Old Stuff Day – 2016

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been participating in Old Stuff Day since 2011.  Has it really been five years?  Heck, have I really been blogging for 7?!?

Old stuff day was started years back as a selfish way to share my own old posts with the community.  Over the years, it’s spread a bit from that, and others have joined into the movement (though I will admit that it’s fallen by the wayside a bit from time to time, because I don’t give it the attention that it deserves).  I think it’s great that other people are participating, but for myself, I’ve slowly changed what it means.  Though it originally was just intended to share my own content, I’ve used the platform in recent years to promote old stuff from other people’s blogs, or just old blogs in general.

This year, I’m taking a sharp right turn back into selfish town and celebrate a truly old gaming aspect: myself.

I wound up turning 40 this year.  Most of those years I wound up playing games in one way or another, but I’ve been playing 40k since 1991.  For those of you youngin’s that are still struggling with “Common Core,” that means I’ve been playing GW games for the past 25 years, so not only is this my 40th birthday (and the start of my foray into “middle age”), but it’s also my silver anniversary of playing 40k.

Yes, this means I’ve probably been playing 40k longer than you’ve been alive.

For that reason, I think I officially qualify as “old stuff.”  I won’t bother you with reflecting too much on my days of yor, but will say that I had my first real birthday in over a decade, and it was really pleasant.  We had cake and BBQ, friends and games, and just an overall great time.  My wife surprised me by swiping a bunch of pictures off my blog and had them printed on the cake, so it seemed terribly apropos to include photos of it here.

So, take some time to reflect on great blog content of the past, but also remember your old friends on this day, and consider reaching out to them to let them know what they mean to you.  It really feels great.

So not to be completely sappy, I’ll include some links to older content that by now everyone who’s been to this blog has already seen, but need to include for formality’s sake:

Tyranid Terrain

These were actually my home made “Mycetic Spores” from back in the day, which was the old fashioned word for Drop Pod.  These have since been replaced with Tyrannocytes, which are far skinnier (and perhaps taller) than my models; consequently, these don’t see the table that much as drop pods.  Nowadays they see the table as Sporocysts (have I ever done this?), or possibly as Vengeance Weapon Batteries, but most often when they get dusted off, they’re just old-fashioned terrain.

When I made them back in the day, I expected they’d attract a fair bit of attention, much like my stained glass windows (see below), but interest in them fell flat.  This is the one project I have where I’m super proud of them and nobody else seems to care…

Painted Buildings

This year I wound up accomplishing quite a bit, including finally getting off my arse and painting up a ton of GW buildings. With the help of Brandon (and a few others), I managed to finish them all off, so now I have some pretty nice looking terrain.

Beyond just having nice terrain, I’m proud of these buildings because they’re my first real attempts at a bunch of different painting techniques: Using an Airbrush, Rust effects, Lighting effects, and posters. Plus I used some of the previous effects that I’ve had a modicum of success with: bronze patina, marble, & blood stains.

So, if any of that tickles your fancy, feel free to check out my series of posts about buildings here.

Stained Glass Windows

Ok, so these were really a subcomponent of the painted buildings displayed above, but as they only had a part in one building, they’re easily glossed over. I know others have done stained glass effects with success in the past, but I couldn’t find any good start-to-finish tutorials, so I dug around and pieced together my own.

Of all of the buildings I have, my shrine of the Acquila definitely gets the most compliments, and it’s because of the stained glass. Again, there’s a step by step tutorial on how I accomplished the stained glass windows in this post.