[Update] Man the trenches! Fighting the spam wave

Most of you will not have seen the change but nonetheless I will give you a short update and explanation why I changed my blog comments and added the captcha although I am not a friend of this.

In the last weeks where I have been absent from the blogosphere some spambots seem to have taken over my blog and bombard me with one spam mail after the other. At the moment the number it is somewhere around 30-40 a day. Luckily blogger filters 99% of them out so that they don't get published on the blog itself. But nonetheless a notification mail is send to me about that.

So please let me get away with this breaking of rules until I have found a better solution.

[Update] Since so many of you commented here, and gave me the tip to switch to disallow unregistered comments, I thought about that and decided to give it a try. So please my fellow anonymous users who really want to comment use some kind of OpenID or just drop me an email.
Captchas are therefore off again.

So long,
Paradox0n

Painting Buddha Season 1.2 and Season 1.3 arrived

What a nice surprise today, when the DHL guy came this afternoon with a small white package for me. I already new what it was so I couldn't resist and tear it open immediately. And as expected it contained the Painting Buddha Season 1.2 Freehand and Season 1.3 Basing: Earth. The package was really packed with the bonus stuff for the early beard and it seems Michael stood up to his promise and adjusted the postage for the package. Included was a short letter, personally signed by all the three guys behind Painting Buddha, the putty, the miniature (early beard stuff) and some small buttons (no clue what they are for).

I am really curious how the DVDs are, especially in comparison to Season 1.1 the first one of the series. So I will have a nice weekend watching those and will definitely do a review for those. And don't they look nice together? All Season 1 DVDs so far:

So long,
Paradox0n

Painting Tutorial from Biohazard Painting: Dust Axis Light Walker "Hans"

If you are interested in Dust maybe I have found an interesting painting tutorial for you:
Biohazard Painting posted a nice tutorial for the Axis Light Walker "Hans" on his blog. The picture on the left shows the finished model and is directly taken from the article.

He also has some other tutorials on his page (at the moment mainly for Sedition Wars) so maybe you can have a look there too.


So long,
Paradox0n

FotW - The expert

Another Finding of the Week. This time completely unrelated to our beloved hobby but related to my daily work. Oh how I can feel with the poor guy in here.

Have a nice weekend!


So long,
Paradox0n

Painting a Fire elemental with Ben Komets from Painting Buddha

I am still alive and digging through videos and sometimes even blogposts. But my private projects (planing a hiking tour in Norway and the needed training) or my aquarium (which made some troubles lately) keep me away from painting and even blogging.
But today I stumbled upon a very nice (and free) painting video from our brudahs at Painting Buddha where Ben Komets paints a tabletop quality version of a Drakerys Fire Elemental. So sit back, watch and enjoy:

And as much as I hate advertisement mails, the one from Michael got me rolling and I will surely save me an Early Beard (so funny!) for the season 1.2/1.3 DVD bundle. I loved the first DVD set they did and want to support the work the guys at Painting Buddha do.


So long,
Paradox0n

Live is Life

Sorry guys for having quite a break on blogging. But at the moment real life has a tight grip and painting or terrain crafting is far far away from stuff I plan to do at the moment. The project I worked for the last half year is short before going live (in roughly two weeks). Additionaly the sister of my wife made a very nice suggestion: Why not make a trekking vacation in norway in august. So we are also planning this very exotic kind of vacation for us. Starting with shoes, clothes continuing with tent and cooking gear and everything. Quite interesting what has changed in the years since my last hiking experience :)

But: Live is Life :) Veeeery old music video from Opus:

Hope you all do well.

See ya soon,
Paradox0n

Real life incoming!

Maybe you wondered if I am still into blogging after this really quite time now. Yes I am but my Work-Life-Balanc eis totally out of control. The last weeks we are preparing a bigger relaunch of the companies web page I am working at and are now in the hot phase for it. Last week I even was on a working trip in rumania which brought lots of nice impressions (although I didn't see much other than the office I was working at). Since I was "announced" as technical frontent responsive this is quite a change for me, I have much more responsibility now and want to stand up to the expectations my colleagues put into me..

Therefore I don't find the passion and quiet for painting or even working on my blog. Which is a shame since I finally got an answer from BoLS concerning the addition to their blogroll. I even don't find the time to follow my dearest blogs so please bear with me and be sure that I will have a look into all your blogs and will comment again when I find the time.

Hope you all have a good time until then.


So long,
Paradox0n

FFotW - The Battle of Finuval Plain

Battle of Finuval Plain from Hoodling

Today again something more hoby related. Perhaps some of you remember the last massive battlereport from Hoodling (The Battle of Hel Fenn) I posted a while ago. And he and his mad crew did it again: An unbelievable battle(report) of 25.000 points forces clashing into each other! Stand wide-eyed (or drooling) and read the madness of The Battle of Finuval Plain.

The Battle of Finuval Plain was a turning point in The Great War against Chaos in 2301 IC. The Dark Elves and their Chaos allies conquered the Blighted Isle and Nagarythe and started their raiding camapign on Ulthuan. After long fights favoring the Dark Elves and pushing the High Elves into some kind of geruilla war Teclis and Tyrion gathered a huge force and gathered on the Finuval Plain for a last stand fight to turn the tide of the war.

Take some time and read those many posts on his blog and enjoy the awesome (and pictured!) documentation how this battle went. Did the history books really tell the truth? At least you can read one version of this story today.
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.


So long,
Paradox0n

P.S.: Welcome abroad to The Lord of Excess. Hope you found some interesting stuff here.

MMM - Elder Scrolls Online Music

Wow long time since I wrote my last Monday Morning Music post. So time for a new one! You could suppose I would post something concerning our 5th season of the year, the "Fasnet" or "Fastnacht" as its called in my region. But since I am not into this festivity anymore I chose something different.

I had the luck to get a Beta Key for the stresstest weekend of The Elder Scrolls Online which I really enjoyed. Something which flashed me (besides the awesome graphics, the free character development and the cool stories) was the music in the game. Everytime I came near a tavern or a campfire and a npc bard was present they really performed songs! Not just some other music, real songs. That immensely pays in the general atmosphere of the game and therefore I will give you two examples from Malukah:

Hope you enjoy it.


So long,
Paradox0n

Color theory - 3 Colors Up

Long time no see... But today I will present you at least something hobby related. I put together a playlist from a very good video tutorial series related to color theory. Romain from Beasts of War explains all important parts, be it contrast, complementary colors, color triads and so on.

Complementing this I showed you the Color Scheme Designer some time ago.
So grab your color wheel and start experimenting ;)


So long,
Paradox0n

Where's the rum gone...

...I would ask if I would be Jack Sparrow. But since I am definitely not I ask: Where is my motivation gone. It seems the two weeks fighting of the cold sucked out my complete energy. At the moment it is pretty hard for me to hop on my bike let alone painting miniatures. I am glad that I can fulfill the stuff at the office. Which is pretty stressful at the moment.

Sorry to give you no new pictures of my miniatures or anything. Meanwhile you can watch other people who are awesome :)

So long,
Paradox0n

Strange Blogger/Google+ behaviour

Just a short notice for you out there: At the moment I am not able to comment on all your nice posts and stuff because I have some strange problems with the Google comments. They show me that I am logged in, I type my comments and send them and BAMM they are lost somewhere in the blogosphere.
I recall that Mr. Lee had this problem too some time ago, so if anyone of you reads this and has solved it, please hit me either by a comment or (if known) by an email.

Thanks in advance,
Paradox0n

Praise Papa Nurgle

Life is a roller-coaster it seems. Since nearly two weeks I am now struggling with fighting of the flu I got at the beginning of last week and still I have the last remaining symptoms of it. Thinking of painting while you cough or sneeze is not possible. Stress at work and some stuff to recondition because of my sickness don't improve the situation either.
At least I am fit enough to do some short bicycle circles around my flat. Christmas and New Year didn't perform well on my hips ;)

Hopefully I can return painting a bit (and finishing my working place, it has changed again a bit and is nearly complete now) and finally sorting some pictures for my second Majorca post (better late than never).

I am happy that some you are returning to blogging again and even if I am not able to catch up all your posting I hope I can comment once in a time.

Happy Blogging!

Paradox0n

Hobby Magazines - Ironwatch Issue #17

Issue #17 of Ironwatch Magazine, the Mantic Games Fanzine has arrived yesterday.

This time it is pretty Kings of War heavy and includes topics like:

• Kings of War Tactica
• Tutorial on how to make an orc hut
• Painting step-by-step of the Goblin shaman
• The first part of a new short story
• and many more

I personally like the articles about the painting and terrain best, because I can't use all the Tactica and new model rule stuff since we don't play Kings of War. And I like that there are again many pictures of Mantic miniatures, on some you can see what you can make out of them.

If you haven't checked already, take a look, its free and fanmade and totally supported by Mantic (so you'll see lots of images).

So long,
Paradox0n

MMM - Vacation's over

New year has just begun and it is Monday morning, so I think its time for a new Monday Morning Music post.

Today is my last day of the christmas vacation (in Germany the 6th January is a day off (a day for the "Kings of the East" I think they are called in english) and we even had some carol singers at our door yesterday (for the first time since we live in our flat here).

I found a song which I think fits pretty good to this Monday: Vacation's over from Faron Young out of the late 50ties.

Have a good start into your week.


So long,
Paradox0n

Happy new year 2014

To all my readers, supporters and all others I wish a happy new year 2014. I hope all your wishes come true and you had a good start into the new year without accidents, trouble with drunk people or worse.

So long,
Paradox0n

Pimp my working space - Part I

As previously stated, christmas brought some very nice presents for me, one of the a daylight lamp with a magnifying lens (yes we are not getting younger). But to bring the lamp into place and good use, I had to rethink my working place a bit. So after a bit of shopping and a bit of screwing (and testing my new cordless screwdriver) I had much more place for my stuff without making a big mess and having to rebuild our complete "office":

New working place - Step 1

The new rack has a slot with two drawers, one slot with just a door and two slots with glass doors and inlays like a cabinet. This leaves me with enough space to store my paints, tools and crafting stuff and started projects and clearing enough space on my desktop that it doesn't always look like a big mess (and being a happy playground for our cats).

WIP - Chaos Dwarf

Hope you all had a nice Christmas and didn't explode from all the delicious food you got :) Since here the weather is really bad (rain instead of snow and most of the time pretty windy) I couldn't prime my harpies (I have black as spray can primer) so I loaded up my airbrush and searched for a victim for my painting madness :)
But before starting to paint I had to pimp my working space since I got some really nice presents from the "Christkind" and additionally did some shopping in a big swedish furniture store. But more of that later.

Perhaps some of you remember that I had won a Scibor Chaos Dwarf some time ago. Since I have some days off at the moment I started painting this one. While basecoating two of my brushes died a miraculous death (the points just bended and the hairs feathered out) although I had always treated them well (even cleaned them with brush soap). But these where old ones so I don't have to mourn about them, I just switched to the more expensive ones

Nonetheless here are the first WIP shots from the chaos dwarf (I really have to adjust to my new painting setup especially for WIP pictures).
Everything seems a bit blotchy at the moment but the idea behind this massive brown basecoat is to give my bronze a nice base. And on black/white or pure grey the color just doesn't "shine" enough.
The fur I want do shade down a bit and give it some drybrushing and the coat should be a dark red. The washing didn't tune it down enough, so I think I will start shading it manually.

Before starting to basecoat the armor in brown, I did a short test with the shield of this chaos dwarf. And I really really liked the result. It was just a basecoat in brown, one layer of Vallejo Glorious Gold, a heavy wash of Gryphone Sepia, some highlights with a  mixture of the gold and Vallejo Gunmetal Metal, a final highlight with nearly pure Gunmetal and a final wash with sepia.

For me this gave exactly the look of a used but well-kept shield I wanted.

Stay tuned for more WIP of him. I really like the details of this miniature and are happy that I got it from Mr. Lee (even if I had some nightmares while preparing it for painting).


So long,
Paradox0n

Merry Christmas to you

I wish all of you a Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, Fröhliche Weihnachten, Craciun fericit, Wesolych Swiat, I'D Miilad Said [...] !

Traditionally (at least in my family) we give best wishes to all especially we wish for health and luck. So I wish that to all of you too.

I hope you have some pleasant and calm days with your closest ones.And get lots of presents ;) 

And if you have your Christmas on the 7th January I hope all those wishes last until then and come to fulfillment then.

So long,

Paradox0n

How to Play/BatRep - Flames of War on BoW

Normally I am not into historical wargaming. My time when I played with tanks and build those fantastic Revell kits is looong ago. I even had some trenches and bunkers then.

But yesterday the second part of a introduction of Flames of War was uploaded from Beasts of War and I really enjoyed this one. Therefore I put the parts together in a playlist and want to share them with you. As soon as they put up part III I will add it to the playlist.

So watch Warren & Dave play a game of Flames of War:

Important note: These videos completely belong to Beasts of War. I just share them for easy access and enjoyment.


So long,
Paradox0n

Hitting the next milestone: 20.000 views and over 300 comments

Wow! Slowly and quietly my blog reached another milestone: The 20k views and 300 comments mark (even if about one third of the comments are from me I think). That's totally insane especially since it was only in July when I hit the 10k views (which took me nearly a year).  So twice the fun in half of the time :)

Thanks to all who regularly return to this place and read the (sometimes weird) stuff I write. And since this makes the blog a bit more to a happy place, I am in the writing of just the next few articles. Not necessarily hobby related, but in line with some of the other posts I did recently.

So stay tuned.
Paradox0n

MMM - Woodkid

Wonderful Black and White art in his videos and very cool music in a way I haven't heard before: That is Woodkid.
Maybe you know Run by Run from an advert campaign of a big mobile provider (which itself is also very nice especially the start with the animated cat/robot).
I came across his music a while ago and my wife really liked the song on the advertisement and immedeately bought the album :)

The videos are really great and take you into a very unique black and white world.

Woodkid "Iron" from WOODKID on Vimeo.

Woodkid "Run Boy Run" from WOODKID on Vimeo.

Hope you enjoy them as I do and have a good start into your week!


So long,
Paradox0n

Still alive :)

First things first: Sorry for not posting this long. At he moment I am pretty much fully stretched at work and since I had a colleague to train (and everything had to be done in English) I am pretty exhausted when I come home. Most of the time its preparing food, spending some time with my wife and relaxing on the couch (or having some "leasure" time with my colleagues at Adventsmarkt or Christmas Party which is also most of the time in English).
Nonetheless I will return on blogging around christmas (maybe Father Christmas will bring me some nice hobby stuff). I also found some interesting stuff (not only hobby related) on the AEther and tried to make some pictures of stuff I am working on. Sadly the pictures aren't presentable, my Photobucket definitely comes to its limits with bigger miniatures/models.

Adobe Elements suite arrived!

After testing some stuff out and being forced to use IrfanView or even Picasa as picture editing tools I had enough and couldn't resist and buy me Photoshop Elements as it was in Amazons Cybermonday Week.
Additionally my trial for Sony Vegas has expired and I bought me the Adobe Premiere Elements. Since the two came in a bundle, more the win than ever :) I think I have spent 40€ worse this year (especially if you look at retail price!).

So at the moment the programs are installing and I am really curious if they do what I want them to do (always worked with the CS/Pro variants until now since I have them in my office at my disposal). But for easy stuff like color correction and easy editing they should be more than enough.


So long,
Paradox0n

FFotW - Creating Neon Signs

It is time for another Friday Finding of the Week: Rob Hawkins shows on his blog how he created neon signs for the Wild West Exodus terrain he did.
Very good step by step tutorial he did there and a great effect you can achieve with it. If you don't know this one already have a look I can really recommend it.

And if you are there you can also just have a look at the other terrain tutorials or the loads of stuff he has on his blog.


So long,
Paradox0n

P.S.: Welcome aboard Zzzzzz. The next wave of Majorca impressons is work in progress and will be posted soon :)

MMM - Sunshine Reggae

Winter is coming! Yesterday evening we had 6°C and I didn't worry too much about the cold but in the morning I had to unfreeze my car because it had -2°C. De-Iceing the windows isn't fun, really. At least I get my winter tires today.

And to get some warm feelings on this bitter cold day I thought of posting some summer feelings: Sunshine Reggae from Laid Back.

Have a good start into your week.


So long,
Paradox0n

P.S.: Welcome aboard Zab. Take a seat and enjoy the journey.

Dark Elves - Harpies WIP (color scheme)

Just a short update on my Harpies: I tested out a color scheme with just priming them gray, heavy black wash and cleaning the puddles up... Didn't work and don't like the result so I repainted the whole miniature in black, the wings purple and gave it a heavy drybrush of increasingly lighter graytones. Then glazed the wings to tone down the gray tones again to purple.
One thing I want to try after cleaning everything up is to gave it a marble look (yes my Harpies will be made of stone as I use the Gargoyle models from Mantic here). First time I try this, curious how this will turn out.

Please excuse the crappy picture but my camera goes havoc at the moment and I just didn't want to use my photo bucket for this short update (or buy a new camera :) ).


Have a good start into your weekend,
Paradox0n

Dark Elves - Harpies WIP

After pillaging through my whole Kickstarter stuff I found the Gargoyles from Mantic which could be a nice
replacement for my Harpies I used this far. So I spent the last two evenings (first time using my laptop cushion) with removing the mold lines and trying to get these thingies into a state that I can prime and paint them.

And oh boy... They have lots of mold lines. I am somewhat disappointed by the quality of these miniatures (as with the Orcs I started for Orctober and stopped painting before I threw them out of the window). But at least here the details work and you don't have to question yourself which part of the model this is you look at...

To be honest I like the sculpt pretty much, the mold quality is the problem here. But as with all the Mantic stuff: Its cheap and you get a good deal for your money.
The first miniature is already primed and awaits color getting brushed on. I want to do them in a very easy and simple color scheme: black/gray with the folds of the wings in purple. That should be just a lots of drybrushing and stuff.
So lets see what I can do here :)

Stay tuned and have a nice Sunday.

Paradox0n

Blogging update - Bug rant and moving pictures

Lately I got some serious problems with some disappearing pictures. Be it in the Followers Widget, in my Related Post Widget or even in my articles. Today this miracle is solved! I don't know why but the appropriate Picasa folder changed the displaying rights and therefore all links to the pictures in it where broken... I hope know this will now be solved and not happen again (had to correct  five posts, my widgets and some other stuff here). So be careful with your Picasa stuff, you never know what can happen :)

Another thing is, that I want to do some videos some while now. Perhaps you remember my posts from April where I started thinking about this topic and showed my camcorder and stuff. This weekend I played a bit with some stuff I found (and a trial license of an editing software) and don't want to keep this experiment from you. It nothing fancy but hey you have to start somewhere!

And I have two new adventurers on board! Welcome Remco and Old Fogey. Enjoy the travel and I hope you find your fortune on it.


So long,
Paradox0n

Hobby Basics - Cleaning your stuff

Today I had a very frustrating moment (to be honest moments): Since the wheather here is REALLY bad I loaded my wet palette, got my miniatures I wanted to paint and switched some nice music on. Then I wanted to do the first brush strokes and BÄMM! One brush stuck together nearly to the point and the other brush divided itself into two nice halves... And worse to that, my airbrush completely stopped working and I had to disassemble it completely. And oh boy... it was nearly completely glued together (although I cleaned it after every usage like I described earlier). After calmly counting to 10 and taking some deep breathes I gritted my teeth and set to the task of cleaning my stuff. The brushes are my everyday brushes and its not really a loss if I can't rescue them but with the airbrush it is somehting completely different.

Lesson learned Number 1:  Keep your brushes in safety from your cats. Seems they found a new toy to play with on my desk and made things even worse...
Lesson learned Number 2: The Vallejo Primer I reviewed some time ago is a bit more sticky than normal paint and a normal blow out and cleaning isn't enough.

To see the positive in this disaster I thought on doing another Hobby Basic post on cleaning your stuff the advanced way :)

Impressions from Majorca - Part I: Attractions

As promised I will start with some impressions of our Majorca trip a week ago. It is not easy to sort and select all those pictures (we did ~370 pictures in one week) so I decided to separate the pictures into two categories: sight seeing and landscape. With the sight seeing I will start today and dive directly into the pictures of the cathedral of Majorca, the town's landmark. So watch out: Picture heavy and wall of text ahead!

The "Cathedral of Santa Maria of Palma" or just "La Seu"is a gothic roman catholic cathedral build on the site of an earlier existing mosque (Majorca has a pretty turbulent history with lots of captures and stuff). The construction began ~1230 but was finished in 1601 when the main portal was sanctified. Around 1850 the main facade was reconstructed and was only finished in the early 20th century.

The cathedral now is on of the main attractions in Palma and you have to pay to visit it (~6€ pP). We did that and spend some time there. As I know many Gothic churches/cathedrals here in Germany (especially the Freiburger Münster) I wasn't that impressed by La Seu. It is beautiful and especially the altar is quite impressive.

Dark Elves - New miniature videos from Games Workshop

With the new Release of the Dark Elves it seems I have to rethink my complete army and stop my projects like my own Cauldron of Blood and the like. And I finally have to go to do the Harpies/Gargoyles I got from the Mantic Kickstarter and all the other stuff lying arround. Too many things to attend to, don't know where to start first...
But first some look at the new miniatures after the break.

Papercut - Small house

Since my Photobucket is too small I just had to shoot this one on my cutting mat. Therefore the green background. As the posted Shack a while ago, this is the papercut house from the 5th edition starterbox from Warhammer Fantasy.

As the shack this was just glued on a cardboard base, flocked with static grass and the folding lines where painted in the corresponding colors. Again nothing fancy but it does its job pretty good (and this since the late 90ies). This is why the base is slightly warped, I think this thingy was based in the late 90ies and saw lots of games in this time :)

So long,
Paradox0n

P.S.: Again a new passenger on board! Welcome Peter, your blog already is in my blogroll and thanks for commenting :)

Some late summer pictures from Europa Park

Before I am posting some of my pictures from my trip to Mallorca (which I still have to sort and select first) I post some late summer pictures I took on our last day in Europa Park (when our annual pass ran out).
These are from late August and it was a beautiful day there and we once again had lots of fun there. The park has some really cool places which are most of the time ignored or you just run by because you have to get to the next attraction.

The first two are from the children wonderland the first is the giant from the Grimm's story "Das tapfere Schneiderlein" (The Valiant Tailor) the second is a Gnome with snail pets from a children rollercoaster. There are many such things for kids when you have a keen eye and really look out for it (or you have kids and therefore have to look for them).

Life signs

Yes I am still alive. I just had a very interesting one week trip to Mallorca (or Majorca as it is written in English) with lots of driving and walking around on lots of sports on the isle. I had to dive immediately into working again so I am just catching up with all the stuff happening in the blogosphere.

I think I will post some pictures of this trip soon because I really was surprised of how beautiful this island is (if you don't go to places like El Arenal I suppose).


So long,
Paradox0n

MMM - Way Back Home from Danny MacAskill

Todays Monday Morning Music is a bit of mixture between really nice music and incredible Thinkbike skills. It's Danny MacAskills: Way Back Home. The music is from Loch Lomond "Wax and Wire" and The Jezabels "A Little Piece".

Have a good start into your week.


So long,
Paradox0n

P.S.: And a new traveller onboard our airship. Welcome czaki. I couldn't identify if you have a blog yourself, if so please drop a line and I will add you to the blogroll.

Hobby Basics - Wet Palette Tutorial

As many of you, I also use a wet palette for mixing and keeping my colors fresh. Inspired by Mr. Lees post about his way of doing it, I thought about making a "wet palette my way" post too. Et voila here we are. First of all: This is no rocket science, and I think most of you already know or use a wet palette these days. If not: Do it! Even if you are a beginners painter you will feel the difference between using a wet palette or just fetching your colors from a paint pot.
But I think everyone does it a little different and its best to experiment a bit with the stuff you have until you are satisfied and it really works for you.

Orctober - First WIP: Mantic Orcs

A while ago I read a nice article on Sean's Wargames Corner about the Orctober.  The original post comes from Erny's Place and as I read it, the Orctober is also a giveaway contest.
As I have a lots of stuff in various packages I pillaged through the stuff and found some Orcs I wanted to try out some time ago and now seems a pretty good time.
As you can see, the Crazy Christmas Box contained (among lots of other stuff) some fantasy orcs which I wanted to test out because in the Kickstarter Armydeal there are lots more and they are part of the Abyssal Dwarves army from Kings of War. This small sprue contains three Orcs with axes & shields and two minions (which I will use for something different).

I chose to build one with two axes (he could also be build with axe & shield like the other ones) and the other two with axe & shield as there is no other option for it. As you can see in the picture there is one head, one shield, one arm and the two minions left from the sprue which will happily wander into my bits box :) Already freed from molding lines but not completely glued together because than some places would be pretty difficult to paint.

So lets see if I am able to paint them up. A short vacation is also waiting for me and I will do a short trip to Majorca next week :) Stay tuned.


So long,
Paradox0n

MMM - I don't want to set the world on fire

As someone who played Fallout a lot I also am a fan to the Fallout radio music. One of the favorites (and one I loved to head while playing Fallout 3) is: I don't want to set the world on fire from The Ink Spots.

I really love the moody and lonely feeling you get while playing the game(s) and at the same time the game(s) give you the feeling of hope and perseverance. It is really seldom that a game can achieve transmitting such feelings while playing.

And something on my own behalf: I forgot a rather important point (for me) on my DVD review for Painting Buddha Season 1.1 and therefore updated the article (added something about the shipping costs). So if you haven't read it already just have a look :)

Have a good start into your week!


So long,
Paradox0n

Review: Painting Buddha - Season 1.1:Target Identified | Tale of two painters

Alllriiiiight!!! So we start directly with an insider you will understand if you have watched the first three DVDs with Ben Komets :) After watching the 6 DVDs I was completely smashed and to be honest: I had some difficulties to find a way how to describe this set and writing a review about it. Not because it is bad, on the opposite, but because it has many different things to see AND you have two different painters who have a somewhat different approach to painting those two wonderful miniatures I already wrote about.

So where to start? Perhaps some general stuff first...
The set is completely in English with subtitles in English, German and Spanish. You get a DVD set from two painters with pretty different approaches how to paint exactly the same miniatures. Ben does everything "by hand" where Rafael starts with using an airbrush.

The menus are in English and describe the parts which are painted of the miniature (not the techniques though).
Both painters are setup straight in front of the camera and Zaphod does some Q&A while they are painting. These comments from the OFF are sometimes pretty funny e.d. that is where the ALRIIIIIIGHT!!! comes from :) Maybe here is some space to optimize so that the painters are watching a bit more into the camera and not to the side where Zaphod and/or the self-monitor is placed. Telepromter effect you know? And one odd thing I noticed: The aspect ratio of the filmed material seems to be a bit off on my TV. Some parts of the screen is cut off, I tried to fix it with on-board possibilities of my TV but nothing worked. On my PC everything works fine.

MMM - The Doctor's Wife

Picture from Mike Savad

After visiting the Dentist once again today (lucky me only for a follow up check) and getting examined by the "doctors wife", which does the substitute at the moment, this song nearly immediately came to my mind for my (unregular) Monday Morning Music post:

The picture is "Waiting for the dentist" from Mike Savad. Check his page he has some more nice pictures there!

"The Doctor's Wife from The Clockwork Quartet"

Yes I know the text doesn't match my morningly visit but I really like this song :)

FFotW - Charlie Chaplin: Final speech in "The Great Dictator"

If only people today would take the words said here by heart... This speech is so breathtaking. Unbelievable if you think WHEN this movie was filmed.
Nothing more to say here, just listen...

So long,

Paradox0n

P.S.: I hope you don't mind posting me stuff far from our beloved hobby. But blogging for me isn't always just posting pics of miniatures or writing tutorials but also letting some of my personality shining through and giving a view beyond the horizon.

Quick tips from Kris Belleau

I just wanted to share some nice quick tips recently posted from Miniwargaming.com. To be precise the Quick tips"-series from Kris Belleau. I collected all those free videos into one playlist. There are even more in the Wargaming-Vault but since I don't have access to that I just wanted to share and point out those nice videos.

Hope you enjoy it.


So long,
Paradox0n

Nightmares coming true

I really hate it when my nightmares are coming true. Perhaps you can remember my worries with the Scibor Moscal Boyar Lord I received from Mr. Lee this week. I feared that cutting the axe head and shield from the sprue may cause some problems... I really shouldn't have said that because exactly this happened. While carefully trying to cut of the stuff (with a new blade for my scalpel and everything) there was a short snap and the axe head broke in two halves. Maybe you can think of all those curses on my lips...
Apart from that I also have some problems with the casting quality of some of the parts. You can clearly see some miscasts and the problems the stamp technique brings (sharp details on the surface but on the melting areas you can see the different layers). The miniature itself is great, the additional stuff so lala. Overall I hope I can fix all the stuff and make this a beautiful figure.


So long,
Paradox0n

Battered airbag from Turkey

Yesterday I had an unexpected information leaflet from our "Deutsche Post" in my letterbox. A registered letter has been delivered to me and waits for pickup at my local post office. So I went there today at 8 o'clock and was disappointed that the office opens at 9 ... I asked myself WHY they write on the leaflet "Pick it up from 8 o'clock tomorrow" but OK... So I went there again just some minutes ago and TADA there was a battered airbag from Turkey waiting for me :) And perhaps you can already guess it, it is my price from Mr. Lee's 100k views contest, the Scibor Moscal Boyar Lord.

If you compare the two pictures (the one on Mr. Lee's blog and mine) you can only guess what airmail, customs and transport did do this poor airbag. But happy me the miniature itself wasn't harmed at all.
Its the first time I have one of those Scibor miniatures in my hands and to be honest: On the first look I am rather impressed. I've read lots of how bad those stamp techniques are and stuff like this. But the miniature has clear details and nearly no molding lines. Clear details and a stout and resolute posture give this miniature the perfect look for such a stubborn Chaos Dwarf Moscal Boyar Lord. The only thing which DOES worry me are the additional parts like the axe head and the shield which are cast on an extra sprue and seem to be rather heavily attached to it. I hope I can cleanly cut them off the sprue, especially the axe head which really seems to be a problem. The miniature is delivered with a small scenic base which looks pretty good. Again I am impressed how clean the casting is. I slowly understand why these miniatures are so expensive (in Germany at least).

The Lord will be a nice addition to my still secret army :) Ok ok you can guess it: I have some Chaos Dwarves (to be honest some Abyssal Dwarves from Mantic) flying around which wait for assembly and paint. Since I think I got all those miniatures from the KS (have lost the overview) I think I finally can start to put everything together with this lovely Lord as start. I hope I can give it the love needed, especially since it is such a nice price from the contest.

Stay tuned for more sumpy, grumbly, evil madness :)

So long,
Paradox0n