"Painting" 40K Space Marines with Sharpie Pens - Completed Land Speeder

A few weeks ago I started to assemble and paint a Build+Paint Land Speeder for the small Sharpie-painted Ultramarines force.

Over the weekend I completed the Land Speeder, and I think it turned out well for the time and effort spent.  The last few steps were to dip the model, apply the decals, glue in the drive and gunner, re-apply dipping media over the decals.  I finally applied a matte spray to tone down the reflection of the dipping media to complete the model.

There are a few touch-ups needed to be made with a fine Sharpie pen, (in areas where I still see some blue where it shouldn't be). As a proof of concept, it was a success.  The metallic Sharpie pens worked great and saved a ton of time painting those colors.

I probably won't paint any miniatures solely with Sharpie pens alone going forward, but for models with some metallic colors, I'll be sure to pull out the Sharpies - at least for easy to mark areas.

Star Wars: Legion - A Matter of (T-47) Scale

The recent news about the Star Wars: Legion expansions has generated much discussion and questions around what scale the T-47 is in, (and the absurdity of having a fast-flying air-support vehicle as a on-table unit in a skirmish game).

The scale question arose after the following photo was posted from Essen, showing the T-47 Airspeeder to appear on the smallish-side -- even when considering the implications of perspective and distance:

Now that the Spanish Fantasy Flight Games website has posted the unpainted models, it is easier to see that the T-47 isn't as off-scale as it first appeared.  The other point is that, based on the "official" specifications, the Airspeeder is much smaller than most people realize.

Gaming Scenery - Miniature Flocked Trees from Michaels

Over last weekend I visited Michaels in nearby Issaquah and noticed that they have released their holiday inventory.  This is great news for hobby enthusiasts, as Michaels has one of the best deals you can get on flocked trees.  These trees are for use with their Christmas Villages, but work great with snow-covered terrain tables for scales anywhere from 15mm to 35mm.

The key to savings is to use a ubiquitous Michaels 40% off coupon, available from their website.  This brings the cost of a large bunch of trees down dramatically.  Last weekend, they even offered one of their legendary 50% off coupons, which I used for some hobby brushes.