From the workbench of the esteemed Horati0nosebl0wer

Giftmas Bombardment Commencing! All Geeks, Nerds and Hobbyists Man Your Hobby Bunkers! This Is Not A Drill! Intercontinental Ballistic Minis Launching!

Its been too long to be away from the random stuff that I have for hobby. I was working my second job of doing security and I was caught up by the color change of the leaves. I decided to grab more leaves than seemed reasonable to have available scale leaves later when there are none to be had. The Greenstuff World maple leaf punch (Ref. 1415 – light blue) worked great as I sat for a couple of hours doing nothing but pushing the die through leaves in order to have natural and realistic effects for future projects.

A new home environment with a new workbench that I can also throw stuff onto from time to time in order to keep sane these days. This is just a toss on of stuff for recent commission work and other things that I might now perhaps put into projects. I’m happy to be back at it as I thought there needed to be some normalcy again.

I was struck by a few thought as I was looking over a few Kickstarter projects after following the progress of things I’ve backed. It all started seeing a video about a supermarket service that sends you what they claim to be the best food items without the cost or ethical baggage.

I don’t want to be box shipped the wonder of exotic spice and flavor without experimenting and experiencing the thing firsthand. I enjoy the physical experience of the ingredients that go into my food. I’m willing to enjoy the process of creating said food for good or ill as learning how to make it myself if I want to repeat the process. I’m not a foodie. I have no feed of food porn that causes me to drool when the name of channels are mentioned. I might well be close to a spartan epicurean (let @avernos ponder that one and give historically relevant facts upon the idea) with that you might pair great drink to accentuate the flavors on minimal resources. Gastronomy is not something I study, leave that to the French and Michelin rating people, but what comes out well in taste is something I like to live. Good food can be had by simply expending the time and effort to make it.

I find the notion of instafood that isn’t crap ramen deplorable. Even when you’re scraping by on meager money making that humble foodstuff exciting and pleasant to stomach isn’t a chore but necessary in order to pull yourself out of the doldrums. The first world problem of stating before dinner “I’m bored of chicken tikka masala and I don’t want any African peanut stew” all the while a portion of the planet removed from their source of origin iritates me to no end. To pull out of a rush delivered bottle, a commodified meal that takes someone else’s real time and effort, and turn to complain that the flavor is boring or the fact it needs to be heated is too much of a bother gives me a headache.

The further point of making food an ethical dilemma is to address the point of Maslow’s hierarchy where one doesn’t need to be bothered by the question of “Is there food?”. Two places on opposite ends of the pyramid make for great fodder of addressing the ridiculous for their juxtaposition. Excel and build to great heights but realize you have to build on something “base” first. Food is just something taken in to keep the human motor running.

With my rant over I might add to this year’s “Try Eating/Drinking This” event for the OTT crew.

Finished up the second of the previously featured minis and its good to give some “oopmh” to the paint work. I’m thinking that I might well drop the cash on a small photo booth in order to get consistent lighting for my figures. I know of a local company that sells backgrounds of various colors that might give better results as well.

I find these older figures a little relaxing in not needing to be painting with laser precision. These will be good for my in between work to destress with. I’ll be dropping entry for the  Halloween competition in order to get ready for Giftmas and I might do a few more at the 25mm scale to gear up.

While cleaning up the workshop (i.e. my room) I moved my stripping agents, not the kind I’ll have when I become an evil overlord, I keep in paint cans to free up shelf space. Normally I have something standing by in the one of Simple Green that works well for most of the stuff I rework. This time I found my “purple stuff” can was occupied. Opening it I found that the enamel nightmare I was given to save had indeed been restored to clean metal. It was now recognizable as the 1984 black dragon from the Dragon Lords series of figures. There’s a small amount of damage with the end of the tail knocked off but it can be replaced to look much better than what it had been. I really like giving old figures new life.

So I’ve been hobbying more and one thing leads to another with finding there’s stuff going on in the mini painting world around me. I’ve gone and committed myself to more work. I’ve been finishing the Orktober project slowly but surely and trekked out to gather my entry into last month’s competition today. As it is still Orktober I’ll shamelessly plug in my current orky project as it please me so much to see this come together after nearly a year of sitting in my Hoard of Shame.

What I got from the competition wasn’t the best of feedback when I got the printed notes for response but it turned out to be a larger deal than I guess the shop anticipated with 23 entries. Overall I’m glad to have participated. Thinking that, when last I checked, there was a painter that’s regularly been at Reapercon and has painted for some of their box art I’m not so butthurt after taking a breather and getting some food in me. I really think that infants have the best destress strategies of either eating or napping that might well be emulated.

After hearing that there is another contest for Halloween I put my money down for another figureto then go home and go about to building. I had already been working on another copy of the witch on a jack’o’lantern and decided to build once more as a second shot and probably give it away as a gift later. The new purchase was the Reapercon Iconic: Bonehenge Priestess. It got the use of some 5 min epoxy (damn I love how useful this stuff is for minis) and the addition of a headstone I sawed off another figure. I’ll be carving off some of the resin display plinth and remove a skull detail below the headstone with my rotary tool in order to build it back up with Golden gel medium coarse pumice. Once done with that the ever handy human skeleton detail kit and some of the skulls from Secret Weapon will give it more “oomph” for a real graveyard feel. Once done with the painting I’ve collected enough downed leaved that I can use my Greenstuff world punch to create whatever eery vibe hasn’t been touched yet.

Yeah, this month is busy and I still have a Giftmas present to work on and plan on shipping time to arrive for the big day. I need to start getting paid more for this.