Still alive!

Yes, I am still alive :) Lots of stuff happened in the last few weeks, which kept me from doing anything for my hobby.

First my needed vacation (and luckily we came out of Egypt before all the planes where canceled after the plane bombing).
Then the typical flu attack and years end chaos in the office.
And if that was not enough: My PC slowly and quietly died.

I know have a knew one including a bigger monitor and have to setup everything (Photoshop, Camera etc. pp.) and hope that I can start posting again soon.

Hope someone still reads this!


So long,
Paradox0n

We are Back in the Future!

Just to spread some geekiness: Today is Back to the Future Day! If you don't know the movies: When Marty McFly got in the Delorean (his time machine), he went forward to today! Even if the scetched future of the movie is not the present, it is absolutely awesome (in a geeky way).

So if you have the possibility enjoy the movies today (many tv channels or streaming providers have the movies today on broadcast).


So long,
Paradox0n

Terrain from spare parts: Building a dead tree

Today I want to continue with my articles about how you can make terrain out of chunk or spare parts. This time I will show you, how you can make a dead tree (the one you can see on the left side) completely from chunk.

What you will need for this:
- Paper towel
- A twig or dried flower stem
- Something for a base (e.g. a washer)
- Glue
- Sand/Earth
- Static grass/flock (completely optional)

Twigs

Paper towel

Blog Babble - Interested in photography stuff?

Long time no see (again). But as usual I am drowning in work. My travel to Romania didn't help either and the loss of all my prepared post made it even worse. But hey, in Germany we have a saying "Unkraut vergeht nicht" ("A cat has nine lives"?). So Yes I am still here and No I haven't recovered from the loss of the articles yet.

But since I started hiking again and started experimenting with my DSLR (perhaps you remember my older article about it) I have a question to you all: Are you interested in a) Landscape pictures and more important b) Tutorials about using a DSLR and filters and maybe even picture composing/editing? If so, I will start with some articles to this topic.


So long,
Paradox0n

Why is the rum gone?

Last weekend started with a big WTF. When I checked my blog (and why the connection to the social media networks seemingly doesn't work) I saw that nothing was published to neither the blog nor the Twitter, FB or G+.
So with some big eyes I just saw that my pre-produced and scheduled articles are all gone. I have no clue what happened, but I had planned two articles to post the last 2 weeks. Everything gone... At least from Blogger, I can see that my pictures are still on Picasa.

So sorry for not posting anything for such a long time. I have lots to do atm and thus wanted to use the free time I had to pre-produce some stuff, which clearly didn't work out :(

 Since I will travel to Romania again next week, maybe I can use the spare time in the evenings (if we are not on the road) to produce something.


Have a good start into your week!


So long,
Paradox0n

Painted Abyssal Dwarf Mortars

There are really signs and wonders around. I finally painted up something! Seems like an eternity since I painted and thus it also feeled when I struggled with the paints and brushes again. One thing I recognized pretty fast: Next time I paint with a wet palette again. The whole time the paint just didn't feel right, especially since I paint now with longer bristle brushes (reason why, see here) which really struggle if the paint is too thick.
Nonetheless I painted and I will show you the results: An Abyssal Dwarf Angkor Heavy Mortar and an Abyssal Dwarf G’rog Light Mortar for my upcoming Kings of War army.

Nothing fancy or so, but since they got me back to painting I am really happy with them. The Heavy Mortar was quite a miscast sadly but I tried to do the best and cover that a bit with the paint. I think from a distance it is OK so far and that's what these two are about: Being painted for the battlefield :)


One thing I experienced through the process was that it seems that one of my Spray Primers got bad. It sprayed and everything but when it was dry, the paint didn't stick to it but dripped off of it. Like it had some strange Lotus Effect or something. Never had that before, but I was not happy with it before and now I think I just throw it away (12€ for the bin :( ).

Some more stuff is already on my table and I hope I find enough time and motivation to paint even more.


So long,
Paradox0n


P.S.: I think I will experience with showing WIP pictures and stuff also through Instagram and Twitter. Maybe that helps me to stay a bit more motivated. I hope that feedback turnaround is much faster there, because the comment section is mostly not used here :(

Short tip: Care for your brushes!

Damaged brushes

Since I am into painting stuff again (the temperature isn't something around 40°C anymore) I have a really important tip for you guys out there: Care for your brushes!
I could throw four brushes away because they didn't keep their tip anymore. The first picture here shows what can happen if you don't care or just throw your brushes around. OK ok, those here are more than 10 years old by now, but if you paint a lot, this could happen much, much faster.

So my tip is: Give your brushes from time to time some love. Rinse them in clean water, then soap with whatever you have in your reach e.g. shampoo and rinse them again. After that, form a nice tip again and let the bristles dry (best with the tip down so that the water doesn't collect in the ferrule and weakens the glue).

Brush soap

If you want to go a step further, use some special brush soap. They come from different manufacturers. Mine was part of my DaVinci brush set but there is also a special one from "The Masters" which was a long time not so easily to buy in Germany. Only know that from videos on Youtube and everyone seems quite happy with it.

But whatever you do: Curd Soap, Shampoo, special Brush Soap... Show your brushes from time to time some love and clean them :)


So long,
Paradox0n