April 1, 2015
No April Fool's silliness from me. Sorry.
Anyway, I have been working very hard to update and streamline the web-page. It is a process. I am switching each miniatures page to a gallery that links to the full size pictures by army and then model type. I hope this will speed the whole thing up. Let me know.
I have also started a replacement model for Bluefeather. I sold Bluefeather, and the buyer was extremely generous and encouraging with praise. There really isn't a way to express how much this type of encouragement means. I am feeling my way into this business, and so it matters.
My concept for the new dryad heroine is Bluefeather's daughter, Firesap, who is younger and far more emotional. My plan is to pose her, arms crossed, chin lowered, in a “don't mess” pose. I have her legs started (wire frame sunk in a balsa wood stump) and have the concept of having them growing out of the stump, as if she had just changed from settled tree into dryad war aspect.
I have a bunch of tiny butterfly things. The wings are paper and beautiful, but I plan to sculpt my own tiny pixie body, and have one flying about her canopy. I haven't found something to act as a wound counter on her base. It won't be another tiny treant, as I don't see the daughter with the wisdom and respect Bluefeather has. It needs to be something that reflects her wild and rebellious nature. What that is for a wood-elf dryad, I have no idea! I mean, I can't put a copy of some banned album there like teens did in my day. (Yes, I'm old...) The search will continue, and I could certainly use suggestions.
I've decided against putting an in progress picture up at this point, the web page is too new and is under construction. I fear if I do the picture will be moved too much and will be lost. When I am almost done I shall put a whole montage of her stages of sculpting up in the miscellaneous section. It usually takes me three days for a sculpt (that's a couple hours twice a day of work) although this will take longer as I am waiting on some bits. So look for Firesap at the end of next week.
On a seperate note, I've had several games of Warhammer 40k against my friend's orks over the last month. I ran my normal IG the first game, and got hammered! The sneaky git didn't bring any 'ard boyz or battlewagons! Since my army is geared for space marines and armor saves with nine lascannons between my sentinels, heavy weapons teams and demolisher, and a crap load of plasma gunners, I had a lot of wasted points! Shooting a boy with a strength 9 ap 2 weapon isn't as satisfying as it sounds when his 29 buddies then run you over and leave nothing but bloody boot prints. I got slaughtered!
I readjusted my army toward the middle ground. Eliminating the lascannons from my tanks, and switching my sentinels to a combination of rocket launchers and autocannons. The mix isn't as good on heavy vehicles and terminators, but it crushes everything else. Long story short, he tried to pull a fast one, and showed up next time with a big mech, and a bunch of rocket boyz and truck boyz. They're all buried in a mass grave... Although there was this amusing confrontation between his bikers and my roughriders over this chasm cut into my terrain. Somehow it became a macho contest to charge OVER the gap. Now it holds the rotting carcasses of several roughriders underneath a couple of mangled ork bikes. Difficult terrain tests and all...