[unofficial weekender] Heeeeeeere is Johnny!

[blinky465 17027xp 2]

Ok, so it’s no longer the weekend. But it is for me. We just got back from our few days away on our (co-op) narrowboat. It was totally brilliant, and reminded us both of why we loved being “liveaboards” all those years ago (is it really more than ten years ago? ulp!). So today feels like Saturday to me!

So what’s everyone been up to while we zoned out and dropped off the planet? (seriously, refusing to listen to the news on the radio and planning days around how many locks you’ll get through before nightfall, where to eat, where to go to the toilet…. it’s like a cleansing for the soul!) Are we still “doing covid” or is that not a thing any more? We’ve only been gone a few days but it could have been months for all I know!

Will we survive 2 weeks without any weekender and no XLBS?

Well, I just got through one weekend unscathed – I think we’ll be ok 😉

Did you see the partial eclipse yesterday?

A what now? I saw a woodpecker, and moorhens, and about a hundred geese and goslings all in a single field, and a deer swimming in the canal (it was particularly hot that day) and all manner of flora and fauna. I knew nothing of any eclipse.

Is 20°C just right, to hot or cold for outdoor temperatures?

Sounds about right to me. With a gentle breeze, it’d be quite pleasant. I could cope with it cooler and be untroubled, and would like it a little warmer when we go to the beach for a swim (of course we went for a swim after getting back this afternoon – even before unloading the camper! The sea is still pretty darned cold right now so a few weeks of warmer weather wouldn’t upset me)

 

Nick proved to be quite the navigator, while I ran up and down opening and closing lock gates.

Some of the canalside properties are simply stunning

And some parts of the canal get *really* shallow!

Of course I took my paints and a couple of minis to have a go at during the inevitable “downtime”. But I’ll be perfectly honest, my paints never came out of the case! I might have a go at a couple of character pieces before next weekend (crikey, is it Wednesday tomorrow already?!)

Not sure I can pledge anything this week, as everything is all upside-down and wrong-side out just now – is it really mid-week already?! But here’s some music I’ve been listening to (quietly, in the boat, so as not to disturb our towpath neighbours)

 

[crazyredcoatParticipant 13642xp 0]

Sounds like you had some fun there, @blinky465 ! Makes me miss some of the old canals back home. We have the Welland Canal nearby here, but it’s very much a modern industrial affair and doesn’t have quite the same feel. 😛

In other news, I finally got so sick of my project running horribly slow that I went in a reduced the size of all the pictures. It worked a hell of a lot better. Lesson learned, there; my phone camera takes REALLY high res pictures and I need to do some reducing before I upload… Went from the pics being > 5 MB to hovering around 300 KB. It was a bit annoying to take each picture and to re-size it, but it now loads whenever I want to just have a look at it to remind myself what I did. I’m very forgetful. And an idiot…

[sundancer 42900xp 1]

Nice trip on the water @blinky465

@crazyredcoat If you want to make life even more easier you can leave the camera settings at default and use XnView (free software) to batch-convert the pictures. Makes short work of large piles of pictures.

[crazyredcoatParticipant 13642xp 0]

That would likely be easier…I used MS Paint to resize them to about 35%. I kind of had to, though because some of the step-by-step pics I tend to delete from my phone after a while…

I think I might try some light weathering on my Predator Tank at some point today. We’ll see how I get on. I want her to look clean, but realistic on a battlefield so just sticking with some dust and such rather than going nuts with the chipping.

[blinky465 17027xp 3]

MS Paint?! I don’t suppose I’m much better though, sticking to Paint Shop Pro 7 for almost all my image manipulation! GIMP is a great drawing tool, though (maybe a bit much for chopping images and resizing etc. but brilliant for actual digital art).

When posting images to this site, I try to stick to around 1024px or so (height or width depending on orientation). It’s more than enough to show the core details of what you’re working on – any higher resolution, and every tiny mistake and brushmark shows up in the photo 😉

@crazyredcoat we were on the Caldon canal, which starts in the relatively industrial part of Stoke but very quickly becomes more rural and “countrysidey” (yes, that’s a word). The CRT has really put a lot of money into improving the towpaths in recent years, and they’re quite popular with walkers and cyclists (though, sadly, it means some of the actual waterways are a little under-cared-for and much of the canal is silted up and very shallow). Still, a very enjoyable five days or so!

@demonsub – have you photos of your Frankenstein’s monster? I bought some .stls a few months back from – I think it was – Printed Obsession – a full lab with crazy scientist and a really grotesque monster. I always fancied printing it and painting it just for a diorama, rather than as gaming pieces. As a teen, I thought the later Hammer Horror movies were amazing, but watching (parts of) that one back, I realised that they’re absolutely awful (and it was only the heaving cleavages and chance of a flash of nudity that made them so appealing as a boy in the 80s!). Is that Worzel Gummage dressing up as Draclea?

@limburger – a few days ago, I noticed that Bonnie Tyler was trending on Twitter and thought maybe something terrible had happened. Seeing your earlier post and everything clicked!

 

 

 

 

[crazyredcoatParticipant 13642xp 1]

Yeah I was definitely overdoing it with the picture sizes… The zoom showed EVERY brushstroke and it was jarring to see. 😛

[demonsub 12746xp 1]

Here you go @blink465

I used different flesh tones on different parts of the miniature to try to sell that he’s made up of different bits of people but the photo doesn’t really show that.

Yes, John Pertwee was in one or two horror films, along with Patrick Troughton, and today I watched a one with Tom Baker looking a little like Bob Ross.

Also your canal pics look great. I’ve been watching a YouTube channel called Cruising The Cut it’s kind of like a vlog of a man and his narrow boat and it’s really entertaining.

 

[blinky465 17027xp 1]

Very nice – I love the slightly purpley, de-saturated look to much of his skin. I found the monster set I was wanging on about – it was the February release from PrintYourMonsters. I was thinking of a more traditional slightly greeny tinge for the monster, but I quite like your colour scheme.

I’ve also got some 50s B-move style terrain from an earlier Bombshell miniatures release from ages ago. In my mind’s eye the diorama already looks amazing 😉

I like the guy from Cruising the Cut; I think he’s even been on telly with his early series? Maybe I’m confusing him with RobbieCumming? Nicky and I love the Foxes Afloat vlog. And there’s something reassuring in the banality of the tales Holly The Cafe Boat (this week, they did some laundry!) – I love Friday evenings; while waiting for the weekender video, I fall down a Youtube canalboat rabbithole for a few hours, as they all seem to publish at about the same time.

[sundancer 42900xp 0]

@demonsub that mini looks like I imagined Reg Shoe from Discworld looked at the day of the glorious revolution XD  Only needs a bolt in the chest IIRC.

[limburger 21668xp 0]

wouldn’t it be cool if the OTT community could get something to trend on twitter or social media and flood the internet with a hashtag …

maybe something like #MakeStarwarsEpicAgain ? 😉

I like to think we could … it’d be for a good cause too.
Starwars is good … it’s even better when it’s available in epic miniature format  😀
Some would call it : epic

[demonsub 12746xp 1]

@sundancer I was in stitches over that one, ha.

[sundancer 42900xp 0]

I see what you did there 😉

[sundancer 42900xp 0]

New thread: https://www.beastsofwar.com/forums/topic/unofficial-weekender-sunny-days-are-here/

[radegast6 5662xp 1]

Will we survive 2 weeks without any weekender and no XLBS?

ABSOLUTELLY,  our love will flame burning.

Did you see the partial eclipse yesterday?

nope,  why?

Is 20°C just right, to hot or cold for outdoor temperatures?

hot.

[Author]

Posts