Raggy's Gaming Adventures

The penultimate month of this excellent endeavour had arrived and I was feeling cocky. A slight over ordering meant that I had an additional unit of Kharadron Overlords above my initially planned two squads, well no matter - I'll just paint up more models. Why not. I'd kicked off my participation in #taleof5painters with a squad of cutlass armed pirates, and I knew my second squad would take the hatchets... a little less piratey but it makes them distinct. But... what to do for the third squad? Well having lost an axe arm, I found a random Ironbreaker shield arm to attach to one of the models and decided I really liked the look of a pistol and shield. Certainly not the most traditional of weapon pairings but, as 30k fans will tell you - Breachers have a certain je ne sais quoi to them and I think these chaps are no different.  Painting 20 went faster than I'd expected, even having to do extra bases and more customization, it was clear that my colour scheme had become secon

Month 3 of Tale of 5 Painters didn't materialise for me... My focus ended up being on a Lumineth army for the NOVA Open Foundation charity auction that should be going live in a month or so. I also had a lot of customization work that was needed for both the Frigate I was meant to do for month 3 and the Ironclad for month 4. Thankfully this put me in a good place to get the models cranked out month 4 and got me back on schedule! - Raggy, signing out

After a year in lockdown, many of us are suffering failing mental health, isolation and general ennui. Painting has provided many of us with something to focus on but it often spins into unhealthy cycles of competition. Instagram has provided a whole world of competition for likes, followers, engagements. It can become a dangerous cycle and this post really highlighted to me the importance of revising my objectives. So what do I want out of my hobby? Since I really started working to improve the calibre of my painting, I've been torn in this regard - part of my wants to become a better painter, another part of me has been focused on eroding the rather daunting pile of opportunity I've developed over more than 25 years in the hobby. Generally speaking I've been fairly successful in both areas in the last few years but more recently the quest to conquer that backlog has become rather 'all consuming'. I dedicate blogs to tallying what I've painted, what I'

Month 2 is upon us and I have a confession to make - I started this month's project early. Cheating I know but as you will see - there was a lot of work involved and at the start of the project I only had a hazy idea of what I was looking to achieve. I like the idea of sky ships and I understand the in-universe reasoning for giant metal balloons to make it float... but I never really dug the aesthetic of them. My original plan had been to sand the balloons down and do some crazy awesome freehand all over them... there were a couple of problems with this plan. I still didn't feel it was particularly in line with pirates and of course the bigger problem - I am far from capable of sane awesome freehand let alone crazy... Taking a closer look at the sculpts I also realized that simply sanding down was unlikely to be effective as the detailing on the surface is extensive so a smooth spherical finish would be challenging. It was thoughts of Skies of Arcadia that brought me my so

And so I truly begins! February 2021 - Month 1 of A Tale of Five Painters is upon us! Each month, we painters have a target to build up and paint. You can find details of our first month's objectives here:  https://www.instagram.com/p/CKvvbaLn6Uj/ Essentially we are looking to get a unit and a hero (non-general) fully painted this month... can do! The first thing was to get the models. Out here in California we've been having some trouble getting some models as GW wrestles with Britain's desperate attempt to economically shoot itself in the face... so I did the only reasonable thing and panic bought everything! This is in fact more than I intended to paint up for the challenge directly but is certainly a solid starting point. As always a huge shout out to www.herrickgames.com  who were able to get me everything I needed in time to participate in the challenge. My original roster ran with an Aetheric Navigator, however I had an Aether Khemist ready to go sooo this chappie

Barak Baratar in the Realm of Ghur was one of the first ports to be established outside of Chamon, formed by fragmentists and radicals looking to break away from those that wished the code to be too tightly enforced, they embraced the nature of the realm with a wilder way of being. They have long held close trading links to Barak Mhornar to offload their 'acquired' goods as a place they found a warmer welcome than most other Sky Ports. Since Garaktormun (the Necroquake), Baratar's leadership has shifted the focus of the clan. They were badly hit, loosing fully half their fleet and severely damaging almost all the rest. Clan leaders met to discuss this calamity. After many days of debate, argument and a couple of incidents of outright fisticuffs - a new course was set. It was clear that Garaktormun was a sign that Barak Baratar (and by implication, if not outright declaration, the other Sky Ports) had become decadent, complacent with their riches... it was time for the Khar

For those that don't already know. A lot of my hobby updates and even tutorials have moved to Instagram over the last few years for the simplicity, immediacy and wonderful community that exists there. (You can find me at http://www.ragados.com/raggypaints ). At the tail end of last year Ben aka @playtime_paints suggested doing a replica of 'Tale of 4 Warlords' with a bunch of buddies on IG. Well I was in!!! To this day, Tale of 4 Warlords is the single biggest reason I read White Dwarf and I'd long dreamt of participating myself. As many of you will have seen from my army painting speed and style - I've been heavily influenced by the concept of painting things up regularly, driven by hard deadlines - something I first really got from Tale of 4 Warlords (and later by the wonderful Armies, Legions, and Hordes by my friend Dave Taylor  - go buy this book, it will really help you get your models painted faster). Tale of 5 Painters aka #to5p was born. Sooo what I am go