Cancon

Traveled down to Canberra on the weekend to Cancon. The only time that I ever get these days to meet up with other display painters and OzPainter's members and talk about minis. Although a lot of D&D talk gets mixed into it as well.

This year I only had one entry for the Crystal Dragon Painting Competition. The Vomiting Worm. This wasn't it's title to start with, I hadn't given a name a thought. Vomiting Worm was a description I scrawled on the entry form.

I have put it on CMON, but it's too soon to be able to post a link. Maybe later.

Vomiting Worm received a Bronze. And that is an acheivement, so many cool entries received nothing, and as last year only one gold was given out. This was in a competition with about 60 entries, or enough to fill up two detolf cabinets and overflow onto a table. This isn't a Australian competition that anyone from overseas can just rock up and win big. It is tough. And I believe it has to be tough, the judges want to foster the Australian Painting community and encourage it to grow. It just means a little tough love.

But being the competitive person I am this isn't going to scare me off, one year I'm going to get that gold. Last year I had more entries and I won a silver and a bronze. I was also told that Vomiting Worm was in the silver catagory for some time while judging but was shifted down. So very close.

I'm happy with the little guy, horrible slug that he is, he was able to get quite some reactions from people.

Shopping wise I didn't purchase all that much, I braved the hell that was the buy, swap and sell store. It was like playing sardines, in a sauna... But an hour so after I entered that hell I came out with a nice Rackham mini (not many minis on that count), and some cheap 3.5 D&D books. And I mean cheap. $20 for a limited ed. leather bound 3.5 D&D Dungeon Master's Guide, $12 each for 'Lost Empires of Faerun' and 'Exalted Deeds'. I snared a double pack of D&D books for my friend Liam $12 for a 3rd ed. Dungeon Master's Guide and a 3.5 Player's Handbook... He didn't have a PHB. Now he has one he got for $6!!!

Other than that I purchased some painting supplies. Some of Sebastian's outstanding Twisted minis, and tried out the Twisted game itself. Which considering I'm generally just a RPG gamer I really picked up easy. And enjoyed. After all I killed Bill Stykes in two rounds... hehehe.

If you haven't heard of the game click here. Twisted: The Steampunk Miniatures Game

A Kickstarter is coming in the near future. I'll post it up when it comes to it. Below is a pic of the Demo game board. Some of the closest building are going to be in the Kickstarter as well, I'm not much for scenery for games but I adore the house on the left with the little blue doors. Absolutely fantastic building, so happy when I heard it will be made for sale.

Strange for me I went out drinking both nights I was away and enjoyed myself. I'm not much of a drinker at all.

Great thing is that I've been pumped since and I've got tons of ideas. Although it being me I have to finish the projects I have first.

This necromancer being one of them. I've also got these two.

Lancelot (Twisted) and a Tomb King. Lancelot did have a plinth going on but I lost interest for a time, now since having a go at the demo I'm so going to finish him. The Tomb King is for the Necromancer.

But I have finished this horrible Purple Worm.

And for a time I will actually have room in the cabinets to fit my lovelies.

Well for at least a few months at this rate.

New Life... and it's already turned Undead.

Ok I'm starting a blog. More for me than you in a way. I am a fan of forums, groups of people coming together to share cool ideas, cool things, in general 'cool' to a specific group.

It's not a new idea, there have always been them and us, so technology is simply creating new ways to open up and close ranks all at once.

But forums are dying, the creature that is Facebook has an appetite. And I'm resisting as long as possible. I enjoy a record of what I've done. And this blog is just the next step from a several year long Work In Progress thread. Something that I would whole-heartily recommend to anyone hoping to better their miniature painting.

And there it is I finally get to the point - this is a miniature painting blog - getting to the point is not going to be done quickly around here. Just a heads up.

There will be ramblings about mostly miniature painting, and some D&D. Life, strangeness and fantasy will be interjected at times.

So back to the point - first post - Woo!

I've been in a long running D&D game for years, I'm the only "surviving" character, which is to say that I've been killed and raised and then finally betrayed and turned into a vampire by my party...Remember "Plan A" = Run away.

That game when it started was how my miniature painting hobby started. I thoroughly enjoy painting 'character minis' so every character was painted up by me, often several versions. But to cut the story shorter I currently need to paint a new character.

A True Necromancer.

My friends are regularly shown my latest acquisitions but this is the first time that someone with a recently slain PC has rushed to my painting desk and pulled from the 'grey mountain', 'lead pile', 'mini stash', the miniature he wants and builds a character around it.

I couldn't help but laugh, he had a blinding emthusiam about the mini. A particularly nice Darksword mini. I had to paint it for him.

Here is what I have so far.

I have also in the space of a few days painted some Ghouls. You sort of get this thing with necromancers, minions of the undead kind.

They are blue because I had been given a bottle of 'Tropical Blue' from Reaper when I ordered these guys. I wanted to give it a whirl. It ended up a nice colour which is a lot coming from me. I have this thing against Blue, the most overused favourite colour of men.

I've got a Forsaken Shell, which I doubt I'll get a mini for. A Mummy and a Ghost mini to get before the horrible hoard is ready to game.

In the mean time I've got slime to prepare. And some reading up blog posting. I've noticed the images are too small for my liking already, mayhaps just the blogger template. But patience it is after all a work in progress.