Review: Ramshackle Games - Dunny & Drill

Today Labschi brought me a small package from Ramshackle Games, some late birthday presents which took some time before they finally arrived in Germany. It contained the "Dunny" and the "Boring Machine". The two pieces were pretty good protected with thick layers of air cushion foil. Therefore everything was undamaged and ready to be prepared and reviewed.
The resin is somewhat heavy (much heavier than I thought) and had a really bad smell on it. On touch you could feel the thin film of abherent which had a somewhat slimy feel on it. But after cleaning it with some dish soap both the slimy feeling and the smell was completely gone.

Painting Buddha - Season 1.1:Target Identified | The Miniatures

After unboxing the Season 1.1:Target Identified set and having all the stuff lying around I decided to split my review into different parts because it really would be too much text for only one post. Additionally the box contains of 6 DVDs with two different approaches to painting the miniatures (and the base) so I will cover them later after I watched them completely and have a better and more general opinion of all the stuff (my first impression is a very good one). The miniatures are delivered in a small metal box with the Painting Buddha logo which is sealed with a sweet, little sticker. As already said, these small details give me the feeling that there are people at work who love(d) what they are doing. At this point of writing I notice that I completely forgot to take a picture of the miniatures inside the opened box, but you can see it on the overview picture in my first glance post if you want.

Painting Buddha - Season 1.1:Target Identified | First glance

Wohoo a long awaited package finally arrived: The Painting Buddha - Season 1.1:Target Identified DVD set is finally in my hands.
This boxed set was a birthday present from my wife and although it was marked as sent from Monday on it only arrived yesterday...
But nonetheless I am really happy that this thingy now is mine. And I couldn't wait to unpack this box. As you see the postal package is tightly packed with no air to move for the box. Unluckily the stuff inside wasn't protected by airfoil or something like this but luckily the content wasn't hurt even if the package had some small damages.

So what is inside? Inside is a personalized letter (addressed to my wife since it was a present), a certify card with the dvd number and a "hoopy" "Thank you" from the 3 producers, a small brochure with "How to prepare the miniatures", a small brochure which introduces Painting Buddha and their goals and targets, a pretty cool, sealed metal box with the minis (and the optional base) inside and the DVD box.
I REALLY like all the fine details you can find here, e.g. the metal box is sealed with Buddha stickers, the brochures are of really high quality. On the first look this stuff really holds the promise of "we do this with love and passion".

I can't wait to remove the protecting foil of the DVDs an risk a first look. But first my wife had a Tupperware Party and we had to prepare some stuff and clean up everything :)
So stay tuned for a closer look into this box.

Cya,
Paradox0n

Basket full of gifts

Perhaps you remember that I had my birthday some weeks ago. After having my birthday party last weekend and receiving lots of hobby related presents there, I thought I want to share with you the stuff which was given to me. A big thanks to all my friends and family for supporting my nerd hobby!

From my mother-in-law I got a whole bunch of modelling tools. First I got some modelling brushes or clay shaper or whatever these things are called in English :) That was really something I missed at my last experiments. And I also have the need for them in a future project I am planning at the moment.

FFotW: Bill Cosby - Himself

I think most of you know Bill Cosby from the "Bill Cosby Show". But he also is a standup comedian and the "Bill Cosby - Himself" show is really awesome. One man, a microphone and a chair. Nothing more needed.
I nearly fell of my chair with laughing. Pretty stupid if you are on work ;)

Hope you do enjoy him as much as I did.


So long,
Paradox0n


P.S.: I am still waiting for the painting buddha DVDs and hoping I can do a review of them soon. Perhaps I'll try to do one of the DVD of Jeremy meanwhile... We'll see.

MMM - Spaghetti Western Orchestra

If you are a fan of old spaghetti westerns and especially the soundtracks of Ennio Morricone you will also like the Spaghetti Western Orchestra :)

Have a good start into your week.

So long,
Paradox0n

FFotW - Warlord Games Day Coverage from Brückenkopf

©Warlord Games

Maybe you already found it in some newstickers but nonetheless I want to mention this great coverage of the Warlord Games Day from Brückenkopf. Especially since I am normally not into historical wargaming. But this coverage shows some phenomenal gaming tables and lots of the surrounding of this event. Even if you can't read german there are lots of pictures (and maybe a translator of your choice can help understanding the texts).

Warlord Games Day - Coverage Part I
Warlord Games Day - Coverage Part II
Warlord Games Day - Coverage Part III

The event was also a open house, and gave some insights into production and packaging of Warlord Games.

Warlord Games Open House

It really seems this was a great event. After coverages like these I can slowly understand why many are big fans of historical wargaming and the events that are held.


So long,
Paradox0n

Its over 9000!!!

Again a seldom but happy day in a bloggers life. Yesterday the visits climbed unknown heights, thanks to Natfka who gave me a backlink on his famous Faeit 212 blog. Thanks again for that!
This brought me over 640 visits in one day! A number which I had never thought it would be possible :) That's normally the amount of visits I get in half a month.

Another thing is that I broke the 10.000 visits mark. I didn't mention this earlier because lots of traffic is from spambots, which I already moaned about. But slowly real visitors crowd out the bots which I am very happy about.

Hobby Basics - Basing material | Part I

From time to time you will hear the question "Oh what do you use to do this and that on your bases?" or "Where can I find some stuff for basing my miniatures?". Therefore I thought of making a small list of the things I found work well with miniatures and what stuff I don't like.
And to be mentioned at the beginning: I will not talk about premade bases! This stuff is great but most of the time too expensive for big armies.

Today I will talk about the different basing materials I use especially the stuff you can get for free (or with very small costs):

DVD Review - Miniature Painting Secrets with Jennifer Haley

Finally I had the time and the muse to write my next painting DVD review. As promised I will have a look at the "Miniature Painting Secrets with Jennifer Haley" from CMON. The set contains of 2 DVDs and says it contains about 6 hours of instructions in roughly 8 chapters.
By now you should already know who Jennifer Haley is, I did a tribute to her work a while ago.
The DVDs are in english and the painting footage is dubbed with music.
After seeing the trailer of this set I was really curious. If you missed it you can watch it directly here in all its beauty:

FFotW: Great Pacific Garbage Patch - A world of plastic trash

As you may know from some older posts I am a scuba diver and love nature (especially the sea). Today I came across a very interesting TED talk about the problems with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch of which more later. 

Source: Good Infographics

If you don't know what the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is: Have a look at the infographic, it explains pretty good what is happening there. Just imagine a huge mass of plastic floating in our seas. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is only the biggest one so far, there are many more floating and circulating around the sea. Its pretty difficult to get the real size of these beasts and they are measured by the amount of plastic floating in these areas but even this is rather difficult because some of the garbge sinks to the ground or is grinded down to a microscopic level.

Happy Birthday to me :)

Just a stupid Happy Birthday post. Especially since I am the one who has his birthday :)
But I have to see this funny video at least once on my Birthday and so I thought I can share it with you.

For all non german speaking readers: Its just a weird Happy Birthday song from arround 1982.
And yes I have this thingie as real LP at home! Lovely vinyl. But no player anymore, so sad.


So long,
Paradox0n

MMM - Tesla vs. Edison

Another MMM, this week a video from Epic Rap Battles of History - Tesla vs. Edison.

If you don't know ERP you should watch the rest of their videos. They are pretty funny even if you normally don't like rap music (like me) ;)

Have a good start into your week!

So long,
Paradox0n

P.S.: My pre-produced articles will cost me some more work. I somewhat lost my pictures of two articles (one for my Basics-series) and are a bit pi**ed because I don't know what happend to my SD card. Hopefully I can return to posting some more crafting/painting stuff soon.

Quote of today

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
~ Benjamin Franklin ~

In times of Prism and where George Orwells vision of 1984 is bitter reality, this sentence is one you should remember...

So long,

Paradox0n

FFotW - Miniature Tokyo

Welcome to another Friday Finding of the Week. Ok, in Germany its already Saturday but better late than never. For today I found a really awesome modell of Tokyo the "Mori Tower Scale Project" (on Flickr). The model was built in about 17 months be 30 employees. "Patience is everything" on of the project leaders said.  On the first pictures I saw I  thought these were some minified real pictures like they are hip at the moment in advertisements. But no, all miniatures.

Battle Report - Dark Elves vs. Empire: Battle Two

The forces ready themselves for battle

As promised in my last battle report there is another battle we did on our "Warhammer Battleday". As said, Labschi had only one army list ready, so we decided to give it another try and didn't change our setup for the gaming table. I just picked up my second list and we fielded our armies. This time I had some minor changes and swapped the Cold Ones against the Black Guard.
The Empire stood much better after deployment so I had to think a bit what to do this time. For magic I again was very lucky and had some strong spells. My Shades deployed in the small village, just outside reach and sight to get a fast charge on the cannon and my Dark Riders were setup on the far left to flank the empire army.

The game lies some days in the past so I have to try to remember everything with my pictures. It could be possible that I miss one small thing or another, but in the big scheme it should be alright. That is why I decided to not do a turnwise report but to give a bigger summary of the battle this time.

MMM - What a wonderful world

Finally the sun is coming out. Fitting to this I think we have a wonderful world! And Louis Armstrong made a song about this (which all of you know I think):

Have a good start into your week!

So long,
Paradox0n

FFotW - Archery: Fast shooting

Ever wondered how a real life Legolas would shoot his bow? Ok its no Legolas but a russian girl but if you ever stood on a shooting range with your bow and tried to empty your quiver as fast as possible you know how difficult this is and can only watch the following video in awe. Hope you enjoy it.

So long,
Paradox0n

Man the trenches - Next wave of spambots attacking

Oh how I missed this... In the last few days there was a real flood of spam comments on my blog. All in the same manner like "Great blog visit my" or "Wow never read stuff like this, read my article". This time no visits spamming (at least if I can trust my statistics here) but a big mess in my incoming mails folder. Luckily this sh** is not getting published because in around 90% these comments are recognized as spam and filtered out by Blogger.
Anyone else having these problems lately?

But to post something relevant for the blog: I am sorting out the pictures for my pending battle report and have to force myself to watch the whole painting DVD stuff again because I have nearly forgotten everything I wanted to write about them. Perhaps I will go shopping in the near future because the DVD from Painting Buddha will be out soon and they seem to be worth buying.

So please stay tuned until I have recovered and can post some more interesting stuff for wargaming in the near future :)

So long,
Paradox0n

Wear a helmet!

On behalf of my own experience last week I can only say: Always wear a helmet when driving a motorcycle or a bike. I often see young guys driving their small Vespas and the like without a helmet (or having it dangling at the handlebars). I can't understand this and I even think of buying me one for biking if I will do it more often. The accident last week (re)opened my eyes what can happen even at a small pace.

A fitting psychedelic government campaign from the 80s. Pretty funny I think:

And yes, I am on the road of recovery so I will start writing again.

So long,

Paradox0n

Life is not fair

Just wanted to give a short life sign here and a very short explanation why it could (but hopefully will not) be a bit more quiet in the next few days. Sadly I had an accident while driving a quad yesterday and crashed the quad of my friend in the process. Luckily we only got slight bruises and myself a broken toe. Could have been worse most of the damage done isn't at living beings. So the next days I think I will have enough to do with managing the whole process (be it with police or insurance) and help my friend where I can.
And if this wouldn't be enough I have to prepare a speech which I should hold on Tuesday (and hopefully can) about accessibility for the visual impaired of web applications. At the moment the preparation does not go well because of the painkillers I take.

Cross your fingers that everything will turn out well and stay tuned.

So long,

Paradox0n

FFotW - Don't feed the Troll

What makes an Internet troll tick? In a word – disinhibition.

Created by AcademicEarth.org

So long,
Paradox0n

MMM - To the Apocalypse in Daddy's sidecar

If I ever get a daughter I want her to say exactly this! Cloe (Captain Roberts daughter) did this. Pretty cool don't you think?
If you like Steampunk like I do and don't know Abney Park you definitely have missed something. Shu go watch them!

In general watch them, I think you won't regret it. Have a good start into your week!

So long,
Paradox0n

Battle Report - Dark Elves vs Empire: Battle One

I smell a battle coming

Lord Xanthus looked at his small warband and grinned: The small human village would bring him enough slaves to refill the flock in his mines. The only thing between him and his slaves were those pesky human soldiers who readied there weapons. He could also see some knights and even those blackpowder warmaschines he hated so much. Nonetheless he needed those slaves. Silent he gestured his Knights to trod aside his unit of crossbowmen. With the spearman and his shades blocking the right flank he didn't worry too much about the knights and artillery there, he just had to get grip of this human who chanted some blessings and prayers to this fool god the humans worship. As he felt the muscle tension of his Cold One he grinned and with a relieving: ATTAAAAAAACK! he sent his forces to slaughter.

FFotW - No life on Mars

... but 70 seconds of stunning timelaps action: 9 months of Curiosity Rover work on MArs in 70 seconds. Really cool but sadly no aliens to see :D

Enjoy and I will be going back to posting in the next days when working days aren't as stressful as the last few days.


So long,
Paradox0n

MMM - Becoming a Legend

Monday Morning Music, for a good start into your week. This time "Becoming a Legend" from John Dreamer:

Have a good start into your week.

So long,
Paradox0n

FFotW: Jennifer Haley gallery

Friday Finding of the Week brings you today a Jen Haley tribute.
She is a very cool artist and I can only hope that I someday achieve only a tenth of her painting skills :) On her page she has some nice articles to her painting style and most important she has a tremendous gallery there. Be sure to check it out and stand in awe while looking at these miniatures.

How fitting that I am at this moment preparing a review of her painting DVD set :) Hopefully I am able to finish it this weekend.

So long,
Paradox0n

Picking up the gauntlet

Finally! The next battle(s) between my Dark Elves and the Empire Army from Labschi looms on the horizon. Today we will have a smaller battle (maybe two) of 1250 points. We had the thing planned to be a massive game with the ETC comp but decided to play a smaller game (maybe two) for updating our rule knowledge and doing some testing with our armies. So we decided to use a german comp called "Kleiner Horus" (follow the link to german comp) which is made for games of 1250 points. The only thing we left out is the allowance for special character models.

Monday Morning Music - Cherish Life

For a good start in your week... Cherish Live by Ash Griffin.

And something I just noticed: If you follow my blog and I yours and you do not appear in my Blogosphere, please tell me so. I would like to push your blog with the relinks (and if its only for SEO) and would naturally be happy if you would do that also (but if not that is fine for me).
I just added some more blogs and hope I haven't forgotten anyone (and some of you already have me in their blogrolls, which I am very thankful).


So long,
Paradox0n

DVD Review - Painting Secrets with Natalya

Lucky me had the chance to get my hands on some painting DVDs for this weekend and spend some hours watching and enduring some of the stuff I saw there :)  I will start with the "Painting Secrets with Natalya" DVD set from CMON. The set was published 2011 contains of 4 DVDs and says about itself that it contains over 13-15 hours of instruction depending if you believe the printed cover or the product description. You can divide the set into roughly 5 chapters where Natalya tells you how she paints her miniatures. If you wonder who she is, maybe you know her from her artists name Alexi-Z or go visit her page now. Since Natalya speaks russian, the DVD is either in russian or in english (with voice over on the portrait parts). The painting footage is dubbed with music.

I like her work and after seeing the trailer of this set I was really curious how this set would turn out.

Friday Finding of the Week - Epic battle report

Battle of Hel Fenn from Hoodling

This week just passed by in flight and therefore its time for another Friday Finding of the Week (FFotW). This time I have found some really epic battle reports I want to share with you. Ever wondered how the Battle of Hel Fenn, where Mannfred Von Carstein was cornered by an alliance of men of the Empire and Dwarfs could have looked on the battlefield? Then jump over to Hoodling's Hole and read this epic and unbelievable insane battlereport with 20.000 points (each side) of warhammer madness.

But if this wouldn't be enough, he also has some very nice summarization of the different magic lores, some tournament battlereports, insights into his Warhammer thinking and even more epic battlereports. I think I lost some hours there with only reading these fantastic narrated battles. Big thanks for putting this much effort into this!

And since Hoodling also joined the journey a hearty: Welcome aboard!


So long,
Paradox0n

WIP - Base for the Cauldron of Blood

And another WIP for my Cauldron of Blood today. At the moment I am trying to build me a base for the Cauldron. Since it should be a bit more scenic I thought of a small "hill" where the cauldron stands, two witches behind it and the standard bearer in front of it.
Since I have lots of bark in my box I used some of it to get a rough layout (which will be painted like rock). Too bad my Fimo dried out, so I couldn't finish the other parts of the hill. Any suggestions how I could do it without Greenstuff or Fimo? aybe just sanding the whole thing could work too...
For a better understanding how this should look like in the end, I placed some models on the base (sneaky skaven-ratlings are everywhere!).

What do you think of it?

So long,
Paradox0n

Sunday Afternoon WIP - Dark Elves: Witch Elves

2K primed Witch Elves

A day off, a delicious asparagus menu and a painting afternoon with a friend, what a wonderful and quite ending of a long weekend. And since I really managed to paint something I can show you some WIP shots of my Witch Elves for my Cauldron of Blood.

First I did a two component priming for a better definition of the lighting of the miniatures. You don't believe how tricky this is when it is a stormy weather like today. But after seeing of some pictures from Mr. Lee I know now that I can achieve this with my airbrush too. Therefore as soon as my aerosol cans are empty I will buy me a black primer from Vallejo since I am really pleased with their primers.

Saturday Night WIP - Dark Elves: Cauldron of Blood

After a rather restless night, I can show you some WIP shots for my version of the Cauldron of Blood for the Dark Elves.
The Cauldron is not the one from Games Workshop it is the Spawning Vessel from the Legion of Everblight. The acolythes will be used later as beastmasters for my hydra :)
Since I am a rather classical RPG player the thought of a statue carried by three wicked witches was not really appealing to me. It is too heavy, too clumsy and doesn't fit to my imagination of the Cauldron. And I was not willing to pay ~40€ for a modell I don't like and where I had to cut off half of it... The old model (more a chariot than anything else) is also not the best one (but fitted to the old rules) and only buyable via the Bay or similar places. So I bought myself a witch commando, the spawn vessel and a battle standard (more of her in a future article) and started thinking.

Friday Finding of the Week - Wargaming rooms

H.G. Wells playing a wargame

Friday Finding of the Week (FFotW) will be my new weekly column where I will show you some of the stuff I stumbled upon while browsing the web. This can be miniatures, videos, tutorials or other stuff all around our cool hobby.
Even H.G. Wells was playing wargames so I thought of starting with a small collection of fascinating wargaming rooms I found while browsing for ideas for my own gaming table and stumbled upon whole rooms of which most of us gamers can only dream of.

Hobby Magazines - Portal Magazine Issue #31

The new Issue of Portal Magazine has arrived:

Portal Magazine Issue #31

This issue contains following stuff:

• Guide To Painting the Stonehorn with We7
• Grular Invader,Alkemy and Reaper reviews
• Golden Thrall Report
• Painting Avatars of War Orc Shaman
• News, new releases and gallery

Inspirational music: Space Oddity

The classical single "Space Oddity" from David Bowie in a completely new interpretation from Chris Hadfield. The video was shot on the ISS and is pretty awesome (and going viral like hell).

Enjoy!

So long,
Paradox0n

Hitting a new blog record

Hey crazy wargamers! Yesterday my blog achieved a personal record: Over 110 views on one day which means more views in one day than normally in a week so far! I know for most of you this are peanuts, but I am really happy that this happened.
As the views raise and I get more followers (A warm welcome aboard new travelers!) I started to refactor the sections of the blog a bit and will reconsolidate some other parts (especially the blogroll).

In Germany we have a saying: "Alles neu macht der Mai" (which is in english "April showers bring May flowers" I think). This year this is true for my blog. At the amount of posts you can already see that I try to fill it up with content and I hope I can also refactor some parts of the blog itself.
Another thing I really think of is putting every blog I follow into my blogroll (Maybe split them but we'll see). I have them all in my reader, but making them more public would favor the smaller ones (even if I don't have hundreds of followers but for SEO this is a nice bonus). Perhaps this can also motivate to put me into the roll.

Review: Vallejo Surface Primer

Since priming is an absolute necessity when its about painting miniatures (oh these old sins when painting with Revell emaille paints didn't need that) I thought of trying out some primers myself. I have spray cans of Games Workshop (black and white for doing a 2k priming), a brown primer from Army Painter (too many Skavens to work with) and shortly after I bought myself an airbrush I also bought the Vallejo Surface Primer in grey. This is a waterbased Poliurethane Primer which can be directly sprayed from your airbrush or if you want painted on with a brush. It comes in three sizes: 17ml, 60ml and 200ml. At my hobbystore of trust the big one costs around 12€ which is pretty much the costs of the GW primer. The bottle is designed to let you pour the primer directly into the paintpot of your airbrush which is pretty neat since that is exactly what I have bought this stuff for.

Necromunda Cawdor WIP and Mastermini Giveaways

Necromunda Cawdor WIP

As promised, I used the time Father's Day gave me to finally paint a bit. Gosh this was a long time without swinging the brush. I almost forgot how to use them... But after a short time reactivating my wet palette and my paints I spent some time with basecoating the rest of my Cawdor gang. I had them spraypainted with white but that gave me some trouble (old miniatures with lots of "empty" space) so I decided to reprime them with a heavy black wash. Then I painted the reds and blues and the rest of the flesh were given. Painting red always drives me nuts, but after 4 or 5 thin coats it slowly seems to work... Next step will be doing the rest of the colors and then the weapons and masks. With the Chainsword I want to test something if it works I may have another article to post :)

Hobby Magazines - Skavenblight Gazette #14

Skavenblight Gazette #14

Since a few days Issue No. 14 of Skavenblight Gazette is published, therefore time to have a look at the sneaky-plaguish Skaven magazine.

This issue pretty much is under the sign of the plague. It has some pretty pictures of Skaven miniatures a article how diseases spread and a HowTo "fire your Plageclaw Catapult" which shows you how you can make the model "fire" (by adding some springs). Pretty geeky :)

The most interesting article this time is for beginning Skaven players: Building an army. It contains the thoughts behind an army project and how the author plans to build up his host. He also explains some of the units and how he sees their usefullness.
Not sure if I as Skaven player myself would agree with him in every point but it is a nice start nonetheless.

Pretty short issue this time. But since this stuff is completely fanmade I will surely not moan but thank the guys for writing this issue.

So long,
Paradox0n

Happy Father's Day!

A really nice Bollerwagen

Just wanted to wish all guys a Happy Father'S Day! Don't know if this tradition exists everywhere (I know from USA and some countries in Europe). For me this is a day where real fathers should have a relaxed day (like Mother's Day) but most of the guys here just use it as a day to make party with their best friends (and wander around with their "Bollerwagen").

Hope you have a nice day, I hopefully can use it to finally paint some stuff. Don't know if I know how to handle a brush any longer :)


So long,
Paradox0n

Hobby Magazines - Ironwatch Magazine

On my journeys through the web I found another Fanzine which immediately caught my attention, namely the Ironwatch Magazine. This is a magazine made by Mantic fans with the support of Mantic itself. Not long ago Issue No. 9 was published. Time to have a closer look at it!

Sneak preview - Something with bite

Just a short sneak preview of something that has arrived in the last days and now lingers on my table. At the moment I am experimenting a bit with the base, the positioning of all the stuff and how much I still have to re-model at this thing. Will be also my first try at a more "dioramic" base. So cross your fingers that I won't break the miniature or cut myself a finger :D

Perhaps the one or other may already know what it is?  Have a guess in the comments I will "unravel the mystery" soon.

So long,
Paradox0n

Hobby tips - Cleaning your airbrush

As some tutorials in the web I read tried to tell me told how difficult the cleaning process of my airbrush should be and how it really isn't I thought a short article to sum up my experiences would be the best.

First of all: Cleaning your airbrush is neither complicated nor will it cost you much time. On the opposite! It should be part of your painting routine because it really makes the painting process much more comfortable.
If you ever opened your mouse to clean it.. Tadaaaa you can clean your airbrush too.

One year of blogging

Nearly unnoticed my blog had its birthday. At the 11th of April last year, I welcomed you aboard this blog with my Howto build a swamp. Since then many things have happened:
- I started my tower project which is still waiting for its base
- I build a modular gaming table with the help of a friend
- I bought myself an airbrush which I still have to master (which makes loads of fun)
- I made some reviews and started my Hobby Basics series (for which some more articles are already in preproduction)

At the end of last year I had a very big motivation leak so posts become rare but I hope this time has gone and I can deliver some more stuff in the future.

And now it is your chance to give me some feedback (ok you have always the chance but now I am asking): Is there something you wish for me to do in the future. Or some stuff I shouldn't? Maybe I can fulfill something of your wishes.


So long,
Paradox0n

A case of brushes

For a long time I cramped up my brushes just in my painting box together with my paints, knife and all the other stuff. It didn't matter if they were detail brushes or old, frayed ones used for drybrushing. But with my new Da Vinci brushes I couldn't do that anymore: I cringed to "throw" them into this mess. I really feared that the bristles will get damaged, even though I have them protected by the plastic caps for the tips.

Camcorder and stuff - My setup for testing

Camcorder and accessories

As promised I shot some pictures of the camera and stuff I received yesterday. The camcorder is a Sony HDR-CX220E and is, although very tiny and not very expensive, able to record the things in full hd. The tripod is also a rather cheap one from a special from Aldi (a discounter here in germany). And I had to get myself a smartcard, because the cam was delivered without one. And last I had to get myself a pocket to safely store the camera. You can't believe what our cats are capable of in matters of destruction. All necessary cables (HDMI and USB) where part of the camera so I can start testing with a setup so that's it.

When pictures start moving

The horse in motion - First "movie" ever

Today a special package arrived and I feel myself like one of the pioneers of the early days when they started with zoetropes and the first moving pictures showed up in the early 19th century. And oh boy I am excited!

I got myself a small camcorder, a small tripod and all the necessary stuff needed to connect this stuff to my computer. I just have to find a decent, free video editing tool (not movie maker or something like that) because my Adobe Premiere license is suspended.

A long time ago I worked in school with semiproffesional equipment and a complete video editing studio, perhaps I can now work some magic again and present you some moving pictures in the futures. No promises will be done, but I will see what I can do. What I can promise is that I will do a short presentation and review of the camera as soon as I have worked out how everything gets together (camera, editing, youtube)

Stay tuned!

So long,
Paradox0n

Monsters!!!

Felt monsters are conquering my table.. .HELP ME! Nah just kidding. They are tooooo cute to be really dangerous or even a thread :)

Felt monsters attack!

If you wonder why the hell I am showing these... My wife got a crush on those and started making them herself. Two of them are permanently lingering on my working table and the cats are mischievously eyeing the other two... All of them are made out of felt, darning wool, yarn and some decorating stuff like buttons.