Thoughts on blogging - 200th post!

As my 200th post I want to share my thoughts on blogging and how to behave in the blogosphere. After analyzing my statistics and reading many different blogs, blogging styles and checking what other blogs do (and don't do) my mind started working and after giving it a second and a third thought I feel now the urge to write some more personal view on this whole blogging stuff. The article is already some weeks in the pipe and I never felt it ready. But as my 200th post I think it is allowed to be seen :)

As you perhaps know, this blog started roughly 2 years ago as a test balloon because I just wanted to write more in English and thus practice the language. I had the choice between a tech-blog about my work or a more fun thing about the war-gaming hobby (which at this time started anew for me). I decided to combine both experiments and write about the hobby since work stuff I don't want to do in my spare time. Meanwhile I had lots of ups and downs and I even think about opening a bi-lingual hiking blog together with my wife and writing some tech based articles about my work on the blog of a good friend of mine. So blogging taught me to gather my thoughts and put them into words and practiced my English (even though it is not as good as it should be). And the most important fact: It helped me to keep at the hobby, even with longer brakes and stuff.

Blood Red & Sunburst Yellow: My two arch enemies

Motivation is somehow back and I am starting to paint again. And having to face my two arch enemies: The (very) old paints from Games Workshop, Blood Red and Sunburst Yellow. Those two paints just will not create some reasonable layers, the pigments in them just flow around and give a uneven, semi-transparent, blotchy layer. Even doing multiple coats will not work with them. And painting them on anything else than a white (or light gray) primer gives you headaches. With the airbrush the colors work OK but I can't use my airbrush on all those small parts of the miniatures.
Either I am too stupid do use those correctly or these colors are really a pain.

The problem is, that I still have to use them, because my Chaos Dwarves will use the red, and my Skaven Slaves have yellow clothing...

So if anyone of you has a good tip how I can get those two colors to work I would be happy... Or is there a nice basecoat red and yellow color from other manufacturers like Vallejo? So that I can only use the GW ones for highlighting. I know that there are some basecoat colors from GW but I switched all new colors I own to the Vallejo ones and I am more than happy with them.

And to complete this post, a bad shot WIP picture of the thingy I am working atm: The Ramshackle Drill I got a looooong time ago as present from Labschi. The brown parts will later be covered with a brass/gold paint and the metal parts will be weathered and be more metal (its just the first drybrushed coat). The red parts will stay, I like the dirty look of that, the first time that its OK that the red didn't cover so good :)

This thingy will either be a proxy for a Skaven Doomwheel (if I ever need a third on in a game) or most likely be used as a Chaos Dwarf war machine. I am thinking of the Iron Daemon since I don't want to buy the Forgeworld one and all my Chaos Dwarf models so far are the Mantic Abyssal Breeds or proxy models from other companies.


So long,
Paradox0n

FFotW - Scale Model Challenge Collection

As most of you know, last Sunday was the Scale Model Challenge near Eindhoven. I thought about going there rather spontaneously, but after all the ~1200km drive (back and forth) which I would have to do alone (since Mrs. Para wasn't interested in the show) and the fact that I had to work on Monday kept me from doing something crazy.
Nonetheless I had a look at some of the emerging posts in the blogosphere and want to show you the reports I have found interesting so far.

The first was Tuffskull who also did a nice video of his trip:

Corvus' Miniatures also posted a video about the SMC 2014:

And in my Youtube recommendations I found another channel who did a multi-part coverage of the SMC (I just put them together in one play list, all kudos go to the creator of the videos):

Mot likely there are many more articles available, it seems that the guys from Painting Buddha also try to keep track of them. Their report about the SMC already has some nice image galleries linked.

Seems like it was a great event. Hope everyone who was there had a good time. Maybe I will join the party next year with some more time to plan and maybe get a hotel room for one night to ease the pain of driving :)


So long,
Paradox0n

Painting Buddha Academy: Horus series is finished

The next video series form the PBCC is finished. This time not only Ben works at the Miniature but also Matt jumps in with painting the base. If you don't know what the PBCC is, please check out Painting Buddha.

As the last time I bundled all the videos from the Horus series together in one playlist. Part 5 (painting the wolf) and Part 7 (painting green marble) are missing because they are only accessible for subscribers, so if you are interested in those or a 1080 version you must opt for a subscription :)

If you like the videos, please subscribe to their Youtube-Channel and have a look at their shlog/website.

But this week there is even more insanity from the guys. Up until now, you got some step-by-step introductions in a PDF if you opted in for one of their subscritpion models. But since Michael is absolutely nuts and hast lost his mind in the plans to conquer the galaxy (just kidding) they know make the PDF availably for everybody and even give out a voucher for those who already bought it.

Hope you enjoy it.


So long,
Paradox0n

FFotW - The Order of the Stick

My FFotW this time  is a comic series called "The Order of the Stick" by Rich Burlew. This series is really hilarious and so funny (at least if you are somewhat in P&P role-playing games like AD&D (on which this one is based).

I am not through the whole story but as far as I could read (somewhere around 300th strip) its pretty good.

Aaaand the best: There also exist some miniatures to the story and even a board game.
The miniatures are from Morland Miniatures a company I never heard before. They fit the look of the characters pretty good :)

I just had a quick look at the other miniatures there. There is some stuff which looks really cool. If anyone knows the company already, please drop a line in the comments.


So long,
Paradox0n

More impressions from Norway: Models in Flam museum

So I will continue to show some of my pictures from Norway. This time I only have four pictures which I have shot in the Fram museum in Oslo. When my wife first told me that she wanted to visit the museum I thought "Nah not interesting" but oh how I was wrong...
The Fram is a pretty famous ship, which was used in Arctic AND Antarctic expeditions and has quite a history to tell. The museum contains the Fram herself (yes the whole ship!) and the Gjøa.
The main hall which contains the Fram is four floors high and you can wind up your way up to the deck hop on it and discover the complete ship. On the different floors you can see lots of items from the expeditions and at some places also some small dioramas which I will now present to you.

If you are interested in more information about the museum or the ships, just visit the linked sites :)

Hope you enjoyed it.


So long,
Paradox0n

MMM: Heaven Shall Burn - Combat

Time for the music wakeup on Monday! This kind of music will either wake you up or make you run away from the noise :)
 I think this is a pretty depressing topic with matching video. Child soldiers are something this world should have never seen. I can't even imagine how the psych of these children is destroyed. I only know from dialogs with my grandpa (who was roughly 16 and more a teenager than a child when he had to fight in WWII) how bad stuff can be.

So why do I post the video? Because I think stuff like this needs some attention from time to time.

Heaven Shall Burn - Combat:

So long,
Paradox0n

P.S.: The cartoon characters remember me somehow of the Lulus of the Toughest Girls from Raging Heroes without judging that. That is why I though it somehow fitting for a tabletop blog.