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I just got a text from the contractor in charge of fixing my house that tomorrow the flooring guys are going to start on the new floors! It will be nice to walk on something other than subflooring. Once they do that, the house will be more livable. Fingers crossed!
My brain has been all over the place the past few days. This includes the hobby. I have been hoping from one thing to another. It is not a lack of concentration, but just wanting to or needing to do a whole bunch of things.
These are Roundway Venetian marines. Unfortunately, Roundway is no longer is in production, which is too bad. IMO, they are a slight step up in detail from Minifigs (which I rather like, BTW) and they covered some ranges better than other companies, mainly very late medieval/early Renaissance. The squids on their shields look more like scorpions. They were a pain to paint, so I'm satisfied with them.
The other thing I've been working on is making a bunch of ship counters for gaming. I recently placed several orders in for 1/6000 ships, but I really want to play. They are not pretty by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm not playing to impress. Besides being a very cheap alternative, I can test out any ship I want particularly with moderns. They are also useful for trying out various rule sets. The fleet I've made so far fits nicely inside a standard, letter-sized envelope.
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| Not stunning, but they will do the job. |
I know its already January 9th, but Happy New Years!
I have to say that being on sabbatical has lowered my blood pressure some. There is still plenty of stress, but the idea of not teaching and even more so, not dealing with all the nonsense that is going on at my college, gives me a feeling of lightness. One of the things I've done is to start going to the local community center to work out. I am 60 year old, but I think I'm the youngest one there. The equipment is pretty good, so I plan to make working out more of a routine.
On to business....
First, in an effort to clean and organize the house, we moved some old bookshelves that we had on the first floor to the upstairs. My son got one, which is mainly for his LEGO collection. I got the other and finally consolidated all my hobby books into one bookshelf.
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| New bookshelf. Almost, but not quite full. My wife's tennis racket stringer to the right. |
Why I didn't do this years ago escapes me. Before this, I had these very small metal ones that were OK, but I had long run out of room. Plus the sides were open and some of the rule books at the end facing the window were starting to yellow :(. This opens up a good deal of space in the "soldier room." The only thing now is to figure out what to do with some of the rule books that are in 3-ring binders.
Painting of fantasy figures has slowed a bit, so I switched gears and have been working on some terrain features. Most of the terrain has been cultivated fields. I have been trying to make them so that I can use them for both 1/300 and for 1/600. One type of field that has frustrated me are corn fields. However, recently, I watched this YouTube video (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1cnHiqtsuMk9NwJNj8SmpA) where this guy was making tiny non-scale specific terrain mounted on hexes for his role playing games. In one video, he cut out strips of paper, folded it length-wise, feathered it using a pair of scissors, then mounted the feathered strip of paper onto a hex tile has a corn crop field. Anyway, I thought I'd give it a go.
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| Closeup of corn field. Sorry about the blurriness. I got a new phone and I'm trying to figure out the camera. |
I used several different techniques and types of paper for each row. The ones on the far left were made using the YouTuber's technique of folding paper in half and cutting with scissors fringes representing stalks. The later ones were very thin cardboard (breakfast cereal boxes) and I used my Xacto knife rather than scissors to make the fringes. I did not go all the way to the bottom to keep some integrity to each row. I glued each strip down with superglue gel. They were painted a dark yellow and then I gave them a wash with brown. That helped pull out the stalks more.
I think this will work pretty well for both scales. Its not perfect, but it gets the point across. I would have to come up with some other technique if I wanted to make a corn field for my 15mm figures.
I thought I'd join the bandwagon and have a wrap up of 2021.
Counting up the number of yearly posts, 2021 is tied with one other one since I started this blog. There are lots of reasons why I didn't post, but its been another year where life got in the way of my hobby, particularly during the second half of the year. None of there events were particularly good ones. My bout with Covid did not free me up to do more. In fact, I did very little for the two weeks that I had the symptoms. It did not help that my bosses felt that I could still efficiently teach remotely.
The water disaster was a major game changer as well. In my November post, I predicted that we would have our new floors in. It turns out that that won't happen for another two weeks. So, we are still walking around on our subfloor and our garage and second floor of the house is packed with stuff from the first floor.
Even without all the issues I mentioned above, work has become very stressful. I enjoy the teaching aspects, but the all the nonsense in dealing with not only administrators but even some of my faculty colleagues has become soul crushing. I thought I'd never say this, but some of my colleagues are as much idiots as the administrators. My college is not the same as the one I first started. The ideals that the school prided itself on are now lip service. The college has become a business. I get the need to be financially competitive, but the school has definitely lost its way. For the first time, I am looking forward to retirement. I'm looking at between five to seven years depending on were I am at financially.
Even though my original goal for 2021 was to game more, I think my biggest success was whittling down my pile of lead. Painting made up for the lack of gaming mainly because it emotionally or psychologically allowed me to escape the real world, even if it was for a half an hour each night. I did manage to have a few games. Most of them were with my son. They were all prior to the various disasters. We had fun, but I don't think I have sparked any interest in him. I can't seem to compete with Fortnite and these other online games.
The last thing I want to say is that I greatly appreciate all my fellow bloggers out there. I live vicariously through their after action reports, and I really get inspired by there various projects. If you are reading this, thank you for your posts. They keep me going during dry times.
Just some more pictures of things that I recently finished. I am trying to get things done before I leave for Chicago for the holidays.
Dwarf Challenge 2:
My old buddy from grad school days and I decided to do another painting challenge. This time it was dwarf magic users and he got to picture the figure. I've had a lot of bad luck with Reaper Miniatures. They seem to come broken. I had one earlier whose weapon came broken. Reaper was nice enough to send me a new one. This time, the top of the dwarf's staff was broken. I figured that I'd just work with it. After painting him, I glued a red translucent bead on top. I think it looks better than what was originally on there. Hopefully, it will hold. The guy standing next to him is a bonus that I will send my friend. He is a Reapers Bones figure that is made out of a plastic similar to what 1/72 figures are made out of. He's supposed to be a dwarf ranger, but looks like he's holding a giant wrench for a weapon. I bought him for my son to paint, but he didn't seem interested, so off he goes with the magic user.
More 1/600 Moderns:
As part of my effort to paint lots of stuff, I got these done for the Bovatopian army. I was also testing out a new shade. Its one of the Citadel shaders.
Baron Henri of Emoree:
This is another pair of 15mm fantasy figures that were at the bottom of my lead pile. I ran of of ideas for coat of arms, so I used the symbol from the college I teach at. These are Demonworld Empire figures.
The car finished:
Here's the Cub Scout all ready to march in the Christmas parade. Fewer scouts than we thought built one. Hopefully, more will build one next year.
The "restoration" of my house is going at a snail's pace. Still no floor. The guy who is going to fix some of the cabinets is supposed to show up tomorrow. Meanwhile, I've been trying to do a million things at once. Most of it related to the college application process for my daugher.
Oddly enough, I've had a little time to do some painting. As I might have said before, I'm trying to reduce the pile of lead. This is mainly in the fantasy/medieval category but I've done some painting on my 3mm modern figures. Additionally, I have been making a bunch of very crude ship counters representing various modern ships for the naval portion of the Bovatopia campaign. This way I can test out various rule sets. I might extend this heresy to earlier eras.
Just a few pictures here:
Essex 15mm Swabian Swordsman:
Why is he included, unpainted? I ordered three packs of these guys and out of the three packs, I only got one figure of this pose. Very annoying. This isn't the first time this has happen lately with Essex. Shame on you Essex!
Demonworld (now Ral Partha Europe) Beastmen command:
These guys have been waiting to be painted for probably well over 20 years! Not sure why I never got to them because I've painted a bunch of the armored rank & file. The tree in the background was also made recently. It took a lot longer to make than I expected.
Recent purchase: Hexplorer magnetic hexes:
Found this company on Facebook called Headless Hydra Press. They make small, magnetic-backed hexes called Hexplorer Mag Tiles for RPG campaigns. They measure about 1.5" face to face. They are very thin. Thinner than those little calendar magnets that you get from your insurance agent to put on your refrigerator. I got two ocean packs for playing hex-based naval battles. They would work well for 1/6000 ships, or slightly larger if you don't mind the overhang. You get 30 for $13, which isn't a bad deal. I will probably order another pack or two. It would be nice if they were a little thicker, but I can't complain about the price. I just need to figure out what to mount them on.
Among other things, I've been building this for tomorrow's annual Bristol TN/VA Christmas parade:
Normally, Ivan's Boy Scout troop marches in the parade carrying a HUGE American flag. It spans the entirety of main street. It's pain to carry, plus I am not sure why for a Christmas parade. I have no issues when we carry it in the Veterans' Day parade, or the 4th of July parade, but not for Christmas. This year, the troop leader who owns the flag won't be making it to the parade (pretty much no one complained about not carrying the mega-flag), so the leaders decided for the scouts to build little cars that you wear to look like the pinewood derby cars. They said to make them simple. So, naturally, I went far beyond what I should have. Hot glue gun is now my best friend! It is almost done and I will post the final product in a future post. BTW, do you notice the lovely floor?
If September was family Covid month, October was flood-the-first-floor-of-your-house month! Whoopie! The little tube that connects the toilet tank to the tap that is on the floor decided it wanted to make a splash, and splash it did! My son came home about 20 minutes before I did from school, opened the door, and there was about an inch of water on the entire first floor of our house. We don't know how long it had been gushing, but it was a major mess both on the first floor and in the crawlspace. I guess I should be happy that it seems to be just the tube and not the spigot. My wife, daughter, and I spent the evening with shop vacuums borrowed from neighbors sucking up the water, and throwing out whatever paper items that were soaked beyond use.
The upshot is that all our heating ducts had to be replaced, the restoration people (they are responsible for power drying the subflooring and walls) had to tear all our beautiful flooring that my wife and I put in about two months work on last year, and our first floor currently sounds like the inside of a C-130 transport plane from all the blowers and industrial-strength dehumidifiers running 24 hours a day. Fortunately, it seems that our house insurance will pay for most if not all of it, including putting in new flooring. Equally fortunate, the contractor in charge is very no-nonsense, and seems to really know what he is doing. The owner of the HVAC company that tore out our old ducts and put in the new ones that this guy is the best in the business. If all goes well, we should have our new floor in no later than about two weeks. Hopefully, the rest of November will be very uneventful.
