Hails all,

Many moons since I last got involved with this but with four days off lined up from Sunday, I very much intend to get quite a bit done.

Niceties first:

1. You won’t find them on any playlists but if you glanced through my ‘recently searched’ there’s every chance you’d spot some Avril Lavigne, Beyoncé and Fiona Apple.

2. I work with the public so I have to practice the fine art of firing off a comeback without the customer realising I’ve just scored a point off them. They should suspect it, but just not be sure enough to tear me a new one on Google reviews.

3. Oh yeah. Usually sandwiched in between the funny looks that follow “Yes, I’m an adult and I still listen to metal” and “I have three cats”. For most people the only reference point they have is green plastic army men so they’ve no idea of the time and effort that actually goes into the hobby. Same thing with roleplaying games.

4. Once only did I attempt to articulate feelings of romance on paper. I think I was nineteen and it was in a Valentine’s card. I wrote some drivel that I thought sounded suave only to realise later (sometime between the card leaving my hand and hitting the bottom of the postbox…) how dire it actually was. I got a polite ‘Thank you’ text and never spoken to again.

Pledge time!

I’ve been working on a squad of Deathwing Knights for the last few weeks. This is actually my second time tackling them. I had painted their armour with a brush the first time and really didn’t get anywhere near the smooth finish I wanted. So they sat ignored on my paint tray for over a year. I decided to revisit them when I was a little more confident with my airbrushing and was much happier with how they looked. Right now most of the large areas (armour, metals, tabards) are done and I’ve basecoated the details. Starting into them on Sunday morning and I’d really like to have them done by Monday. I like to follow a squad with a single mini and I have a pre-shaded Riddler for the Batman Miniatures Game lined up. He’s a fairly simple scheme but I like to push myself on the BMG minis and try for a standard above my rank and file stuff. He won’t have to match any other minis either so I can play around with shades.

Aside from those guys I’ll be doing some prep for next week’s game of Coriolis and I’m expecting @mage at some point for a game of X-Wing or BMG. I also promised a friend I’d learn the rules of a boardgame she bought and teach her how to play.

@unclejimmy

TTcombat really do good stuff. They have a really cool set of Venetian scenery for Carnevale that I’ll be grabbing in the near future. HDF is still something I haven’t painted much of. A lot of the buildings I see have very fine etched lines for brickwork and I’m not sure how to prime the pieces without really covering that over.

The weathering on those crates looks great.

@oriskany

When you say you’re drawing a map, do you mean hand drawing or are you using a program to do it digitally? I love campaign maps for mini games and maps/floor plans for RPGs but I haven’t seen a map editor that looks usable.

Sound…

According to Spotify, Pink Floyd were my most listened to band last year. Probably because long concept albums are great painting music.

Finally bought the digital version of this album on Bandcamp today. I have it on CD and LP for years but never had a copy I could listen to out and about. €6 well spent.

These guys are coming to Dublin later this year. Can’t wait.

Work and a BBQ tomorrow so I’ll check back on Sunday.