Three Months Gone

Has it really been three months since I posted? What started as a promising year on the blogging front has not fared quite so well. Time has been short and I haven't really had a chance to look in on the blog for a good long while. Partly because I haven't had time to do anything worth posting. Money is tight and I haven't really got a paint station, time to paint or anything new and interesting to concentrate on. For a while I couldn't even find any paints or brushes but that is not the case any more. So rather than post something dull, I haven't put anything up.

It is mainly my fault, well after a fashion. So I can't really complain.

I wish I had saved the Yossarian face-palm image for this post

But here I am. I am back on the laser cutting journey after losing all faith in the process. Having waited for three months for the damn machine to turn up I found out that it was somewhere, lost in transit. The suppliers seemed unable to tell me anything other than it was probably in transit and was maybe, almost certainly, possibly, somewhere near the Suez canal. Given that there was thousands of pounds involved they seemed ridiculously keen to give me my money back.

So this is the way things happen. I put a huge amount of effort in and then something way beyond my control destroys the plan. Fortunately I haven't wasted much in money but I have wasted the whole of the summer. As money has been tight since then this has been a bit of a bummer. I get well and truly pee'd off with existence and try to move on to something I think is a bit more practical. Like finding a real job. Which, given my current personal circumstances, is way more difficult than it sounds. Another month down, and a hundred jobs applied for and I am still struggling to find some work.

It is starting to feel like I am in a bit of a decaying orbit. This is better than it sounds. Sooner or later I am bound to hit the ground and then things will start happening. Rather than trying the economy route I am thinking maybe it's time to push the boat out. My problem all the way along has been that I am looking at getting a laser from China. Despite ordering from England, Germany and Belgium they are always from fecking China. This is potentially an expensive option but I am hoping I can lease one in the short term. Given that I am looking at an expensive machine I am no longer looking at a shed as a base of operations. Instead I think I have found a cheap place to set up a business.

In recent weeks I have done a bit of gaming again so I should post some stuff about that soon. Having found some cheap stuff in a game shop in Southport (which is a good FLGS) I have doubled my gaming spend for the year so far. On top of that I am expecting some goodies for my birthday so it might be worth watching this space.

Is It Worth It?

This one is all about money. We all like money don't we? So if anyone has any thoughts I would really appreciate you giving me the benefit of them.

Usually the only currency I am interested in is two pence pieces

So the times are a changing and I am about to go into business for myself. Laser cutting anything game related seems to be my first course of action. The name of the game in business is making money.  So I am a bit torn. This blog has always been about doing something to amuse myself. Why I want to do this I am not sure. Painting figures used to be enough but I have found that blogging about it seems to make me a better painter.

Or to put it another way, HELP.

And no I am not asking for a handout.

I am thinking maybe I should put AdSense on the blog. I am almost at the stage where five or ten pounds a month might suddenly be important. I guess there are other ways to make some money to. Has anybody done it? Did it make any money? Did it naff of the readers? How much of a pain was it? Are there any things I might need to know?

Hell I am even at the stage where I am considering putting up a YouTube channel seems worthwhile even if it's going to take a while to make money. I spent six months toing a desktop video editing course so I might as well put those skills to use.

On a wider scale than this, if anyone has any insights or tips about setting up a business I would really appreciate it.

Accidents

Not the major kind. More the fortunate (ish) coincidence kind. I made a determined effort to get the cultists done today. They are still not quite done and there is a little bit of detailing to be done on them. They would have been finished but I got a little sidetracked. This happened when the spot of paint I was trying to squirt out to touch up spots on a couple of arms became a rather large blob.

I hate waste. So I decided to use the blob for something else. There was probably enough paint to put a flesh base coat down on just about all the faces and hands of the figures I currently have primed. What I did see were a bunch of Macrocosm Immature Ticks. The way they are painted in the webshop gives them a distinctly alien vibe that is very reminiscent of old GW Genestealers. Whilst this is not a bad look I did want something different.

Having a big blob of skin tone paint gave me an idea. Genestealers were part of a life cycle so why not make these creatures part of the lifecycle of something else. So using regular caucasian skin tone was a good place to start with a couple of different colours for a bit of variety. My plan for a while has been to get some more of these. It would be an easy job  to give them some slight variations on the skin tone as well.

Whilst these were brought as an Opfor for the Titansgrave game, I can see a number of uses for them. Using them as a kind of genestealer esque creature has some and that this would probably work for X-Com and just about any post-apocalypse game. I don't really have a firm plan but I can see a number of ways of making this work.

On the plus side these should be a quick and easy paint job. There are a dozen of them so if I finished them by the end of the week I should be ahead of the curve for the first time this year.

Gaming Tiles

Over the last couple of weeks I have been playing about with the idea of  doing some gaming tiles for roleplaying and board games. This stems from playing Star Wars: Imperial Assault and Descent as well as looking some of the home made 2.5d dungeon terrain. I like the idea of making the terrain easy-to-use, easy-to-build and interlocking.

Whilst I like the tiles and the figures and even the game of Imperial Assault, I am not going to go out and buy them because I know two people who I game with that have it already and I wouldn't be running it any way. However, I want them to play other games and I really want something I can customise so the commercial stuff doesn't do quite what I want. I did think about cutting stuff to the same shape and size as the FF game but that sounds like more hard work that it's worth.

So I came up with the idea of  creating my own. The first one is a try out of the 2.5d terrain. The original idea was a bit of a stretch but it was an easy fix to make something that works. I am stuff not sure I like the form. The Imperial Assault tile idea works much better and the absence of walls specifically means that the tiles can be closer together.

The prospect of the creation and painting of the dungeon tiles is fun and I like the idea but the printing out of images created elsewhere makes the process a lot quicker and more visually appealing.

Progress, After A Fashion

Today has been another busy day and I am painfully tired. What I need right now is some sleep. The work on the zombies has progressed a fair bit. That said, whilst I have done a fair bit of highlighting, there is still plenty of details to add before I would class them as finished.

The tiredness and the detail was starting to make me go a bit cross-eyed so I stopped the figure painting. Instead, I went to on to work on the bases for the Viking wargame for my Savage Worlds Wargame. All of what is now glued together and covered in sand is now ready to go. Then, there were still some bases that hadn't been glued together. The bases (of the bases) that I had available were not enough for what I needed. I did however have a number of the top half of the bases that hadn't been cut properly. The cuts were deep enough that chopping them down to the size of bases of the bases (look at the pictures if you don't understand) that there were easy enough to cut out. So, although it was a bit of a cobble together, the problems won't actually be noticeable when figures or blanks are put in the slots. Most bases now only need a touch up to the paint and there are about ten that need texturing and painting. There is enough there really to give it a go now.

Then I moved on to gluing up some dungeon tile ideas I tried running off last weekend. These are definitely not going to work in their current form but I will paint them up to see what they look like from an aesthetic point of view.

Woefully Busy Day & Some Fun & Zombies

Whilst I still have a bad back that is causing me a lot of pain and a cold that just won't go away, the world isn't going away either. My other half is ill with the same thing I had although this seems to be the second time she has had it. She was that bad last night that she asked me where her glasses were and she was wearing them, on her face, at the time.

This picture demonstrates why most good painters (or do I mean sensible ones) don't show their work until it's finished.

Zomtober continues. I took this picture yesterday to remind me to keep on track or else The New Cruelty will catch up with me. When I look at it I feel a slightly unpleasant feeling in my stomach. Still, very early days. They are very blocky and pretty hideous. It was for this reason that I wasn't going to post the picture. That said, I have worked on them a bit this evening after going out for a birthday meal, and I am happy to say that they now look a lot better. I realise that the blood looks pretty bright at the moment but when I get down to washing them and painting the clothing, the blood splatter will narrow down a bit and darken down a lot.

So getting a bit better but still don't look bad enough to be zombies

Still pretty far from perfect but they are getting there. There is a fair bit of detailing to do on them and lots and lots of highlighting and what I call "grebbing them up" to make them a little more zombie. This will include a significant amount of Tamiya Clear Red, which is the best blood substitute I have found so far (although I wouldn't recommend it for a transfusion).

There has been a bit of time for playing around with CorelDraw as well. I am working on some terrain ideas. I have had an idea for some roads for ages. For a while now I have been thinking about doing them in laser cut MDF. This might take a while but it is doable. It will take a long time because of the scope of the amount of stuff I am actually wanting.

Bases, Washes And A Need to Clean Up The Workbench

This is going to be a quick post. I am coming down with a bug the kids have given me. Yey.

The FabLab went okay. I was bounced out a little early so I didn't get all that I was hoping to do. Hopefully the staff will finish off my stuff for me and I will be able to pick it up on Thursday. I still managed to get fifteen plus bases cut and all have been glued, most have been flocked and some have been painted. I should have just about enough to run a game when these are done and there will be enough for multiple options when the rest get finished.

After doing that I finished off a few more details on the figures.The Gripping Beast Romano-British are coming along nicely but I am struggling to bring out some of the details of the Northstar Frostgrave figure. Then I moved onto doing the washes. There are still a few details that need to be attended to as well as the highlighting. Hopefully I should get this done for close of play tomorrow.

Zomtober is on the Horizon. Although I have missed out for a couple of years, I have a plan that means that I should be taking part, I got a few minis today just for the purpose of running the game. These are perhaps the most expensive minis (in 28mm anyway) I have purchased in a while.I have primed them today but they should be being started in earnest in the next week or so.

FabLab, Wargames And Bases

Much to my surprise I got to FabLab just about on time. This proved to be a bad thing. Having booked the machine, someone else was using it when I got there and I was told that the time I had wasn't going to happen because they were going to close early. With a bit of targeted complaining I got them to extend the hours but still didn't get what I want done because it took over forty minutes to get the other guy of the machine.

For a while now I have been working on the idea and basics for a Savage Worlds driven wargame. There are a couple of wargame systems available already. The mass battle system in the rules is extremely basic and the Showdown rules won't handle mass battles. So I thought I could find a third way.

The plan calls for about ten to twelve units per side with units ranging from about five to thirty men. In a world where two hundred men might be called an army, this is about right. What I have wanted to do is give the rules a serious play test. I have played them through with digital paper counters and they seemed to work okay. Over the summer I have been thinking about doing it as a miniatures games, I just needed some sabot bases.

As a game it is really an extension of a RPG campaign but like most of my games, I like a mass battle element to them. So I want  a mass battle feel but still have the scope for using individual heroic characters. There are plenty of dark age figures in my collection but they are all based individually as I am primarily a roleplay at the moment. So whatever the rules were going to be would have to take this into account. I also wanted a system that would allow characters to be right up in the action but a bit more, well, wargaming light. The most obvious solution was sabot basing.

Take somewhere between two and six infantry or two or three cavalry figures per base. Make sure that there is some scope for bigger monsters and even light artillery (okay I have two dwarf ballistas and I might get one for a Romano-British early saxon army).

I had hoped to walk away with about enough bases for two armies. Time got a bit short but I have still walked away with enough stuff for eighteen bases, admittedly some are not needed at the moment and I could do with a few more leg infantry bases. However, I should have enough of the stuff cut by the close of play on Saturday to make that happen.

A bit of sand, some time, some paint, some wash (maybe make some of my own wash as I am now going to need a lot of it) and a bit of highlighting and that should do me.Time is getting a bit tight to have all this done and finish my figures but I live in hope.

Back To FabLab

With the kids being back in school FabLab is back on. I went down there yesterday with little expectations of even getting access to the machine let alone the thing working properly. So I was surprised when there was no one there wanting to use it and the machine working properly. Apparently I had done a better job at diagnosing the problems with the machine that the staff had.

The trouble was that I didn't have much of an idea what to do. Over the last week or so I had an idea for a stick to paint figures on. Something I could slot in bases so that I could secure the figures with whilst priming and varnishing. As I have done a lot of that lately, I thought it might come in useful. Seems like it worked out well, hopefully not too well. This is a product I think I am going to produce.

This wasn't going to take too long so I thought i would cut up some bases. For years I have been using two 2p coins glued together as cavalry bases. This works well but us time consuming and messy. So I cut a few appropriately sized bases. I don't do too much cavalry (I have a thing about hating painting horses) but there are plenty of monster minis (I am thinking about the dozen or so dire wolves I did a few years ago). Then onto a few larger monster sized bases. My stocks of 30mm, 40mm and 50mm were running low so I thought I'd top these up.

There was a little bit of space left on the board so I thought I'd do some template sized circles for Savage Worlds. Sadly the Medium Burst Template didn't come out how I would of liked it.

For a while I have been working on a Savage Worlds wargame. I think I might give the sabot bases for that atrial during the week.

Escher Lizards

Today has seen me do a lot of yawning. Mostly on the couch in front of YouTube. Spike has been round in the evening, testing my plans to destruction, well almost. Somehow most of my recent negativity seemed to have blown away. Perhaps this is down to me realising that I actually want to make a go of it. My resolve has come back a bit. So then I have gone back to doing some stuff with CorelDraw.

I have always had a liking for Escher prints. I think this largely down the the amount of time I spent staring at them in an ex-girlfriend's house. The tessellating images were particularly inspiring and the lizards especially so. Now that I am using the laser cutter I need some way to test how the designs I am doing work out when the hit the cutter. So far, the couple that I have done have come out okay.

End Of The Week And Tokaido

It was about ten years ago whilst reading a book about Japan that I first heard about people walking along the Tokaido. I am not sure if the word pilgrimage is the right one but it has a status in Japan a little like a spiritual version of the Pennine Way or the Inca Trail. These have become three walks that I want to do. When I heard that there was a board game about it, it was a certainty that I was going to buy it. Then I couldn't find the damn thing in the shops or online (well not at a price i was going to pay).

Then the day after my mum's funeral I was in Liverpool and there it was. the deluxe version with plastic figures. So I got it and kind of hid the receipt for a bit. It is a thing of beauty. having always like Japanese woodcut prints, the artwork was just perfect. The figures have the same artistic licence of the artwork and will sooner or later join the paint queue. hell, it even came with metal coins and the build quality is just fantastic.

Having watched it played online a few times (I am sad enough to watch people play board games online but only because there is very little I can watch because of the kids) so had a handle on the rules. It is easily what I call a round-robin-shaftathon. It is all about getting points but it is better to get points in a way that most infuriates the other players. This is therefore a game most of my mates should like.

So I got a chance to play it today. As a two player game I was a little disappointed. There is a mechanic to add a non player character to the game but it does not facilitate the shaftathon element as much as I would like. Next weekend there is going to be at least one more player so hopefully should be a better game.

Anyway, the end of the week is here. I got to the FabLab yesterday and have nearly sorted out all my problems with the laser cutter so should hopefully get my money back and get another one soon. I have had another play about with the bits I got cut yesterday and developed a few more ideas in CoralDRAW today to follow on from what I learnt yesterday.

Whilst it seems that I done nothing but laser cutter stuff this week, that would be a lie. I spent a bit of time playing Witcher III which is a game I play for a bit and then leave but I always want to return back to it. Having thought about it I am not sure what the allure is but it is similar to other games that I like, these all seem to revolve around collecting bits to craft other things. As a lot of it involves plants I have been using the phrase Combat Floristry a lot. Even though I have been playing awhile, I seem to be levelling up quite slowly and this means I am not really capable of taking on the bigger, badder monsters and that I die a lot.

I did do some work on my Underground post apocalyptic background for Savage Worlds this week. As time goes by, I get a torrent of ideas and start to work on them. What I should really be doing is finishing one idea off and starting on the next thing. There is the scope for about half a dozen to maybe as many as a dozen PDFs which I am going to see if I can get published online. When they are done.

Anyway, the week ahead is looking good. I have a mate due at mine for a long weekend so I should get some gaming done. My local show is on over the weekend so I will be out spending money there, but not too much. I should get to the FabLab on Thursday and hopefully try out my latest ideas.

FabLab And Modular Buildings

I have spent a fair bit of time developing my skills on CorelDRAW just lately. The aim of this is to develop some ideas for laser cut buildings. I am quite pleased with the results. Using the laser cutter properly for the first time in the lab was great. I feel a bit more confidant about my skills and the results were a lot better.

From there I have a few moe ideas to work on. My mind keeps thinking back to Fallout 4. Modular walls and fencing were a big part of that game and I am sure I can use that as some form of inspiration. I worked a on a few ideas which seem to work out on paper. Next week I might give these a whirl if I don't get too much time taken up with fidget spinners.

End Of The Week, Frustration & Laser Cutting And Terrorists

Another terrorist attack in the UK. More dead and it's all homegrown. Somehow it would seem easier if the killers were foreigners. I guess that pretty much all terrorists in the UK, in the course of my life time are homegrown. I worry less about the dead and those that are almost certain to die in future attacks, I worry more about the nature of my society and the future of my country.

My week has been focus has been setting up a business. At the end of the week my Laser cutter arrived. It took me a day or two to get to it. I have had a few things to buy to set the thing up safely. So Today I have got my chance to get it set up and it's dead as a door nail. No matter what I do and what the net tells me I can do the power is just not there.

So my focus for the last two weeks has been a waste of time. On top of that I feel that I have wasted a whole load of money. Now I have to sit back and wait to see if I will get my money back. I don't fancy paying for postage. Despite what the add seemed to imply, it came from Germany. I ordered a slightly more expensive one because I thought it came from the UK. When I paid for it, the money seems to have gone to a Chinese company. This makes me worry.

Anyway, next week should be better I hope.

Frustration & Laser Cutting

I have had the new toy for about a day and a half now. So far I have not been able to turn it on. Let alone get anything printed out. I need to add a water supply to keep the laser cool enough that it does not explode. Finding something that I can use as a container is currently defeating me. I need a closed container that will admit a submersible pump. So far, having done a tour round town, I have drawn a blank. I am currently think that maybe a fish tank or a home brew barrel might be the answer but these are not cheap. It would be almost cheaper to buy a ten litre paint can and throw the paint away and even then it's not got a seal around the cable.

There are no end of things wrong with it. This is apparently the way they are built. I still see it as better to buy a £400 laser that will require a little work than a £2400 laser that will work out of the box (but will still require a water container).

Missed It Again But There was A Reason In A Very Big Box

My laser cutter arrived yesterday. I was so busy farting around with it that I dozed off early. Then when I woke up in the early early hours (the magpies were screeching for hours) the internet was off.
So, time to catch up.

When the delivery arrived, I got two boxes. The smaller box is a free pink makeup case that came with it. There are some odd things bundle with them. The bigger box is a lot larger than I was expecting as when I have opened it up I found that the dimensions were also a bit off which came as a bit of a surprise. There first problem I encountered was that there was no way that the machine was going to fit on the workbench with the fan attached to the back. It has casters on the bottom of it with a wheel lock on them half of them just don't work and the other two casters require so much effort to get the, to close that I am sure that they won't last. I am currently in two minds as to whether to replace them with something better of just take them off and replace them with some wooden runners. There is a gap in the bottom which I assume is an air intake so I am guessing that blocking that would be bad.

The biggest issue I think I am going to face is the manual. Back in the day I remember seeing shows which featured Chinese people talking in  a way that always sounded like propaganda. That was just propaganda right? Chinese businesses have this idea that the best way to make money is to save money in the first place. So rather than getting someone to translate the paperwork then run it through google translate. This may give a very literal translation (I am not qualified to comment, just to take the p**s) but it doesn't read like English.

Anyway, I am back in the garage now and hopefully I'll have something up and running and more importantly in production by the end of next week.

End Of The Week & Modular House

My stated aim was to finish five figures a week on average. On average I am still ahead of my target. This is despite the fact that I haven't picked up a brush all week. Over the course of the week I have probably sat at my work bench for about an hour in total. So not a good week for painting.What I have achieved this week has been fairly substantial though.

Bank holiday tomorrow and half term for the kids as well. This will mean later nights and shorter mornings. Coupling this with the work I am doing I doubt much painting will get done in the coming week either. The biggest job tomorrow is going to be sorting out the garage. I have already done a fair bit of work in there. My immediate plan involves setting up a couple of workbenches in there. This will mean a big clear out.

The week ahead will see even more progress on the garage. My new laser cutter should be arriving at the end of the week. Somewhere along the line I need to get some raw materials to test out what I have got planned. To start with I think it's going to be used to make figure bases. I know that there are people out there that already do this but I think there is still some scope in the market.

I am working on a few more ideas but for the time being, this is an image of part of my idea for a modular house. Coming to an online store near you soon....

New Skills

Well I guess if I want to create some terrain with a laser that I better be able to produce some templates. So I got back to learning some Corel Draw skills. I have been using this system on and off for a few years now but I can't say that I know it well enough to do everything I want to do.

The aim is to make things look like brick. It would be nice to get things to scale. The bricks are a little out of scale but they are close enough. Likewise the doors are a bit big but I would like the space to be big enough to move a figure through even on a 2p sized bases. Even more heroic scales (Malifaux Batman etc) all use even bigger figures so the scale to me looks even more odd.

With setting up the building to have a brick effect I am hoping that I can hide the tabs which to me ruin most laser cut buildings. The edges will still be there but I am working on the assumption that people will want to paint them.

It's one thing designing the template but I have to remember that really that this is the first stage in the prototyping process.My initial thought process is to set up, for want of a better expression, a number of boxes that work. Then use these boxes as templates and give them new skins. Obviously this is not a universal solution but I am hoping that it will cover most eventualities.

Hard Work

Hard work is not a phrase I have used a lot in recent years. Hard labour seems to be an even better description than that. Most of my day has been spent working on laser cutting or matters arising from it. To be honest there has not been a lot of physical labour but working with old technology whilst trying to relearn some old software. The phrase "First World problems" keeps going through my head and that seems to be the nature of the problem. I am more worried that I am going to have to get rid of Netflicks not how am I going to put food on the table.

There is a lot of stuff to do now. Hope I am up to the task.

Change Of Posting Plans

This morning I think I had a plan to do some painting ad post it on the blog. I was going to start painting up the gnolls and see how things went. At one point I did start the process off and I am still at the daubing stage so I didn't really want to post any pictures. There is definitely more paint on them than there was this morning.

My other half started talking to me about money earlier. Conversations about money in my house usually go along the lines of my other half wants to spend money and me not wanting to. More than ever I have been trying to cut back because I know our income has dropped a bit in recent months. Despite this, my other half has decided to book a holiday because she really needs a break. her going off the deep end because she thought the dog had Alabama rot and taking the dog to the vet (the dog did have an infection but it's the kind of thing dogs get all the while) has not helped either. She has then realised not only how much this holiday is going to cost (about £800 for four days away) but how much money we are going to lose if we do it. She has yet to comprehend that last year I had to spend money for tax purposes and this year not only have we had a cut in income but our costs are going up all the while. When I sat down to work it out even I was surprised (shocked might be more like it and the air around my inner monologue turned blue). So something needs to be done.

So I am looking back at the possibility of setting up a small scale laser cutting business. It has to be said I am not looking forward to this. My life has become quite comfortable and I like it the way things are going. This is a big part of why setting up a business was put on the shelf on the first place. I should have some money from an inheritance coming through but that might take a while. This would mean buying a house and maybe a fixer upper to try and make some money back. So in the meantime, I need the money. Setting up a business has always been part of the plan but that plan was quite long term. It has been something I want to do but obviously it's a little terrifying. My plan is also going to have to be cut back. I seem to recall my initial setup was going to be at around the £4000 mark. Whilst I do have that kind of money, it seems to be a big chance to take and that money could make a difference elsewhere.

Laser Cut terrain

When I got the counters from Blotz I also ordered some laser cut terrain. Nothing too big. I don't mind doing the buildings myself. In reality, I get something closer to the floor layout I want even if I don't always get the look.

What I was thinking was more about ET-Com. There are certain things that I need that are much easier and quicker to buy. The biggest problems were going to be around the UFOs. I am not trying to duplicate what is in the games but I am trying to make something that looks alien enough. I already have a few bits and pieces. I have been buying stuff for years but there are still some gaps. This seemed like a good time to do something about that.

These will do nicely as alien storage crates both in and out of the alien's UFO. It's just more cover and obstacles for the players to get around. There are some larger ones as well in a different set. All told, this is probably more alien storage crates than I need, but then I think you can never have enough of stuff like this, just in case

I am not sure what I will do with these but I thought they looked nicely alienesque. I am currently thinking that I could cover each of them with a clear plastic tube and some sort of lid. The plan is to make them into some kind of power supply unit. I still need a UFO and some UFO wreckage so one of these might end up as a wreckage marker.

I also got some more mundane bits of dress up terrain. I have some already but I figure on you never have enough. Benches and bus shelters were available so I thought it couldn't hurt and they were fairly cheap as well. The booth, well I am not sure what that is going to end up as.

Still can't shake this inner ear thing. I am beginning to think it's not going away for a while. I still feel pretty drained most of the time and I thought I was over and done with it. I am still getting dizzy every now and again. I am just not moving too fast at the moment, just in case.