Totally not an X-man, promise...

Heya folks, we're here again with a quick shiny for you, this time another cracking Hasslefree sculpt:

This one is Jynx, although I quickly began thinking of her as Scarlet Witch and had to work hard not to just go ahead and paint her like that! The concession to my mental picture was the glowing red eyes...

This one is part of the Green and Yellow gang that the Gunslinger and the Special Forces Dude belong to. So she needed a predominant green and black vibe with a touch of yellow thrown in. The yellow was going to be a problem for this model. Anywhere I looked the yellow wasn't going to work. Then I had a moment of inspiration. I could make the leather jacket more of a motorbike jacket and use some of the bright contrast patterning that's popular on bike leathers. This had the effect of making her even more of an X-man but worked nicely for getting that linking spot colour in. By the way, the dress is more intensely green but the camera said "no" to getting both the red and the green balanced and I don't like digitally manipulating just a part of the picture, feels like cheating!

Speaking of red, we need to natter about the face, she was in such an obvious "spellcasting" pose that I wanted something to indicate her power rather than just looking like a natty dancer. Glowing eyes fit the bill nicely. As usual, Object Source Lighting (OSL) is done mostly by building up layers of thin glazes. The trick is mostly where you do not light more than where you do. I talked about the basics of choosing a radius for the illumination etc waaaay back in 2011 (christ, 2011...) with my Blood Angels Librarian. The consideration here was realising where the face would be in "shadow" from the OSL, she reslly did not look right until I'd carefully rehighlighted the bridge of the nose and the brow. The light was spilling out rather than illuminating. I also made sure that the inside of her hair-do caught some light too, radius of illumination y'see?

That's all folks for another post, more shinies soon.

TTFN

Hasslefree Gunslinger

Greetings! There are times where commission painting is a real boon. I've really liked this model for a long time but haven't ever had a reason to get one. Today though? I got to paint one, a Hasslefree "Ryan" masquerading as a gunslinger for the client's Inq28 warband.

Seriously, this model is awesome. The sculpting - like a lot of Kev's recent work - is dynamic, the weight distribution is great and most of all, it works from every single angle. No, really:

Just like the Ratling pilot from a few weeks ago this works all the way round. By the way, now I know how to do animated gifs? Expect a few more 360's... But now, painting!

This chap is to go with the warband that started with the kneeling chap from this post. Thus he needed the green with tiny yellow accents. As the kneeling chap had a military green fatigue suit, I figured that I would carry over the olive drab too. Thus all the tactical webbing went a nice desaturated olive green. Ended up lovely. Skin tone was Dwartist's Burnt Umber/Beige Brown mix that I just love having the opportunity to break out. More people not sculpted as caucasians please sculptors! I like the variety!

That's all for today folks, more soon!

TTFN

Hasslefree Ratling Pilot

Greetings folks, it's been one of those quiet "hobby rut" type of phases for me, so I needed something to kick me out of my rut. Casting around for what I could do that would be fast and fun, I landed on my perennial distraction: Inq28 and a gorgeous, gorgeous sculpt from Hasslefree:

That is Kev White's HFP002 Sola, rather confusingly filed under "fantasy pirates" on the Hasslefree website. First time I saw her I knew I needed that model as it was one of those rare miniatures that seemed to "work" from every angle. Most have at least one angle where they look a bit clumsy, not this one. I'd already decided I wanted a second Inq28 warband and this wee lass was perfect as a gunslinging ratling pilot for the group.

 It's quite rare for me to emphasise just how tiny these things are but in this case it really needs emphasis to show just what an incredible job Kev did in getting all these tiny details to work on the model. Behind her is the extremely durable picture of Her Madge that all of us Brits carry in the form of a 2p piece (about the size of an American quarter dollar). So... very, verrrry small.

 I'd decided I wanted a former punk street kid vibe to the character. A little older and more restrained than the wild youth but with just that touch of tough, rebellious character. After all, this is a tiny ratling girl willing to leave the homeworld and adventure in a universe full of things at least twice as big as she is. The most obvious "punk-ey" element is the magenta streak in her hair (look way more subtle in the photos than in real life) which I'd toyed with a lot. I didn't want her to look frivolous - which I thought a complete dye job would have done - and the wrong colour would have leapt out from the hair too much. Waaay too much thought went in to that hair dye.

 Her gear I wanted very understated and pragmatic. Lots of blacks and brown leather with a splash of subdued colour in the dark turquoise top. The goggles I was chuffed with, I wanted that amber-brown aviator shades look and think I managed it. As usual I went with a couple of different browns for the leather to be able to differentiate the various "bits" of leather. I'd love to be able to give you the recipes but it was more of a "suck it and see" mixing session rather than thinking "tutorial". 

Basing for this warband will all be on some lovely paved resin bases I picked up from Firestorm made by "Model Display Products". A quick length of pinning wire and the models sit lovely on them. Once I've got them all painted I'll do my usual "story of the warband" article over on Beard Bunker but for now. I'll just concentrate on the pretties.

That's it for today folks, more shinies soon, I promise!

TTFN

A Feast for Crows

"We found her there, shaving the hair from her head using blood as a lather. Around her were the wreckage - both material and flesh - of what we presume was her trading caravan. Beyond that were the dozens of Orcs someone had slain. With an axe matching hers. The air was teeming with crows whose feast she had provided. She's never once spoken of the life before the massacre, indeed, only seems alive when howling fury at her foes. Frankly, sir, she scares the hell out of me..."

Stromni Skystride, Chief Ranger of Karak Hoch about Badhbh Crow-Feast.

There's a chance that this model is NSFW, if it is, find a better workplace ;)

Hello folks! Yes, were I Frankestein's Monster someone would be dancing around me hooting "He's.... ALIIIIVE!", sorry for the best part of a month's absence. Largely due to a) looking for work rather than putting paint on little mans, still ongoing, b) being on holiday, c) not realising that three weeks had managed to pass since last update. I have been painting but it is a huge 30 strong unit of Longbeards with lots and lots of fiddly details so is taking a while. As a bit of light relief I thought I'd paint this lovely Hasslefree miniatures trollslayer to add to my army as a Dragonslayer hero. Something to address first. Yep, she is very nekkid from the waist up. So are all the Trollslayers behind their beards:

But I was aware that for a variety of reasons nudity in female models is freighted with rather more "creepiness" than males. Mercifully, not only does Kev sculpt real, actual physiques on his women but there are also a variety of clothes options from this one all the way through to practical adventuring type gear. While some of his poses are a bit fanservice-ey (fair enough), most of them are non-sexualised women at war. Compare and contrast with the Brother Vinni stuff... With all this in mind I knew I wanted to dispel any titillation from the bared boobs and instead give the same impression that a half-naked male barbarian would give. I.E. badass who is so contemptuous of your abilities that he doesn't need armour. Nothing better than blood for that right?

As far as painting goes, most of what is there to talk about is skin. In this case, because Dwarf, she needed to be ruddy and weather-beaten. This, I achieve by shifting my usual skin method down a tone. Start from Bugman's Glow, Wash with Reikland Fleshtone. Then highlight with increasing mixes of Bugman's Glow, Cadian Fleshtone and finally a little Kislev Flesh mixed in for the top highlights. These are gradual transitions. I think I must have used about a dozen thin layers. Essentially each transition is in three stages pure colour; 2:1 mix; 1:1 mix; 1:2 mix; pure next colour.

Once the skin was finished, the hair was painted. Hasslefree's model has lovely sculpted stubble, just drybrush with wanted hair colour. Remember, slayer orange not the natural colour so stubble won't be orange! Trousers, weapon etc got their colours then it was blood and mud o'clock. I used blasts of air from the airbrush over a paint-loaded 3/0 brush to create the spatters. Be very careful and practice first on the palette. You generally don't want the first load you blow off the brush, too heavy. The second time is more subtle so unload the brush before you start. Streaks and rivulets were added with the brush depending from the larger splashes. For the blood, I used my usual mix of 3:1 red to chestnut ink and a splash of Lahmian medium. To this black ink is added in order to create the darker, blood for the bigger/older areas.

You can see the black-er blood on the edge of the axe. The mud was spattered with AK Fresh Mud the same way as the blood. It's subtle - too subtle for my lighting I'm afraid - but can be seen on the left arm in the picture above. This model was a joy to paint - as have been all the #Hasslefree models I've painted. Seriously, if you enjoy painting: check them out. Kev's been on a real roll lately and lots of the more recent figures are becoming must-haves for me. Oh and they totally have a range of squats...

As normal, while painting I was telling the model's story in my head. I pictured her as an unknown revenant of furious revenge. Her past life wiped out by traumatic slaughter and only violent death remaining. Her name - Badhbh (pronounced Bay-v) - is one of the three names of the goddesses that make up the Morrigan, the crow goddess of death in battle and rebirth of ancient celt legend. The "Crow-Feast" surname is a reference to this and also what she provides in any battle she steps into. "But Jeff," you begin, "Don't you already have a character slayer that you waxed rhapsodic about not so long ago?" Well yes, he's been simultaneously promoted to Daemon Slayer in the Stormbornes and also earmarked for a future Karak Kadrin army (I have another 70 slayers lying around... because reasons, I don't have a problem, honest...).

More soon (not least 30 Longbeards) but for now

TTFN

Rangers with Character (part one)

As most people who read this blog will know, I've been burning the painting oil pretty bright (or at least as long as my wrists hold out on any given day) to get the last of the commission work finished. This hasn't left much (any) time for my own hobby lately, so I started a fun little Dwarf drying-time project over the last couple of weeks and this is the result:

They are a sort of Impossible Mission Force of Rangers for my Dwarf army. We do a lot of narrative role-play style gaming to achieve non-battlefield objectives in the campaign (intelligence gathering, item retrieval, occasional straight up sabotage) and I wanted a crew of individuals to serve as my normal RPG force. Enter Dwalin's Dirty Dozen, twelve - slightly unhinged - Dwarfs dedicated to getting the job done, no matter the cost and with a minimal amount of ethics... Over on the Beard Bunker there is a series of companion articles to these two posts (I'm splitting the article in two so as not to have a nine mile long post) detailing their in game effects and nifty backstories. Here, we'll talk painting and modelling.

In part one we'll focus on the more "ranger-ey" half of the dozen, the "odd squad" can wait till next time and where better to start than with their fearless leader Stromni Skystride:

Stromni is a Hasslefree miniatures dwarf (you'll see more of Kev's Dwarfs as the army continues to grow) who is just perfect as the grizzled, taciturn leader of a bunch of hard-bitten rangers. Handily he's also armed with a shield so I can keep him alive a smidgeon longer than some of the others. In painting Stromni (and indeed most of the other eleven) I wanted to follow the scheme already set out in the ranger regiment so that I could add most of these nifty models in to the existing unit (and replace Bugman making him once more a special character). The classic Stormbourne scheme of Incubi Darkness and linen-cream (Val Deck Tan washed with Seraphim Sepia and rehighlighted with Deck Tan) almost gets lost under all the other colours on the model, the Charadon Granite (I kept a pot specially) cloaks, leather armour and other camp goods rather crowd it out. You can see it on the shield though, and yep, I got a bit excited with the shield design. I'm still not as smooth with the freehand as I used to be (stiff wrists do not help) but the overall effect is nice and complex.

Next up is Stromni's number 2 and new champion of the regiment. He's a Reaper ranger from their Pathfinder range and he... is... perfect for a warhammer ranger champion. Ideal armament and the gear he has is sublime. Look at the little tea-kettle attached to his pack! I added a fondness for Cathayan tea to his backstory just because of it! Something I will say about this model is that not one strap, buckle, pouch etc is pointless. All the straps link up (even under cloaks where it is easy to forget), all the gear has a purpose, he works. You wouldn't believe how often I see sculpting where someone has just put a strap around a leg or a random pouch with no thought at all to what it is for, just to have an area of empty space broken up. Highly recommended.

This is the fire support of the unit, a ranger with a reconditioned repeater hand gun! He's the only conversion I had to do, all the rest were stories informed by finding cool minis I wanted to paint. In this case it was a relatively simple matter of cutting off the existing rifle and pinning the business end of an Empire repeater handgun in it's place. I contemplated trying to get the left hand under the gun but it would have taken a lot of sculpting, as it is the raised hand looks nice. A sort of "everything is fine at the moment, I don't have to fire the gun'o'doom" pose. I did extend his cloak, the sculpting on the cloaks really lets the plastics down at the moment. Very thin rolled ProCreate was cut to shape, draped over the areas I wanted the cloak to hang and blended in when it started to cure. Surprisingly easy, I may have to do some more cloakage.

Finally for part one, we have the snipers, more Reaper dwarfs armed only with crossbows to provide some quieter fire support. All of these are covered in leather armour so to speed things up I started with the Rhinox Hide that I've used for the dwarf's leather all over the model, highlighting with Mournfang Brown and shading with Agrax Eathshade. Anywhere where there was a strap or pouch surrounded by more leather colour I used a mildly contrasting leather colour, in this case pure Mournfang brown highlighted with a little bone, to subtly differentiate the different areas. While the camera hates subtle changes the lacing on the armour of the lady in the middle is where you can see it clearest. Oh and a hat tip to whoever sculpted the head on the dwarf on the right, that thing is ridiculously expressive. Love it.

That's all for part one, the odd squad coming for part two!

TTFN

You've got red on you...

Arr me hearties, happy Friday to one and all. Well, as usual with the start of a new project the first few days consisit of assembly, fixing problems, removing mold lines and the like before mass base coating. Given that this would be far, far more boring to read about than to do I haven't shared any pictures of it! Instead, I'm going to show you all a model I've been itching to share but haven't been able to until now! (Because it is being entered in a WAMP contest and you have to post it in the competition gallery before it is shown anywhere else).

For those who aren't immediately familiar with this chap, this is Simon Pegg as Shaun from Shaun of the Dead. Again, this is a model with no real purpose in gaming (though I'm sure I'll find one eventually!) that I'm drawn to painting. I'm calling the series Cathode Ray Conquerers and you'll find more TV and movie-land characters under that tag. He is a Hasslefree miniatures sculpt and another corker: HFA052 Dynamic Ray. I've also got an "Ed" model converted to have a spade ready for some paint to join him. Oddly enough, this is the second time I've painted one of Hasslefree's Simon Pegg look-alikes (PC Nick Angel being the last one) that I've painted. Kinda hoping that there will be a third model in the Cornetto Trilogy...

First, I've got to say, this sculpt is brilliant, the pose; the weight distribution; the likeness; all are fantastic. But now to painting! Unusually for me I started from a white undercoat - as I knew the cricket bat, the flesh and the white shirt would all be happier for it! When you are trying to replicate a specific colour scheme for a project like this, reference material is all important. For things like face and hair colouring almost any still from the films will do, but it is often trickier to get a full length shot. So here is my top tip: action figures. These days almost every film (that would merit induction into the Cathode Ray Conquerers) gets collectable action figures, meticulously researched and nicely photographed. Like this one!

They really are a godsend for reference material. I toyed with painting him covered with blood but decided in the end (largely due to the pose of the Ed model) to set him in the garden right before the first zombie kill. If anyone knows of a "Mary" zombie let me know and I'll totally diorama this up!

Painting started with everything that wasn't white getting basecoated and shaded! Sadly, I didn't make notes on the paint colours used for everything and I painted him a few weeks ago so I can't really give full details. I can say that the shirt was painted with my new favourite white technique. A solid basecoat of Ceramite White is shaded with Val Pale Wash which is a very thin, sort of Fortress Grey colour. You can then very easily rehighlight and be left with a very clean, very straightforward white. Now to try doing those pesky Napoleonic British webbing straps again...

Little details like bothering to paint a watch face make a big difference in this sort of work. He's so simple a colour scheme that all you can really do is get the shades right and pick out small details to make him stand out. So, there y'go, one Shaun, very much not of the Dead. I'll stick Ed up when I get him finished. If you happen to be a WAMP member come on down and rate him would you? I'd quite like to win this one! There'll be Flecktarn Guard up soon so until then

TTFN

Inq28 - A Very Fatal Femme

Hello to one and all, hope you've all had a good bank holiday weekend (for the UK readers). My bank holiday included - hang on to your seats - some painting. I know, surprising right? In this case it was a very nice final addition to my Grey Knights Inquisitor Retinue:

She is technically a crusader in the rules - storm shield and power sword. I'll probably use her as some form of assassin/infiltrator in battlegear for Inq28. The model itself is a Hasslefree Miniatures HFA004 Kat figure with a couple of modifications. Its an older model from Hasslefree but still a great pose and typically nice Kev White anatomy and sculpting. I whipped off the head and replaced it with an Elysian Drop Troops helmet. It might look a bit large to some but that is because we have become habituated to seeing helmets sculpted skin tight and paper thin. This one is more akin to a motorcycle helmet. Might have to try and get a version of her on a motorbike somehow... The shield is a Space Marine combat shield with added green stuff strapping.

Colour wise, there was only really one choice. Matrix-black PVC. I didn't want her to be monotone though so anything that could be leather - corset, webbing, holster, boots, gloves - went a nice rich, brown leather. Start from Rhinox Hide, add some Doombull Brown for first highlight, then add Tuskgor Fur to the mix for the second highlight. I chucked in some Flayed One Flesh for the final sharp edge highlights and then glazed it all back down with Agrax Earthshade. The black is simply Vallejo Black with gloss varnish. PVC doesn't shade much and highlights in very sharp catchlights. I could have gone through and painted every individual catchlight but there is this magical stuff called gloss varnish that will do it all in one hit and from any angle. I did the math.

I'm becoming very fond of this trick for making a reflective visor. Army Painter Shining Silver basecoats the visor. Then blue and black-green inks from Vallejo provide a vague landscape. Rehighlight with Shining Silver and then gloss varnish. Looks lovely. By the way, the steel above the visor isn't shaded with Nuln Oil, instead I used thinned Vallejo black wash. It is a pure-er black.

I wanted the shield to be a battered relic of the Inquisitor's. I freehanded on the design and then took a deep breath before adding tons of scratches and dings to show the hard usage the shield goes through. Note that despite being exactly the same colour there is contrast between the shield (and indeed the helmet) and the catsuit. This is because you can contrast with texture as well as colour.

Her glowing blade was made simplicity itself by one of the new edge paints. A couple of coats of Gauss Blaster Green made a nice bright basecoat. Highlighted by adding Ceramite White, glazed down with thinned Green Ink and rehighlighted. I then added green glaze to the hilt and the arm with a line of Gauss Blaster Green up the arm as a hard reflection. I then re-glossed the area to make for a nice reflected glow in the PVC.

So, as the workometer shows, the Inquisitor's whole warband is now complete. As far as the Grey Knights are concerned that is. I'm once more Inquisitor hooked and there is going to be more, much more being added! The rhino that will carry this unit is going to be represented by an Eisenkern APC, once they are finally released:

Won't that be shiny? Anyway, I'm back to work now with Purple tanks on the workbench. Expect pics very soon!

TTFN

So Say We All

A fond hello to all shipmates, today though we go to a rather different vessel. Into the depths of space and a ship that is heading right for us...

Yup, I recently picked up a few Hasslefree Sci-fi Adventurers bearing astonishing resemblences to three characters from one of my favourite shows: Battlestar Galactica [spoiler warning, if you still haven't seen the series then get on with it! Just look at the pretty pictures in this article]. As usual these are absolutely not Admiral Adama, Colonel Tigh and Caprica Six. I just painted them this way as part of the eclectic display I call Cathode Ray Conquerers.

The Cathode Ray Conquerers have no real place in any of my armies and are just display pieces painted for the sheer hell of it. So far I've done characters from Doctor Who, Hellboy and Hot Fuzz and I'm fairly certain there'll be more! Anyhow, on to the painting, lets start with the good Admiral:

Now to prove what a geek I am, the uniform as sculpted somewhere between the everyday blue uniform (which should really be belted) and dress greys (which ought to have a sash). I decided to err on the side of the everyday and paint the uniform as blue as the belt was a lot easier to ignore than a girt great sash. Getting the blue right was simple, Kantor blue mixed with Vallejo black (which I've shifted over to having become frustrated with the coverage and depth of colour of Abaddon Black), highlighted with pure Kantor Blue and then glazed back down with Drakenhof Nightshade (seriously, "blue wash" has eight letters and a space, sheesh) . I then washed the shoulder and cuff sections with Nuln Oil because they are a darker blue. Given that the Colonel Tigh model has just the one eye it places the models at a particular point in the continuity, thus, Bill Adama is an admiral and has the gold piping on the uniform. It does make me laugh, the continued adhereance to military code of dress. The president has to get a jeweller to make the admirals pips, they've got shortages of everything but plenty of uniform piping... Along those lines I also made an attempt at the colonial fleet insignia on his left arm, given that it is 3mm across it is tough to do anything but suggest its presence.

Saul Tigh is one of "those" characters. You like them when they are doing the job right and despise them when they are screwing up. Or being screwed up by the wife, yeesh. Anyway, Saul was painted the same way as Bill except that I added more grey to the skin tone and obviously needed to pick out the eyepatch. This is that classic "nobodies skin tone" colour that medical supplies tend to come in. Ungor Flesh made a nice analogue. Its worth mentioning the bases. These are Black Cat base inserts. For display models base inserts are great. Cheaper than buying the metal/resin for a full base and all of the character. Yes, I could probably have fabricated these out of plasticard but it would have taken as long as painting the models. And speaking of models in every sense of the word:

The "Gina" model (named for one of Six's many clones) by Hasslefree is a stunning piece of work. Anyone who knows the series knows that Kev White has captured perfectly Tricia Helfer's figure and stance, oh and "that" dress. Getting her skin tone and hair right needed a lot of fiddling around with very subtle differences in shade. Guy skin you can go for high contrasts (especially Edward James Olmos (Bill Adama) who has the craggiest face on any living human) but girl skin needs softer contrasts. As a result, the difference in shade between the highest highlights and the lowest shades on Six are very very slight compared to normal. The hair (which could have been even lighter and still been the right colour) started as a shade of bone so light it was almost white and than shaded down with seraphim sepia before being rehighlighted with the original mix. Annoyingly, I've just noticed the left eye (right from our perspective) which while looking fine in real life looks gods aweful in the photo. Grr. Something to fix.

All in all a very pleasant day and a bit of painting and something I can recommend to anyone. Its all very well doing my usual thing of keeping tightly focussed to army projects and "useful" painting but it can be a bit wearing. Doing occasional "pointless" painting like the Cathode Ray Conquerers is like a drink of water in a wine tasting, cleanses the pallete and leaves you fresh for more of the same. Plus, you run into unusual problems to solve which improves your painting. Using popular TV shows and comics and the like just give me another bridge to the "normals" in my friends and family who don't wargame in order to interest them in my output and hobby. Give it a go, have some fun and cleanse your hobby pallete.

Thats all for today, Purple marines on my workbench again before work starts on Pyladii Alpha. Work in progress as always on Today I've Mostly Been... which you can also follow on Facebook or Twitter, whatever takes your fancy really. Until next time

TTFN

New Squats! (Hasslefree Grymn actually)

Greetings all, and finally some hobby content! As usual after an extended break from painting I prefer to warm up with something straightforward. In this case the happy coincidence of being commissioned as one of Hasslefree Miniatures paint slaves and having some of their Grymn (known to you and I as old-school Squats!) as a first job.

These are wonderful little models, like all Hasslefree models that I have painted they have clean lines and neat details and are a joy to paint. I decided to paint them in a scheme reminiscent of modern soldiers with a little bit of Mass Effect stylings thrown in.

The paint scheme starts with a solid basecoat of Vallejo English Uniform over the entire model. This is then shaded with thinned Devlan Mud and highlighted with a mix of English Uniform and Kommando Khaki. Next I picked out the armour plates in Vallejo Iraqi Sand, this needed a couple of coats to get a nice clean colour. Visors were painted with Mithril Silver and then thinned inks were used to create a reflective finish. Blue for the sky, a mix of Brown and Yellow inks for the desert sand. Badab Black for the guns. I then rehighlighted with Mithril Silver to dilute the intensity of the ink colour.

The armour plates were then lined in with Devlan Mud and highlighted with a mix of Iraqi Sand and Pale Sand. The leather areas were my now familiar Vallejo Leather Brown shaded with Devlan Mud and highlighted by adding a little Bleached Bone. The guns are Vallejo Blue Grey and the pouches are Grey Green. This all created the modern military look that I was after. A thin line of red along some of the gun furnitures gave the futuristic Mass Effect stylings to the weaponry.

All in all I am delighted with how these turned out, they are splendid sculpts and a lovely re-working of the classic Squat look. I should be painting their entire Grymn range and look forward to finding some way to make an army out of them! Suggestions? Anyway, that's all for this update, my current schedule has me working 3 days out of 5 on client work and 2 days on what I call "Industry" work, painting for miniature companies. As a result I have a few half finished projects ready to finish off and show to the world. They'll have to wait a few days though as tomorrow I shall be away to Warhammer World with the Beard Bunker lads for our annual Nerd Thunder event. Pictures shall follow! Until then...

TTFN