In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war...and lots of prizes!

This was one of the few weekends where I miraculously escaped a backlog of grading and got out of the house for a day to catch a film and enjoy some hobby fun. I headed out to the Grand Opening event at the new Games Workshop - Willow Lake East store in Indy. Kevin and his crew have a nice space with lots of room to build and paint. Plus, he's a good guy and is planning a trip out to Wabash in the fall. He's generously volunteered to share some minis with the Dork Club at our call-out meeting. It should be a fun time.

The grand opening event had all of the promised "exclusive" swag that is associated with such events. I picked up a nice Imperial flag for my office, some 40k patches, etc. I was very excited about checking out the new range of Citadel paints. The store hosted a little speed painting contest so folks could take the new formulas out for a spin. I have to admit, I like the new base colors...especially the yellow and reds! They cover well and even hold their own against a black base coat. Very impressive! We had ten minutes to paint up some simple models using only four colors (red, blue, white, & green) and a texture paint for the base. It was a blast and while you could buy additional colors, I enjoyed the color mixing challenge presented by the provided colors. My CHE211 students will be pleased to know that color theory has applications well beyond transition metal complexes. My mini won and I got a nice bag full of prizes: a nice terrain piece, cool portfolios, more patches, and a signed copy of Nick Kyme's Nocturne! Pretty generous loot!

After picking out a few pots of paint and shades, the store put on a conversion contest. I had never participated in one of these before. The store gave us piles of plastic bits from across a number of their miniatures ranges. The challenge was to construct a miniature from these spare parts. My Frankenstein creation took shape pretty quickly. After cutting and gluing away for about 30 minutes, I was really pleased at the result! The new Citadel "thick" plastic glue is great! The "thin" stuff is really nice too, but they need to refine the applicator tips since it clogged way too quickly in my opinion. I think I have a new inspiration for another army on my hands...and he really doesn't like Space Wolves. He's got a Thousand Sons vibe to him and he is standing over the guy he just took apart and is still clutching the head as a prize. He was worthy of a three-way tie for first, but no need to be greedy with the prizes. Check him out below.

After realizing that I forgot to grab lunch, I scarfed down some grub and headed over to Keystone for a movie. I'm a huge Asian film fan: Hard Boiled and Ong-bak are my favorites! I decided to check out The Raid: Redemption. It was INTENSE! Not great enough to dethrone HB or O-b, but very entertaining! Just one more week of classes, finals, and then summer arrives!