobby as a avenue for it.  I didn’t realise quite how strongly I felt about inequality and mental health awareness until I kept seeing things come up about it and I never thought that this is something I would want to do. I have been planning some stuff though, short term and long term.

Have you any pictures you can share? This can be miniatures, of playing, artwork or anything else that is relevant.

https://wpcomwidgets.com/render/

https://krakendoomcool.wordpress.com/2018/12/21/a-khornate-khristmas-renegade-knight-conversion/

Details on this beautiful creature found here!

What, in your opinion, is the greatest strength of the hobby at the moment?

The community, without a doubt. I could go on about all of the awesome overhauls that Games Workshop have done with their new management in place… but the best part of what they are now is their Community team, which would not exist without the Hobby Community itself. Its supportive, helpful, inspiring, not just specifically regarding hobby either. The community is so full of great people that I have seen people doing charity work helping those out with other aspects of their lives and just being great examples of people in general.

What would you like to see in the future?

New factions are always nice, but i’m not holding my breath.

Anything else you would like to say?

Thanks for giving me the chance to contribute to your blog!  I’m looking forward to reading everyone else’s interviews.

40K · Uncategorized

More Drawings

DebbieForsterLeave a comment

I am very much enjoying the drawings I am making for my friends over on Tumblr/Discord. Their characters, both canon and own, are interesting and fun. I have spent this afternoon working on a couple more.

Brel

This handsome fellow is Brel, a techmarine of the Blood Ravens. He is an interesting fellow, a little eccentric but a fantastic character to write with.

Cypher

If you’re not sure who this is, then I might have to come and get you! I’m not sure who is more adorable; this murderer or Sevatar. The person who write Cypher is a most excellent individual and I have known them a long time now. (Long in internet terms, its a couple of years I think) They’ve been most excellent and their relationship with Cypher is always good to hear about.

There will be more drawings soon.

40K · Uncategorized

Suddenly, drawings!

DebbieForsterLeave a comment

I have never made it a secret that I write. I do a lot of RP writing on Tumblr with a great bunch of people. I maybe do this too much but I find it enjoyable and while it might not be the most consrtructive of passtimes, it is a lot of fun. Over the years, I have made many a friend through RP and the group I find myself with at the moment are among the best of them.

I speak with them on Discord and have been supported by them in times of trouble and woe. So, in order to pay them back for their unending support and friendship, I decided to draw them all.

Here are the first two, which are now finished:

Some of them write canon characters, some of them write their own. Some of them write several at once.

My drawing style, when I am not relying on templates, always seems to return to the ‘Chibi’ style – small, cute with large heads. When I drew Sevatar, I stunned myself with how he turned out. No murderer had any right to look that adorable!

Anyway, I wanted to share my thoughts on them here. There are going to be thirteen of them in the picture and I am already most of the way through drawing number three. I shall share some more when they are all done!

Like my stuff? https://ko-fi.com/hereticdeb

 

Object Source Lighting, take 1
miniatures. · painting · Uncategorized · Wh40K

Object Source Lighting, take 1

DebbieForsterLeave a comment

I always think that it is important to keep pushing yourself and trying new things. I have already come a long way since I rejoined the hobby two years ago and have learned a great deal. If you had asked me what Object Source Lighting (OSL) was two years ago, I would have looked at you with a blank expression and shrugged. Back then, I was still wondering about how much paint thinner to use and what an edge highlight was. Oh how far I have come.

Anyway, enough waffle about past me. Yesterday, I did my first attempts at OSL. I decided I wanted to give the technique a go and see what it looked like. Here are the results:

In some ways, I am lucky. I have done a lot of drawing in the past so I have a vague idea where light and shadows would fall. This helped me a great deal when it came to painting the OSL. He has fire in his hands, painted in pale green, which also makes it stand out against the blue of his robes.

I am pleased with this as it is a first attempt.

Things I did well: Got the light in the right places.

Next time: I need to make sure that the paint is a lot thinner and to build it up more gradually, it looks a bit stark in some places, it needs to be softer.

All in all, I think I did alright. I knew I wasn’t going to nail this rather tricky technique first time but I am closer to the mark than I thought I would be.