Tyranids hobby update, a little news, and a bit of a funk.

Hey all, Chaosheade here after taking a few mental health days off.  I figured I would share my progress on my Tyranid army so everyone can point and laugh at my incredibly slow progress.  This will also serve as a pseudo-update to the 'Magnetizing' Without Magnets Tutorial that will probably get a real update sometime in the not too distant future.  I'll get into the reasons closer to the end of the post.  More after the jump.

First, a short news break.  I haven't gotten any posts up or much progress on my nids but I haven't been completely neglecting you.  I have tweaked the blog a bit, improved the RSS feed, and added a low-res viewing option for those with slower connections or whatever the case may be.  I also did something that I swore I would never do... I created a twitter account.  You can see the twitter feed on the left side of the main site.  I won't twitter what I am doing every second of the day or let you know every time I fart, but it is a useful tool for quick updates to the blog that don't warrant a post by themselves.  I have also created a Deviant Art account for hosting pictures of my minis and pics that I take for tutorials and such so I don't run out of room on the default Picasa account that blogger uses.  Now that that's out of the way, on to the pictures.

First up is a unit of 10 termagants with interchangeable weapons with fleshborers.

Have I told you all how awesome I think the fleshborer barrels look with the devourer arms?  Seriously, I just love how the two pieces combine to make something greater than the sum of the two parts.  Most of them are mated up and line up well except for the one right out in front.  Figures it would be the one that is front and center, damn you and your laws, Murphy!  I have had some thoughts about how to deal with the gaps that I covered in this DakkaDakka thread advertising the tutorial.

And here are those same 10 gants with the standard devourer barrel attached.  The conversion process to make the weapons interchangeable is pretty tedious and time consuming and I ended up bending my drill bit a little in the process.

Above: 3 test models including a Two Face wannabe.
Below: Don't worry about the genestealers, they're mostly armless *rimshot*.  On the right is the first attempt at testing the original paint scheme.  That plan went belly up pretty quick once I got to the actual painting part.

And here is everything else I have gotten done.  Seriously, that's it.  18 models assembled, 4 without arms, and 4 with incomplete or crappy and sloppy test paint jobs.  That's all I have to show after a couple months worth of work while in the same time frame other bloggers who started at around the same time I did or even later have a large part of a functional army all assembled and even painted.

The going has been slow for a number of reasons.  (This is where you skip to the end if you don't care.)

1. So much to do, so little time.  I just don't have a lot of free hobby time and I have to share that time between following other blogs, writing for my own blog, and actually getting some hobby stuff done when I can squeeze it in.
2. Mold lines, the bane of my existence.  I am really anal about mold lines and cleaning up my models.  Cleaning and assembling 1 model per day isn't too bad for an MEQ army but for a horde army with 5 times the model count it's not so great.  I used to not mind removing mold lines too much when most of my army was smooth surfaces but now I hate them with a burning fiery passion.  I need to find a better and faster way of getting rid of the mold lines or quit being so anal about them.
3. Conversions, awesome but time consuming.  Converting all those termagant weapons takes a while to get done properly.  Drilling 4 holes, gluing 2 pins, and lots of careful measuring and planning to ensure proper alignment eats up precious hobby time and adds to the tedium but at least I have something to show for my work.
4. Tedium, brought to you by Mold Lines, the official sponsor of brain atrophy.  It is very easy to get bogged down with being a perfectionist when you are planning on making 40 termagants and 20 hormagaunts to start off with.  I would get frustrated and just couldn't stand the thought of removing the mold lines from another 50 intricately detailed models so I had to add some distraction entertainment to help me keep going.  I started re-watching Archer while cleaning my models which helped immensely.  I get to laugh and be entertained while working so I don't get sick of it after 20 minutes.  Podcasts and audiobooks also help with this.  I used to do the audiobook thing all the time before I moved and I don't know why it took me this long to figure out that I should start doing that again.
5. Real Life; or, the world outside of 40K.  Working 7 days a week and trying to fit in sleep and time with the wife and 2 year old son is one of the reasons for #1: lack of time.  Love my family, don't love my job, and trying to find a new one is also taking up time.  There was also 2 Father's Day barbecues, one of which we hosted and I was grilling for.  Then my brother visited and stayed for about 5 days which was awesome as many good times were had but also leaves less time for hobbying.  Again, not that I mind.  I enjoy spending time with my family.
6. Malaise, not as delicious as it might sound.  This time for a change of pace, instead of a hobby funk, I just went into a general funk.  Don't know why, but I suspect that lack of sleep was the main culprit.  It's really important to get enough sleep, at least for me, or else it has a negative effect on many things.  Working every single night does not help me get more sleep.  Just one of the reasons why I am trying to get a new job.

Which leads me to the conclusion that the universe is simply conspiring against me.  

Paranoid?  Probably, but just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face.

And so there you have it.  A little bit of news about the site, a few pictures, and a bit of a rant that ended up being much longer than I originally intended it to be.  Many of you might not care, but it's good to get it off my chest and share what I've been going through even if nobody reads it.  I will continue working on my nids with my priority being getting some more models mostly assembled, meaning without arms in most cases, so I can have at least something to work with so I can start having some fun playing my new army with my friends.  It's been a long time since I actually got a game in and I think playing again would really help me get back into my 40k groove.  I will also continue working on the Adventures in Airbrushing series with the next post covering additional tools and accessories for airbrushing besides the airbrush and compressor.  That's all I've got for now so until next time, take it sleazy and I'll catch you on the flip side.