Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Out of My Mind On Saturday Night

Khalith, Mummy King
Khalith, Mummy King, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.
Productivity, bah! My wife and kids leave me alone and the very next day I am struck down by a nasty cold/sinus infection that has taken me two and half weeks to finally get completely rid of!! TANJ!! I have gotten just about spit done since my last post, but here is a Reaper Mummy Pharaoh I had kicking around primed for a few years and finally finished before I got too sick to do anything but lay on the couch and watch NetFlix. With any luck, though, all these antibiotics and steroids I've been taking will keep me healthy for Historicon next weekend!! I'm looking forward to it, although I just realized the new location is about an hour further than usual...google is estimating a 10.5 hour drive for us. Eh, it's worth it.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Blu-Tack holds the hobby together

DSCN0058
DSCN0058, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.
An amusing little snapshot of my workspace. I got the urge to put a few things together, which required a fair amount of epoxying. In the process of curing, I propped all the guys into position as best I could using one of my main stay hobby tools-- Blu-Tack. I wanted Orangatango as soon as I saw him. Super apes are fun, I already have handfuls, and one more is always appreciated. Still, as Orangutan-based super apes go, I still think Harangutan is my favorite, just for the pun. Reaper's mummy pharaoh Khalith is waiting some finishing touches that don't require any Blue-Tac-- although I used that craft paint bottle topped with Blue-Tac as a handle while painting him. I also have handfuls of Reaper Egyptian figures. They hit the table about as often as the super apes...which is to say, not very often... Speaking of super apes, or their mechanically augmented cousins, I recently stumbled across Ammon Miniatures's Cyber Monkey and couldn't let that pass by. Now he was a chore, lots of fiddly gluing and soft resin in an awkward pose-- can't wait to drop him and ruin him! Which I'm sure will happen eventually! And, speaking of resin, with Blue-Tac holding up his atrophied little wings, I assembled my ShadowSea Skullcracker Bird. I picked him up at Fall-In! and he will presumably be fighting my Neanderthals at some point as an only slightly anachronistic Terror Bird.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Landing Craft Done

DSCN0060
15mm Landing Craft, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.
The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry... With the wife and kids shipped out Thursday, I took Friday and Monday off work and had visions of one wonderfully productive four day weekend. Friday went pretty well, and I ran a game of Empire Builder Friday night. I noticed my allergies were acting up, so I stocked up on allergy meds and sudafed ahead of time, only it didn't seem to be doing much good, and by the time I got to bed, I realized it wasn't allergies at all but a debilitating summer cold that took me out the rest of the weekend. I spent Saturday and Sunday camped out on the couch wandering my Netflix queue-- of note were two small budget Sci-Fi films I really enjoyed, Hunter Prey and Monsters. Mosters cost $500k to make and grossed $4.5M? Wow. Anyway, I started feeling somewhat better on Monday, and managed to put the finishing touches on my landing craft. The LCT really needs to be detailed somewhat, but it should mostly be sea blue so I'm pretty much done with it regardless. I'm not sure if the decks should be sea blue or navy blue, if I ever figure that out, I can go back over that. And I figure those LCVP crew load stands took at least an hour per stand, even with my Slop-and-go painting of them. I need to be a bit sloppier, I suppose-- I still detailed the faces and hands.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

2011 So Far...

Random graph
It's not quite halfway through the year yet, but now is an opportune time to examine the state of my hobby. The wife and our three kids will be heading out of town for five weeks soon (my wife is German and spends summers over there when she can) thus I need to make sure I have all my ducks in a row for what will hopefully be one of the more productive periods of the year. In all honestly, last year was not a very productive time. My theory was that there weren't three crazy kids and a wife to need relief from. just me and the dog. Anyway, let's review 2011 in light of my January goals.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Circling, Waiting for H+1

Loaded LCVPs
15mm Landing Craft, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.
All six LCVPs are finished. I initially wasn't going to bother painting the loaded troops. They're totally unnecessary, more stuff to paint, yada yada yada. Yet as I looked over my LCVPs and LCT, I just decided they were too cool not to go all the way on. So, I've got the first two boat loads finished. They're sloppy but effective. The rear one still has wet glue, but has since dried and been painted.