Swatches

I have an unhealthy obsession with getting the "right" color for my miniatures. In trying to figure out the color I need for a particular project, picking the right color by its depiction on a store's website is impossible. They never match. Looking at a paint pot or bottle doesn't work either, because sometimes the paint is unmixed, and wet paint is usually a slightly different shade than what it is when dried.

So I make swatches.

It's pretty simple: I just cut out a lot of 2-inch squares of posterboard, and then painted them with each of my colors. Now I know just what the color looks like when dry.  Whenever I'm dithering over which color to pick, I grab some of the swatches and do a comparison until I make my decision.  A 2-inch square is also good in case I need to go to Home Depot and buy a pint of paint for larger projects.

Unboxing: Dungeon Saga: The Dwarf King's Quest

As I've gotten older and had less time to play large scale wargames, I've had more and more thoughts of a smaller game that could be played that was also more accessible to non-gamer geeks.  I even did a post about it, hoping for a return Warhammer Quest. That hasn't happened, but Mantic Games has answered the call with Dungeon Saga: the Dwarf King's Quest.

Tough Ruck 2016

April 16, 2016
After my 2015 Obstacle Course Race season, I knew that I had a lot of work to do. I felt that in spite my finishing seven OCRs in 2015, and improving a little bit over the journey, I still had a long way to go. By no means did I feel "in shape," so I was determined to do 2016 better. On Veteran's Day 2015, I saw an announcement for Tough Ruck 2016, which was a charity event to raise money for families of Fallen Servicemembers and First Responders. In addition to raising money for a great cause, it would be good motivation for me to train.

Tiger Tank, Part 2

I have a love/hate relationship with decals. When I was young and before I got into miniature painting, I did model kits, primarily aircraft and warships. Most of them had waterslide decals, and applying them was pretty straight forward: soak them in water until they come off the paper, and use a paintbrush to put them on the model and adjust them...and voila, all done.

Commission: U.S. Marine

Apparently due to the popularity of my Woodland and Desert MARPAT tutorials, recently I was contacted to do a commission. The task was to paint two identical 28mm miniatures, one in Woodland MARPAT, one in Desert MARPAT.

Epic Sixth F.I.T. Challenge

April 9, 2016
The Epic Sixth F.I.T. Challenge was my second OCR of 2016. I have to admit I wasn't looking forward to it very much. It had been a very tiring week for me, and due to real life getting in the way, I had all but ceased training. Doing this race was going to stink in a big way. But I had paid my money, and so I went.

Writing Part 3: Finally Publishing... Independently

While I was busy writing up story outlines to submit to Games Workshop's Black Library, my friend Jack Badelaire lost interest in doing the same and instead began exploring Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). At the time I thought he was missing the boat. KDP was interesting, but ebooks weren't all that popular (yet), and I was more interested in writing stories for Games Workshop. Seeing how into their games I was, it seemed like a dream job.

It did not take long for me to realize that it was I who was missing the boat.