Merry Christmas (and Dreadnoughts and Other Things)

Hi folks,

Merry Christmas!! I hope you are all having a wonderful time with your families, wherever you happen to be in the world. I'm guessing a few of you are having a white Christmas this year, but over here in Australia we are sweating bullets.

I have recently returned from a holiday to the Great Barrier Reef in North Queensland, which was a feast for the senses. I saw lots of coral formations, anemones, fish and sharks (the Black Tip Reef Shark above is affectionately named "Pup", because it behaves like an excited puppy), as well as some inspiring land-forms. In particular, there were beaches made entirely of bleached coral that sound like broken glass when you walked across them; it looked a lot like the bases I do on my Nids!

 

When we got home to Sydney though, it was damn hot, pushing 40 degrees, which has slammed the breaks on my painting projects. Even with a wet pallet and drying retardant medium, paint is drying on the brush faster than I can use it. I can forget about spray undercoats as well, the paint is drying before it hits the miniatures! I did manage to knock together some bases for my three Dark Angels Dreadnoughts, using flock, static grass, small pieces of slate and some laser cut ferns.

As you can see they are missing some arms that they had this morning, and one has a hole in the top of its sarcophagus where I will be placing a Dark Angels icon. All of my Dreadnoughts are going to be equipped with close combat weapons of some description for the purposes of gaming, so I thought I would work on them today as well. If I hadn't decided to do that they would be finished and I could give myself a stamp :-) Another example of me making a rod for my own back; ahhh well.

I didn't get anything interesting for Christmas this year. Before we left on holiday my dog sustained an injury that required her to have... exceptionally expensive... surgery. That has blown us out of the water for the foreseeable future. On the upside, Gypsy is gradually getting her sight back, which is far, far more important. I have plenty of stuff to paint anyway ;-)

 

See you across the table,

M4cr0