Anvil Industry Unboxing - Part 1

Hi everyone,

I recently showed you lot the large order I received from Anvil Industry. Today I'm going to show you some close up views of the purchases as they came out of the packaging. Later this week I will take pictures of the other half and go over those as well. 

I very highly rate Anvil Industry both for their products and for their conduct as a company. I personally think this shows through in the pictures below as the quality is plain to see. After I have reviewed the products through unboxing I will be taking you step wise through the construction of this force showing how the pieces all come together into coherent models, squads and a force. 

I will note that I have some parts from additional companies coming through the post to round off the force, but the vast majority of parts come from Anvil's Exo-Lord range that has near everything you could need to customise a force of space marines. As and when I receive the other parts I will also review them :)

Heads

Here you can see two examples of Anvil's Spartan Helmets that I purchases along with a sprue of their character heads. The Spartan heads came pre-clipped from any sprues and are shown as is from the bag on arrival. I'm very impressed with the crisp detail of the visors and the hairs of the crest in particular. Previously I have bought heads from Scibor and was disappointed with the "fudged" detail which was a particular problem when it came to painting the eye visors. No such problem here. 

Equally the bare heads have particularly nice hair detailing. I feel the eye sockets are just a bit deeper than is "real" but that means when you actually have them painted then they have a more realistic looking depth set back in the face.

Torsos

I've Previously purchased this sprue of robed torsos from Anvil before and as last time they are wonderfully clean of flash and the folds in the robes lend themselves well to wet blending as much as using washes to shade them for less advanced painters. These match up well with the robed legs I also purchased that you can see in the legs section.

Anvil do a few different styles of torsos in their Exo-lord range, I chose this medieval range as I really like the high gorget that gives the head a more sunken look and, practically speaking, a more protected neck joint. All the rivets are well pronounced and rounded with none malformed in the 27 I bought.

Pauldrons

These pauldrons are the matching style to the medieval torsos and have a similar clean casting across all 60 I bought with a nice upper and lower lip of riveted detail. If you were so inclined I believe it would be quite easy to cut the lower inner section of the pauldron with a scalpel to create a smaller more lightweight looking shoulder guard.

Legs

These are the medieval styled legs (do you see a theme!) These were the only items in my order that required any flash clean up, and that itself was minimal. I bought several sets of running poses and a single crouched pose for an apothecary. As you'll see when I have these up and built they provide a really nice variety of poses for your models. There are 5 unique posings of the legs which means you are going to have less repeats than you would get from GW or FW sculpts I find. I have squads of 5-10 so at maximum I have the same pose twice in a squad.

Finally for this first unboxing review we have the robed legs that match the robed torsos. I would only really recommend using these legs with the robed torsos personally. I have tried mixing and matching with other torsos and they just look silly. These had extremely limited flash to clean up and again they have a decent number of folds with a depth that lends themselves well to simple painting techniques if you aren't super confident with cloth painting like me! Again also you can see that there are 5 distinct poses preventing repeated poses.

Overall

If you hadn't guessed I am very impressed by the quality of Anvil's products. It's worth bearing in mind that I ordered nearly 30 of everything (60 of the pauldrons) plus a few one of sprues of items and it took me a single hour of work to clean any mould release off the parts and completely clean up any flash and remove all the items from the sprue. I cleaned the parts out of habit and past bad experiences with resin in general, but with the exception of the medieval legs there was absolutely no tell tale sign of the slightly waxen/greasy feel that mould release leaves on the resin. 

My presumption with the legs was that due to their many rivets and detailed plating sections that more mould release is applied to ensure the pieces and the moulds aren't damaged during removal.

In part 2 of this unboxing I will be going over all of the smaller sundry items that I also purchased, which include arms, weapons (melee and ranged), as well as cloaks, loincloths and a few other bits and pieces. So stay tuned!

Peace out,

Rob

Solar Auxilia Vexilarius - WIP

How do all,

More inroads on my Solar Auxilia Command Squad with a WIP of the Vexilarius. This chap holds he banner of the company high.... Or at least he would if I had painted his arms yet!! The banner is quite the bendy thing so I have magnetised that arm at the elbow which is sufficient support as the base of the pole has a built in slot along the Vexilarius' waist with a belt held holder to the left as you look at him front on.

As the banner is obviously mostly material which takes a lot of time to get right (such as the damn coast these guys where) I've set aside a full session just to paint that and the left sword arm as well. Functionally this chap is complete as you see him, though depending on how close the sword lingers to the body I may have to add some light green OSL to the left side of the torso as it comes away from the sword glow. 

Peace out,

Rob

Solar Auxilia - Tanks Very Much!

Hi everyone,

I have fully purchased everything for my Solar Auxilia army as it is currently planned. And I thought I would just take a picture of all the tanks that involves! This is a very tank heavy army with only 36 infantry models and 8 expensive and deadly tanks! As I type I realise I left my converted Leman Russ out of the picture as well so make that 9!

In the picture above and below from left to right we have:

- Auxilia StormBlade

- Macharius Omega

- 2 x Malcador Infernus

- 4 x Dracosan Armoured Transports (3 with Demolisher Cannons and 1 with twin-linked Lascannon)

That's a combined total of 47 hull points! With the 4 on the left of the picture being super heavies that can't be exploded except by D weaponry! Once the Auxilia have been painted I have several other projects to be getting on with but my next planned purchase for this army will be Titanic in proportion ;)...

Enjoy the pics!

Peace out,

Rob

Dry brushing - Dirty Words?

Afternoon all,

I wanted to write a short article on the technique of dry brushing to paint miniatures. I don't think it is any secret that as a group, table top wargamers that is, we have plenty of members within our ranks that can be very snobbish about how people wish to play the game, pursue the hobby, and paint our miniatures. 

Snobbery

I am guilty of this myself in many respects. I play very much for fun and fluff, and those persons who garner their joy from the purely competitive and "game breaking" aspects of the game are as much anathema to me as perhaps I might be to them. Yes, everyone who plays wants to win, but I'll take a fun loss over a dirty win as it were any day of the week. 

Similarly I like to play against painted armies, or at least see my opponents progressing with their army towards a painted state as I play against them, rather than just a perennially grey or undercoated army. I have very little care for HOW people paint their armies as we all sit at different abilities and as long as someone has taken the time to get it to a painted state I'll be damned if I judge them for that. 

However, something that crops up a lot as a trawl youtube, facebook, and comments section of blogs much larger than my own, is the idea that dry brushing is a "lesser" technique. I think this inherently judges hobbyists who might not have the time nor skill to apply other techniques to their armies and thus is derogatory to the painted outcome, but I also find that is generally misunderstands the technique itself. 

Double Standards

People are often quick to express their loathing at playing unpainted armies, but then will also be quick to judge painting that falls short of their own given arbitrary standard. Dry brushing is an excellent technique for beginners and veterans alike to get an army ready and painted for the tabletop and provides and easy to use technique that allows for a very visually satisfying standard when you view them on the tabletop. 

I have known people to paint upwards of 400 miniatures a year with dry brushing which has allowed them to accrue and play with vast and multitudinous armies. And playing is really rather the end point if you are in it for the game itself no? Certain schemes do lend themselves to this style more readily I feel, such as Iron Warriors (or many space marines in general), as well as Orks and Tyranids to name an extremely un-exhausted list!!!

Long story short, if people are critical of your army simply for the technique you've used to play it then I daresay these people are much fun to play against let alone become friends with! I encourage anyone who thinks that they "HAVE" to aspire to wet blending and other advanced techniques to really eschew that mentality. 

If you are happy with the army that you have produced then to hell with anyone else, pursue new and exciting painting styles at your own pace and don't ever feel belittled because you don't have a Golden Demon... you know like most of us!

The Art of Dry Brushing

The second part of this ranting and meandering article is about generally dispelling the concept that you can't reach "high standards" with dry brushing. I am a HUGE fan of dry brushing as a technique. Dry brushing, in concert with washes and glazes, is the main painting technique I use for my most prized armies. I very rarely apply line highlighting to my armies and it is usually only in a few very select places like the lenses of eyes or lights. 

The picture below is my current range of dry brushes that I used regularly:

As you can see I go from a big fat brush on the left to a size 0 brush on the right that I have trimmed with a scalpel and scissors to have only a few short stumpy bristles left alive to tell the tale. 

Like any technique in painting, dry brushing can be as a simple or as complicated as you want to it to be. I suck at wet blending an line highlighting, like a really fucking suck at those techniques. I don't think that limits me at all, as I just look at a problem and see how I can fit a technique that I am comfortable with (dry brushing if you hadn't guessed...) to fit that problem. 

Every miniature in this article has been primarily painted with basecoats and dry brushing with washes and glazes used to blur the dry brushed layers together and make it less obvious. Thats it! YES it has taken me several years of experimenting to get to this stage and plenty of practise believe you me! But I've got to a stage of making miniatures that I really enjoy looking at and I am proud to place on the table without learning many of the so called "advanced" painting techniques. 

Conclusions

This has been quite the rant from me I'll admit... But I find that this hobby can sometimes be very unforgiving by arbitrary standards set by a select few that can shout loudest and longest and this can serve to demoralise budding hobbyists of any age that want to show of their latest work on many types of social media platforms but perhaps are put off because they aren't using the latest painting styles or aren't at competition winning standards. 

I have to stop here and take note of all the brilliant people out there who DO encourage and guide and help anyone and everyone whatever level they are at. I have been the recipient of endless kindness and guidance on forums, social media and my blog alike. But so too have I suffered crushing snobbery and brutal criticisms that have done nothing but make me devalue my work unnecessarily! 

I hope that reading this has instilled in at least a few people that you don't have to become a master of all painting styles to produce beautiful miniatures and you certainly shouldn't have your standard of what is good set by anyone but yourself. If you're happy you're happy and you should play away :)

I do apologise for the wall of text and the ranting tone as well... I'll get back to mostly pretty pictures tomorrow :P

Peace out,

Rob

Solar Auxilia Proclaimator - Finished

Hey gang,

Some more work on my Solar Auxilia Command Squad today with the Proclaimator being completed. I just have the Strategos and Vexilarius left to do. These guys are so detailed though that it is much easier to them one at a time rather than try to do all the layers together at once. 

Very pleased again with this guy, feel like I've really got the scheme for these chaps down and its paying dividends!

Peace out,

Rob

Solar Auxilia Command Squad WIP

Hey all,

I've started working on my Solar Auxilia command squad and got going with the melta gun and grenade launcher!

Peace out,

Rob

The Hammer and the Anvil - Anvil Industry Order Arrives!

Hi gang,

I recently put a rather large order in with Anvil Industry for a little side project of a very fluffy force from Istvann III. This will be built in conjunction with the shields from Lasercut Candies that you can see here. I have reviewed a few items from Anvil in the past and as well as their products being of extremely high quality I have also well noted their incredible level of customer service, which for me personally, is second to none. 

I will be reviewing each of the products I have bought over the coming 4 weeks and charting the building of the force. Though I won't be giving away the legion explicitly till I start painting them! I'm sure more than a few of you already know though as I haven't kept it all that secret, but some people might enjoy guessing ;)

Below is the bulk order as I unpacked it this morning!

I hope I have piqued your curiosity and you look forward to seeing this force develop!

Peace out,

Rob