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.

Permalink gaming miniatures hobbies

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.

Permalink boardgames hobbies

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.

Permalink mom

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!

Permalink gaming miniatures hobbies

I Do Not Have Too Much Time On My Hands

01.03.2012

I have no 2012 resolutions, but I'm still in the process of figuring out what I want to do this year. But they're not resolutions. Honest. I hit about 50% following through on resolutions I make, so I'm skipping it this year.

I do have plenty I want to do, I just have to find the time to do it. I'm generally pretty good at managing my time, as I stay realistic. I've learned to factor in time for the little things that take up extra time before (or during) the allotted time.

For example, one of the things on my list of things I want to do is more board game prep. This can be anything from painting miniatures to putting together paper model scenery. I've already decided Tuesday nights are the dedicated night for this. It's easy enough to say I'm going to paint Tuesday nights, but I'm not going to sit down from 5:00 to 10:00 painting.

• I've got to wind down after work, so if I got home at 5:00 it would be at least 6:00 before I got around to painting.
• Even if eating during the wind down hour, dinner prep, consumption, and clean-up is going to take at least an extra half hour.
• Got to factor in nightly surfing, email, and phone calls.
• Regardless of all of the above, I've got to be in the right mood/frame of mind.

So after it's said, I should be able to fit in 2 or 3 hours of quality hobby time on a Tuesday night. Fair enough, but what all am I wanting to hobby forth and do?

• The aforementioned board game prep. There's a wide enough expanse of what I want to do that I shouldn't have to worry about getting bored for a while. The main thing is that with painting miniatures I'm slowly getting better, but I'm nowhere near as good as the pictures I see on various sites I surf and even the other people that I know that paint. But I still enjoy it, as it's relaxes me away from the computer. I need to talk to Jer and Keith about a regular (monthly) Widgey night, too.
• Unity development. This has been on the back burner for a couple of months. I've got a Unity/JavaScript tutorial book to start on, which will also serve as a good refresher back into Unity. I also lack 1 program being able to complete the Poser->Unity workflow, so I should just spend the $60 and get it over with.
• [Fun] Web development. There's a couple of tweaks to this site I want to make. I haven't tweaked anything in a while. My tweakers are getting rusty.
• Read. I tend to take the Comic/Graphic Novel route for my quality time bathroom visits, but I've got 3 novels that have been sitting on the bookshelf for months that I want to read. I'm a horrendously slow reader, and these books aren't reading themselves!
• Play around with Motion on the Mac Book. I've still only turned the laptop on once since buying it back in November.
• The treadmill at the wellness center beckons me.

There are subsets of the above, but I've got plenty to do, especially if you factor in Gina time and keep up the Monday Night Raw @ Matt's tradition.

Whatever type of schedule I come up with, it still has to be flexible enough for the little things that pop up. I don't want a schedule with something to do every night. I know there are nights I just want to flake out and watch a movie. This Thursday I'm going with Gina to Nashville to pick up the young'uns from the airport (or drop off a car, I'm fuzzy on the details). I think a good schedule has you doing something 3 out of 5 open nights, that way when something else/more important (at least in someone's eyes) you can shift things around without getting behind.

So that leaves me 2 nights to fit in Unity, Web, Reading, MacBooking, and Treadmilling. I see nights with a weekly featured hobby popping up.

Permalink hobbies random