Oops, I did it again...

Oh you evil resin naval combat game... To the last, I will grapple with thee... from Hell's heart, I stab at thee! For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee!

Cleaning Continues...

Two contractor garbage bags of junk and an old shipping box for wine are gone.  Paper terrain for Infinity, all boxed up, as are all the card boxes for Star Wars Mini's cards along with a bunch of large Star Wars models that didn't fit in the "large Star Wars mini box".

This weekend hopefully I can unload 10 sq. feet of Warhammer terrain.  Not sure how I am gonna handle all the unused Army Transport foam.  There is a box of stuff from my old apartment I not opened in 7 years that should free up half a shelf.

Slowly chipping away at the mess.

The new era in hobbying...

So with the dream workbench (pool table) gone, I have set up a more modest hobby table in the unfinished portion of the basement.  Darker, more cramped, cluttered and awkward, I am now going see how the other 99% of hobbyist live.  This actually should force me to stick to one project at a time, as I will be losing the ability to store too many half built models and terrain pieces.  The PvP robot is still guarding the table...

The table is gone...

Yup.  My gaming table with was a 3 piece slate Eclipse Olhausen as show below is gone.  My electric guitar and amp left 3 hours later.  About 18 cubic feet of empty TV boxes left early in the day as did most of the protective materials for the pool table.  Now I need to get rid of the "junk pile."  This consists of old USB cables, bread boards, op amps and such.

The hobby break continues...(and birthday begins)

So, I have been busy.  The way we track our productivity at work has dramatically changed (honest, it is even called "Production" and accounts for 40% of my yearly rating).  Due to this, I have been shifting when I hand work in for credit in order to ease the transition from the old system to the new system.  Well, the the first bi-week of the new system is ending I as I type this.

The pool table....
If you never saw the table, here are pictures of it protected and unprotected.  Hopefully it will be gone by the end of March, and I can start to clean up the basement and figure out how my hobbying will continue.  Until then, I am pretty much in lock down so I don't damage the table.

The Camera...
So I ordered two lens for my birthday.  Honestly I have enough hobby stuff.   $1200 of camera parts is no bigger than a land raider, I love this new hobby.  So I got a 60mm Mikro Nikkor and Nikon 70mm-300mm telephoto zoom.  I spent last night learning how to use a true macro lens on an orchid (results below).  This lens while profession grade, it more specialized than thought.  It does great close up work, but you have to be right on top of your subject.  It has been too windy to actually do anything with the 70-300mm (it is a f/4.5, but still a decent pro-sumer lens).

What exactly have I been up to?

So around in early January I sat down at my modelling table (which is a gorgeous and covered for 3 consecutive years pool table) and carved up my thumb really really good.  Between the dry temperatures and constant irritation from shoveling snow the healing took longer than normal.  So now it is (mostly) healed and hobbying can resume.

Of course there is a catch...
I finally found some to buy my hobby table, er, I mean pool table.  For those who have been in my basement over the past 4 years, that giant 8x4 gaming/utility table was actually a pool table.  I am close to finalizing  deal to get rid of it, which will change the way I hobby.  Soon the basement (at my pace soon should be about 2015) will be transformed from a carpeted workshop to a remodeled den and sitting area complete with gas fireplace.

The end of Star Wars Miniature Battles...
This cute little game from Wizards of the Coast is slated for retirement along with the rest of the Wizards' Star Wars lines as they have opted to not renew the license.  On the one hand it saves me money as it is one less thing I can spend money on, while on the other gaming loses a great gateway/casual miniatures product.  This may or may not open up the Star Wars license for newer and better things.  Only time will tell.  As I already own   nearly every model for the game, I should not have any issues with crazy binge buying.

The Great Purge...
So with the pool table going, my hobby/collecting/gaming habits need to change.  It is time to once again start drawing down on stuff I bought and will never use.  There stuff down there I know I will never use already, so what i the point of keeping it around.  I mean honestly, what am I going to do with a Bretonian, a High Elf and two Catachan unopened battalion boxes?  Time to find some kids getting into the hobby and give them a head start.

The Blizzard of 2010  (assuming we don't get another one)...
I shoveled a lot of snow.  My roof and gutters appear to have suffered minor damage.  Damage which of course I don't have a three story ladder to reach.  I lost a few shrubs.  Nothing major when it is all said and done. The big loss from the storm was my ice rink collapsing.  No more playing ice hockey for probably a year or more.  So I am one more step towards becoming a hermit.

The random new Hobby...
So I bought a new DSLR camera in October.  I have really taken to it.  At first I was just shooting my miniatures, but I have started taking pictures of all kinds of stuff.  recently, I thats been origami birds in strange locations.  For those of you who think wargaming is expensive, try buying professional grade Nikon camera lenses.  I am slowing learning how to deliberately adjust the shutter speed and aperature to create cool pictures.

Star Trek Online...
Over the snow break, I played way too much.  After that initial 40 hours, now I am settling into a nice 20-30 minutes a day of it.  Game while now much less buggy and more user friendly, does seem like bare bones ans unfinished.  Now that the game play is fairly sound (not perfect, but good), Cryptic Studios needs to add content at rapid pace.

Project of the Week -12/31/2009: Panzer IV Ausf. H and StuG G

So the German armored vehicles are finally done.  I have been through Christmas and New Year's and am still fighting a serious sinus infection.   If I don't start getting better faster (as I am getting better very slowly), I'll have to go to the doctor soon.  I just have this terrible feeling I'll get prescribed Cipro, which has a nasty history in my family.  I also fixed the inability to post comments, as Reece has so politely shown.  So anyway here goes the round up of the tanks (remember these tanks are 3/4" tall).

As you can see, the schurzen supports had to be rebuilt in many cases.  The plastic Battlefront uses is VERY brittle.  Here you can also see the tracks have been painted in a dark red/brown, then a lighter red brown, then touched with a dark metal.

This is a close up of the really rough platicard support I put in. Remember these things are at 15mm scale, and you can't notice them once the are finished unless you get under 2 ft from the model head on.

Here you can see the StuG G's after one coat of GW Badab Black wash. IN later pictures we'll see why I was not particularly happy with wash. Part of it was user error, part of it was using a product out side of its normal usage.  The StuG G's were done a slightly ahead of the Panzers as they were 2 piece intro models and lack a fair amount of detail seen on the multi-piece Panzers.

Here is a nice top down of the base coated and detailing of the Panzers prior to varnishing and washing.  You'll notice a slight gloss and some white goop around the plasticard support struts for the schurzen.  That is a PVA white glue (Aleene's Original Tacky Glue) that I used to reinforce the schurzen supports.  That glue dries very clear is left to set for 24 hours.  It was needed as the schurzen is only attached to the chassis via those little supports.  This particular white glue is very strong, and filled some of the joint gaps in the homemade struts, and also formed a clear bond around and over the super glue bond between the plate and the strut.  It dries clear, so you really don't see it later.

Here you get a feel for the difference between Badab Black and Delvan Mud.  Personally, I think they both went on a  little heavy.  I wanted to avoid doing a proper oil weather with these little guys, particularly after how well the Sherman tanks I did turned out.  However I think because of the light color scheme, and the camouflage pattern, the GW washes are jut to dark.  With oils, I would have had much more control.

So there are the two StuG G's.  By this time I have hit them up with satin and the matte varnish, and then a 20:1 mix of thinner: Tamiya Buff.   The buff coats lets the weathering powders you see have something to bite into.  I was torn about painting the flag that way, but the Germans used that Nazi flag as aerial recognition.  so I really belongs.  The antennae are guitar wire painted black.

 

 

 

You can see where the washes didn't settle proper on the nice smooth schurzen.  I found eventually that painting one side and letting it dry while on its side held some with the pooling.  Smme of them got that strange zig-zag dirt pattern.  In real life it isn't that distracting, but from the perspective of the one who took the shortcut of not using oil, it is a bit frustrating.