My Progress, End Week 2

My progress this week has been terrible at best. I managed to get final highlights on all the vehicles(the second land raider,rhino, predator and dreadnought). I also managed to get some details picked out on the land raider, like skulls, etc. Apart from that, my progress has been limited. I'm unhappy with this, but hey, what can I do? That's right! Work harder! Now that I'm more or less adjusted to my school and work schedule(though I missed my first class this morning. I thought I had a 9am class; it was 8am.), I should be able to ramp up the progress. The goal is to finish the vehicles this week, at least. Heck, its practically just painting Boltgun and black anyway. I'll try to get a video and some pictures up sometime tonight. To keep up with Damien's format of listing progress, here's mine:

UNBUILT
Marneus Calgar

BUILT
Chaplain Ortan Cassius: 125
Honour Guard- Chapter Champion, 3 Honour Guard, 1 with Chapter Banner: 425

PRIMED
Tactical Squad 110 Man, Missile Launcher, Flamer, Sgt with power weapon: 185
Sternguard Veterans10 man, meltagun, 2 combi-meltas, sgt. with power fist: 290
Tactical Squad 210 man, missile launcher, meltagun, sgt. with power fist, Rhino: 235
Terminator Squad5 man, cyclone missile launcher, sgt, with power weapon: 230

PARTLY FINISHED (65%+)
Dreadnought MagusExtra Armour: 120
Land Raider: 250
Predator Twin Linked Lascannon, Lascannon Sponsons, Storm Bolter, Extra Armour: 190
Assault Squad2 Flamers, Sgt. with Plasma Pistol, Power Weapon, Melta Bombs: 245
Devastator Squad10 man, 4 missile launchers: 230

FINSHED
Venerable Dreadnought Chronos***REPLACED WITH SCOUT SQUAD***
Land Raider CrusaderMulti-Melta: 260

MODELS DONE: 6 of 73
POINTS DONE: 500-something

Damien_Frosst's Progress

Its the beginning of the third week of APoD, and all involved are making at least some progress. We've heard nothing out of Magus, but I have recently discovered his lack of progress equated to a lack of black paint, a main component of his colour scheme. I have since helped him remedy that situation. Currently, Damien_Frosst is leading the pack, with 23 of 73 models painted. Remember, that our stipulation are only that they are table-worthy, so three colours minmum, bases done, etc. Damien_Frosst is satisfied with how he's coming along, and I don't blame him. I, however know that I will go back over some of my models and add highlights and shading when I have more time. Below is Damien's progress, and written by himself:

It's the start of the third full week for APoD, so here's the stats:

Models done: 23 of 71+2Points done: 595 of 3000

Current Model: Honoured Brother Vigil (the Dread with twin-las and missiles)
I'm happy with how things have been progressing, even if they've slowed some since the first weeks. I've got classes now, so I expect them to go slower, but I'll try to keep up a good pace. I've attached pics of the current stuff, the full force, and a pic of the unit before I got painting.
And the full stats here:

UNBUILT

Master of the Forge - bike, conversion beamer, power weapon: unbuilt

BUILT

Land Speeder - typhoon missiles: built

Land Raider Redeemer - multi-melta: built

Ironclad Dreadnought - chain fist, heavy flamer, assault launchers: built

Dreadnought - twin-linked lascannon, missile launcher: built

5 Scout Marines - 5 sniper rifles, camo cloaks: built

5 Sternguard - 5 combi-melta: built

PRIMED

Captain - relic blade, digital weapons, hellfire bolts, bolter: primed

Techmarine - thunderhammer: primed1 servitors: primed

Squad 3 Rhino - storm bolter: primedVindicator - siege shield: primed

Predator - twin-linked lascannon turret, heavy bolter sponsons: primed

Sternguard Rhino - storm bolter: primed

GREEN/PART GREEN

Squad 3 - power fist+plasma pistol, flamer, missile launcher: 9 green, 1 primed

10 Devastator Marines - 4 missile launcher: 6 green, 4 primed

PART DONE

5 Assault Terminators - 3 Thunderhammer and Storm Shield: 4 of 5 done (160 points to make up)

DONE

Vindicator - siege shield: done (125 points to make up)

Land Speeder - typhoon missiles: done

Squad 1 - power fist, meltagun, lascannon: done

Squad 1 Rhino - storm bolter: doneSquad 2 - power fist, meltagun, plasma cannon: done

Squad 2 Rhino - storm bolter: done

MAKE UP

125+160=285 points -> Land Raider Crusader (Partially done) + Heavy Bolter Servitor (primed)

Lady Gaga - Badder Romance FULL LENGTH

APoD! Week 1 Update

Well, week one of Apocalypse Paint or Die has passed me by, but not without progress. I spent most of this week working extra hours, so I was cut down on my painting time, but that can't be helped.

I got my Land Raider Crusader painted to just past base colours, not including the hull itself. That is completed. I use a simple scheme for my vehicles: Mordian Blue, drybrush of Shadow Grey, another drybrush of 50/50 shadow grey Space Wolves grey mix, and then straight Space Wolves Grey.

I also had to take the time to "re-blue" some of the other vehicles, and they are old models that were poorly painted by myself when I was first joining the hobby.

The amount of time it has taken for me to do these simple tasks can be attributed mostly to work and the fact that I like to load my miniatures with loads of extra details. In the pictures that follow, you'll see what I mean.

For this next week (though I start back at school soon, so that might slow things down further), I plan on focusing on the other vehicles in the force: the other Land Raider, the Rhino and the Dreadnought. I had planned on having them all done this week, but what can you do?

Paint Goal Reached: Negative.

Action Plan: Keep pounding ahead!

Paint or Die! Apocalypse Edition!

My friend has proposed that we start a painting competition to paint 3000 points of WH40k stuff in six months. This is my proposed list:

Marneus Calgar and Honour Guard

- Chapter Champion, 3 Honour Guard, 1 with Chapter Banner: 425

Chaplain Ortan Cassius: 125

Tactical Squad 1

10 Man, Missile Launcher, Flamer, Sgt with power weapon: 185

Tactical Squad 2

10 man, missile launcher, meltagun, sgt. with power fist, Rhino: 235

Venerable Dreadnought Chronos

Twin-linked lascannon, missile launcher, extra armour: 220

Dreadnought Magus

Extra Armour: 120

Sternguard Veterans

10 man, meltagun, 2 combi-meltas, sgt. with power fist: 290

Land Raider: 250

Land Raider Crusader

Multi-Melta: 260

Predator

Twin Linked Lascannon, Lascannon Sponsons, Storm Bolter, Extra Armour: 190

Terminator Squad

5 man, cyclone missile launcher, sgt, with power weapon: 230

Assault Squad

2 Flamers, Sgt. with Plasma Pistol, Power Weapon, Melta Bombs: 245

Devastator Squad

10 man, 4 missile launchers: 230

Total Points: 3005

I'm pretty much just going with what I have built, with minimal effort put into additions and fix ups. I have a force picture available on the other computer, so when I get around to that one, I'll put it up.

Retro Games

This past weekend, I was cruising www.ign.com, my go-to gaming site, when I came across their article about "The 100 Greatest NES Games" I sat and read through the entire article, about a two hour read. Throughout the article, I noticed a recurring theme: games were really hard, and many of them featured co-op mutli player (games like Ikari Warriors and Contra being notable mentions).This got me to thinking: are games these days as good as they were in the old days? Now before you start spouting off about graphics and particle effects, bump-mapping and the likes, I'm not speaking about them from a technical standpoint. I'm mean, more specifically, are games as fun as they used to be?

The focus today, it seems (as I type this, my girlfriend is playing Fallout 3, her current obsession) is on superior graphics and flashiness. I know that a lot of games do have some high "fun factors" and great stories, Fallout 3 being a prime example, but I notice that there's a lot of trash out there, too. Bethesda software's recent game, Wet, for example was, well... not good(Fallout, on the other hand, Bethesda's game from last year, is amazing in most aspects). I played the demo, and it felt stiff, repetitive and very under-produced.

I understand that this is a minority, but I can't help that feel that games were... better back then.

Look at an under-rated game of years past: Bionic Commando. In an era where the focus of most games was running and jumping, Capcom dared to remove the ability from the protagonist. You had to rely on his Bionic swinging arm to get around. Admittedly, at first, it is a little difficult. After fifteen minutes or so, I was swinging around levels like Spiderman with a gun. Another example is Battletoads. Battletoads has got to be one of the hardest games in the history of games. I've been playing that game since about 1991 (when there was a craze for anthropomorphic animals kicking ass) when it was released, and to this day I'm lucky if I can get past the third level without getting game over (seriously, check this game out. Its fun AND hard as hell). I actually remember an interview I read in a magazine some fifteen years ago where the producers admitted to making the game as devious as possible. You don't get games like that now. I recently saw an ad for a game called Badlands, and open ended first person shooter/adventure game for the Xbox360. A tagline in the article stated, "You are not hardcore enough for this game". I had to laugh a little bit, thinking back on games like Battletoads and Kid Icarus. Back then, you were either luck or insanely skilled to get to end of a game like that (keep in mind this was before emulators and save states and not including using games genie - no cheating!).

I once spent an entire summer playing StarTropics (the summer of 2001, actually. I was dirt poor) on my black and white TV. My buddy across the road had just got his PS2 and kept inviting me over to play. I would often decline, as I was too busy trying to beat a level near the end of the game.

See, this is my point. The old games of the NES sucked you in. Not because of their stellar graphics, but because of their focus on adventuring and fun.

I may have been young in the prime days of the NES, as it died out in 1994, and I was only eight then, but my earliest memory is basically that of an NES controller pad in my hand, playing Super Mario Bros. I remember the days before the net, when if you knew a secret in a game, you could impress your friends.

Overall, I just feels that games were more pure back then, more... fun. There's to much of a focus today on bloodshed and body count.

Monday, October 19th, 2009

Today, I did the 1.5mi run for midterm. Didn't do great. 11:34. But, not too bad, considering I haven't been able to run for nearly a month. As of now, though, back in the gym as often as possible, with a focus on cardio, if I can keep my mind trained on it. I also did my pushup training. It was as follows:

Monday: Start with a maximum set. Rest 110 seconds. Next set should be 90% of the max, with 100 seconds rest. Next set should be 80% of the max with 90 seconds rest. Every set deduct 10% and 10 seconds of rest.

Now, with my max being 40, my numbers should have looked like this:

40 36 32 28 24 20 16 12 8 4

for a total of 220 pushups.

My actual numbers were:

38 22 22 18 14 16 16 12 8 4

for a total of 170 pushups.

This was tough, and I'm not entirely happy with my results; 50 off. I'll just have to look at it as an incentive to try harder. Will update tomorrow with further exercise.