try something new

I have found over the past year that I have become a little too settled in my ways as a painter.  My models look nice, but not great, and I find I have become satisfied with that.  I think I will need to shake some things up to improve my painting.  I also think it is important for people to keep learning and trying new things throughout their life.

I decided to start small in my changes.  I had heard about and seen many videos about wet palettes.  I decided to try making one.  I had just watched a video by DizzyAngelDemon on how to make a wet palette and was inspired.   For the past few years, I have been using a tile I bought at Rona (Canadian Home Depot) for under a dollar.  When it’s full, I just soak it in water for 10 minutes and use a plastic putty knife to scrape off the old paint.  I liked it, but it was hard to keep diluted paints from drying up when I was trying to do a wash or some layering.

The first thing I had to do was find a container.  I settled on a pencil case from Staples.  I had bought a set for my classroom to keep pencil crayons in, so knew they were durable and the little clips on the ends keep the lid on securely.  I also bought some sponge cloths from Wal-Mart as suggested in the video.  It was just a matter of turning the case over and tracing the outline on the sponge cloth and cutting it out.  I had to trim it a bit to fit right, but not much.  Finally, I raided my wife’s supply of parchment paper and cut out a piece the right size.  I had some distilled water around (I don’t know if it is essential, but couldn’t hurt) and soaked the sponge.  Voila!

Some of the problems I had were determining how much water to put in the sponge.  I ended up adding water a few times.  It turns out that you want the sponge saturated to the point where it won’t hold any more water, but you don’t want water sloshing around in the bottom of the container.  The second problem I ran into was not having the parchment paper trimmed small enough.  I couldn’t get the paper to lay flat on the sponge, so it would let water through.  I played with the size of the paper and when it was smaller it would lay down flat.  Finally, I discovered too late that my pencil case had channels in the lid to let in air.  Not good when you want to keep something wet.  I adapted and now lay a sheet of wax paper a little larger than the lid on top of the opening before securing the lid.  This seems to work.

I’ve tried out the wet palette a few times and it works as advertised.  I spend less time pulling paint out of the pot and when I have to leave the table to answer a summons from my wife, I don’t have to kiss that paint goodbye.  I’m pretty happy with my little creation, and I’ll keep playing with it and see if it permanently replaces my tile.

It ain’t great, but it ain’t half bad

So, I’ve been working hard on my Vessel of Judgment.  I believe it is my trial from Menoth to prove my worthiness.  My goal is to have it done by June 30.  That way I can actually get that pathetic looking Summer Surge graph looking a little less sad.  I haven’t had much hobby time this week.  With mornings spent on the picket line and afternoons and evenings spent renovating the wife’s new craft room, painting time was hard to come by.  I did make some progress on the model, but more importantly, I finished the room.  I now have all weekend to hobby on and meet my Monday goal for the Vessel.  Here’s were I am so far.  I also have the two little dudes that go with it painted.  I’ve just started to highlight.

As an aside, I must point out that I am not a handy person at all.  The fact that I put in a new floor and trim in a room is a minor miracle.  It also takes me about 4X as long as a regular person to perform these tasks.  As such, I’m pretty stoked to have completed that project and have some well deserved hobby time this weekend.

Summer Surge 2014

This summer is turning out to be a bit unique for me.  With the strike, my summer has started a couple of weeks early.  I still have picket duty every day, but it leaves me with a bit of extra time.  The strike doesn’t leave me with any extra money, however.  I was thinking the other day of how to take what could be seen as a detrimental situation as an opportunity.  My minor epiphany was to use the time to catch up on all of the models I have bought but have not had the time or wherewithal to finish (or truth be told, even start).  If I can’t buy new ones, I can catch up for the fall when hopefully, I will be working again and the hobby budget will be reinstated.
With the above project in mind I went about scouring the man cave and my travel case for unfinished or unstarted miniatures.  What I found surprised me a bit.  It turns out that I have 68 models that have only been built or are still in blisters/boxes.  To further illustrate the severity of my deficit, one of these bad boys is a colossal.  I currently have one WIP and it is a battle engine, which is taking me a month of Sundays to complete.  So, the total of unpainted models is 69.  In the past I always kept my purchases to just a few beyond what I had painted.  Somehow, I let ‘er rip this past year.  Now the piper must be paid.
I am prepared to take on this challenge.  I have dubbed my new found mission “Summer Surge 2014”.  The goal is to catch up and be at even come September.  Realistically, I would be pleased with completing 50% of my backlog.  One can always dream!  My wife says the key is, “to stop all this “I’m tired” shit at bedtime and put in a couple more hard hours.”  No lie on that quote by the way.
So, here goes nothing.  My challenge starts tonight.  I have even made a graph which I intend to update regularly.  It is pretty pathetic right now, but the future is bright!  What is your summer project(s) or goals.  Leave a comment and let me know.


Edit:  While searching for something in the cave today I found 4 more minis!  Ahhh.  That means I have 73 models to paint.  Wow!  My work is cut out for me.

Here is my updated chart.

Headache cure

I haven’t really done anything worth showing you this week.  My wife and I had a very stressful and busy week.  Teachers in BC voted to go on full strike on Tuesday night.  My wife and I are moving schools next year.  That meant that we had two days to finish packing up two classrooms and moving it all out of the school (Friday was our rotating strike day).  Let me tell you that almost everything in a modern elementary classroom is owned by the teacher.  It was an adventure and now I have a shed two thirds full of boxes full of school stuff.

Anyway, this is a hobby blog.  I thought I’d go through how I solved one of the biggest headaches faced by all PoM players: how to keep your wracks together.  For those that aren’t aware, wracks come in four pieces.  The main wrack, the poor sod who hangs on it, and the  two censors that hang from the wrack.  The problem arises from the censors.  They have a little “c” shaped piece of chain at the end that you are expected to attach to the larger ring at the end of the wrack.  Take it from me folks, it ain’t gonna happen.  I brought all of my Google-fu to bear on the problem and found only failed solutions.  Green stuff, extra glue all failed.  So, I did something radical.  I thought for myself.  Here is what I came up with.

 

 

 

Step 1:  I went to Wal-Mart and browsed the jewelry making section.  Michael’s has an extensive jewelry making section as well.  I picked up a set of chain and some jump rings.  Total cost was in the neighbourhood of $5.  I would recommend taking your censor with you to eyeball the size of your chain with your model so your finished product isn’t too weird looking.

 

 

Step 2:  Remove the chain from the censor.  I cut mine off with my sprue cutters.  You will have to use a file and your knife to clean out the portion of the chain that goes through the ring on the censor.  You need this open so you can thread it through the jump ring.  Be careful not to go all the way through the ring or your life will get hard.

Step 3:  Cut a piece of chain that is about the same length as what you removed, remembering to take into account the larger ring size of the jump rings.

Step 4:  Take a jump ring and thread it through the censor and one end of the chain.  I used a pair of needle nosed pliers to close the ring.  If you have strong yet supple hands, maybe you could use those.  Next is to take the other end and do the same thing to large ring on the end of the wrack.  I found doing it with the censor on the end was easier as the weight of the censor pulled down and kept things in place while I closed the jump ring.

Step 5:  Strap on a heathen and paint it for the glory of the creator of man!

Plumbing the depths of nerdiness

As I posted earlier (here), I bought a cool model of an X-wing from Hobby Link Japan.  I have been getting their emails ever since.  As I’m sure you know, the Japanese are very into their robots and anime.  I kept getting updates on new kits for Gundam robots.  Now, I had heard about Gundam in a sort of round about way before, but didn’t know much about it other than it was an anime show about robots.  I decided to investigate further.
I got a hold of the first season of Mobile Suite: Gundam and committed to watching the first five episodes before deciding whether to proceed or bail.  I have since watched said episodes and I think I’ll bail.  I’ll be honest that I just don’t get the draw.  It definitely has the nostalgia thing going for me.  Watching this series took me back to my childhood of watching Robotech, Star Blazers and Voltron.  However, the somewhat bizarre story line, weird names, androgynous characters and truly strange dialogue (not the translation’s fault), has not drawn me in.
The series takes place in a future Earth where nations have banded together in three factions for the purpose of harvesting solar power from space via huge space stations connected to the ground with a long umbilical.  War is still a problem.  Enter in a strange faction called Celestial Being (I know) that is determined to eradicate war by making war on the war makers.  The series tries to deal with this paradox, but sort of fails to make hay with it.  Celestial Being is armed with mobile suits (robots run by humans) that are far superior to those on Earth.  All of the other factions want to destroy Celestial Being and take their tech.  That’s sort of where I’m at.
If anyone has watched this show and thinks it is the best thing going, I’d love to hear from you.  I have the full first season, so if anyone can give me a reason to watch the rest, I’d love to hear it.  As of right now, I’m already a big enough nerd without watching Japanese cartoons in my spare time.

A dearth of hobby

You may have noticed that there hasn’t been much in the way of hobby updates on this blog lately.  The short answer is that there hasn’t been any hobby going on with me.  A nasty soup of circumstances has left me with little time, energy or will to hobby.  I have been working on various home improvement projects around the house and this usually takes up all of my weekend when combined with regular household duties.  The NHL playoffs were eating away three hours every other night up until a couple of nights ago.  Sadly, with the Blackhawks out, that will be curtailed.  Finally, for those living in British Columbia, you will be very aware of the labour troubles between teachers and the government.  As an executive member of our local union I have been kept very busy with this mess.  Also, as a byproduct of the government’s partial lockout, I have not been able to attend gaming for the past few weeks.  In fact, our gaming club has been in a state of chaos.  Our club meets in a local school.  While locked out, the members that are teachers (and whom are also key holders) cannot enter the school later than 45 minutes after school ends.  This has been a bit of an unforeseen complication.  Add on top of this losing a day of pay each week (actually two, as my wife is also a teacher) and having a further 10% deducted as a penalty by the government, I don’t have much hobby money sitting around.

I guess the bottom line is that I’m stressed out and I’ve been reading a lot and playing Diablo III because it is completely mindless entertainment.  I’m hoping to take this weekend off from the house and I am determined to have some hobby to show for it!  I’m sure my readers will keep me accountable.

Kickstarter Strikes again

This past week saw me receive another reward from a Kickstarter project I backed some months ago.  I had actually forgotten about this one.  I will be honest in the fact that I backed this project on impulse as there was only a day left on it when I learned of it.  The project was called Gamergauge.  The idea is that you have a one inch sized measurement tool that you can rotate on its’ points in order to measure distances accurately, even in tight quarters. 

I’ll be honest that the measurement device was only mildly interesting to me.  What caught my attention was the add-ons.  Gamergauge was offering objective markers and flags made of thick steel.  The objective markers have boxes for damage, defense and armour stats that you can fill in with your erasable marker.  These things are beefy and won’t be knocked around as easily as plastic bases when playing scenarios in Warmachine and Hordes.  They seem very cool and I look forward to using them in a game in the near future.