One MEEEEEELLLIIIIION views and counting!

So it has actually happened!  Earlier this afternoon the blog crossed the 1,000,000 view mark!!!!

Many thanks to everyone who has taken the time to check out these pages of madness.  It is hard to think that something which began in February of 2012 could grow to this extent so quickly!!!

With over 1400 posts, and nearly 540 loyal Wappellians backing it up, the blog continues to charge ahead.

So many things have been posted to the blog... my Lizardman army:

Tomb Kings:

My Dark Eldar:

Lots of Chaos!

And these guys...

Lots of tutorials demonstrating my obsession with basing...

Tons of Lord of the Rings:

Terrain, and even Battle Reports!

I guess what I am trying to say is, STAY TUNED loyal denizens of the Wappleverse!!!

Swamp Thing

More action from the week that was in basing.  The week that felt like a thousand years. :-)

This time around, it was making swamp bases.  As with just about every other basing video, new techniques were developed practically on camera.  The original concept was one or two types of swamp theme bases, but that expanded rather quickly.

Instead of just the apoxy sculpt/green stuff versions, I added a sculpey and even a cork version as well.

That meant a lot more work, more set up and take down between all those shots.

I included a fun segment on using plastic aquarium plants :-)

Some of you might recognize that vegetation from my beloved Lizardman army, which is getting lots of new stuff!!!  Yea!

I did a brief demo on painting to illustrate the use of the Realistic Water from Secret Weapon...

And here we have the entire collection!

It still amazes me how much more difficult these were to film, but I am pretty sure you will get a lot out of them!

The rise of Lustria?

Well, I have been duly informed by my Master of Newness (Jon), that indeed, a new book, and tons of critters, are on the way for my beloved Lizardmen quite soon!

Lots of new big guys, which makes sense with this army.  Hopefully it is all much more playable than the Tomb Kings, although that should not be hard. :-)

I see that one of the new figures is Tetto Ekko.  I have to say, I still want to stick with mine, which I made for my army years ago.

If you are familiar with my scratch built Engines of the Gods, this fits right in with those big dinos!  I loved this character in my army.  I called him "Baby Babo", and even painted him in the same colors that I used for my Mage Priest.

I hope that his abilities remain as similar as possible.  I loved being able to re-deploy multiple units before starting a game, and his Comet of Cassandora was perfect for the unstoppable WOC armies in watchtower...

Here are a few pictures of the construction.  Heavy use of sculpey, of course!!

My newest "Secret Weapon"...

More shots from the week that was in basing.

These videos were so much more elaborate and difficult to stage and film than the 'regular' painting videos.  Originally, I had anticipated that they would take the same amount of time to film, if not a little less.

Instead, they took 2-3 times as long!  Lots and lots of extra work.  As I have mentioned before, having to clean up and set up over and over again between shots took lots of time.

Shoving aside what had just been filmed...

In order to set up the next shot.

Then it's time to make another mess!  Here we have the oxide paste being applied to a series of bases.

But here is the real headline.  An entirely new way for me to paint my show bases!!!  In the process of getting things ready for this video, I switched to using the Secret Weapon powders exclusively.

The results are just incredible!

While there have been lots of unpleasant and unexpected things to 'pop up', such as delays in securing minis, difficulties in getting new machines, learning curves on software, the extra length of filming basing videos, and others, a positive element also emerged.

When I first got the idea to do the Kickstarter, Secret Weapon products would have been featured on a handful of the videos.  By the time the campaign ended, that was around a dozen.

Now, almost every single video has one or more SW products featured.  There are now 3 videos that feature them almost exclusively.  It took a while for all this to come about, and once more, I thank Justin and all the good folks at Secret Weapon for their help, and for all the neat stuff they make!

For instance. the weathering and battle damage video was going to be a regular 28mm figure, since I cannot use any GW tanks or vehicles.  Secret Weapon stepped in with their fantastic tank!!  Also, the Painting with powders video became far better and more practical when they expanded their line of pigments, and created the sealer.

In summation, the videos have become infinitely better, with 25-30% more tricks, tips, hints, and materials than when I started.  Raging Heroes also stepped in with additional figures.

So, 3 cheers for them!

You could say they were sisters...

OK!  Some images of the banner and champ together (at least the figure I picked as the champ!)  I will do the musician to complete the command element of the Fantasy Blood Vestals.

As I mentioned before, these are loads of fun to paint!

To think that a whole new army's worth of figures are planned for the Raging Heroes Vestals makes the brushes sing with delight!

All kinds of bases :-)

More action from the week of basing.  It still amazes me just how much work there was in setting up each scene (and cleaning up afterwards!).

I also made additional samples than I had originally planned, so as to get a bit more out of each video.

Deepest darkest forest!

Between a rock and a hard place...

Tools of the trade.

A banner day in the Underdark...

Here's a fun figure that I made as an 'extra' to the second freehand video (banners and cloaks).  In some ways, that video was a lot like the basing subjects, where more examples were necessary to convey the concepts.

I painted this one in the same flesh tone as the 'official' pale flesh tone, so another group of images is coming with both of those together...