Raggy's Gaming Adventures

A friend on Instagram was asking about the desk set up that I have for my painting. This is something I have put a lot of thought into but, tried to limit how much I spend on it. My desk set up is for my painting but also doubles as my home office space which allowed me to justify a little more spend on it. I've tried to keep this to the more long term items so it doesn't include paints, brushes, or even brush cleaner. These are things that you will probably never 'run out'. Absolute Essentials: When thinking about my desk set up there are a few things I knew I'd need and others that I'd want: Comfortable seating position. (I have only been half successful here!) A comfortable chair with good support (this is where I have failed - your chair should be where you put most of your money. It will save your back in the long run) The desk must be at the correct height. - You should be able to comfortably set your elbows on the table top to bring your ha...

A brief note here for future reference. Having had an accident at the weekend were a bunch of models (unpainted) got knocked into a puddle of spilled candle wax. The result was a bunch of miniatures seemingly ruined. What to do? - DO NOT do this for PVC miniatures (eg most boardgame minis) Get the miniatures out of the wax as soon as possible. Remove as much wax as you safely can (without damaging the paint etc) Put the models on kitchen towel and fold towel over top (help soak wax and prevent minis from flying all over the place). Use a hairdryer to gentle heat the model to remove any further excess wax. Be mindful of how powerful the hairdryer is!) You can be more aggressive with heating metal minis. Polystyrene has a Heat Distortion Temperature (HDT) of 95oC - at this temperature you need to be mindful the plastic will warp so go slowly! Paraffin Wax (the wax in most candles) has a melting point of 37-82oC depending on additives. Soy and Beeswax are similar.  PVC ha...

Whilst I have been spending much of my painting time this year working on competition models, I still want to try and achieve a good volume of painted miniatures. Alongside the work on my Warhammer Fest entry (more in an upcoming post) I have been prepping models to give myself a break from the intense painting. With the Conquest Magazine subscription and the occasional trade - I've acquired quite a lot of minis and particularly Death Guard which I am hoping to build into an impressive Armies on Parade entry. For this blog post I thought I would highlight how I will often work in one hour blocks Hour 0: I already had these chaps cleaned, assembled and glue gunned onto some balsa paint stirrers: Hour 1: Priming with Stynylrez Black. It took a couple of coats and some tricky angling to hit all the undersides. Hour 2: I've mentioned my recipes before but did the basecoating rapidly with the airbrush and threw in some of the ink toning. Hour 3: Using the ...

Last year I focused on quantity over quality. This year I've sought to achieve more of a balance. I have continued to output a decent volume of painted minis, thanks in large part to my weekly livestreams . I've also tried to put some focus into getting some higher quality models painted up for competition. I've targeted two main painting competitions to submit to - Golden Demon at Warhammer Fest in May and then NOVA Open later this year. But let's not get ahead of ourselves... Warhammer Fest. I wanted to really try and game the system here. I put together a list of things that I felt were important to help succeed in the Golden Demon. Faces - tones, veining Freehand - understated but demonstrating the ability Sculpting - biker jackets, not enough to distract from or confuse the original model but make them mine. Basing - something that would compliment the models but not detract from them Texturing - Leather, Metal, Blankets, Fabric Weathering Terrain I...