So this year at the Demons was pretty interesting. The entries were fairly high caliber across the board, if I say so myself. I didn't really have the time or willpower to do much up for them, so I threw my Warphead into the competition with zero expectations, and didn't make the first cut. Hardly surprised, hardly upset!

Anyway, I did take a lot of pictures of a lot of entries, and I'd like to share them all so that those of you who didn't manage to make it can get a general sense of how things went. The Demons were held in a separate room on the third floor of the convention center, where the lighting was better for judging. I went up at around 4:00, so by then the decisions had basically been made. A couple of first cut entries may have been removed from the cases as people went home, but I think for the most part I got a comprehensive look at things.

Let's start with the basic entries first, in all categories. If I'm not mistaken, all of the following set are entries that did not make the first cut in their respective categories. I may not have photographed everyone's entries - I just went for the ones that looked appealing or interesting. Sorry if you got left out!

 

Now, on to the first cuts. Again, I didn't have time to photograph every single entry, because there was a line that I had to mill through to even reach these displays, but I did try and catch the highlights.

 

And, of course, the winners, in a separate display case.

 

Nearby, they also had a couple artist showcases where some very nice models were displayed, but were not part of the competition. Couldn't help but snap a couple photos of those bad boys!

 

That about wraps it up. If any of you spot anything wrong (i.e., I put a basic entry model in with the first cuts, etc) just drop a comment and I'll have it fixed up in no time!

Some day, my lovelies. Some day.

For now, let's just talk about the event itself!

The Convention Center lobby is a familiar sight after the last time I was here in 2008, though truthfully I was expecting more people since Baltimore is the only Gamesday this year.

It wasn't too long until they felt kind enough to let the rabble in, at which point there was a minor stampede for the Forgeworld line. I didn't get to witness it myself, but I was told one brave soul actually got a running start and slid all the way under the bars that formed the waiting line and up to the counter as people were herded in. I waited a little while, and simply wandered around taking some shots.

Some of the displays were crazy, crazy impressive.

 

There was one really fantastic event that pit the Orks versus the Imperium on an absolutely hilarious scale, with an ungodly-sized Ork titan trying to take down an entire mountain fortress. By the end of the event, the Ork Stompa had been reduced to only a fraction of it's starting size, and there was a whole lot of titan-sized debris on the table. I'm not actually sure who won, but I doubt that even matters.

 

There were some equally nice Open Gaming tables to be found, which I snapped a couple quick photos of later on in the day.

 

There was a whole section of Armies on Display, but by the time I got around to it most of them had been packed up since the competition ended pretty early in the day. Still, the ones that stuck it out got photographed! (And poorly, because of the scratched-to-hell plexiglass everyone had to set up behind)

 

The Forgeworld guys were also out in force, although I didn't see anything new to oggle over in their display cases. Only snapped a couple quick shots because it's all been pretty much covered ad nauseum before. Some display cases of older miniatures and greens, as well.

 

I spent a lot of time this year crowded around the club-run event tables, partaking in what they had to offer. I have to say, I was pretty impressed on the whole.

Rock'um Sock'um Stompas was an obligatory stop for me, where five trundling titans belly bumped and smashed the zog out of one another.

 

I threw my own Stompa down, and was summarily destroyed first on the board. Guess mine's a little too small!

Another fantastic club event involved remote-controlled 40k tank laser tag. Think about that for a minute.

As awesome as it was, I did a poor job of photographing it. Pictures do it little justice, but I did take some video, so when I have time later I'll throw it to the ravenous Youtubes.

There was also a Rock'em Sock'em Dreadnought arena, which I felt summarily obligated to join. There was actually a fairly thorough rules set for the game that gave each walker a couple of damage boxes and a few new abilities. I will say it felt startlingly like Warmachine, actually.

Just like the first event, I was the first one to get wiped out. Oh well!

The fellows over at Paul's Basement League set up a fun little board where Independent Characters could deathmatch eachother for the amusement of Khorne, and I felt compelled to throw my Big Boss into the mix. I couldn't use the special rules that were set up for him, but I just ran him as a fully loaded-out Ork Warboss and he did just fine for himself - he actually broke the dominating Dark Eldar Archon's win streak in the first round, which had apparently been going for quite some time. He went up against (and lost to!) Commissar Yarrick quite a lot, though - that pesky 'umie just doesn't stay down!

 

Bolter and Chainsword also represented with quite a nice collection of goodies.

 

Later on, my buddy Chris and I got our game on with a quick 1,500 of Daemonhunters versus Orks, where we played eachother to a virtual stalemate. The tables we were using weren't anything too fancy, but they were open and available thanks to the fact that the 500 point tournament had progressed to the point where there weren't many competitors left.

 

Afterwards, I resumed my wandering and took another handful of miscellaneous pictures of the goings-on.

 

All in all, it was quite a day. I was a little surprised at how empty it got after around 3 o'clock - it seemed like a lot of people started leaving early after they'd had a look around and bought the things they wanted. I had to duck out a little early myself because we had to get back to New Jersey, so I didn't get to hear them make the grand announcement about where they're planning on holding Gamesday 2011. According to the rumbles of the internet, it's slated for Chicago, though, and the internet never lies.

Anyway, Games Day Baltimore 2010 is tomorrow, and we've spent most of the day driving. I'll be all over that event with my camera, and I'll hopefully have some excellent photos for all of you in the coming days. We happened to pass by the mythical Glen Burnie Battle Bunker today, and I talked Kim into letting me pull over, hop out, and take some photos!

Without further ado, the Bunker:

 

It was pretty interesting, and as I understand it a lot of the stuff in the Bunker's going to be at Gamesday tomorrow. Speaking of which, there looks to be a lot of exciting club-related events that I hope to participate in, including one which apparently involves remote-controlled 40k tank laser tag. I can't think of any way that can't be awesome.

I didn't have a lot of time to put things together for the Golden Demons thanks to this colossal road trip, so I'm probably just going to throw my Weirdboy into the mix with precisely zero expectations - even I know it's not painted well enough to win anything.

I've been tinkering around with painting my Butcher of Khardov model, and I am not entirely happy with my results so far. The general concept is the same as my other Khador - I'm trying to stick to the general scheme and colors of Beast 09. I think my painting ability is failing me here, though...

The back is obviously not done - I'm only just roughing some of the copper areas in.

Things I'm not happy with... I'm not hugely happy with the 'glow' on the eyes, which I am having a damn tricky time with at the moment. I also don't know if I like the grey on the upper halves of the shoulder guards, or if I should go with the cream/off-white color instead. The trim line running along the middle of it, and along edges of some of the armor like the hands will be painted gold, for reference. I have no idea what color to paint the fur fringes on his coat, since all of my usuals (brown, grey) would blend right in with the rest of the model's details. The metal plates lining the coat? Not a big fan. It looked fine when I did a boltgun metal base color and highlighted the edges with Mithril Silver, but a subsequent Devlan Mud wash seems to have darkened the Boltgun substantially more than the Mithril, making the edges of the plates look really crazy different. The axe hasn't been touched at all, except for me just mucking about and throwing some thin copper color on it.

Give me some ideas here, guys. I'm finding this model exceedingly difficult to paint in a Beast-y scheme. I'm sure this is probably salvageable, but I'm really not in love with it right now.

Edit:

Thinking of stripping it down and having another crack at it with the goal of trying to match the photoshopped scheme above... my technical painting ability ain't nearly up to the level of the stock Butcher's shading, but the color scheme's more what I'm thinking about right now.

 

Pretty happy with the outcome. I did some quick lines up on the base to indicate front arc and direct facing.

I decided to take a different approach with it, a drilled a hole inside the middle of one of my etched acrylic discs, and put the LEDs on the inside, aiming out. With a bit of terrain covering them, they're completely invisible!

 

eButcher is my caster of choice, though I think pButcher's new model is way, way cooler... but eButcher has a narrower stance, which makes him fit better on this sort of base. I'm happy to see that a fair bit of light still reflects up onto the model, because that means I'll have a cool OSL effect without actually painting OSL!

The base still comes off, so I can paint it without going crazy. It's modelled overtop a GW 25mm round base. I can prime/paint/drybrush/wash/whatever I want to do to the base without putting the clear acrylic at any risk of getting paint on it. Once the base is completely done, I'll affix it to the clear acrylic disc permanently.

Here's a look at what's going on under the cover:

Yes, I used cyanoacrylate glue around the inside rim. Because you don't actually see the interior of the disc, the fogging doesn't matter, and elmer's glue was simply not getting a strong enough hold on things. Fortunately, all of the messy center of the disc is completely unseen once the terrain 'cap' goes on overtop.

Here's a look at the underside:

It's got a switch installed under there, and a battery holder which lets me swap out the batteries with relative ease (since 3 blue LEDs will burn through a coin cell after long enough).

Overall, I envision this to be a cool but temporary feature. I'll probably activate the lights during my warcaster's feat turns, and leave it off the rest of the time so I don't run the risk of burning out the LEDs or eating up batteries too quickly.

 

He needs to be touched up a bit. There's a couple spots on his chassis that look like they have some color differences, which is a result of the washes I've been using. They leave a glossy finish wherever they touch, which is why in some of these pictures the colors might look just a little uneven. I'm going to be matte varnishing the whole thing when I'm done, which should even out a lot of those differences.

I need to clean up the base a bit and then add the snow. I've seen a lot of methods for going about the snow, but I think the easiest and best one I have available to me is actually simple superglue and sand. I have some white, very fine-grained sand, and I figure if I spread some cyanoacrylate around and bury the base in the stuff, I'll have some decent snow effects.

There's a couple spots on the warjack itself that are still being tweaked, but for the most part I'm happy with it. It's not amazing, and it won't win any awards, but it's good enough for the table.

 

Painting such a large area in such bright colors is a giant pain in the ass, because my usual washes don't work very well on it - they tend to pool and leave weird drying stains. I've slowly been hammering away at it, though. It looks a little... maybe messy is the word? But I'm not particularly unhappy with how he's coming.

Things still to do:

• Finish the ice effect on the axe.
• Pick out and highlight some of the metallics
• Pick out all of the rivets with metallics
• Try and paint a proper furnace effect in the head visor and slits on the torso
• Add the glowing effect to the glyphs over the head and groin plate.

And probably some other stuff I can't remember at the moment. This is all without having touched the base yet, which should be pretty straightforward in terms of painting.

Onwards!

 

Pretty close match to the art, as far as I'm concerned. It's not 1:1, but I don't think there's any real question what it's aiming for.

The concept:

The execution! Not entirely complete, but...

No OSL painting required!

The terrain in the middle of the disc will have to be added to a bit, and then primed and painted by hand, but you get the idea! It's a bit imperfect, actually - I had to sand the surface facing up down a bit because of the stupid fogging cyanoacrylate glue leaves behind, which somewhat reduced the impact of the glyphs. One of the ones on the back of the disc is a bit ruined. I'm pleading with my buddy Beardrick to risk getting fired etching a couple more discs for me so I can have another go at repeating this whole process.

I'm probably going to encase the LEDs and the wires somehow so they're not so exposed, too.

Anyway, it's just something I wanted to show off.