35 - Back in Black

I have had another long hobby hiatus.  Part of it was a little burn out from preparation for Adepticon.  Another part was hobby ADD after Adepticon.  Another part was trying out different hobbies (I bought a new saw and had to test it out).

I did end up doing a good amount of projects done in August.  We had Sword and Brush at the beginning of September.  The month leading up to an event is always busy.  I wanted to get a new table worth of terrain done for the Batman Tournament.  I started with upgrading the card buildings that come in the Dark Knight Rises set.  I did this roughly the same way as the old Suicide Squad buildings that I did a while ago.

I then painted up some scatter terrain I bought at Adepticon from TTC combat.  Namely the "Junk" pack (old couch, broken TV, sleeping bags etc) and a pack of Porto-potties.  (one of my favorite moments from the tournament at SaB was seeing Batman and Lex Luther fighting over a Porto-potty objective). 

The week before the tournament I had all the terrain ready but then I had an idea to make some table numbers for the tournament.  I built up 5 billboards from some scrap balsa, plastic card and stir sticks.  I then found some Batman themed billboard advertisements and edited a number into them.  A little paint and glue, and I had 5 unique table numbers that also act as functional terrain on the tables.

The tournament was a blast.  We had 8 players come out.  It was really good to see some old friends and some new ones.  Games where close and everyone appeared to have enjoyed themselves.  Of course Brandon won Best Overall with his Teen Titans.  Best General went to Stephen and his Brave and the Bold crew.  Best Appearance went to Alex and his Gordon lead Brave and the Bold crew.  The Best Sportsman award went to our youngest (and one of the most enthusiastic players) Jack.  I am hoping that next year I have the ask the TO for more tables!

After Adepticon I was really pumped to try and improve my painting skills.  I had several cool models to work on, but I had a hard time getting anything started.  I dont know if it was pour time-management or not knowing were to start.  I think it was a little but of intimidation and spiral thinking that stayed my brush.  So I did not get anything painted up specifically for the Sword and Brush.

I still wanted to enter something into the painting contest though.  I decided to enter my Court of Owls into the Unit Category.  I also entered my King Shark and Clayface into the Fantasy Single Category.  Since all the terrain was ready to go for the tournament I thought that I would then spend the last few days before the event to make a diorama base for two of my existing models.

I have had an idea of doing a small display box featuring some of my Discworld Characters to sit on my bookshelf with the series. I had a Tiffany Aching model and a Granny Weatherwax done.  I used some material I had lying around (old cork, reused wire tree, and some flowers).   There is a few things I would improve on next time.  The base was built out of layers of thin cork, which is easily seen.  If I had had more time I would have used plaster or wood chips (or a combo of both).  The grass the was attached to the flowers was also a different shade then the separate grass, which did really hurt the colour unity.  I was happy how it did turn out and it looks great on the shelf.   It however did fail to make the podium (but that was not entirely surprising based on the other outstanding entries).  I did walk away with a Silver for my Owls and a Bronze for Clayface.

Kevin