40 Hours.
Come on people, snipe the ebay bid so that I don't have to pay for it. I've got 40 hours until I have to fork up the cash (or rather the credit because the cash isn't there).
Jul 31, 2015
I Enjoy Being A Boy . . . Sort Of - My American Life
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/99/i-enjoy-being-a-girl-sort-of
This is a tricky one because of my degree. I specialized in my undergraduate (and even in my graduate degree) when given the chance for using a literary lens, I'd go with feminism, but more along the line of gender studies, where I would look for both gender stereotypes and social influence in understanding gender for both men and women. I'm going to try to limit this one down to ramblings and rantings of a male feminist. Yes, we do exist, there are dozens of us!
Feminism isn't limited to just women, guys can do it too. If you want equality between the genders, if you want the freedom to do what you want to do no matter if your genitals are interior or exterior genitals, then you're a feminist. Just because you might fall into this category, it does not make you the crazy 'man hater' feminist. You can still be a feminist and not want to overthrow men, burn your bra, and yell at any man who looks at you like he might like you. You can totally be a feminist and look at not only how Barbies are making girls look at themselves, but also at the GI-Joes, and super heroes that give horrible body image issues to boys as well. But enough about being a feminist, onto enjoying being a boy. . . sort of.
All together, being a boy sort of sucks, but at least we don't have to deal with menstruation or child birth, so at least we have that for going for us. Where women have the politics and strength behind them to do whatever they want, to be the women that they want to be and have people love them for doing it, men don't quite have that same freedom. Where women get scholarships just for their gender, are praised for being in STEM fields, or doing anything that isn't your 1950's understanding of a woman, guys . . . not so much.
We're supposed to be strong. We're supposed to be valiant. We're supposed to do everything that 1950's American men were doing in the 50's. Try being a stay at home dad, it's weird. When a woman enters the work force, she is hailed as a great addition to society. A guy stays with their kid and tries to help raise them, and they are doing nothing more than being lazy and leeching off of the economy. Girls bringing their kid to the pool during the middle of the work day - perfect. They have people to talk to, they can be with one another, and they are there to support each other. A guy shows up and there is not a single other adult with their kid anywhere to be seen.
We're supposed to be the money winners.
We're supposed to be violent.
We're supposed to be noble knights in shining armor.
We're supposed to be organizers and politicians.
We're supposed to be inventors.
We're supposed to be the 'handy man'.
We're supposed to be the community leader.
We're supposed to do so much, and it leaves almost no time to do anything else, even if you hate what is headed in your direction.
Being a guy sucks.
Sure, if you like those roles, and if you like those things, that's great for you, but for those of us that aren't dead lifting bears out of pits that we dug ourselves, re-building our car's engine just for the fun of it, or yelling at the TV screen during football season about a bad call, it sort of sucks because there's no place that really fits us.
The weirdest part about it, is that guys can get away with that "girly" stuff . . . but only if they act more like girls. Gay guys can get away with doing whatever they want. They don't have to be the man's man. This is one of the trickiest parts about everything because I say things like I'm the main cook at my house and I like baking, and it's weird, but as soon as I change my sexual orientation if I was a gay guy who liked to cook and bake there'd be no problem with it at all because apparently liking to cook and bake no matter your gender means that you also have to like guys.
I like being who I am, not having to deal with anything as complicated and icky as the menstruation cycle is a gold star in my mind, but at the same time, it certainly isn't everything it's cracked up to be.
This is a tricky one because of my degree. I specialized in my undergraduate (and even in my graduate degree) when given the chance for using a literary lens, I'd go with feminism, but more along the line of gender studies, where I would look for both gender stereotypes and social influence in understanding gender for both men and women. I'm going to try to limit this one down to ramblings and rantings of a male feminist. Yes, we do exist, there are dozens of us!
Feminism isn't limited to just women, guys can do it too. If you want equality between the genders, if you want the freedom to do what you want to do no matter if your genitals are interior or exterior genitals, then you're a feminist. Just because you might fall into this category, it does not make you the crazy 'man hater' feminist. You can still be a feminist and not want to overthrow men, burn your bra, and yell at any man who looks at you like he might like you. You can totally be a feminist and look at not only how Barbies are making girls look at themselves, but also at the GI-Joes, and super heroes that give horrible body image issues to boys as well. But enough about being a feminist, onto enjoying being a boy. . . sort of.
All together, being a boy sort of sucks, but at least we don't have to deal with menstruation or child birth, so at least we have that for going for us. Where women have the politics and strength behind them to do whatever they want, to be the women that they want to be and have people love them for doing it, men don't quite have that same freedom. Where women get scholarships just for their gender, are praised for being in STEM fields, or doing anything that isn't your 1950's understanding of a woman, guys . . . not so much.
We're supposed to be strong. We're supposed to be valiant. We're supposed to do everything that 1950's American men were doing in the 50's. Try being a stay at home dad, it's weird. When a woman enters the work force, she is hailed as a great addition to society. A guy stays with their kid and tries to help raise them, and they are doing nothing more than being lazy and leeching off of the economy. Girls bringing their kid to the pool during the middle of the work day - perfect. They have people to talk to, they can be with one another, and they are there to support each other. A guy shows up and there is not a single other adult with their kid anywhere to be seen.
We're supposed to be the money winners.
We're supposed to be violent.
We're supposed to be noble knights in shining armor.
We're supposed to be organizers and politicians.
We're supposed to be inventors.
We're supposed to be the 'handy man'.
We're supposed to be the community leader.
We're supposed to do so much, and it leaves almost no time to do anything else, even if you hate what is headed in your direction.
Being a guy sucks.
Sure, if you like those roles, and if you like those things, that's great for you, but for those of us that aren't dead lifting bears out of pits that we dug ourselves, re-building our car's engine just for the fun of it, or yelling at the TV screen during football season about a bad call, it sort of sucks because there's no place that really fits us.
The weirdest part about it, is that guys can get away with that "girly" stuff . . . but only if they act more like girls. Gay guys can get away with doing whatever they want. They don't have to be the man's man. This is one of the trickiest parts about everything because I say things like I'm the main cook at my house and I like baking, and it's weird, but as soon as I change my sexual orientation if I was a gay guy who liked to cook and bake there'd be no problem with it at all because apparently liking to cook and bake no matter your gender means that you also have to like guys.
I like being who I am, not having to deal with anything as complicated and icky as the menstruation cycle is a gold star in my mind, but at the same time, it certainly isn't everything it's cracked up to be.
Jul 30, 2015
This Changes Everything!
I have been taking the train every morning for the past two semesters. Every morning I read books, take naps, or even write a bit on my computer. Today, I got bored so I checked the wi-fi hotspots that were avaliable to the train. I was expecting to see a variety of random hotspots that were personal ones ran by people's cell phones and other things like that. I was expecting weird ones like, "Semper wi-fi" for my USMC friends and other things like that.
IT TURNS OUT THAT THERE'S FREE WIFI ON THE TRAIN!Jul 28, 2015
How Did I Do That?
I lost Alpha to Omega.
Or at least the digital copy of it. It's not in my documents, it's not in my drive.
Somehow I lost one of the longest stories I've ever written, and I don't know where it went. This is slightly frustrating. I was just trying to locate the instruments so I could finally give them a shot in the D&D campaign, but I couldn't find the story.
This is frustrating.
Once I find that massively over-sized mess of a story I'll throw it in google drive and share it here just so I never have to loose it ever again.
EDIT:
I found them on an external. Wow, is that some bad writing. I'm going to put it onto google drive as soon as I get to my other work and then share it here, but wow, I used to think I was good, but that is some bad writing.
Why did I ever think that I could be an author?
Pre-writing
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VAMwCVoDKqACn-EFCLtG6eSRstlIo--DCkLo1PtWMiM/edit?usp=sharing
The massive story that is horribly written and not even spell checked
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B8hLSAIsDOnPq8Nv3iAURwvTUrlkK9B4oWhNMr3kvAM/edit?usp=sharing
They're not pretty, but it'll do its job so I never loose those ever again.
Or at least the digital copy of it. It's not in my documents, it's not in my drive.
Somehow I lost one of the longest stories I've ever written, and I don't know where it went. This is slightly frustrating. I was just trying to locate the instruments so I could finally give them a shot in the D&D campaign, but I couldn't find the story.
This is frustrating.
Once I find that massively over-sized mess of a story I'll throw it in google drive and share it here just so I never have to loose it ever again.
EDIT:
I found them on an external. Wow, is that some bad writing. I'm going to put it onto google drive as soon as I get to my other work and then share it here, but wow, I used to think I was good, but that is some bad writing.
Why did I ever think that I could be an author?
Pre-writing
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VAMwCVoDKqACn-EFCLtG6eSRstlIo--DCkLo1PtWMiM/edit?usp=sharing
The massive story that is horribly written and not even spell checked
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B8hLSAIsDOnPq8Nv3iAURwvTUrlkK9B4oWhNMr3kvAM/edit?usp=sharing
They're not pretty, but it'll do its job so I never loose those ever again.
Jul 27, 2015
Snipe
Ebay is a horrible thing.
It's a wonderfully horrible thing.
I saw a REALLY good deal on Eby, and instead of thinking, "you know what, maybe I don't need another 7+ boxes worth of Warhammer stuff, because I just bought that massive group in that road trip to Idaho" I said to myself, "Wow! That's a great deal! BID!"
Now I'm set up to spend $100 that I'm not sure I can spend on Ebay on something that I don't need, and I'm praying for someone to outbid me.
This is when it gets really bad. I think that there's a way for me to opt out of my bid. To do a take back on it so I don't get stuck with the items, but instead of trying to go down that road, even while I write this I'm sitting here going, "But if I was to buy everything in this lot at the store, it'd cost me at least three to four times that retail!" so I refuse to go back and change my bid. I know that I should take it back and I know that it's something that I should not be doing, but I keep rationalizing it away. Alicia has done shopping trips for clothes that are more expensive than this. The trip to the grocery store that I just did today for "a few things" was almost this expensive. I can afford $100, and it's a REALLY GOOD DEAL!
I'm a mess.
I'm starting to see how people can have thousands of thousands of points worth of models and only have them assembled and no where close to being painted. It's starting to become clear. Now I'm just hoping that someone out there in internet land sees that it is a good deal and outbids me in the next five days.
It's five days, someone has to outbid me.
Right?
Stupid, amazing, Ebay.
It's a wonderfully horrible thing.
I saw a REALLY good deal on Eby, and instead of thinking, "you know what, maybe I don't need another 7+ boxes worth of Warhammer stuff, because I just bought that massive group in that road trip to Idaho" I said to myself, "Wow! That's a great deal! BID!"
Now I'm set up to spend $100 that I'm not sure I can spend on Ebay on something that I don't need, and I'm praying for someone to outbid me.
This is when it gets really bad. I think that there's a way for me to opt out of my bid. To do a take back on it so I don't get stuck with the items, but instead of trying to go down that road, even while I write this I'm sitting here going, "But if I was to buy everything in this lot at the store, it'd cost me at least three to four times that retail!" so I refuse to go back and change my bid. I know that I should take it back and I know that it's something that I should not be doing, but I keep rationalizing it away. Alicia has done shopping trips for clothes that are more expensive than this. The trip to the grocery store that I just did today for "a few things" was almost this expensive. I can afford $100, and it's a REALLY GOOD DEAL!
I'm a mess.
I'm starting to see how people can have thousands of thousands of points worth of models and only have them assembled and no where close to being painted. It's starting to become clear. Now I'm just hoping that someone out there in internet land sees that it is a good deal and outbids me in the next five days.
It's five days, someone has to outbid me.
Right?
Stupid, amazing, Ebay.
I have never fought - My American Life
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/98/throwing-the-first-punch
I am a 29 year old man, and I have never been in a fist fight. Saying something like that is almost akin to saying that you're a 29 year old virgin. Guys fight, they wrestle, they get upset at each other and violence starts, and yet I've managed to avoid it my entire life. I've learned to talk things out, or to attack with my words. You can spar with people verbally or via text, and fighting is a 'solution' that creates no actual solutions. Violence doesn't actually solve any problems, it only causes more, and I've been able to see that in the lives of people around me. I'm 29 years old and never been in a fight.
I still want to get in a fight.
Even though I know it's stupid, even though I know that there's nothing in it that is redeeming or validating for either person inside the fight, and even though I know that it can do some serious damage to both your mental and physical well-being - I still want to get into a fight, but much like learning how to work out at the gym, I feel like because I never learned when I was a kid the most basic elements of doing it, that I'll do it entirely wrong and end up hurting myself far more than if I knew what was 'proper' in how to throw a punch.
I don't know how to throw a punch, I don't know how to take a punch. I don't know what is and isn't okay to do in a fight. I don't know if it's okay to kick people in the balls, pull hair, or just do whatever I want. I don't know the first thing about fighting. I am completely clueless when it comes to fighting.
My exposure and understanding of fighting starts and ends with knowing that if I somehow am able to go backwards down and forward followed by a 'strong punch' I can, and should, if my timing is right, be able to throw a fire ball.
I don't watch boxing, I have never watched a full round of MMA, and any other martial art or anything else that could be considered fighting. I've never even done a Billy Blanks Tae Bo workout.
I'm not even restricted to boxing or MMA, I would love to do something even something as physical and physical/violent as wrestling. Again, I have about the exposure of nothing when it comes to wrestling but there is part of me that would love to do it.
The thing that is crazy about it is that I don't know why. I don't know why I want to get in a fight. I don't know why I want to get hit or hit someone, or even just wrestle someone down to the ground (or be wrestled down) but it's something that I want to do.
I think that part of it is the idea of being in control of it. It's physical. It's you trying as hard as you possibly can to do one thing. You try as hard as you can to do one thing, and it's a yes or a no into if your best is better than someone else. It's an easy way to rank yourself up against another person. With fighting, you get a clear answer. One person is a winner, one person is a looser, and it depends on something as simple as physical skill. Where my life is full of grey areas where I fill like I'm constantly fighting, but can't seem to get a clear cut 'win' or 'lost' out of a single event, it'd be nice to get a solid answer. It'd be nice to know for sure, where do I rank up in real life.
Then there's also the knowledge of hurting people. The idea of boxing is to knock a person unconscious. To hurt them as much as possible so their body can no longer want to function. I have never broken a bone. I have never gotten a black eye. I have never been knocked unconscious by anything. It's a weird thing, but I want to experience both sides of it. I want to know what it feels like (pain and all) of getting a black eye. I want to know how it feels to break my nose, and also how it feels when my fist connects into another guy's nose and feel it shatter, move, and break under my knuckles. I want to feel how it feels to try as hard as I can, be physically spent, and be unable to fight back. I want to be able to feel how it is to pin someone down, besting them in something physical. I don't know what it is about those feelings, but a weird little part of my brain wants to know what it is like.
I'm 29 years old and have never been in a physical fight of any type and one of the things I want to do the most is to get in a fight even though I know that it's a horrible idea.
I am a 29 year old man, and I have never been in a fist fight. Saying something like that is almost akin to saying that you're a 29 year old virgin. Guys fight, they wrestle, they get upset at each other and violence starts, and yet I've managed to avoid it my entire life. I've learned to talk things out, or to attack with my words. You can spar with people verbally or via text, and fighting is a 'solution' that creates no actual solutions. Violence doesn't actually solve any problems, it only causes more, and I've been able to see that in the lives of people around me. I'm 29 years old and never been in a fight.
I still want to get in a fight.
Even though I know it's stupid, even though I know that there's nothing in it that is redeeming or validating for either person inside the fight, and even though I know that it can do some serious damage to both your mental and physical well-being - I still want to get into a fight, but much like learning how to work out at the gym, I feel like because I never learned when I was a kid the most basic elements of doing it, that I'll do it entirely wrong and end up hurting myself far more than if I knew what was 'proper' in how to throw a punch.
I don't know how to throw a punch, I don't know how to take a punch. I don't know what is and isn't okay to do in a fight. I don't know if it's okay to kick people in the balls, pull hair, or just do whatever I want. I don't know the first thing about fighting. I am completely clueless when it comes to fighting.
My exposure and understanding of fighting starts and ends with knowing that if I somehow am able to go backwards down and forward followed by a 'strong punch' I can, and should, if my timing is right, be able to throw a fire ball.
I don't watch boxing, I have never watched a full round of MMA, and any other martial art or anything else that could be considered fighting. I've never even done a Billy Blanks Tae Bo workout.
I'm not even restricted to boxing or MMA, I would love to do something even something as physical and physical/violent as wrestling. Again, I have about the exposure of nothing when it comes to wrestling but there is part of me that would love to do it.
The thing that is crazy about it is that I don't know why. I don't know why I want to get in a fight. I don't know why I want to get hit or hit someone, or even just wrestle someone down to the ground (or be wrestled down) but it's something that I want to do.
I think that part of it is the idea of being in control of it. It's physical. It's you trying as hard as you possibly can to do one thing. You try as hard as you can to do one thing, and it's a yes or a no into if your best is better than someone else. It's an easy way to rank yourself up against another person. With fighting, you get a clear answer. One person is a winner, one person is a looser, and it depends on something as simple as physical skill. Where my life is full of grey areas where I fill like I'm constantly fighting, but can't seem to get a clear cut 'win' or 'lost' out of a single event, it'd be nice to get a solid answer. It'd be nice to know for sure, where do I rank up in real life.
Then there's also the knowledge of hurting people. The idea of boxing is to knock a person unconscious. To hurt them as much as possible so their body can no longer want to function. I have never broken a bone. I have never gotten a black eye. I have never been knocked unconscious by anything. It's a weird thing, but I want to experience both sides of it. I want to know what it feels like (pain and all) of getting a black eye. I want to know how it feels to break my nose, and also how it feels when my fist connects into another guy's nose and feel it shatter, move, and break under my knuckles. I want to feel how it feels to try as hard as I can, be physically spent, and be unable to fight back. I want to be able to feel how it is to pin someone down, besting them in something physical. I don't know what it is about those feelings, but a weird little part of my brain wants to know what it is like.
I'm 29 years old and have never been in a physical fight of any type and one of the things I want to do the most is to get in a fight even though I know that it's a horrible idea.
Jul 20, 2015
Part of the Group - My American Life
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/97/death-to-wacky
I have a weird set of hobbies and what I enjoy doing.
The real question is trying to understand what is wacky, and where I lie on that spectrum. The tricky part about being wacky, is that when you're on the inside, when you're part of your wacky group, you're not the wacky one, you're just part of the crowd.
I glowstick, I juggle, I do all sorts of weird, wacky, interesting, crazy things. The only problem with it, is that no matter what is going on, no matter where I stand, as long as I'm in the group of people that I'm with that are part of the community of wackiness, you don't see it, and that's where I'm at.
I'm only partially aware that what I do is wacky, and that's never a good sign. It's sort of like a crazy person realizing, after being institutionalized for a decade or two, that something about them isn't quite right. They only see the tip of the iceberg and they can even see that something isn't normal, but to everyone else they're the craziest person that they know who is hopped up on meds all the time. Knowing that you're wacky, and that there's something different about you isn't a good thing, because chances are if you're just starting to realize that what you're doing is weird and wacky, everyone else has already been in on that information for a long time and they have just kept the secret to themselves.
The tricky part as I'm starting to figure out my quirks and eccentricities, is trying to see if they're 'normal'. Is it normal to stay up late at night doing nothing more than writing about fake people and places? Is it normal to stay up just as late setting up a D&D campaign? Is it weird or wacky to run late nights painting small miniature armies. . . that you'll most likely never actually use in a real game? Where do you draw the line?
For those who are outside the spectrum of wacky, you can easily answer the questions. Of course you're weird if you spend 12 hours a day swimming. Of course you're wacky if you make jokes about how ATB is lacking ATP in most of their music. It's evident if you're outside of the groups of what is wacky, and what isn't, but once you're on the inside and surrounded by the people that love the same things that you love, that think the same way you think, things that were once wacky and weird, turn into things that are fun and exciting.
To everyone else, coming up with new aura spells and attributes for a D&D character that has been customized and stolen from a MOBA just for the off chance that my PC's run into him and are able to use the ability is wacky. For people in my D&D group, it's interesting and they like it .To people outside of the group, sitting up late at night staring at a screen and consistently typing because you just can't stop writing about a character because it's almost like trying to put down a good book and you keep telling yourself 'just one more page before I sleep' is weird. To writers, that's a Thursday.
The weirdest part about self identifying wacky is that when you're in groups you see what is normal. Even in wacky groups there is the 'normal' wacky, and then there's those people off to the side that are wacky, even by the wacky group's standards. You might enjoy juggling, but there's always that one person in the group that insists on juggling an audience member's shoe, a bowling ball, and a bowler hat at the same time. You might enjoy (insert hobby, wacky idea, or anything else here) but there's always that one person that goes one step further into the realm of wacky and it doesn't fit.
Fire spinning was the key for this in my life. Before I spun fire, I always said, "Only crazy people spin fire." It was a mantra. I said it all the time when people asked me if I had spun fire. No, of course I didn't spin fire, only weird, wacky, hippy people spin fire. I could never spin fire. That's not my crowd, that isn't normal, that isn't for me. But then I spun fire. I spun fire, and then spinning fire went from something weird and wacky to something totally normal, but the really crazy people were ones that tried to do wraps with open flames, or breathed fire, or even those people that were stupid enough to try to play with fire without proper precautions. No matter how deep I got into the group of fire performance, no matter where I was in it, there were always people that were/are wackier and crazier, so that means that I wasn't wacky.
I'm not wacky for doing miniture wargaming, because I don't air-brush, I don't play the game as hard as others, and I don't spend THAT much money on it. I don't have multiple armies that are unpainted, I only have one unpainted army. (A month ago, it was only weird, wacky people that had unpainted, unassembled armies just sitting around, that had multiple projects going at the same time, but then I got Mannfred and Nagash at the same time. . . then I invested in the army in Idaho, and that became normal and people that have multiple armies are the weird, wacky ones)
I'm not wacky for playing video games. At least I'm not one of those people that spend (insert number higher than what I play on a weekly basis) hours a week playing video games. As long as that number is higher than mine, it doesn't matter. For example, World of Warcraft players are wacky. They spend WAY too much time and effort on it. I would never do that on WoW. . . even though I did that on RO, but that's different. Totally different because on RO that was normal. I wasn't wacky. On RO, the wacky people were those that had MVP timers and woke up in the middle of the night to try to get a .03% chance of a monster drop from a boss that spawned every four to six hours.
When you're on the inside, wacky is anyone that is 'worse' than you, the really tricky thing is trying to see just where you have wacky in your own life because you have to figure out what is 'normal'. If you don't have what's 'normal' you can't figure out if you're wacky, or rather, just how wacky you might be. Let's be honest, we'll never know how wacky we are in our own lives, because no one is normal. No one is free from at least a little bit of wacky.
I have a weird set of hobbies and what I enjoy doing.
The real question is trying to understand what is wacky, and where I lie on that spectrum. The tricky part about being wacky, is that when you're on the inside, when you're part of your wacky group, you're not the wacky one, you're just part of the crowd.
I glowstick, I juggle, I do all sorts of weird, wacky, interesting, crazy things. The only problem with it, is that no matter what is going on, no matter where I stand, as long as I'm in the group of people that I'm with that are part of the community of wackiness, you don't see it, and that's where I'm at.
I'm only partially aware that what I do is wacky, and that's never a good sign. It's sort of like a crazy person realizing, after being institutionalized for a decade or two, that something about them isn't quite right. They only see the tip of the iceberg and they can even see that something isn't normal, but to everyone else they're the craziest person that they know who is hopped up on meds all the time. Knowing that you're wacky, and that there's something different about you isn't a good thing, because chances are if you're just starting to realize that what you're doing is weird and wacky, everyone else has already been in on that information for a long time and they have just kept the secret to themselves.
The tricky part as I'm starting to figure out my quirks and eccentricities, is trying to see if they're 'normal'. Is it normal to stay up late at night doing nothing more than writing about fake people and places? Is it normal to stay up just as late setting up a D&D campaign? Is it weird or wacky to run late nights painting small miniature armies. . . that you'll most likely never actually use in a real game? Where do you draw the line?
For those who are outside the spectrum of wacky, you can easily answer the questions. Of course you're weird if you spend 12 hours a day swimming. Of course you're wacky if you make jokes about how ATB is lacking ATP in most of their music. It's evident if you're outside of the groups of what is wacky, and what isn't, but once you're on the inside and surrounded by the people that love the same things that you love, that think the same way you think, things that were once wacky and weird, turn into things that are fun and exciting.
To everyone else, coming up with new aura spells and attributes for a D&D character that has been customized and stolen from a MOBA just for the off chance that my PC's run into him and are able to use the ability is wacky. For people in my D&D group, it's interesting and they like it .To people outside of the group, sitting up late at night staring at a screen and consistently typing because you just can't stop writing about a character because it's almost like trying to put down a good book and you keep telling yourself 'just one more page before I sleep' is weird. To writers, that's a Thursday.
The weirdest part about self identifying wacky is that when you're in groups you see what is normal. Even in wacky groups there is the 'normal' wacky, and then there's those people off to the side that are wacky, even by the wacky group's standards. You might enjoy juggling, but there's always that one person in the group that insists on juggling an audience member's shoe, a bowling ball, and a bowler hat at the same time. You might enjoy (insert hobby, wacky idea, or anything else here) but there's always that one person that goes one step further into the realm of wacky and it doesn't fit.
Fire spinning was the key for this in my life. Before I spun fire, I always said, "Only crazy people spin fire." It was a mantra. I said it all the time when people asked me if I had spun fire. No, of course I didn't spin fire, only weird, wacky, hippy people spin fire. I could never spin fire. That's not my crowd, that isn't normal, that isn't for me. But then I spun fire. I spun fire, and then spinning fire went from something weird and wacky to something totally normal, but the really crazy people were ones that tried to do wraps with open flames, or breathed fire, or even those people that were stupid enough to try to play with fire without proper precautions. No matter how deep I got into the group of fire performance, no matter where I was in it, there were always people that were/are wackier and crazier, so that means that I wasn't wacky.
I'm not wacky for doing miniture wargaming, because I don't air-brush, I don't play the game as hard as others, and I don't spend THAT much money on it. I don't have multiple armies that are unpainted, I only have one unpainted army. (A month ago, it was only weird, wacky people that had unpainted, unassembled armies just sitting around, that had multiple projects going at the same time, but then I got Mannfred and Nagash at the same time. . . then I invested in the army in Idaho, and that became normal and people that have multiple armies are the weird, wacky ones)
I'm not wacky for playing video games. At least I'm not one of those people that spend (insert number higher than what I play on a weekly basis) hours a week playing video games. As long as that number is higher than mine, it doesn't matter. For example, World of Warcraft players are wacky. They spend WAY too much time and effort on it. I would never do that on WoW. . . even though I did that on RO, but that's different. Totally different because on RO that was normal. I wasn't wacky. On RO, the wacky people were those that had MVP timers and woke up in the middle of the night to try to get a .03% chance of a monster drop from a boss that spawned every four to six hours.
When you're on the inside, wacky is anyone that is 'worse' than you, the really tricky thing is trying to see just where you have wacky in your own life because you have to figure out what is 'normal'. If you don't have what's 'normal' you can't figure out if you're wacky, or rather, just how wacky you might be. Let's be honest, we'll never know how wacky we are in our own lives, because no one is normal. No one is free from at least a little bit of wacky.
Those Crazy Mormons - My American Life
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/96/pinned-by-history
It's always the crazy ones.
I hate the media some days. As much as I enjoy the church, and enjoy what there is out there about us, I hate how it always shows up being the outlandish ones, or crazies out there, that are sometimes the loudest 'voices' to being Mormon.
The first guy is a noted con man. Everything he did prior to being baptized is bad. His life is in shambles, and then he talks about being baptized and trying to right the wrongs that had happened, and yet he's still swearing, being crazy, and trying to deceive people. As much as he tries to say that he's Mormon and a member of the church, he still manages to get himself thrown into prison and associated with the communism, lying, McCarthyism, and all sorts of chaos.
Just once, I would like the fact that a person is a member of the church come up as a side thought. Just like when you talk about other people of other religions, that you talk about the person first, and their religion second, I would really like that to happen more often. More often than not, the main press that we get is because the crazies are the loudest. The people that are on the fringe, that aren't even full privilaged, active members of the church, always seem to be the loudest. Luckily things have been changing recently, but really, it frustrates me that being a member only gets brought up when people are doing crazy things.
Be a member while doing normal things - it never gets brought up.
Even if you're doing beyond average things - it never gets brought up.
It's not until you're doing something bonkers, and the media wants to just show how crazy that one thing is, that they bring up that you're a member of the church. It's not until a person starts being really outlandish, and saying crazy things like they are the founder of long list of firsts, without any evidence, and sounding like they should be wearing a tin-foil hat, that the media brings up that they are also a Mormon. A person living their life effecting others for the better while raising a family with three kids and a dog in the suburbs - not a single mention of their religion. A person who built their own house in the middle of no where, avoiding society, trying to pay penance for errors they had made earlier in their life - instantly we are told that they're a member because that is just one more step on the crazy train to show how bonkers they are.
I know that I should be focusing on trying to capture the idea of being stuck in a historical moment and being in the middle of it, but I don't know anything about that. I've never been in the middle of some grand historical event, and even if I have (or am) I certainly don't know it right now, so I'm picking out this rant from my life. Because of that lack of real connection to the topic, I'm going to try to push out the next subject (hopefully on topic) as fast as possible.
It's always the crazy ones.
I hate the media some days. As much as I enjoy the church, and enjoy what there is out there about us, I hate how it always shows up being the outlandish ones, or crazies out there, that are sometimes the loudest 'voices' to being Mormon.
The first guy is a noted con man. Everything he did prior to being baptized is bad. His life is in shambles, and then he talks about being baptized and trying to right the wrongs that had happened, and yet he's still swearing, being crazy, and trying to deceive people. As much as he tries to say that he's Mormon and a member of the church, he still manages to get himself thrown into prison and associated with the communism, lying, McCarthyism, and all sorts of chaos.
Just once, I would like the fact that a person is a member of the church come up as a side thought. Just like when you talk about other people of other religions, that you talk about the person first, and their religion second, I would really like that to happen more often. More often than not, the main press that we get is because the crazies are the loudest. The people that are on the fringe, that aren't even full privilaged, active members of the church, always seem to be the loudest. Luckily things have been changing recently, but really, it frustrates me that being a member only gets brought up when people are doing crazy things.
Be a member while doing normal things - it never gets brought up.
Even if you're doing beyond average things - it never gets brought up.
It's not until you're doing something bonkers, and the media wants to just show how crazy that one thing is, that they bring up that you're a member of the church. It's not until a person starts being really outlandish, and saying crazy things like they are the founder of long list of firsts, without any evidence, and sounding like they should be wearing a tin-foil hat, that the media brings up that they are also a Mormon. A person living their life effecting others for the better while raising a family with three kids and a dog in the suburbs - not a single mention of their religion. A person who built their own house in the middle of no where, avoiding society, trying to pay penance for errors they had made earlier in their life - instantly we are told that they're a member because that is just one more step on the crazy train to show how bonkers they are.
I know that I should be focusing on trying to capture the idea of being stuck in a historical moment and being in the middle of it, but I don't know anything about that. I've never been in the middle of some grand historical event, and even if I have (or am) I certainly don't know it right now, so I'm picking out this rant from my life. Because of that lack of real connection to the topic, I'm going to try to push out the next subject (hopefully on topic) as fast as possible.
Jul 18, 2015
Mannfred Von Carstein
I lied, it's not him. It's his mount.
This is where I'm at right now with working on Manny, and he's looking pretty good. The chest armor is obviously missing a lot of details, and there's two different skull colors right now in the body (they're hopefully going to all get updated to the lighter color of ivory tonight with that weird orange/brown color hiding behind it and poking out in some places.
They're not the best pictures, but this is what a few nights (weeks) of work gets you when you're bored and working with Walmart paints and cheap brushes from Jo Ann's.
The idea, if you haven't heard me rant about the art design on this before, is that the bottom section of him is being summoned. Just like the spirits, his tail isn't all there. As you go up the tail/body, the body is coming more into existence. You can't quite see the details that I've thrown onto the spirit hosts on the bottom (they just have really white highlights that I'm proud of, but they blur out with the low quality of the camera), but luckily you also can't see some of the sloppy painting that I've done on the skulls so it all evens out and you're at least getting an idea of what it is that I'm creating.
It's not Mannfred the Mortarch quite yet, but his mount is getting there.
This is where I'm at right now with working on Manny, and he's looking pretty good. The chest armor is obviously missing a lot of details, and there's two different skull colors right now in the body (they're hopefully going to all get updated to the lighter color of ivory tonight with that weird orange/brown color hiding behind it and poking out in some places.
They're not the best pictures, but this is what a few nights (weeks) of work gets you when you're bored and working with Walmart paints and cheap brushes from Jo Ann's.
It's not Mannfred the Mortarch quite yet, but his mount is getting there.
Battery Life
Apparently, thanks to the greatness of the move and loosing things in the move, there is no more battery in our camera. I was going to give you pictures and give an update on how Mannfred is doing (I think I'm really starting to get what in the world I'm supposed to be doing with him, I'm thinking I'm going to do one more patch of highlights and layers, and then wash it all back down a bit).
The general gist of it, is that just short of what people are doing at the super professional level (I'm looking at you GW painters that are the key people paining for the company) I'm thinking that I have a better paint job than some/most of the people out there in internet land. Given, I'm thinking that I might just be a bit self involved, and thinking that I'm better than what I actually am, but at the bare minimum, I'm really starting to like what I have going for me right now.
The only bad part. . . I can't give pictures up on the blog because I don't have a camera that has battery strength. It's either wait for Alicia to hunt down the charger, or figure out how to take pictures using my laptop built in camera. . . which actually shouldn't be that hard. . . yup, that's the new goal.
Edit- Yup, just figured out how to take pictures with my laptop's internal camera. You'll see how Mannfred is doing by the end of the night.
The general gist of it, is that just short of what people are doing at the super professional level (I'm looking at you GW painters that are the key people paining for the company) I'm thinking that I have a better paint job than some/most of the people out there in internet land. Given, I'm thinking that I might just be a bit self involved, and thinking that I'm better than what I actually am, but at the bare minimum, I'm really starting to like what I have going for me right now.
The only bad part. . . I can't give pictures up on the blog because I don't have a camera that has battery strength. It's either wait for Alicia to hunt down the charger, or figure out how to take pictures using my laptop built in camera. . . which actually shouldn't be that hard. . . yup, that's the new goal.
Edit- Yup, just figured out how to take pictures with my laptop's internal camera. You'll see how Mannfred is doing by the end of the night.
Jul 13, 2015
The Right One - My American Life
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/95/monogamy
This is a tricky one when you add it onto the fact of the MAL that I just wrote a while ago about never having 'that moment' with Alicia. Now, although I have never had that instantaneously falling into love with my wife, there is the fact that I know that she's my person. It took some time, it took some trial and errors (mainly on my part) but it's to the point that she's my person.
The really weird part about this is that Alicia even admits that she knows that we're supposed to be together. There are just some times when we fit. We work together, we just click, or whatever it is, that we realize that we are the pieces of the puzzle that fit together. The weird part about this, is that even though she knows this, even though she's said that to me, she occasionally says something along the lines that she really wishes that I would have dated other women, kissed other women, or just in general showed any interest in anyone else so that I could know just how good we have it.
Let's make things clear, now that we're married and together, there's not a chance in the world that she wants me to test the scene, see who is out there, or anything else like that. She only thinks back to where we've been and things get interesting because she gets upset that it was so easy for me to find my person.
There were two very different paths that got us to where we are at right now in our relationship. Alicia dated guys. She had different boyfriends, and she's had boyfriends since she was a teenager. I even set her up with one of my friends and they were boyfriend and girlfriend for a while (he still has drama about the break up, but that's a different story that I think I've already talked about in this series). She dated. She had failed relationships, decent relationships, slightly abusive relationships, even relationships that ended in dead air and apathy towards one another. She has had relationships other than the one that she chose to be with forever, but then there's me.
The first person I kissed - I married.
The first person I said "I love you" to - I married.
The first person I held hands with in a romantic boyfriend/girlfriend sort of way - I married.
My first serious girlfriend, my first girlfriend, my first cuddle, my first spooning, my first make out session, my first everything, has happened with my wife.
I did not date. I hung out with friends, I did things together with people I knew, but dating wasn't exactly in my vocabulary. I never really dated, I didn't like the idea of asking out most of the girls that surrounded me because (especially at BYU singles ward) they were all super crazy/desperate/fake people that I couldn't stand being around for a few minutes, so why would I want to date them? The girls were on such a wedding hunt that I didn't want to deal with them. They wouldn't be real, they wouldn't do anything that I thought was interesting, and they wouldn't put up with me being me. I'm not the typical Mormon guy. I don't want to become a dentist, I don't want to become a lawyer, and I don't want to be the major breadwinner for my family. Sure that'd be nice, but really, I just want to write and enjoy my job. I'm not trying to make for a piratical family, I'm not thinking that my wife should stay at home and raise our six kids, and I don't want in any way to deal with the stupidity that comes out of some girls mouths because it's just stupid drama.
I never wanted to date because there was no one that I wanted to date.
Then things happened, and I got my best friend that I could spend hours with hours with, not having to be fake to be near me and things just sort of fell in place.I didn't want to be with anyone else, because I knew that I could be super nerdy with and around her, and even if she didn't get it, she'd still love me for it. I could do what I wanted, and I'd be her person. I've never thought of going outside of this relationship that I'm in, because I know that I'm with the right one for me. I'm with my person, there's no reason for me to be anything but magnanimous, no matter how annoyed, or frustrated that person makes me, she's still my person.
This is a tricky one when you add it onto the fact of the MAL that I just wrote a while ago about never having 'that moment' with Alicia. Now, although I have never had that instantaneously falling into love with my wife, there is the fact that I know that she's my person. It took some time, it took some trial and errors (mainly on my part) but it's to the point that she's my person.
The really weird part about this is that Alicia even admits that she knows that we're supposed to be together. There are just some times when we fit. We work together, we just click, or whatever it is, that we realize that we are the pieces of the puzzle that fit together. The weird part about this, is that even though she knows this, even though she's said that to me, she occasionally says something along the lines that she really wishes that I would have dated other women, kissed other women, or just in general showed any interest in anyone else so that I could know just how good we have it.
Let's make things clear, now that we're married and together, there's not a chance in the world that she wants me to test the scene, see who is out there, or anything else like that. She only thinks back to where we've been and things get interesting because she gets upset that it was so easy for me to find my person.
There were two very different paths that got us to where we are at right now in our relationship. Alicia dated guys. She had different boyfriends, and she's had boyfriends since she was a teenager. I even set her up with one of my friends and they were boyfriend and girlfriend for a while (he still has drama about the break up, but that's a different story that I think I've already talked about in this series). She dated. She had failed relationships, decent relationships, slightly abusive relationships, even relationships that ended in dead air and apathy towards one another. She has had relationships other than the one that she chose to be with forever, but then there's me.
The first person I kissed - I married.
The first person I said "I love you" to - I married.
The first person I held hands with in a romantic boyfriend/girlfriend sort of way - I married.
My first serious girlfriend, my first girlfriend, my first cuddle, my first spooning, my first make out session, my first everything, has happened with my wife.
I did not date. I hung out with friends, I did things together with people I knew, but dating wasn't exactly in my vocabulary. I never really dated, I didn't like the idea of asking out most of the girls that surrounded me because (especially at BYU singles ward) they were all super crazy/desperate/fake people that I couldn't stand being around for a few minutes, so why would I want to date them? The girls were on such a wedding hunt that I didn't want to deal with them. They wouldn't be real, they wouldn't do anything that I thought was interesting, and they wouldn't put up with me being me. I'm not the typical Mormon guy. I don't want to become a dentist, I don't want to become a lawyer, and I don't want to be the major breadwinner for my family. Sure that'd be nice, but really, I just want to write and enjoy my job. I'm not trying to make for a piratical family, I'm not thinking that my wife should stay at home and raise our six kids, and I don't want in any way to deal with the stupidity that comes out of some girls mouths because it's just stupid drama.
I never wanted to date because there was no one that I wanted to date.
Then things happened, and I got my best friend that I could spend hours with hours with, not having to be fake to be near me and things just sort of fell in place.I didn't want to be with anyone else, because I knew that I could be super nerdy with and around her, and even if she didn't get it, she'd still love me for it. I could do what I wanted, and I'd be her person. I've never thought of going outside of this relationship that I'm in, because I know that I'm with the right one for me. I'm with my person, there's no reason for me to be anything but magnanimous, no matter how annoyed, or frustrated that person makes me, she's still my person.
The Count of Vampire Counts
I ranked everything up last night, made sure that there wasn't too many broken bits (only one missing zombie arm, and one black knight head decapitation) and even removed two pieces (poorly painted necromancer on mount that had fallen apart, and a vampire that was poorly painted and was a metal figure that had a broken sword). Other than that, the only other thing I'm going to have to fix is Mannfred falling off of his base because he's big fat and heavy as a metal piece and is balanced back on only one leg of a horse, so he was precarious to start out with, but I just have to super glue/hot glue/duct tape/do whatever it takes to force him into his base.
That leaves the following to be painted.
21 Grave Guard
50 Ghouls
20 Wolves
25 Skeletons
10 Hexwraiths
13 Zombies
8 Black Knights
1 Wright King
1 Mannfred (see above)
1 Heinrich
1 Krell
1 Corpse Cart (with a second one needing to be created with the extra bitz that I have in my pile of junk as talked about last post)
2 Necromancers
1 Wraith
1 Vampire
[PICTURE PENDING BECAUSE I'M AT WORK AND CAN'T TAKE A PICTURE WHILE AT WORK OF AN ARMY THAT IS AT MY HOUSE, APPARENTLY NOW THAT I'M HOME I CAN'T FIND THE CAMERA, SO PICTURES WILL ALWAYS BE PENDING UNTIL I CAN FIND THAT STUPID CAMERA]
But before I touch any of that I am forcing myself to finish the Mortarch. I'm not going to be one of those people that leave things half done or anything like that. I'm going to finish what I started, and wreck my way through that with the best quality that I can. All I know for now, is that with how slow it takes me to get a model up to the point that I am happy with them, the excessive amount of models that I just purchased will keep me busy for a LONG while.
The count though goes a bit like this - with everything together, my current army plus the new ones that I picked up, it goes a bit like this.
[PICTURE PENDING BECAUSE I'M AT WORK AND CAN'T TAKE A PICTURE WHILE AT WORK OF AN ARMY THAT IS AT MY HOUSE, APPARENTLY NOW THAT I'M HOME I CAN'T FIND THE CAMERA, SO PICTURES WILL ALWAYS BE PENDING UNTIL I CAN FIND THAT STUPID CAMERA]
Core Army -
133 Zombies
55 Skeletons
50 Ghouls
20 Dire Wolves
Special Army -
Corpse Cart
31 Grave Guard
8 Black Knight
10 Hexwraith
Rare Army -
Black Coach
Then on top of that I have a mix of heroes and lords that are just floating around. I have a serious imballance of lords/heroes to my core warriors now days. From here on out until further notice, what I really need are more core/special/rare units and I need to stop getting lords/heroes.
In the Lord/Hero section we have a slaughtering of the following -
Zacharias
Mannfred the Mortarch
Mannfred
Heinrich
Krell
Wraith
Wright King
Female Vampire
Necromancer (on foot) - x2
Mounted Necromancer - x3
Male Vampire
Banshee
Whew, that's a big list. So, from here on out, I'm not buying any more figures until I'm almost done painting Nagash. I'm totally okay for accepting donations, but from now until Nagash, no more buying minis, because there should be no reason that I should ever have to buy one. The only figure that I think I would like to add to the mix of what I have before, is a Mortis Engine, but no way am I touching that, until Nagash is finished.
As a side note - with Mannfred (the one that I'm painting) holy balls is primer a good thing. He's my first mini to ever try to hit with primer before I started painting, and it makes a difference. You'd think that it wouldn't, but trust me, it's worth the investment. The only thing that I've learned is to NOT go with a gray primer because you can not tell where you've sprayed it. I thought that I covered him pretty well, but then when I got into some of the nooks and crannies, I could tell the very distinct lines between where I did prime and where I didn't. Save yourself some headache and just get a white/black/brown/anything besides gray primer because then you'll be able to see where it hits and where it doesn't hit.
Also, now that I'm finally done with putting Mannfred together (for the most part, he's not glued onto his mount yet, I was smart enough to not do that step before they were both painted) - plastic glue is also a new favorite of mine. Holy balls is that something that I love. Compared to super glue where I glued together my fingers all the time, plastic glue is the way to go. It is worth the investment. For anyone who is trying to save some money, invest in the plastic glue, and ditch that super glue that is gluing your fingers together. It's worth the investment for your sanity and also it creates smoother joints where you are gluing things together.
21 Grave Guard
50 Ghouls
20 Wolves
25 Skeletons
10 Hexwraiths
13 Zombies
8 Black Knights
1 Wright King
1 Mannfred (see above)
1 Heinrich
1 Krell
1 Corpse Cart (with a second one needing to be created with the extra bitz that I have in my pile of junk as talked about last post)
2 Necromancers
1 Wraith
1 Vampire
[PICTURE PENDING BECAUSE I'M AT WORK AND CAN'T TAKE A PICTURE WHILE AT WORK OF AN ARMY THAT IS AT MY HOUSE, APPARENTLY NOW THAT I'M HOME I CAN'T FIND THE CAMERA, SO PICTURES WILL ALWAYS BE PENDING UNTIL I CAN FIND THAT STUPID CAMERA]
But before I touch any of that I am forcing myself to finish the Mortarch. I'm not going to be one of those people that leave things half done or anything like that. I'm going to finish what I started, and wreck my way through that with the best quality that I can. All I know for now, is that with how slow it takes me to get a model up to the point that I am happy with them, the excessive amount of models that I just purchased will keep me busy for a LONG while.
The count though goes a bit like this - with everything together, my current army plus the new ones that I picked up, it goes a bit like this.
[PICTURE PENDING BECAUSE I'M AT WORK AND CAN'T TAKE A PICTURE WHILE AT WORK OF AN ARMY THAT IS AT MY HOUSE, APPARENTLY NOW THAT I'M HOME I CAN'T FIND THE CAMERA, SO PICTURES WILL ALWAYS BE PENDING UNTIL I CAN FIND THAT STUPID CAMERA]
Core Army -
133 Zombies
55 Skeletons
50 Ghouls
20 Dire Wolves
Special Army -
Corpse Cart
31 Grave Guard
8 Black Knight
10 Hexwraith
Rare Army -
Black Coach
Then on top of that I have a mix of heroes and lords that are just floating around. I have a serious imballance of lords/heroes to my core warriors now days. From here on out until further notice, what I really need are more core/special/rare units and I need to stop getting lords/heroes.
In the Lord/Hero section we have a slaughtering of the following -
Zacharias
Mannfred the Mortarch
Mannfred
Heinrich
Krell
Wraith
Wright King
Female Vampire
Necromancer (on foot) - x2
Mounted Necromancer - x3
Male Vampire
Banshee
Whew, that's a big list. So, from here on out, I'm not buying any more figures until I'm almost done painting Nagash. I'm totally okay for accepting donations, but from now until Nagash, no more buying minis, because there should be no reason that I should ever have to buy one. The only figure that I think I would like to add to the mix of what I have before, is a Mortis Engine, but no way am I touching that, until Nagash is finished.
As a side note - with Mannfred (the one that I'm painting) holy balls is primer a good thing. He's my first mini to ever try to hit with primer before I started painting, and it makes a difference. You'd think that it wouldn't, but trust me, it's worth the investment. The only thing that I've learned is to NOT go with a gray primer because you can not tell where you've sprayed it. I thought that I covered him pretty well, but then when I got into some of the nooks and crannies, I could tell the very distinct lines between where I did prime and where I didn't. Save yourself some headache and just get a white/black/brown/anything besides gray primer because then you'll be able to see where it hits and where it doesn't hit.
Also, now that I'm finally done with putting Mannfred together (for the most part, he's not glued onto his mount yet, I was smart enough to not do that step before they were both painted) - plastic glue is also a new favorite of mine. Holy balls is that something that I love. Compared to super glue where I glued together my fingers all the time, plastic glue is the way to go. It is worth the investment. For anyone who is trying to save some money, invest in the plastic glue, and ditch that super glue that is gluing your fingers together. It's worth the investment for your sanity and also it creates smoother joints where you are gluing things together.
Jul 12, 2015
Corpse Cart
Time to get this straight. This is a corpse cart.
It's big, it's ugly, it's a cart that a necromancer has strapped together of undead goodies, and is pulled officially by some undead, but who knows what it's actually getting pulled by because it's just a mess of blood, guts, and death.
After my little adventure up to Idaho to pick up my army, I have one. I looked at it, thought it looked cool, but then realized that with a bit of work, and a bit of gluing of random things together, I THINK I can make one from scratch.
You see, when you buy certain models and certain boxes, you get lots of bits, because you're supposed to give your model the right weapons for what you want them to do. You get the options for big swords, or spears, or a single sword and shield. That means that they have to give you enough pieces to let you build your army to look how its supposed to, which means that once you get done you have your army, but at the same time you have a bunch of pieces of random arms, spears, shields, heads, legs, or whatever other spare chunks floating around with no bodies to call home.
Now, I'm new to this whole thing, but I'm looking at all of the bits that I have lying around, and I'm looking at the messed up 'bodies' that I have from my other armies that have not been taken care of and are falling apart, and I'm thinking with a healthy amount of glue and creativity, that I should be able to make one hell of a corpse cart that looks sort of like the original, but instead of those bony claws for the cart, it'll be spears and halves of arms that are floating around. Instead of zombies, it's going to be full of Britonians or High Elves. It's a rough plan, but I think I should be able to customize myself a new, one of a kind, nasty hodgepodge of a corpse cart, and if I'm really lucky, I might find a way to throw something weird in it, like using the Britonian Enchantress. . . as the necromancer riding the bodies.
Or whatever else I have sitting around in my shelves that are unpainted and unforgotten.
It's big, it's ugly, it's a cart that a necromancer has strapped together of undead goodies, and is pulled officially by some undead, but who knows what it's actually getting pulled by because it's just a mess of blood, guts, and death.
After my little adventure up to Idaho to pick up my army, I have one. I looked at it, thought it looked cool, but then realized that with a bit of work, and a bit of gluing of random things together, I THINK I can make one from scratch.
You see, when you buy certain models and certain boxes, you get lots of bits, because you're supposed to give your model the right weapons for what you want them to do. You get the options for big swords, or spears, or a single sword and shield. That means that they have to give you enough pieces to let you build your army to look how its supposed to, which means that once you get done you have your army, but at the same time you have a bunch of pieces of random arms, spears, shields, heads, legs, or whatever other spare chunks floating around with no bodies to call home.
Jul 10, 2015
Never A Short Guide - My American Life
I have a problem whenever I teach, or write guides - my guides are never simple.
I like writing too much. I try to condense things down, and I try to keep things to the core elements that need to be there, but at the same time I think that everything is important so I include everything and start writing guides that last for far too long, or include things that should never be brought up.
For example, at work, I was supposed to hold a training. It was supposed to go fast, it was supposed to be a guide that was for the new hires to help them understand the system that we use and how to do some simple things within it. Two hours later, they were given a complete overview of everything, information was jammed into their head, and I was almost out of breath because I forgot to breath because I was so excited to go over the entire process with them.
Even in my class this happened. My students were screwing up grammar and sentence structure so I did a one day class for an hour and a half that jammed into their head everything that they needed to know about the basics of English grammar if they wanted to pass my class. It wasn't pretty, in fact I'm pretty sure that after the first half hour, they stopped paying attention to what I was rambling on about, and they just gave up trying to learn because I was going on about subject and verbs and how they work together in sentences, and how you should never, ever, ever have more than two independent clauses in a single sentence.
To me, both of these times, I was creating a simple walk through. It was a guide on how to do a job better. It was a simple tutorial about what I wanted them to do, but then I got my hands on it, and I started to write, and write, and write.
The worst is when I try to write anything for something that I really love. Nerdy things that no one cares about, get the best guides from me that I can create. I'd normally just mention it and move on, but nope, this time I'm sharing it. I'm going to make sure that you see just how awesome my guides are. Here's a guide that I gave people when I started my most recent D&D campaign. It's six pages of how to create a character and understand the game, it's bad, but awesome all at the same time. I put in pictures here just to break things up a bit, but the original didn't have any pictures in it.
Beginner’s Guide To Starting D&D
This is for everyone from those that have never ever played D&D, and those that are looking for a quick refresher. Hopefully this will help you figure out what in the world you’re doing, what a character sheet even means, and how to read it.
General rule of thumb from here until you decide to ever stop playing D&D (which you won’t because it’s so awesome you’ll always be a D&D player now! *evil laugh*) if you don’t know what’s going on or what something does- consult the books! There are a lot of rules about weird situations that might never happen. You don’t need to remember all of the crazy rules that you’re never going to use (for example the grappling (wrestling) rules, especially when dealing with opponents with multiple arms and/or legs). You only need to know the basics, and that’s what we’re going to cover. If anything that you don’t know comes up, ask a question or look it up in a book. There is zero shame in saying that you don’t know something, in fact knowing my luck with the players we have, you’re going to hear me say that a whole lot and then running to my books which are well loved and falling apart to find the answer.
The first thing that we have to go over is what your character can be. Right now, your character can be male/female, and then one of seven different races, and finally have one of eleven different classes (their job). Your job is to figure out what you want to be BEFORE we start rolling a single dice.
The gender of your character honestly doesn’t play much of a role. The only thing that it does play a role in is how other players around the table interact with you, as well as maybe some of the characters inside the game. Other than that, the gender of your character doesn’t play much of a role.
Race does play a role in who your character is. Like I said above, you have seven options. If you want to know all of the details if I don’t cover them enough, open up your Players Handbook to chapter two and you can get way more information there.
Your options are
Human, Elf, Half Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Halfling, Half Orc.
A short bit about each one so you know what might work with what you’re planning.
Humans- you know what those are. If not, look in the mirror. They’re not exceptionally great at one job or another, but they’re not bad at any of them either. They can be whatever you want, and it can work.
Elf- Not Santa’s version of elves. These ones are tall, lanky, pointy ears and live for quite a long time. These are Lord of the Ring elves, they’re fragile and can’t take a hit that well, but they’re great at being quick and agile, and have a good inclination towards magic and being just a bit snobby because they come with an in built superiority complex.
Half elf- half human. They are the emo kid of the D&D world. They’re not exactly as awesome as an elf, but they’re not as diverse and fluid as a human. They don’t fit into either world and are an outcast in both of them. They keep the human’s ability to be good at whatever they want, but they’re still a little squishy.
Dwarf- they do not have to have a Scottish accent. They’re big, they’re burly, and they live in the mountains. They have beards that go on for days (and sometimes the girls do too). They’re built for being tough and hearty. The only down side to them is that they’re not friendly to magic or magic users.
Gnome- they’re not your lawn version, but they are small, smart and tricky. They enjoy pranks, but at the same time they are super inventive because of how tricky and sly they try to be. It sucks that they’re short and small, but they make up for it in being fast and smart on their feet. Luckily thanks to their constant pranks, they’re not as wimpy as you’d think.
Halfling- If you’re a Lord of the Rings fan, these are the hobbits you’re looking for. They’re itty-bitty, but fast and sly. Their favorite role to play is that of a thief, their size and speed make for a deadly combination, and they can get in and out of places a lot faster than you’d typically need. You’re not going to see them trying to go toe to toe with a half-orc in a wrestling match, but if given some shadows and some time to position a halfling would ninja the pants right off of an unsuspecting target.
Half-orc, judge a book by a cover on these ones. They’re big, they’ve got muscles, and they look like they’ve taken one too many hits to the head. They can fight and survive, but they are stupid and naturally illiterate. They don’t care much for anything that can’t be used as a smashing device, but once they find a good smasher, they’ll use it to smash everything in their way until there’s nothing more to smash.
So there we have it, all of the races that you can be. Now before you go and start thinking about which one you want to be, you have to think about your class as well. They work together and really start to make your character unique, so we’ll go over those next. If you have any questions at all, and want more information about each class, open up your players handbook to chapter three. At the end of each of these I put in a quick thing about what is the best stat, I’ll cover that in the next section so don’t worry about it until then. Your options for classes are-
Barbarian- These guys are brutal. They’re good fighters, have a huge health pool so they can take a lot of hits and still be just fine, and they even get the ability to rage. It’s the closest you’re going to get to hulking out in D&D. They get a bunch of abilities that make them stronger, angrier and tougher to kill whenever they rage. They’re dumb as a pile of rocks, but just about as difficult to destroy. You’re going to want to put high rolls in STR and CON.
Bard- They are the jack of all trades, and then some. If you want a character that can sort of pick locks, be a party support, fight if needed, and also cast a fireball, this is your class. They’re not great at any one specific thing, but they can do just about whatever you want at a semi-proficient level. The only down side to this is that they’re not great at anything. You might be a great fighter, until an actual fighter shows up and mops the floor with you. High rolls can be put in whatever you want.
Cleric- these are your religious nuts. Depending on who they worship (yes there are multiple deities) your clerics do a bunch of different things. The basic thing you need to know about them is that they are semi-decent fighters, but they have a lot of magic they can use. The magic can range from healing to buffing to supporting to even some damage. They’re not going to be great magic damage dealers, but they are your typical support character. Every adventuring party ever enjoys a cleric, even in groups full of half-orcs and dwarves (your anti-magician types) are known to carry around a cleric with them to get their help. Typically you’re going to want to put high rolls in WIS because that’s going to make your magic more powerful.
Druid- Tree huggers gone horribly wrong. They love nature. Everything about them is about nature. They’re about as good as clerics when it comes to fighting, but they have a limited list of weapons they think nature want them to use and they can’t use metal armor at all. The good news is that they can get pets, lots of pets. They can have pet bears, eagles, tigers, elephants, and anything else you’d think is an animal. If you ever wanted a zoo to work with, a druid is how you get to have your own zoo. Then they also have magic from nature as well, and a good chunk of magic too. When it comes down to the ‘major’ magic users the list goes wizards, sorcerers, druids and clerics. High roll needs to go towards WIS for spells.
Fighter- these are exactly what you would expect, anyone who fights. This is NOT limited to sword and shield fighters. Being a fighter can mean that you’re a long distance sniper, a specialist with a specific weapon, a light weight armor expert, a standing tank that wears 200 pounds of metal armor and can tank anything, or anything else that your mind can think of. This class is VERY flexible but no matter what you do with it, makes your character a great fighter. No spells and magic, but you do get the best attacks and best damage if you go with this class. High rolls towards STR for melee weapon users, DEX for ranged weapons, and/or CON for tanky fighters.
Monk- these are your martial arts masters. They don’t use weapons, they don’t wear armor, and their fists can do more damage than swords as they get higher and higher levels. They are fast, mobile, and dangerous, but they’re stuck with punches and kicks. They can do some pretty crazy things (for more information read their entry in the book) but at the same time they’re stuck in what they can do and there isn’t too much difference between one monk and the next. High rolls towards STR and DEX with a close runner up being WIS.
Paladin- your holy avengers. This is your knight in shining armor riding in on his horse with a squire by his side. These guys will always save the princess, never steal, and never hurt anyone who didn’t fit their code. They hit just as hard as fighters, but not nearly as flexible, but make up for it with a tiny bit of magic that they get to use, that’s a hair like a cleric. If you took a cleric and taught him how to really fight at the cost of learning most of their magic, you’d get a paladin. Much like a fighter- high rolls to STR and CON with WIS of at least 14 if you want to use spells.
Ranger- where a paladin is a fighter/cleric mix, rangers are fighter/druid mixes. You get to hit hard, have a smaller zoo with you, and the added benefit is that you get to have enemies that you automatically get bonuses against. You decide who/what you hate the most, and then any time that you’re fighting against those things, you get really strong bonuses. Another great thing about rangers is that they learn how to fight with two weapons, one in each hand. You’re not the best at defence if you do something like this, but you can really crank out damage if you hit with each swing of your weapons AND you’re fighting against one of your enemies. High rolls to DEX and then STR, WIS of at least 14 if you want to use spells.
Rogue- sneaky thieves. There are a lot of different options when building a rogue, but the general option is this- don’t get caught doing whatever it is that you’re doing. I’ve seen rouges build for devastating critical attacks when people don’t see them coming, being able to assassinate with fairly good accuracy, but I’ve also seen rogues that you can’t tie or lock down and can get into and out of anything that you put them into. If you want to be sneaky, this is the way to go, what you do with that sneakiness is up to you. High rolls typically to DEX, but high rolls to INT, WIS, or even STR can be useful as well.
Sorcerer/Wizard- These are two different classes, but they’re really close to the same thing so I’m going to cover both of them together. These are your squishy magic users. They can’t take a hit worth anything, but they can do some crazy stuff with magic. If you want your fireballs and lightning bolts, this is the option for you. The difference between sorcerers and wizards is this- sorcerers don’t know every single spell, but the spells that they do know they are able to use more often. Wizards know just about every single spell available, but they use them less often. Magic in D&D is in spells per day, so if you run out of spells, you can’t do anything, but at the same time, if you don’t know the spell you can’t use it in the first place. It’s your call to figure out which one you would like- a broader knowledge of spells but less usage, or more usage for less knowledge. For a sorcerer- high rolls to CHA for magic. For Wizards- high rolls to INT for magic.
With all of that information now you need to figure out what you’re going to be. You know your options, and so now it’s time to decide. There are a bunch of different ‘quizzes’ online that try to help you figure out which class or role fits you the best
but ultimately you can play whatever you want. I’ve seen people that typically play squishy magic users absolutely kill it while playing a barbarian, so play whatever you are comfortable with and is interesting for you. The game is generally balanced where any character is at least sort of equal to characters of the same level. There are some that are built for specific activities so there are ‘better’ classes than other, but that’s like saying taking math classes at school are ‘better’ than English classes. They’re just different, play whatever you like, and if anyone ever tries to talk about how much more amazing their character is than yours, just realize that they’re comparing apples to oranges and don’t know what they’re talking about.
Now that you’ve decided what you want to be, time to make that happen. David put in a link to a google doc version of a character sheet. You can use that, or you can find a paper version. Personally I like using pencil and making a hard copy, but it’s your call with that. At first glance, there’s a lot of junk on this paper and it can be overwhelming. Luckily, most of it is just a bunch of places to put little numbers to add together, for the most part it’s pretty clean cut and straight forward.
Let’s start with the basic statistics of your character. There are six stats (and their abbreviations). Strength (STR)- how strong you are, Dexterity (DEX)- how nimble you are, Constitution (CON)- how tough you are, Intelligence (INT)- how book smart you are, Wisdom (WIS)- how street smart you are, and Charisma (CHA)- how good looking and charming you are.
Everything else on this page comes back to these six numbers. EVERYTHING. With that in mind, they’re sort of important. How do you make these numbers? You get four six sided dice (4d6) and you roll them and take away the lowest number. Those remaining three numbers you add together and write down. You keep doing that over and over and over again. Now that you have a list of numbers, you have to figure out which 6 you want to use, so you need to know what is good and what isn’t.
For stats a score of 10 is average. If you have a score of 10-11, you’re right in the middle of the group with that stat. For example a STR of 10 means that you can lift about 100 lbs over your head. It’s not bad, but it’s not amazing. A score of 12-13 makes you better than average, 14-15 is pretty good, 16-17 is well above anywhere you’d think as being normal, 18+ is amazing. (A character with 18 STR can easily lift 300 lbs over their head, can lift 600 lbs off of the ground, and can drag behind them up to 1,500 lbs). With that in mind, because this is a game and we want our characters to do better than normal, the set up that we have for making stats is typically going to make your character a lot better than your average Joe. If you want you can play an average character, just realize that you’re going to be playing with other players that kept rolling until they got at least one 18 nearby other high numbers.
Once you find a group of six numbers in a row that look nice, you then have to figure out where you’re going to put the high rolls and where the low rolls are going to go. These scores change, and get better as you play the game so don’t be depressed if you have a low roll because it can get better. For this you’re going to want to go back and look at the classes above and see where you should put your high rolls. Remember that if you’re doing this on paper to ALWAYS WRITE IN PENCIL. Nothing is going to stay the same on your character sheet, every time you level the entire thing starts to shift which means you’re going to want to use pencil so you can erase and become stronger.
That gives us a base score, and from here on out we’re just going to copy and paste things that come directly from either the book or those numbers right there. There’s only one more thing that we’ll have to roll dice for in making your character and that is hit points, but we’ll get to that when we get there.
First, now that you have your base scores you have to change them depending on the race you picked.
Human- no changes!
Dwarf- +2 CON, -2 CHA
Elf- +2 Dex, -2 CON
Gnome- +2 CON, -2 STR
Half-elf- no changes!
Half-orc- +2 STR, -2 INT, -2 CHA
Halfling- +2 Dex, -2 STR
Again, this changes your BASE score, do not put this in your modifier box. If you rolled a 15 for STR but you’re a halfling, that means that you’ve now got a STR of 13. Now that you have your base scores, modified by your race, we can put in the modifiers. Hopefully you don’t have a number lower than 8 on your stats, if you do, reroll and make sure you don’t get a stat that low. You’ll have a hard time as a new player if you have to deal with really negative bonuses.
Base Score - Modifier
8-9 - -1
10-11 - 0
12-13 - +1
14-15 - +2
16-17 - +3
18-19 - +4
20-21 - +5
With those numbers we’re ready to get down to the more complicated things and do some simple math! Unfortunately a lot of the rest of this depends on what class you play and starts to get more and more specialized with each class taking different paths and making you do different things, so for now this is where we’re stopping without me talking to you over Skype or something else.
When you do talk to me (or someone that knows that they’re doing) these are the only things left that you’ll have to do-
- Skills/ranks in class skills.
- Feats
- Leveling up to level 6 (or 7)
- Gear (you have 13,000 gold to go on a shopping spree so you can gear and prep yourself)
Now that you’ve got the idea of what you’re going to play as, and you have at least the basic scores down, the only difficult part left is trying to decide if you want a sword that is surrounded in fire, or lightning.
Jul 8, 2015
That First Sight Still Hasn't Happened - My American Life
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/93/valentines-day-98
Alicia talks about when she first saw me in a suit as the moment that she knew, the moment that she saw me and had to take a double take because things got weird, and she realized that she was attracted to me. She pin points that moment in our teenage years as the moment that she knew. It wasn't love, not yet at least, but it was the moment when she knew that something was different, where there something off the normal path and she recognized it.
Even when I came home from Sweden, she can pin point the moment when we were together and she realized that there was something there and was hard out of luck because she knew that there was something there between us. She saw me. She felt something. She knew. For her, she has had that moment where love hits not just once, but twice all thanks to that break in my life where I lived in a different country for two years of my life.
I have never experienced that moment.
There are moments in my life that I have cemented in my memory with her that I loved, and are those perfect moments that I retreat to no matter what is happening to us in our lives now, but there was never a great big moment when love hit me over the head blind siding me with emotions. There are times when I've felt love, there's times when I'm content, or times when I feel perfect comfort near her, and there are even times in my mind when we've been together that I just get that happy moment when I realize that things are great just because. There was never a single point in time while we were dating, or even before we were dating, that I can point to and say, "That moment right there is when it happened. That moment is when I realized that I was in love with my wife."
The weird part about this is that I don't want it. I'm happy with how things are. I don't know what I would do if I had that moment. With everything in my life, things happened gradually. It doesn't just slam into my head and become, it slowly progressed into my personality. Loving Alicia started out slowly, it didn't start as a huge burning fire, it started as a small little spark and slowly grew into this thing that it is now. I really wouldn't know what else to do if things were different.
Alicia talks about when she first saw me in a suit as the moment that she knew, the moment that she saw me and had to take a double take because things got weird, and she realized that she was attracted to me. She pin points that moment in our teenage years as the moment that she knew. It wasn't love, not yet at least, but it was the moment when she knew that something was different, where there something off the normal path and she recognized it.
Even when I came home from Sweden, she can pin point the moment when we were together and she realized that there was something there and was hard out of luck because she knew that there was something there between us. She saw me. She felt something. She knew. For her, she has had that moment where love hits not just once, but twice all thanks to that break in my life where I lived in a different country for two years of my life.
I have never experienced that moment.
There are moments in my life that I have cemented in my memory with her that I loved, and are those perfect moments that I retreat to no matter what is happening to us in our lives now, but there was never a great big moment when love hit me over the head blind siding me with emotions. There are times when I've felt love, there's times when I'm content, or times when I feel perfect comfort near her, and there are even times in my mind when we've been together that I just get that happy moment when I realize that things are great just because. There was never a single point in time while we were dating, or even before we were dating, that I can point to and say, "That moment right there is when it happened. That moment is when I realized that I was in love with my wife."
The weird part about this is that I don't want it. I'm happy with how things are. I don't know what I would do if I had that moment. With everything in my life, things happened gradually. It doesn't just slam into my head and become, it slowly progressed into my personality. Loving Alicia started out slowly, it didn't start as a huge burning fire, it started as a small little spark and slowly grew into this thing that it is now. I really wouldn't know what else to do if things were different.
Jul 6, 2015
Color Scheme
I've been stuck around this phase of Manfred for a while now- (this is not mine, I stole this from google images, but I'm at this exact stage in my own construction)
And the biggest problem that I'm having is that I'm seeing this giant piece that is going to bring a LOT of attention to it, and I'm trying to make sure that I don't do some easy paint job. I want it to look detailed, and given the attention it deserves because there are far too many paint jobs out there that I look at and see people covering entire areas with airbrush and only doing minor detail work over the airbrushing. It's not to say that they're 'bad' paint jobs, they're at a level that I can't do right now, but for me, they're just not what I've been wanting to do.
Today on the train I finally figured out what I want to do with everything (or at least his mount which is the biggest chunk of the entire thing). It runs the very real risk of looking REALLY bad, but I'm going to enjoy it.
Unlike some people's paint jobs, I'm not going to do his mount as a skeleton. It's a good look, just not something that I want. I like his point looking armored or different colored, and all of the paint jobs that I've seen that don't use the bone structure for his mount are MUCH more up my ally of what I want to see on my own table.
But at the same point I really like the idea of the spirits being summoned with it and the color palate blend that is required to create the look that they're being summoned. That means that I'm going to do something that is most likely a bit more than what I can, but at least I have a plan.
The plan is looking a bit something like this (transcribed from my journal where I write everything down so I don't forget). I like blue so it's a little blue on blue with more blue heavy, but hey, it's what I've got.
Spirit Hosts -
White base with a light blue wash and highlights. Working from the summoning point up from a light blue to a darker blue wash in the face.
Daggers - I will try to make them look glowing with reverse highlighting, making the body of it dark and highlighting out to the edges to where it's white. Again another attempt to blend, but in a SUPER small area that might just get washed over with silver so that I don't have to worry about the stupidity of trying that blend in that area. The main reason I want to give it a shot is for his weapon, practice on them so I can pull it off on the rider.
Mount -
Skulls in the mount - dirty skulls with an orange/yellow wash making the cracks and pits try to look like they're glowing. I'm going to make them dirty first, and then try to add in the color, but depending on how that color turns out first, I might just scrap the entire glow project and be happy with a pack of dirty, nasty, worn skulls. Either way, I know that I'm not going for the clean skulls that some people use, I want them to be worn, dirty, and a bit on the ugly side.
Skeleton of mount - tip of tail is pure white working up to head which is armor black. Transitioning between the two up the body in gradients where at around the point where the rider sits, being somewhere around blue to dark blue. This way the mount will (hopefully) look like it's being summoned with the tail still being brought into existence while the head and torso is more stable and real.
Claws and legs - Follow same structure as skeleton, blend white to whatever gradient the body is up to at that point. For the back legs that will mean a white to a blue or even a lighter blue body, where the front legs will travel a further distance up the scale and do a full white to dark blue/black color change.
Cages, ribcage, or anything else that's not skeleton - Whatever color the spine is is what color they are. That means that in the body of the rider it's going to be coming into existence which means that the tail end of the rib cage will be a blue and the head end of the rib cage will almost be black, then as you travel up the neck that cage that is full of skulls will almost be entirely black.
Of course, highlights, washes, and all of that stuff will be used to layer this thing to hell, but that's the general idea. Now I just have to figure out how long I want to stretch out that blend, or if it's just going to be on the tail and assume that the body is all in existance. I'm more in favor for a long blend, but we'll see what happens.
Either way, I finally figured it out, which makes me really want to finish up the last touches of assembly and prime it so I can put on the first layer of paint tonight.
And the biggest problem that I'm having is that I'm seeing this giant piece that is going to bring a LOT of attention to it, and I'm trying to make sure that I don't do some easy paint job. I want it to look detailed, and given the attention it deserves because there are far too many paint jobs out there that I look at and see people covering entire areas with airbrush and only doing minor detail work over the airbrushing. It's not to say that they're 'bad' paint jobs, they're at a level that I can't do right now, but for me, they're just not what I've been wanting to do.
Today on the train I finally figured out what I want to do with everything (or at least his mount which is the biggest chunk of the entire thing). It runs the very real risk of looking REALLY bad, but I'm going to enjoy it.
Unlike some people's paint jobs, I'm not going to do his mount as a skeleton. It's a good look, just not something that I want. I like his point looking armored or different colored, and all of the paint jobs that I've seen that don't use the bone structure for his mount are MUCH more up my ally of what I want to see on my own table.
But at the same point I really like the idea of the spirits being summoned with it and the color palate blend that is required to create the look that they're being summoned. That means that I'm going to do something that is most likely a bit more than what I can, but at least I have a plan.
The plan is looking a bit something like this (transcribed from my journal where I write everything down so I don't forget). I like blue so it's a little blue on blue with more blue heavy, but hey, it's what I've got.
Spirit Hosts -
White base with a light blue wash and highlights. Working from the summoning point up from a light blue to a darker blue wash in the face.
Daggers - I will try to make them look glowing with reverse highlighting, making the body of it dark and highlighting out to the edges to where it's white. Again another attempt to blend, but in a SUPER small area that might just get washed over with silver so that I don't have to worry about the stupidity of trying that blend in that area. The main reason I want to give it a shot is for his weapon, practice on them so I can pull it off on the rider.
Mount -
Skulls in the mount - dirty skulls with an orange/yellow wash making the cracks and pits try to look like they're glowing. I'm going to make them dirty first, and then try to add in the color, but depending on how that color turns out first, I might just scrap the entire glow project and be happy with a pack of dirty, nasty, worn skulls. Either way, I know that I'm not going for the clean skulls that some people use, I want them to be worn, dirty, and a bit on the ugly side.
Skeleton of mount - tip of tail is pure white working up to head which is armor black. Transitioning between the two up the body in gradients where at around the point where the rider sits, being somewhere around blue to dark blue. This way the mount will (hopefully) look like it's being summoned with the tail still being brought into existence while the head and torso is more stable and real.
Claws and legs - Follow same structure as skeleton, blend white to whatever gradient the body is up to at that point. For the back legs that will mean a white to a blue or even a lighter blue body, where the front legs will travel a further distance up the scale and do a full white to dark blue/black color change.
Cages, ribcage, or anything else that's not skeleton - Whatever color the spine is is what color they are. That means that in the body of the rider it's going to be coming into existence which means that the tail end of the rib cage will be a blue and the head end of the rib cage will almost be black, then as you travel up the neck that cage that is full of skulls will almost be entirely black.
Of course, highlights, washes, and all of that stuff will be used to layer this thing to hell, but that's the general idea. Now I just have to figure out how long I want to stretch out that blend, or if it's just going to be on the tail and assume that the body is all in existance. I'm more in favor for a long blend, but we'll see what happens.
Either way, I finally figured it out, which makes me really want to finish up the last touches of assembly and prime it so I can put on the first layer of paint tonight.
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