Jul 12, 2019
Oct 26, 2018
Saved for a Later that Will Never Happen
I'm saving this for later, which I know will never happen.
If/when I ever put out another video of me spinning fire, it's going to be a song like this -
Jul 12, 2018
Texas
TJC is having a hard time with getting my job in order. They've said that I have the job since I was in Texas for Samantha's graduation, but for one reason or another HR, payroll, and whoever else is in charge of this all is dragging their feet through the mud through all of this and I still don't have a position that I can guarantee is mine.
The tricky part to all of this is that I want to set up my apartment and a place to live as soon as possible. I have a month before I need to be there. A MONTH. That's scary to even think about that I only have a month before I'm living in a different state starting a new job as a full time faculty.
Today Alicia said that she wished I wasn't so happy to get this job. Or that I wasn't so happy to move. She's happy that I have a job, or not, but she's not happy that I'm happy and is upset that I'm not willing to stop being happy for her to be happy. It's confusing and I don't even get it. She's just anxious about the entire thing.
The thing that hit home for me today was a random video on Facebook of Margaret Atwood talking about writing. She said something along the lines of if you're not writing it's because you're afraid of something. I haven't written a line in almost a month. I have the entire outline done. I know what needs to happen next, but for one reason or another I keep pansying out and not writing what I know I should be writing. I'm giving excuses, and I'm giving all sorts of reasons of why I'm not finishing that novel, and I know that they're just excuses. I know that I'm coming up with the lamest most unoriginal reasons to not write, so I'm going to try to put myself responsible to this blog.
Right now, I'm at almost 70,000 words. I'm going to get out of my head, and allow myself to write an ugly baby draft. It'll be ugly. It'll need serious edits, but at least it will be out in the world. Wish me luck.
The tricky part to all of this is that I want to set up my apartment and a place to live as soon as possible. I have a month before I need to be there. A MONTH. That's scary to even think about that I only have a month before I'm living in a different state starting a new job as a full time faculty.
Today Alicia said that she wished I wasn't so happy to get this job. Or that I wasn't so happy to move. She's happy that I have a job, or not, but she's not happy that I'm happy and is upset that I'm not willing to stop being happy for her to be happy. It's confusing and I don't even get it. She's just anxious about the entire thing.
The thing that hit home for me today was a random video on Facebook of Margaret Atwood talking about writing. She said something along the lines of if you're not writing it's because you're afraid of something. I haven't written a line in almost a month. I have the entire outline done. I know what needs to happen next, but for one reason or another I keep pansying out and not writing what I know I should be writing. I'm giving excuses, and I'm giving all sorts of reasons of why I'm not finishing that novel, and I know that they're just excuses. I know that I'm coming up with the lamest most unoriginal reasons to not write, so I'm going to try to put myself responsible to this blog.
Right now, I'm at almost 70,000 words. I'm going to get out of my head, and allow myself to write an ugly baby draft. It'll be ugly. It'll need serious edits, but at least it will be out in the world. Wish me luck.
Jul 11, 2018
Daemons
As promised, some updates on what I've been painting lately.
First brimstones. I did a few layers of wash and dry brush and came up with this. . .
But then I watched a few more things on youtube and it had a fairly good argument about contrast, and upping the contrast that you're working with on your models to help the details pop a bit more. I decided to give it a shot and came up with this.
I'm sort of a fan. I'm going to try playing around with it more and more on my next favorite model of all time. Then I tackled the heralds. Two heralds, one crooked on it's base and realizing that I don't care enough to fix it, PLUS a weird flaming base that I didn't know what to do with, and this is what I've got. I'm not super in love with either of them, but I do like the color fade to white on the tips of the tendrils.
So, brimstones kept me happy and taught me a bit, but then I started to tackle some color blocking and planning on this guy, and fell in love. It's a burning chariot with blue horrors riding shotgun. I've started to think about using that whole contrast thing, with the color blending that I run in just about everything I paint, and this model is going to be a fun trip.
It's going to take me a while to do all of the fire the way I want it to be done, plus the body blended the way I want it to, plus keeping the blues looking high contrast, plus doing the screamers to match all of the other screamers I have, PLUS making sure the metal looks right. It's going to be a heavy load, but just doing the color blocking today has made me fall in love with the sculpt and everything that can pull out of it.
First brimstones. I did a few layers of wash and dry brush and came up with this. . .
But then I watched a few more things on youtube and it had a fairly good argument about contrast, and upping the contrast that you're working with on your models to help the details pop a bit more. I decided to give it a shot and came up with this.
I'm sort of a fan. I'm going to try playing around with it more and more on my next favorite model of all time. Then I tackled the heralds. Two heralds, one crooked on it's base and realizing that I don't care enough to fix it, PLUS a weird flaming base that I didn't know what to do with, and this is what I've got. I'm not super in love with either of them, but I do like the color fade to white on the tips of the tendrils.
So, brimstones kept me happy and taught me a bit, but then I started to tackle some color blocking and planning on this guy, and fell in love. It's a burning chariot with blue horrors riding shotgun. I've started to think about using that whole contrast thing, with the color blending that I run in just about everything I paint, and this model is going to be a fun trip.
It's going to take me a while to do all of the fire the way I want it to be done, plus the body blended the way I want it to, plus keeping the blues looking high contrast, plus doing the screamers to match all of the other screamers I have, PLUS making sure the metal looks right. It's going to be a heavy load, but just doing the color blocking today has made me fall in love with the sculpt and everything that can pull out of it.
Jun 28, 2018
Keeping Busy
With the real reality of my life going to be solo in Texas for a bit, I wanted to dust off this blog for a bit. This blog was always there to keep things moving in my brain while I thought things out at work. It was there for me as a place to think to myself, and write a bit, and just get stuff out there, so I'm bringing it back for my sanity.
The next few posts are there just to bring everything back up to snuff so that we can be on the same page for my time in Texas. Enjoy the updates.
Warhammer -
I'm officially done with my Thousand Sons army. Everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING that I own that belongs to the CSM/Thousand Sons armies through those ebay and craigslists finds, is finished!
It took me long enough, but they're done. Here's the Imgur hosted link, but I don't want to have to post up 65 ppictures on here, so here's the full army on view, and you can deal with things past that.
Don't you worry though, I've got more than enough plastic guys elsewhere to keep me busy painting for a lot longer. I'm currently working on some daemons, so I'll post up some pictures of things that aren't put away yet (my screamers are packed up, but I recently did some finishing touches on some pink horrors that could be worth a look).
Writing -
Since the time that I last wrote, let's talk about writing. For V-Day I published My Way To Love, and also managed to get physical copies of both My Way to Love as well as Dream Analysis. I'm now working on the one that I've been outlining for a while about man vs angelic church. Here's a few links for the Amazon products if you want to buy anything. I'll have to update those things on the blog so that you can go and see them, but for now, I'll put the links here.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1977061664
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1976983290
To be honest, they're not that awesome, but at least it's something. I did it, and I can call it mine. I'm about 200 pages into writing about angels right now, and I'm in the icky middle part that I'm never a fan of. Luckily I have the chapters all outlined, I just have to push through it and get to the fun stuff.
TAL -
I put that on the back burner for quite some time because I just couldn't listen to it as much. I'm going to have to get back on that bus and start listening to it again because it was fun to write that.
Life -
Since I stopped writing, my mother in law lived with us, died with us, and since then Alicia has been a ball of nerves having to deal with her mother's death plus all of her material things having to be cleaned out and organized.
I got fired, hired, fired, fired again, and then fired but then potentially hired twice, almost fired before I was hired, and now I'm going for hired one more time. I know I'll be working in Texas, the big question is where in Texas I'll be working.
One job is at Collins, and is more adjunct work that I'm already doing. No bonus stuff, no job security, but it would be near Gwen and Adam, and also give some potential jobs for Alicia because for some reason she's going off the rails and wanting to not teach any more (which is SUPER weird for anyone who doesn't know her)
The other job is a full time position with benefits at TJC which is about two hours away from Gwen, in a smaller town, but it's full time! It's a progression of my job and career and I have the opportunity to do something with my career rather than just keep on doing the same thing over and over again.
The debate comes with Alicia because now is not the best time to move. I have two jobs that want me, that are willing to pay me money, but I'm not sure if I want to do either of them, because she's so scared and emotionally not ready for the change. I want to jump at the TJC job, but that's just because I think it's the best for me, and would potentially put less stress on Alicia to be the person in charge of our wellfare all of the time. But as much as I want that to happen, she's not ready to make that transition because she lieks being the work horsea nd she doesn't want to be at home either. It's a weird mix of everything. All I know is that things are going to change real soon in the next few months and I want a place to rant about them, plus show off whatever I'm working on to avoid thinking about the crazy things that I'm going through. So yay! Blog is back, hopefully. . . . no promises.
The next few posts are there just to bring everything back up to snuff so that we can be on the same page for my time in Texas. Enjoy the updates.
Warhammer -
I'm officially done with my Thousand Sons army. Everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING that I own that belongs to the CSM/Thousand Sons armies through those ebay and craigslists finds, is finished!
It took me long enough, but they're done. Here's the Imgur hosted link, but I don't want to have to post up 65 ppictures on here, so here's the full army on view, and you can deal with things past that.
Don't you worry though, I've got more than enough plastic guys elsewhere to keep me busy painting for a lot longer. I'm currently working on some daemons, so I'll post up some pictures of things that aren't put away yet (my screamers are packed up, but I recently did some finishing touches on some pink horrors that could be worth a look).
Writing -
Since the time that I last wrote, let's talk about writing. For V-Day I published My Way To Love, and also managed to get physical copies of both My Way to Love as well as Dream Analysis. I'm now working on the one that I've been outlining for a while about man vs angelic church. Here's a few links for the Amazon products if you want to buy anything. I'll have to update those things on the blog so that you can go and see them, but for now, I'll put the links here.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1977061664
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1976983290
To be honest, they're not that awesome, but at least it's something. I did it, and I can call it mine. I'm about 200 pages into writing about angels right now, and I'm in the icky middle part that I'm never a fan of. Luckily I have the chapters all outlined, I just have to push through it and get to the fun stuff.
TAL -
I put that on the back burner for quite some time because I just couldn't listen to it as much. I'm going to have to get back on that bus and start listening to it again because it was fun to write that.
Life -
Since I stopped writing, my mother in law lived with us, died with us, and since then Alicia has been a ball of nerves having to deal with her mother's death plus all of her material things having to be cleaned out and organized.
I got fired, hired, fired, fired again, and then fired but then potentially hired twice, almost fired before I was hired, and now I'm going for hired one more time. I know I'll be working in Texas, the big question is where in Texas I'll be working.
One job is at Collins, and is more adjunct work that I'm already doing. No bonus stuff, no job security, but it would be near Gwen and Adam, and also give some potential jobs for Alicia because for some reason she's going off the rails and wanting to not teach any more (which is SUPER weird for anyone who doesn't know her)
The other job is a full time position with benefits at TJC which is about two hours away from Gwen, in a smaller town, but it's full time! It's a progression of my job and career and I have the opportunity to do something with my career rather than just keep on doing the same thing over and over again.
The debate comes with Alicia because now is not the best time to move. I have two jobs that want me, that are willing to pay me money, but I'm not sure if I want to do either of them, because she's so scared and emotionally not ready for the change. I want to jump at the TJC job, but that's just because I think it's the best for me, and would potentially put less stress on Alicia to be the person in charge of our wellfare all of the time. But as much as I want that to happen, she's not ready to make that transition because she lieks being the work horsea nd she doesn't want to be at home either. It's a weird mix of everything. All I know is that things are going to change real soon in the next few months and I want a place to rant about them, plus show off whatever I'm working on to avoid thinking about the crazy things that I'm going through. So yay! Blog is back, hopefully. . . . no promises.
Dec 17, 2017
Terri - My American Life
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/143/sentencing
I get it. I understand that drug laws are way too strict and can hurt people that are first time offenders. There's not that great of rehabilitation and we are creating a system that is a revolving door of prisoners that live in the system and don't know how to survive on their own. That sucks. I don't think that's the way it should be, and all things considering, major overhauls need to be done to the criminal system because it's screwy on way too many levels.
But,
Yes, there's a but to that statement.
But, they can keep Terri.
My wife was raised by her grandma. The person who I consider my mother-in-law is biologically speaking my grandmother-in-law. My wife's biological mother, is Terri. As long as I've known my wife, her biological mom has been in jail. I think there's been a few months or even maybe a year where she was on probation, but then landed herself back in jail, and I'm perfectly fine with her staying there.
Terri's one and only redeeming trait that she has in her life is that she gave birth to my wife. Even that she almost managed to screw up because when my wife popped out she was an addict's baby. CPA had to take my wife away from Terri because Terri was Terri and wasn't being a mother to my wife.
I don't care about Terri's drug's or criminal behavior, but if they're what keeps her in jail then I'm okay with it. What she did to my wife when she was only weeks old is uncalled for. The stupid part about it is because of her STUPID behavior in the first weeks of my wife's life, my wife has been carrying the baggage that her biological mother didn't love her, and essentially abandoned her.
Sit on that one for a second. One of the things that most people have the benefit of knowing when they were growing up is that at least their parents were there for them. In one way or another their parents were at least somewhat trying to keep them alive. Alicia, from a very young age, learned that her biological mother did not want her.
Do you know how much that screws with a person's personality and mentality? Because of that one person and her addiction to drugs, Alicia is now constantly carrying around this idea that the people who act like they love her in their lives are just focused on something else and soon er or later will leave her. Everyone in her life, starting with Terri, has left her or focused on something else besides her. That makes her loving, but also completely un-trusting of what is going on around her. I can't stand it, but at the same time, I get why she thinks that way. Prison sentencing for drug users and addicts needs to be lessened, but for the people out there that could treat their own child that poorly, they deserve to stay.
I get it. I understand that drug laws are way too strict and can hurt people that are first time offenders. There's not that great of rehabilitation and we are creating a system that is a revolving door of prisoners that live in the system and don't know how to survive on their own. That sucks. I don't think that's the way it should be, and all things considering, major overhauls need to be done to the criminal system because it's screwy on way too many levels.
But,
Yes, there's a but to that statement.
But, they can keep Terri.
My wife was raised by her grandma. The person who I consider my mother-in-law is biologically speaking my grandmother-in-law. My wife's biological mother, is Terri. As long as I've known my wife, her biological mom has been in jail. I think there's been a few months or even maybe a year where she was on probation, but then landed herself back in jail, and I'm perfectly fine with her staying there.
Terri's one and only redeeming trait that she has in her life is that she gave birth to my wife. Even that she almost managed to screw up because when my wife popped out she was an addict's baby. CPA had to take my wife away from Terri because Terri was Terri and wasn't being a mother to my wife.
I don't care about Terri's drug's or criminal behavior, but if they're what keeps her in jail then I'm okay with it. What she did to my wife when she was only weeks old is uncalled for. The stupid part about it is because of her STUPID behavior in the first weeks of my wife's life, my wife has been carrying the baggage that her biological mother didn't love her, and essentially abandoned her.
Sit on that one for a second. One of the things that most people have the benefit of knowing when they were growing up is that at least their parents were there for them. In one way or another their parents were at least somewhat trying to keep them alive. Alicia, from a very young age, learned that her biological mother did not want her.
Do you know how much that screws with a person's personality and mentality? Because of that one person and her addiction to drugs, Alicia is now constantly carrying around this idea that the people who act like they love her in their lives are just focused on something else and soon er or later will leave her. Everyone in her life, starting with Terri, has left her or focused on something else besides her. That makes her loving, but also completely un-trusting of what is going on around her. I can't stand it, but at the same time, I get why she thinks that way. Prison sentencing for drug users and addicts needs to be lessened, but for the people out there that could treat their own child that poorly, they deserve to stay.
I've Got Nothing
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/142/barbara
I've been sitting on this one for a long time. I liked the episode, but I honestly can't do anything about this from my point of view. This is one of those that is so particular and set for a particular author, that I can't touch it. The entire episode is based around one black single mom who lives in the inner-city. I'm sorry, but I'm the exact opposite of that. As a married, white, male, who lives in the suburbs of the suburbs I can't do it. I've tried. I've been thinking about it in the back of my mind on and off for way too long at this point I've got to move on. I can't twist this into anything else. The episode was specific to one individual. I'm not that individual. That means I don't have anything to twist or add on to it.
I've been sitting on this one for a long time. I liked the episode, but I honestly can't do anything about this from my point of view. This is one of those that is so particular and set for a particular author, that I can't touch it. The entire episode is based around one black single mom who lives in the inner-city. I'm sorry, but I'm the exact opposite of that. As a married, white, male, who lives in the suburbs of the suburbs I can't do it. I've tried. I've been thinking about it in the back of my mind on and off for way too long at this point I've got to move on. I can't twist this into anything else. The episode was specific to one individual. I'm not that individual. That means I don't have anything to twist or add on to it.
Oct 30, 2017
Choices Were Made
I know that I even said on here that I need to remember to focus on all of the armies that I need to paint instead of trying to buy new ones, but then my dream army went up for sale on ebay. It's a harlequin army, and exactly what I was thinking about buying fresh out of box once I got armies painted to really put together something from scratch. Seriously, the list is borderline what I would have bought fresh. The only thing that it's missing is the troupe masters.
Here's what's in there.
32 players with lots of varieties of weapons. Lots of Neuro and fusion pistols.
2 solitaires. One has custom rose on tip of weapon.
4 shadowseers. 1 is the older fine cast one.
4 death jesters.
3 voidweavers.
3 starweavers.
12 skyweavers.
1 codex.
1 tactical/ physicic cards.
1 Brand new white dwarf magazine featuring the harlequins.
1 bag of harlequin bits.
Now this is the interesting part. The bidding was done at 8:30. Someone tried to snipe me by outbidding me by $10 at 8:29:21. Somehow by fate or just luck, I checked on the bid on my phone during class saw this and managed to sneak in my own bid. Officially, according to ebay, my bid went in at 8:30:10.
Now, just because I'm still floating on the win of that, a brief overview of the cost of what I just got, had I bought it new, like I wanted to.
32 players - these come in boxes of 6, that means that to get the same amount I'd need to buy 6 boxes. at $40 a piece, that's $240 there.
2 solitaires - $26 a piece, that's $52.
4 shadowseers - $26 a piece again, that's $104
4 death jesters - $26 a piece, $104
3 voidweavers - $41 a piece $123
3 starweavers - $41 a piece $123
12 skyweavers - $40 for a pair, that means 6 boxes for a total of $240
That means in models, I would have had to pay $986, plus tax. Then of course there's the bonus things of
1 codex.
1 tactical/ physicic cards.
1 Brand new white dwarf magazine featuring the harlequins.
1 bag of harlequin bits.
I'm not really going to be using them that much, but we're going to round up to $1,000 just for the sake of the argument.
I essentially got them 59% off. I paid $410 for them.
The best part? Not only are they cheap, but they're already assembled, which is the worst thing in the world in my book. I seriously hate that step.
The bad news?
I promised myself I would finish chaos first, both mortals and daemons, and then eldar, and then I would tackle the harlequins. I plan to keep that order. With how little I paint, it's looking like another two years before those harlequins get any meaningful attention.
Here's what's in there.
32 players with lots of varieties of weapons. Lots of Neuro and fusion pistols.
2 solitaires. One has custom rose on tip of weapon.
4 shadowseers. 1 is the older fine cast one.
4 death jesters.
3 voidweavers.
3 starweavers.
12 skyweavers.
1 codex.
1 tactical/ physicic cards.
1 Brand new white dwarf magazine featuring the harlequins.
1 bag of harlequin bits.
Now this is the interesting part. The bidding was done at 8:30. Someone tried to snipe me by outbidding me by $10 at 8:29:21. Somehow by fate or just luck, I checked on the bid on my phone during class saw this and managed to sneak in my own bid. Officially, according to ebay, my bid went in at 8:30:10.
Now, just because I'm still floating on the win of that, a brief overview of the cost of what I just got, had I bought it new, like I wanted to.
32 players - these come in boxes of 6, that means that to get the same amount I'd need to buy 6 boxes. at $40 a piece, that's $240 there.
2 solitaires - $26 a piece, that's $52.
4 shadowseers - $26 a piece again, that's $104
4 death jesters - $26 a piece, $104
3 voidweavers - $41 a piece $123
3 starweavers - $41 a piece $123
12 skyweavers - $40 for a pair, that means 6 boxes for a total of $240
That means in models, I would have had to pay $986, plus tax. Then of course there's the bonus things of
1 codex.
1 tactical/ physicic cards.
1 Brand new white dwarf magazine featuring the harlequins.
1 bag of harlequin bits.
I'm not really going to be using them that much, but we're going to round up to $1,000 just for the sake of the argument.
I essentially got them 59% off. I paid $410 for them.
The best part? Not only are they cheap, but they're already assembled, which is the worst thing in the world in my book. I seriously hate that step.
The bad news?
I promised myself I would finish chaos first, both mortals and daemons, and then eldar, and then I would tackle the harlequins. I plan to keep that order. With how little I paint, it's looking like another two years before those harlequins get any meaningful attention.
Oct 14, 2017
How Do You Do That?
Warhammer is not a cheap hobby.
In the long run, if you play it for a long period of time, and are fairly dedicated to the game, it's easy to say that it's cheap because the investment can last a long time. A $400 investment has kept me busy painting for almost two years now. That's two years, for only $400? That's a cheap investment compared to other things like gaming. If you're doing gaming, that's a $60 investment for every single game that you're paying for, which you're typically going to be going through at least once a month if you're serious about the gaming hobby. But, still, I digress, it's not cheap.
The real not cheap part about the hobby is if you're buying anything new. ANYTHING new is stupidly expensive, and it's only second hand things that make it anywhere close to manageable pricing. For example, I was trying to price a harlequin army that I wanted. I was getting the new model itch, so I sat down with the GW web portal and decided to fill up the shopping cart with an ideal list of harlequin that I would like to play, that wasn't just one 1850 point list, but rather a good list with a few bonus redundancies just in case I wanted to mix things up and try out something slightly different. That one army ran to being almost $800. If I wanted to minimize that as much as possible, play the exact same list every single time I played, have no diversity of options, the price range doesn't go down by too much. That's just for 1850 points! (for a point of reference, I can field three 1850 point armies with my mob that I spent around about $500 for, the reason for the price change is the 400 is what I bought used, the extra 100 is what I bought new).
Just for the sake of curiosity, I tried to sort out what I would need to spend if I bought my lists that I used today new, instead of second hand, and for only 1,000 points (most tournaments are 1,500 or 1,850) it would have cost me $460 to show up today.
The point to all of this is that today I was at an event. At that event there was a person that I had seen before who was a total min/maxer. This is the type of person who bounces around to whatever is fashionable in the tournament lists and is always trying to min/max his army because he wants to win at all costs. The crazy part about it, is that a while ago when I met him for the firs time, he had a different army. I pushed him about it this time that he still had a new army and he let out that he had changed armies a few times.
A FEW TIMES!?
Now, rough estimate here, but I'm guessing that if you're buying new models (like he does) that each time you pick up a new army, it's a $500-$600 investment for just the bare minimums that you need for your army. That's not including anything bonus or any auxiliary things that you run into, that's just the bare minimum to field something. That means that in the past year, this guy has bought multiple armies, and then gotten rid of them (for typically around 50% market) just to buy new armies all over again.
I don't get it.
How in the world is he able to do that? How do you just walk away from an investment of $500 and just give it up, ALL TO BUY IN AGAIN!? If you were getting out of the hobby because it just wasn't your thing and you didn't like it any more, that's one thing. But to sell out and try to liquidize your army, just to turn around and spend that much money again, that's a death sentence.
In an off topic - I was happy today that my army was painted. I can't tell you how many armies there were there today that were running the grey blob force where they weren't even primed. Seriously people? I'm lazy, but at least I'm able to prime my models. I've said it once, and I'll say it again, but if I'm going to spend that much money on something, I'm going to try my best to at least make it look half way decent. It boggles my mind that someone would spend $140 on something as epic as the leader of an entire army . . . and then field it as a jumble of grey plastic. I mean, come on! The most frustrating part about some of those grey armies was that people were talking about having them for a long period of time. How do you own something that s going to be your main army, the main focus of an entire game and hobby to you, and then not decide that maybe, just possibly, you don't want them to look like a grey blob? /rant
In the long run, if you play it for a long period of time, and are fairly dedicated to the game, it's easy to say that it's cheap because the investment can last a long time. A $400 investment has kept me busy painting for almost two years now. That's two years, for only $400? That's a cheap investment compared to other things like gaming. If you're doing gaming, that's a $60 investment for every single game that you're paying for, which you're typically going to be going through at least once a month if you're serious about the gaming hobby. But, still, I digress, it's not cheap.
The real not cheap part about the hobby is if you're buying anything new. ANYTHING new is stupidly expensive, and it's only second hand things that make it anywhere close to manageable pricing. For example, I was trying to price a harlequin army that I wanted. I was getting the new model itch, so I sat down with the GW web portal and decided to fill up the shopping cart with an ideal list of harlequin that I would like to play, that wasn't just one 1850 point list, but rather a good list with a few bonus redundancies just in case I wanted to mix things up and try out something slightly different. That one army ran to being almost $800. If I wanted to minimize that as much as possible, play the exact same list every single time I played, have no diversity of options, the price range doesn't go down by too much. That's just for 1850 points! (for a point of reference, I can field three 1850 point armies with my mob that I spent around about $500 for, the reason for the price change is the 400 is what I bought used, the extra 100 is what I bought new).
Just for the sake of curiosity, I tried to sort out what I would need to spend if I bought my lists that I used today new, instead of second hand, and for only 1,000 points (most tournaments are 1,500 or 1,850) it would have cost me $460 to show up today.
The point to all of this is that today I was at an event. At that event there was a person that I had seen before who was a total min/maxer. This is the type of person who bounces around to whatever is fashionable in the tournament lists and is always trying to min/max his army because he wants to win at all costs. The crazy part about it, is that a while ago when I met him for the firs time, he had a different army. I pushed him about it this time that he still had a new army and he let out that he had changed armies a few times.
A FEW TIMES!?
Now, rough estimate here, but I'm guessing that if you're buying new models (like he does) that each time you pick up a new army, it's a $500-$600 investment for just the bare minimums that you need for your army. That's not including anything bonus or any auxiliary things that you run into, that's just the bare minimum to field something. That means that in the past year, this guy has bought multiple armies, and then gotten rid of them (for typically around 50% market) just to buy new armies all over again.
I don't get it.
How in the world is he able to do that? How do you just walk away from an investment of $500 and just give it up, ALL TO BUY IN AGAIN!? If you were getting out of the hobby because it just wasn't your thing and you didn't like it any more, that's one thing. But to sell out and try to liquidize your army, just to turn around and spend that much money again, that's a death sentence.
In an off topic - I was happy today that my army was painted. I can't tell you how many armies there were there today that were running the grey blob force where they weren't even primed. Seriously people? I'm lazy, but at least I'm able to prime my models. I've said it once, and I'll say it again, but if I'm going to spend that much money on something, I'm going to try my best to at least make it look half way decent. It boggles my mind that someone would spend $140 on something as epic as the leader of an entire army . . . and then field it as a jumble of grey plastic. I mean, come on! The most frustrating part about some of those grey armies was that people were talking about having them for a long period of time. How do you own something that s going to be your main army, the main focus of an entire game and hobby to you, and then not decide that maybe, just possibly, you don't want them to look like a grey blob? /rant
Oct 12, 2017
Times to Write
There are times that I just need to write. Today is one of them. I come back to this blog and I remember a while ago where I thought there was an off chance that someone would ever read it. Let's be honest with each other, it's by me, for me.
Writing is going stupidly slow right now. I know that I could try to put together more time on writing, but I'm really ashamed that I haven't gotten closer to finishing that story up. I'm thinking next week when it goes into holiday for UVU, I can spend some of that time doing writing. I did manage to get a version of Empath in short story out to the club, but we'll see what happens with that.
It's crazy that I'm doing this tournament league a third time now. I'm looking forward to it, and I'm secretly trying to sort out how in the world to make the best painting I can. I don't really care too much about the prize, but I'd love to do a bang up job on the exalted sorcerer, hit every single detail I can, and just make him the strongest piece I am able. If things work from there, then they work, but I'm at least going to put my hat in the ring and see what comes out. The tricky part will be not cutting it on the details. I always get done with all of the red/yellow blend and then I back out from it and don't do any of the other details. Just look at Magnus. I get done with all of the 'hard' stuff, and then I'm too lazy to do gems.
Basically, story of my life for everything that I keep trying to write and then go back to and delete is that I need to get off of my butt, set aside time to get things done, and just do it. I just needed to write it down.
Writing is going stupidly slow right now. I know that I could try to put together more time on writing, but I'm really ashamed that I haven't gotten closer to finishing that story up. I'm thinking next week when it goes into holiday for UVU, I can spend some of that time doing writing. I did manage to get a version of Empath in short story out to the club, but we'll see what happens with that.
It's crazy that I'm doing this tournament league a third time now. I'm looking forward to it, and I'm secretly trying to sort out how in the world to make the best painting I can. I don't really care too much about the prize, but I'd love to do a bang up job on the exalted sorcerer, hit every single detail I can, and just make him the strongest piece I am able. If things work from there, then they work, but I'm at least going to put my hat in the ring and see what comes out. The tricky part will be not cutting it on the details. I always get done with all of the red/yellow blend and then I back out from it and don't do any of the other details. Just look at Magnus. I get done with all of the 'hard' stuff, and then I'm too lazy to do gems.
Basically, story of my life for everything that I keep trying to write and then go back to and delete is that I need to get off of my butt, set aside time to get things done, and just do it. I just needed to write it down.
Sep 21, 2017
Magnus the Red - Primarch of the Thousand Sons
He's finally done! He does need basing, but that'll get done once I finish up a few more units and do them all in one chunk, but all of the painting of him and worrying about color blending is done for my primarch.
Without further delay - Magnus the Red the Primarch of the Thousand Sons legion.
This is the best for the full body shot and you get most of what is going on inside of it, but
this one is easily my favorite. I'm just a fan of the profile shot and how his weapon looks in this one.
Woo! With that out of the way, all I've got is a few more guys to whip together (because it's going to be a cake walk compared to Magnus) and I'll be all done with my CSM army. Then I'll either dive head first into the daemons, or start working on the Eldar. It honestly depends on what Josh depends to do with the game. If he starts showing interest, or anyone starts showing interest in playing with me, Eldar is going to get paint next. If I keep doing this as a solo adventure, then it's going to be onto the daemons.
By the way, I threw away the old fateweaver I had. The way I assembled it made it slowly start to dip and bend and it was almost face planting into the ground. I tried to fix its legs, but only screwed things up even more, so the little guy is now in the trash. Luckily, once I get done with all of the units of daemons, I have the new, big fateweaver waiting to go side to side with Magnus.
Without further delay - Magnus the Red the Primarch of the Thousand Sons legion.
Woo! With that out of the way, all I've got is a few more guys to whip together (because it's going to be a cake walk compared to Magnus) and I'll be all done with my CSM army. Then I'll either dive head first into the daemons, or start working on the Eldar. It honestly depends on what Josh depends to do with the game. If he starts showing interest, or anyone starts showing interest in playing with me, Eldar is going to get paint next. If I keep doing this as a solo adventure, then it's going to be onto the daemons.
By the way, I threw away the old fateweaver I had. The way I assembled it made it slowly start to dip and bend and it was almost face planting into the ground. I tried to fix its legs, but only screwed things up even more, so the little guy is now in the trash. Luckily, once I get done with all of the units of daemons, I have the new, big fateweaver waiting to go side to side with Magnus.
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