As part of my generally not very successful life and career post Sauder MBA, I had to move, putting all my stuff in storage until I can find a permanent job.  My job search has continued to go very poorly and I don’t have any answers or fresh ideas on where to apply or what type of position I would finally be “the right fit” for. Anyway as part of my move I had to take all my painted minis out of the three glass Ikea cases I bought for them and put them somewhere. Fuzz box budget foam miniature storage

I own several miniature cases. Some I’ve my made myself. Some I’ve adapted from gun or computer cases. I’ve cut my share of foam and I’ve bought cases from GW and Charon. I don’t play much, haven’t played a miniature wargame in well over a year, see first paragraph for the reason why. But when I do play I usually need about 1500 points maybe 2000 which works out to about 40-50 guys plus a couple tanks and walkers or if I’m playing fantasy more men but less big models. Sabol pick and pluck foam

I got my customized Charon case to hold just about anything, since then the truly custom laser cut foam has come on the market. I may get one of those cases someday, cut to match my next army, if I ever do a next army. But in the mean time I discovered I didn’t have enough cases, especially good cases with nice mini-specific foam to move all my models at once.  So I ended up moving them in stages. I filled up the Charon case and maybe the GW case and moved those models to my mother’s house, then later I brought back the empty cases and moved the rest of my collection using every case I had.

I thought about buying some more foam or a dedicated miniature case then, but I didn’t want to rush my purchase decision and I’m well past broke from being unemployed for so long, so movement expenses were being kept to a minimum. Several months have gone by and my minis have sat on a shelf I cleared of books or in a case in storage at my mom’s house or in a storage locker on Terminal. Miniatures in need of a foam home

It was recently Christmas and my 36th birthday so I got given some money and not wanting to spend it, I didn’t. However I keep reading more books and need that shelf space back, my mom’s house has too much stuff in it, and miniatures just sitting on a shelf are at risk so I bought some econo miniature cases I read about online.  I got 5 of them from the War Store for 50 something dollars and I bought two more Sabol Design foam pieces that I can use to store the bigger more awkward models.

The econo boxes are the bigger ones, the so-called Fuzz Boxes. They can hold a lot of models for about 10 bucks, but the spaces look a little small, now that I have them in my hands, especially for Chaos Space Marines. I’ve previously cut GW and Charon foam to make room for spikes and big guns and it is possible to get larger foam cutouts, but not this cheap. The budget boxes are all one size fits all.  I may get out the scissors,  I also may repack the Charon and GW case as they have some goblins in them, Goblins are much smaller but spear goblins are difficult to pack none the less.  Most of my 4th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle spear goblins are in a rifle case at the back of a storage locker. The archers and misc. other goblin models may be repacked into these econo boxes.

Some day I may have the money and space to have dedicated foam, if not a dedicated case for every model. As it is I’m unemployed, and many of my models never even see the table top and many had not even seen the outside of a miniature case until I bought the Ikea cases and put almost every model I ever painted on display in my apartment for no one to see.

 

WordPress says people read this crap ;-)

Posted: December 31, 2011 in Op Ed

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 15,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

I haven’t had much time and energy to devote to painting miniatures let alone playing any games, I am still seeking full time employment.  About all I do is follow blogs in my RSS readers.  I’ve found some new ones lately that I like and I have a few old favourites so here are some recommendations for those people interested in miniature painting, modeling, and miniature wargaming particularly games produced by Games Workshop.

  • Dylan Gould’s Model Works shares a love for the mid 90s GW models that we both grew up reading about as much as painting.  Kids these days don’t know how good they have it with the Internet, world wide web, and smart phones.  I’m still somewhat surprised that video games haven’t completely killed off the hobby.
  • Recalcitrant Daze is an even more recent discovery that seems to be working on Nurgle and Orks for Warhammer 40,000. Just like I would if my life was better and I had time and energy to spare.
  • Rust and the City is doing a Nurgle Renegades army based on the rules published in Imperial Armour 7 from Forgeworld, just like I always said I was going to do…
  • Fawcett Avenue Conscripts are also older than the average GW fanboy and seem to have a number of old school veteran armies that they drag out and use and continue to expand.
  • Roundwood’s World shows just how good a modular WW1 trench table can look.  Maybe I’ll finish my modular trench table eventually.
  • Kings Minis is another blog devoted to a large and growing collection of old GW models that still get used in games.

There, go subscribe to the RSS feeds of these blogs, they won’t be as disappointing as they are making progress on their projects and include lots of nice pictures and interesting models you don’t see every day.

Other people keep doing it and who is more qualified than me, I’ve painted just about every plaguemarine or Nurgle renegade sculpted by GW and some I’ve painted many times.  Other people when they do this seem to use photos from GW, what gives with that?  What is the point of having a miniature painting blog and putting up pictures of models you didn’t even paint.  How can you be so sure if it is an awesome sculpt if you’ve never had the model in your hands, let alone had the model in your hands for hours while you paint it.

Best Nurgle Chaos Space Marine Sculpts

1) Original Pointing Plaguemarine

I believe this model is called “Nurgle Renegade with Plaguebearer Head”.  I own exactly one of these models.  I stripped it and repainted it.  The second paint job was done in Japan with a very limited palette.  Folks these days don’t realize how good they have it with their websites, their mail order, their 100s of different colors to choose from, their specialty bits manufacturers.  This model was one of the first Chaos Space Marines I bought and one of the few I could scrounge up while in high school, I converted the beginnings of my army from RBT01s and 2nd Edition box set loyalists.

2) Plaguemarine with Nurgling on shoulder

Classic Nurgle Renegades
This model probably came in the same blister as the one above.  These two models probably along with the +1 Toughness encouraged me to go with Nurgle at the dawn of 2nd Edition.  This model was also stripped and repainted in Japan.  This is the only copy of the model I have.  Looking at this page in Stuff of Legends, (someone borrowed my old catalogs and never gave them back) it appears I do have every Nurgle Renegade.  I almost have every Tzeentch one shown too.

3) Nurgle Renegade with Horns aka Nurgle heavy weapon guy

Nurgle Renegade with Heavy Weapon
This model I really liked and was able to find copies of online.  I think I may own three.  Two are currently painted and in my display cabinet.  Dylan was unsuccessful at turning one up, but he’s found lots of old OOP models.  I’m unemployed and used to live on an Island in the colonies.  The fact I have several is a testament to my passion as a Nurgle collector.

4) Plaguebearer Head #2

This model I did not strip and repaint.  He must have come in a blister with one of the other Nurgle Renegades as I’ve had the model since say 1994.  It wasn’t unheard of to have blisters with three or more models in them back in the day.  Small models like goblins used to come several to a blister.  All GW models used to be smaller and even dreadnoughts and bikes came in blisters.

5) Plaguemarine Champion

Picking the final model was tough.  Every model I picked was basically released before I started playing the game almost.  Models were just more desirable and harder to come by back then.  You had to save and make a pilgrimage to GW Gastown, then you had to hope they had what you wanted in stock.  I back filled my collection in the mid to late 90s as I traveled across Canada doing co-op work terms.  I’d always hunt through old blisters and I ordered a bunch of stuff as it went out of print or traded for it after it was OOP.  That said all my favourite models I acquired new when the Diseased Sons were starting out, way before nurgle.muschamp.ca.

Plaguemarine Champ with Plasma Pistol

There have been a number of Plaguemarine Champion miniatures.  There were two released for 2nd Edition.  I used one as a general and the second as a special weapons trooper.  There was a special champion that came with the metal Plaguemarine havoc box set, which I converted to be an icon bearer and there is even a champion or at least helmetless model that comes with the Forgeworld Death Guard upgrade kits.  I like a lot of these armless models, but I think from a miniature sculpting point of view, the models that have the most personality generally come in one piece and historically are made of metal.  So I chose the Plaguemarine Champion with Plasma pistol, the one sighting along his weapon with his breather hanging loose.  I like the guy with the blue face best.  I’m big on blue faces for Chaos Space Marines.  I’ve tried other colors and blue looks best with green, purple, black, even red power armor.

Converted Plaguemarine Champions

I’m a fan of some of my many converted and kit bashed champion models as are others, but it’s getting so I don’t even remember where I got the bits and pieces from nowadays.  My collection is pretty big and I have a lot of unpainted models and bits, that I need to devote time to if my life ever turns around.  I also need to buy a real camera, there is a dust mote in my iPhone now, I noticed it the other day, unable to wipe it away.  I put up a gallery of Plaguemarines before, after I came back from Japan so 2004ish, I’ve painted a few more since then.  ;-)

Three Converted Champions

Syphillis Champions

Nurgle HQ Conversions

A lot of the best Nurgle sculpts were actually Warhammer Fantasy Battle ones which can be incorporated into a 40K army through conversion or daemonic allies.  One model I still have to repaint is my original Chaos Magus, Cancerous the Extremely Naughty.

People who don’t paint miniatures and just see them online in say my Facebook feed don’t realize that a lot of effort goes into them.  They are actually quite small even though I mainly paint heroic 28mm scale, there are both smaller and larger scale miniatures. Some how I ended up on my own Flickr feed after adding a contact and I thought this model looked pretty good even blown up like that.

I still haven’t used them in a game and with the way my life is going my models may soon go into storage for an extended period of time.  I just can’t find a job.  Today I haven’t been the most productive, just stayed at home and surfed the net mostly.  But I thought it would make a fun photo to take the mini out of the cabinet and hold it up beside the picture on Flickr as shown on my 13″ MacBook Pro, to give an idea of scale.  I did something similar once before on Muskblog.

Miniature shown next to photo of miniature to show scale