Gathering in the Desert T-Shirt Art

Another year of the Gathering in the Desert is upon us. It is an independent grand tournament for Lord of the Rings, which is run here in Phoenix. The esteemed Mr. Kulinski helps organize it, and you can read more about it on his blog.

He asked me to create a painting for the GitD t-shirts he created for the event. I think the shirts are going to look great. The colors were changed from the original to accommodate the capabilities of the silk screen shop doing the work. They could've done full color, but that would've driven up the cost beyond what's reasonable. So here's a look at the original painting.

It was done digitally, using Painter 9 and a Wacom Intuous 3 pen tablet. You can see how the painting looks on the t-shirt by following this link to Tim's blog.

Starting Again

So, it's no mystery that I abandoned my blog for the last six months! In fact, I was not unproductive during this period. I painted a Lord of the Rings Corsair force, added Rangers to my Gondor list, painted dismounts for all my cavalry, and probably a few miscellaneous things I forgot to mention as well. But I just didn't document any of it.

Well, it's a new year obviously, and I'm inspired to start again.

I want to blog a little bit more about other things that I'm doing as well. But I'm afraid that too many unrelated topics will make for a lousy blog. (For example, my Japanese and Chinese language study and reading won't interest many people who are linked here for the gaming aspect.) So I'll just do a different blog for that stuff, and keep this one for miniatures and related gaming. Recently, I've been into World of Warcraft. That might be something to blog about.... or not. I guess it depends.

OK, so on the miniatures front for 2009, I am planning a different type of year than the prior three. For the last three years, I've been going gang-busters on getting an entire army ready for this or that event. I don't want to do that anymore. I want to paint figures that interest me for no other reason than that. I'm tired of racing to an event deadline, completing an army, and never playing it again after that event. So I expect to paint things that might not be part of an existing force. For example, Reaper miniatures have always interested me, but as they're not part of a game system I play I don't do them. Warmachine and Hordes are in the same boat, though I do occasionally play those systems.

So, I started the year off by getting back to Warhammer 40K. I haven't played a 40K game in about a year! I don't even know the 5th ed rules! It's a shame, since I enjoyed this game. Of course, Lord of the Rings has been my main game for 2008 and will remain that way for a while. Still 40K was my first game, and I still enjoy it.

Rather than adding to my Ultramarines (not that interested in them) or beefing up my Tyranids (love 'em, but recently can't "empathize" with playing a hyped up hornet with guns), I've gone over to an army I've wanted to do but never followed up on: The Tau Empire!

I only have a unit of Fire Warriors and an Ethereal. So, basically I'm just doing an Ethereal with his Honor Guard. What I'll add later, who knows! I'm in no hurry, and I'm not actively playing 40K -- yet. I'll get up to a legal list of at least 500 pts, so I could do some small games. But after that, I'm not sure what my plans are. I'll have to see how I like the Tau. At least I know I'll enjoy collecting them. The above picture shows the three that I've painted so far. I think they look pretty good, and just need some flocking on the base to finish them.