Ron NOVA painting preparation - 5 weeks out

Hey accountabilla-buddies,

It's time to show off all I have(n't) done for NOVA this past week!  NOVA is fast approaching, but I'm starting to see a glimmer of hope for finishing.  I've decided that with the two exocrines and third flyrant, I'm going to get them to a 3 color standard first, then go back if I have time.  That takes a lot of the pressure off, and insures that I can play with all of my models when I get there.

Week 7 - Flying Tyrant #2 - Finished

Week 6 - Exocrine #1 - skin finished, meets 3 color minimum, will finish bone color, gun, and other details like eyes, but saving carapace for the end.

Week 5 - Exocrine #2  Going to paint the 3 zoeys, venomthrope, and 3 ripper swarms this week instead.  I cleaned, filled, and assembled my metal zoeys/venomthrope this past week as well (the venomthrope is a REAL pain to fill all the gaps on...).  I also put the zoeys and venom on custom resin bases that match the "creeping infection" theme I'm going for.  These are metal GW models, so the extra weight of the resin base helps immensely in the wobbly-model-syndrome department.

These urban invasion bases are from Secret Weapon Miniatures, and are fantastic.  I can't recommend them enough.  They have some tile elements that I'm covering with ballast (since I don't have any tile in my basing theme), but aside from that they fit the theme I'm going for perfectly.  Here are some shots of the flyrant base (also a secret weapon base), the exocrine secret weapon base, the zoeys/venom on their secret weapon bases, and some putty work I did on my custom made crone base to bring it in line with the others.

Week 4 - 3 Zoanthropes  exocrine number 2 (everything but carapace).  I needed to move this guy to a week after the first exocrine, because painting large MCs can be exhausting.  There's only so much red I can paint on before I start itching for another color.

Week 3 - Venomthrope, 3 color gaunts for tervigon spawns and 3 forgeworld rippers Evan is graciously letting me borrow gants for spawns, so that saves me some serious time.  This week will now be dedicated to converting and posing a third plastic flying tyrant (going to shelf the metal one that is base coated, unless I run out of time, and use a plastic kit I have laying around from my second place finish at the Battle for Blacksburg).  The plans for this guy are still to use the walking tyrant lower half, but maybe perch him on a rock or something to make him about the equivalent height.  I'd love to try some wing reposing here, but that might be too ambitious for the amount of time I have left.

Week 2 - Flying tyrant #3 (base coated/washed)  Try and finish out the exocrines and 3rd flyrant.  Do Base/add creep/touchup work on any existing models that need it (one biovore, one flyrant, and a tervigon come to mind).

Week 1 - Wrap up, counters, markers, psychic power cards, packing bags, etc.

Evan and I will be attending a display board workshop at NOVA, which gives us the opportunity to completely finish a display board in a couple hours before the GT starts.  I'm hoping I can get the creeping invasion theme going across to that as well, but all of that putty work might be hard in the time we have.  I suppose there is always spray foam?  Also - the seminar is a steal at $15 (they provide materials), so who cares if the end result gets tossed after the tourney.  

Alright guys and gals, that about sums up my progress for the week.  Stay tuned for more updates, pics, and terrible jokes next week!

-Ron