Every stand will get based all at once. That way they all will match.

          I am back at it. Some slingers and extra Heavy INF on the painting block.

          Ahhh these dam transfers. After these last units, I will be painting the shields. This has turned into a giant black hole for time. I am about 35 bucks into transfer paper, microset, and matte coat. It is slowing me down to a point where the project is not moving along.

 If you don’t get too close, they look great. I have to go back and paint the edges of the shields.

         These have to be the worst transfers ever. I have never had such a problem.

What’s on tap to kick off my return to the states and 2018. Old Carthie

         I started off hand painting shields. Then at some point came up with the great idea that I should use transfers. I printed my own. Had a terrible time. I switch transfer paper, some what better.  Still a giant black hole for time.
          I spent most of my time screwing around with the transfers.

         Elephants! It’s like a semi truck doing 25 coming at you with no breaks. It turns like a ship. 12,000 pounds of “I’m gonna stomp you.” If you seen them or not, pretty sure your shitting yourself.

         Elephants

Cleaned, based, primed, and flocked (sand paste applied) in 21 minutes.
Washed in stone tone, tusks, blankets done in 15.

Bases flocked and base coated 20 minutes.
Roughly an hour for 5 India Elephants with castles.
Details and free hand 15 minutes each.

         Skirmishers. 

Cleaned, mounted to blocks, primed. 11minutes
Man dresses, Spears, Hair, skin painted in 30 minutes
Based, flocked, base coated 20minutes

Hand painted shield 5 minutes

+/- an hour (1 extra base include from last weeks counting problem)

         African Heavy Infantry

Cleaned, mounted, primed 20 minutes

Washed, skin, armor, cloth 30 minutes
Spears, belts, sandals 15 minutes

Rear rank based for shield decals

Transfer problem. Detailed transfer post later.

Shield transfers…….what a bitch! I am tossing out the first package of transfer paper. Amazon sent me a different manufacture and I got some of testor’s expensive paper also. I will be screwing around with that for the next week or so.

Results

Large beast (3 of them) can be banged out in about 1.2 hrs. 3 stands Skirmishers can be completed in under an hour.

Barring transfer issues. A unit, 3 stands, can be finished in an hour. The number of dudes does not matter.

The key to painting Warmaster 10mm and getting an army on the table in a time frame that one would not loss focus is;
     1) painting blocks
     2) every dude facing the same way
     3) proper spacing on the block and dudes checkerboarded on the opposite side.
     4) Airbrushing the primer and majority base color.
A side note; paint about 40-60 dudes on the same type at once. At least 6 bases worth. It is possible to cut time by 25%

         It was a test of one’s ability to eat shit from the start. The highlight was free booze and the Lion showed up on time.

         So the Lion bus was actually on time. Being Argentina, this was a first time experience of something or someone actually being on time. The guy showed up expecting 7 people and 2 bags. It was two people and 7 bags. The lion got to EZE 30 minutes late. Traffic, not their fault!

Delta decided to fuck us. The first girl checking documents and passports said we had the wrong shit. She left to go ask immigration. Wrong paper, we need a stamp. Now I have travel on the same papers, exact same, 4 times in less than 90 days with Delta. Never a problem. Yet today its a problem.

Immigration.
        We can’t talk to the dude she did. So we have to hump the bags 2 terminals over and speak to some clown there. This clown sends us to another office. They say they can’t do it. We go back. Then they come find us and say they can. We get two new papers.

        The first office doesn’t care about the two papers we got from the second office. They now want a different paper. We don’t have it. My wife answers her cell. She is the only one who speaks spanish enough to get answer from these clowns. (she is back in Santa Fe) The clown wants the POA I give her to travel with my daughter. Which has fuck all nothing to do with us traveling today.

Rules, laws, and regulations
          First I need a stamp. Then I need two papers. Then I need a completely different paper That I did not need 15 minutes ago. I get the clown to go fetch the head clown. I want to know the exact rule that changed making my current set of papers no good. And I want to see the manual. Being Argentina no one ever knows what the true rule or law is. They just make that shit up as they go.

         The head clown says someone screwed up every time we were allowed to travel in the past. But none of it was her people. Which were the exact people that allowed us to travel. Finally she says it is not their job. It is the Airlines job.

Delta
         Back to delta we go. The original girl is gone. We get a different dude. The plane boards in 35 minutes. Still allowed to check in? Yep! Surprised me too. And he doesn’t ever read the papers. He miss up the order and hands them back.
         Now off to the dude that checks the bags. 20 minutes to the plane boards. We are checking 6 bags, 2 are over weight. He say we owe 600 for the bags. Which is true. I say we are military and they are free. He says do you have papers? No but I show him my 3 year expired ID. He say ok.
        Tickets, luggage receipts and he say ahhhh do you have your travel documents. I give them to him. He looks at them. Never reads them. Hands them back. The plane is boarding now.

Security
        Of course has to look at all the soldiers I am carrying. They are super interested in FW’s HH book 6. They look at the pages for 10 minutes.

Immigration
        We skip every fucker in line. Off to see the dude at window seven. He clears me for exit. Then looks at my kid. Hey where are her travel documents? I gave them to you.  “O” he says. He looks at them and hands them back. Then asks for them again. Then looks a random pages in the middle of each set.

         Delta shows up asking where we are. Because we are the only ones missing, keeping the door open. 5 minutes till the plane leaves. I say here I am. They say don’t worry we will not leave without you. I say only this guy is holding us up.
       He stops fucking around with the papers. I don’t think he reads or reads well. He never scans her finger, forgets her picture, stamps her passport. hmmmmmm, quality!

Delta
       They hump our bags for us. The crew helps with the bags all the way to our seats. The dude handing out drinks never charges me for the whiskey. I had six doubles.

New rule! When in Argentina, if at any time you get an answer that seem not right. Go away, burn a cigar. Come back and hand them the exact same shit as before. The answer will change and you will get what you wanted.

2017

          Surprisingly, I painted more minis in this year than any year to date. Like every year life interfered. The months away from the painting table almost sunk me. The development of a speed painting system that worked for me was key. Thanks Tom, I stole your system.

          Finish the Sudan project.      600 plus to start with. Then I added about a 1000 more Fuzzy Wuzzys. In Aug the project stopped with 380 finished. I was stuck stateside as real life started to kick in.
         Finished the 20mm Moderns. 
         NetEA Imperial Fists and HH World Eaters armies.  * some Ifs were added and zero WEs.
         Painted the 6mm Desert terrain. 
         Start the 15mm ACW project.   
        Attend both Cold Wars and AdeptiCon.   ****I got to Fall In also.***
        Gaming *I did find a club in Argentine, but they are 9 hours away by bus. No local elements developed.*   
         Painting       275 was the most painted in one year. I want to double that amount this year! 550 is the goal. ***Crushed with 828 painted****

Next year will be up in the air. Mom and Dad need help. We are moving back to the states. Buy another house and I will be coming out of retirement. Painting time may be limited.

          I started off hand painting the shields. The time it takes to paint just the shields is about half the time it takes to complete a 3 stand unit. The example to the right was done without a wet palette. A 2 brush technique with a wet palette would have been easier.
        Either way it does not matter. This project is huge. Doubling the time per unit to paint can’t happen if I am to ever finish.
         No decals, transfers? Amazon-ed some decal paper. Then google searched Carthaginian shields. Two hours searching and resizing images and I got my decal sheet.

Dudes just standing around waiting for decals.

         Just print on draft quality. Let it sit for about 15 minutes. Then spray it with matte coat. I taped the ends down, because the paper will get wavy. But tape far enough away, so when you remove the tape it does not rip up the decal layer.

        Cutting these little bastards out, SUCKS! It would be faster to hand paint the shields.

 And now I have to order Decal solutions!

 The front rank waiting on the shield s of the second rank

MicroSol and MicroSet. The decal paper is shit. Continues to curl and pop off. In thinned I had to coat the decals in white glue.

 Here you can see it curling away on the black shield after 12hours.

Command stands

Officer down. An officer dude with a mis-cast leg. Trash him, no. Lets grab a horseman. Chop time!

The missing leg was the mis-cast. I cut a little higher than His knee joint. He lost is saber case and put of the cloak. The sword arm was bent and the leg bent.

 The rider was chopped off and the horse’s stand. From there I dug out part of the horse’s back around the saddle.

 Tough to see what is going on here. There is a spear stuck in the horse. The officer is part trapped by his mount. He will get a shield and green stuff to replace the chuck taken out of his cloak.

Discounts across the site. No code needed.

        The second group of skirmishers, +1 base to finish the last group.

        The bases are only base coated. The whole army will get the bases done at the same time.

Group shot.