Tues Night Wrap Up #2

01.12.2012

This past HobbyPrep Tuesday I was joined in the boonies by Jer, who brought a bucket of zombies to paint. I was actually glad Jer came by, because I wasn't in much of a mood to hobby prep. I had been working on the World Works Games paper model buildings and trying to figure out the best way to use magnets to hold things in place - others have done this and it makes for cleaner construction as well as being easier to store. After a couple of different approaches I had failed each time and was a little bummed/burned out. That may be the key to HobbyPrep Tuesdays - don't keep prepping the rest of the week!

While I didn't have anything new to work on, there were still a couple of figures from last week to finish up. I had mounted one of the jungle fighters on a 1"X2" base thinking it would be fun to play around with the flocking on the base. In addition, I had my first zombie stripper and a chainsaw wielding hottie that needed their bases finished.

Jerry was still zombie painting after I had done the base flocking I was after, so I went ahead and dug out the figures from last week. Even though the details weren't as visible as I had hoped, I still thought I could salvage a little something more out of these. I went back with a fine-tipped (005) brown pen and traced over contours of muscle and seams. That brought out a lot more detail, especially when looking from normal sitting height to the table. I kept playing around and gave a couple fighter beards, which caused me a heft guffaw the first time I did it since I was amazed that it looked as good as it did.

Now I'm going to intentionally not do anything hobby-related for a day or two. I might prime some metal figures, but that's it. And most of that is waiting for the primer to dry before flipping them over to get full coverage. Although I do have most of the parts ready to make the first store of the paper model mall.

No no no, that's getting ahead of myself!

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Tues Night Wrap Up

01.07.2012

I've finished my first batch of miniatures for the year. Maybe I should use some air quotes and say I'm "finished". They don't look as if they were painted by a 3rd grader. 5th grader, maybe.

A few years ago, I bought a pack of WH40K Catachan Jungle Fighters and proceeded to paint all of the pants in a camo motif, and a flesh colored coat on pretty much everything else. This was before I knew the importance of priming plastic before painting it. Soon after this, my interest waned and everything went into a box and on a shelf.

Instead of just outright paying another $25 for a new box of fighters, I thought I would use the old one as my first practice step back into painting and modelling. I've surfed and seen some nice examples of what others have put together, so I at least would have something to compare to.

In the end, while not as good as I wanted them to look, I don't think they're horrible. They're usable for a game. Among friends. Friends that don't notice a lot of details. Digging out this old, half-started box that I managed to "finish" and then comparing them to the batch of Imperial Guard I finished last month, I've learned the importance of things like a proper coat of primer, not globing on paint (notice how some of the faces have almost no detail), and that I should just take my time and probably not make more than 1 or 2 figures at a time, regardless of whether or not more are using the same color scheme.

So, here is my first entry into the Hobby Night 2012 Collection Box:

Although I don't sound too happy with the way these turned out, it's only because I want to do better. With what I had to work with (i.e. after I screwed them up to begin with years ago) I think they're average looking. My next batch, whatever I decide to make, had better be a whole lot better since I'll be starting from scratch.

With that said, my next Tuesday night project has nothing to do with making figures but instead paper model scenery for said figure to fight amongst.

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Game Room Setup

01.06.2012

I think I found a guy more anal about how he sets up his boardgame stuff than I am. Although the video is an overview of his setup for Dust Tactics, I spent the whole time looking at all the stuff he's got in his game room (and not just the football jerseys framed on the wall).

He's got cool stuff. I'll admit I just ordered the dice game/tray and card holders off Amazon. But I haven't gone overboard. Yet.

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65

01.05.2012

Today would have been Mom's 65th birthday. She's been gone for 3 years, and I still think about her more often than I ever thought I would (which I'm pretty sure is a good thing), but I always think about her more on her birthday.

Tonight I followed Gina to the Nashville airport so she could drop off her son's car. It can get more complicated from there, but it's not really relevant right now. On the drive up I65, I had a weird feeling, a feeling that I was supposed to be driving toward Nashville on January 5th. It made sense, I had done it for years. On top of going to see Mom on my birthday, I would try to go see her on her birthday too.

I've made that trip along I65 so many times I made myself little landmarks to break up the monotony of driving through Tennessee. Exit 6 is the Boobie Bungalow. Exit 17 is Sarge's Shack. Exit 22 is The Tennessean Truck Stop. Then it's a longer stretch until the Love's at Exit 46. Tonight I was checking off exits and had that familiar feeling of "Here I am on Mom's birthday, heading up to Tennessee."

It wasn't a bad, melancholy feeling. Somehow, it felt good to remember that this was what I used to do.

So even though I was on my way to the Nashville airport, somewhere between The Tennessean and Love's I ended up singing Happy Birthday to Mom. Then I told her I love her and I miss her.

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WIP From Tues Night

01.04.2012

Tuesday night I continued painting and gluing the miniatures I was working on last week. You'll notice a lack of a close up of anything as up close, they still need a lot of work. I've got some (paint) bald spots on most, and each fighter needs another coat of flesh color before adding washes.

The zombie stripper is less green - in normal light she was looking like a blonde She-Hulk, so she's more normal-fleshed now. Almost too much so, but I think I've slapped enough paint on that one.

I think the details in the fighter faces is going to be lost since there's a year-old coat of paint, then primer, then more paint. It's a good thing this is all a test/learning process.

I'm still enjoying it though!

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