I'm alive... and traveling

Back with continued posting tonight-- sorry for the delay! Been traveling to see family and my "out of office" blog post didn't come through. Shame on me! soon. Please accept my apologies in the form of color testing work in progress photos below! :)

I'm trying out an orange mix before I paint it on Carla. I know, I know, I should be further along at this point-- I agree completely! I've gone back and forth on which colors to paint her. I've had some hit-and-miss success with Cat's Eye Base from Reaper's Heavy Gear Blitz Master Series Paint Set. 

This is one of those colors that few people have unless they bought this particular paint set. I was lucky enough to acquire this paint (and a few others) from a con friend who'd won the set in a raffle and since he already owned it, he decided to share it amongst the table he was sitting at. Anyway, Cat's Eye Base was one of those paints and it's a nice rusty orange. I've painted with a few oranges in the past with my Troll Axer and the alien in my Space Vignette. However, this paint isn't as bright and the coverage is more transparent. It seems to need a bit more mixing than other paints I've used-- not uncommon, I just need to remember to shake the bottle senseless before I put the paint on my palette. Here's the mix I'm trying out: 

  1. Cat's Eye Base
  2. Pure White
  3. Fallout Grey
  4. Bone Shadow

The pants are a mix of Fallout Grey and Pure white, with Brown Liner as the dark contrast. The orange Cat's Eye Base, Bone Shadow, and Pure White as the edge highlights. For some of the darkest shadows, I've mixed a little Brown Liner into the Bone Shadow for a very thin glaze. I find it's fairly hard to blend the orange into the brown smoothly, and I think the reason is my struggle with the paint consistency/opacity. I'm glad I'm testing this out first before I apply it to my it-has-to-be-perfect 75mm. I should also mention I realize it's very ill-advised to paint light colors on dark primer, but let's overlook that ;) I'm ready to move forward!

Video Game Binge

Oh, hi there... I didn't notice you. In fact, I forgot what day of the week it is. I've been on a video game binge lately. It was The Other Half's birthday on Friday and part of his present was video games all weekend until one of us passed out. We played Divinity, Star Wars, Rocket League-- wait, what's that? You've never heard of Rocket League? Well if you ever wanted to play futuristic soccer with turbo boosted cars in low gravity, this is your game:

It sounds silly, but it's stupid-fun and difficult to master. There was also some Divinity: Original Sin...

...and last, but not least, Star Wars: The Old Republic. I played 10 hours of SWTOR on Saturday and don't regret a minute of it. I love my character "Mynx Mocha". SWTOR just released the Togruta race and I was all over it. We leveled up to 23, hit the dance club, and disarmed a bomb-- our dog was very impressed. (We took another break for a walk right afterwards).

Other than that I've been pretty busy with work, remembering to eat, and making an effort to go out with friends and maintain a healthy, goofy social life (I'm the chile pepper on top there). 

I have to say, life's pretty good right now. I'm appreciating happiness where I can and rolling with the punches. I feel like I'm finally pulling out of the crushing sadness that's plagued me for the past few months. I'm painting again and I just bought a few tools that I've needed to replace after losing some in the move/flood-- new needle files, a range of sand paper, brass rods for pinning (so I don't use staples), and some wire clippers. 

After playing all this Star Wars, I had the idea of white pants stuck in my head-- I also needed to test out white-to-light beige color combination before I painted it on Miss Carla McCarthy. I assembled this Infinity miniature and ran a few tests of white options. I also remembered how stupid it is to try and paint white over black primer (trust me, it takes too many layers!). I'm looking forward to trying out some of my new purchases. In the meantime, I better save enough time tonight for painting-- I'm long overdue!

ReaperCon 2016 Dates

Latest news: ReaperCon dates have changed!

Rather than late-April/early-May, the convention will be in late-October. While there's been a bit of an uproar with the initial "I have to wait 6 more months?!" (which I admit was my first reaction), I'm interested to learn the additional reasoning behind it. I can only assume some things at this point (which can be ill-advised), and I'm sure it has something to do with event pricing, available site dates, expanding space, and possibly the Hilton Garden Inn and other guests being overwhelmed with our late-night shenanigans :) In any case, the Bones III Kickstarter will demand much of the Reaper team's time in the coming year. To help myself sort through my feelings about this change, I decided to write a list of my own personal pros & cons about my favorite annual convention: 

Pros

  • Bigger space: more inclusive & room to expand for amount of guests & events (i.e. classes won't need to be held in hotel guest rooms due to lack of space)
  • Open-concept gives more versatility for events, vendor expo space, etc. 
  • Hotel won't be far from the convention site (~3 miles)
  • No need to choose between ReaperCon & AdeptiCon in 2016 
  • More time to paint!!! That's rarely a bad thing (unless you're a procrastinator like we can all be)

Cons 

  • Not held at the hotel: Less convenient, especially for those without cars & con-goers who carry lots of supplies around during the day (me). I'll have to make sure & pack light!
  • Open-concept: potential for high noise level & without lobby/hotel rooms to escape to (ouch)
  • Dates aren't in the "slow months" at work. Requesting vacation during Oct may prove challenging 
  • Con is now over a year away and that means longer to wait :(
  • It's change. As a "Type A" person, I struggle with change. I was looking forward to the convenience of the hotel

While there's no such thing as "the pros outweigh the cons" (since each idea holds different weight to each person), the fact is I have not seen this venue. It may just be one big concrete room with no sound barriers or it may be one open room with smaller, quieter rooms off to the side where they'll hold additional classes or events. I'm sure there are additional reasons for the new dates, and it's silly to try and predict what may/may not happen as a result of this change. Honestly, I know what I'm upset about and that's change and the unknown. I at least knew what to expect with the convention held at the Hilton Garden Inn and now I have no idea. However, Reaper has over a year to make it work and I'm sure they have some creative solutions for some of the "Cons" I've listed above. Either way, I'm looking forward to ReaperCon 2016 and I know without a doubt: it'll be worth it!