Distractions

As mentioned below, I am prone to distraction. However I feel that this was a little unfair. I set out last night to start painting four more fire warriors and do a whole "describe each step for the blog" thing. As I was shutting down my computer, a ritual that means the end of the work day, my wife informed me that we were headed to Spokane Valley to look at a dresser she found on Craig's List for the baby. I was immediately wary, as the last piece of furniture I was made to look at from Craig's List was less than exemplary. As a matter of fact, upon viewing the picture of the chair in the listing, my initial reaction was, "Ugh, that just looks like it smells like an animal." I was not wrong.

Of the three exists from I-90 that lead into the Spokane Valley we had to take the one under construction, so traffic was backed up on to the freeway, awesome! We got the location of the dresser finally, but was not to her liking so after much hemming and hawing we left dresserless. None too soon as far as I was concerned. It was like one hundred degrees in the house and this naked little boy was sitting on the couch transfixed by a television program that shouted non sequiturs before assaulting you with bright colors. A "quick stop at Lenscrafters" some how morphed into an hour in the mall close by, which is 60 minutes more than I would choose to spend in any mall. Finally I arrived home, two hours later than expected to discover that I had a package.

Well it was pretty much all she wrote, the fire warriors would know another day's neglect. It is not as bad as it sounds, they have become accustom to it.

I have been stoked on the Planetary Empires release since I first saw coverage on it. I cracked open my very own copy and checked out the cool tiles, buildings, etc. I then read the five pages of rules which were simple yet fun, leaving a lot of room for encouraged "house rules". Then in one gallant last effort to stay on task I decided to at least prime the four fire warriors I am doing next. Somehow, as Dupicolor Hot Rod Black spray shot forth in a pungent but effective fan I noticed that two of my tiles had made it to my priming lid as well. Damn my eyes!

From Stuff I Have Painted

From Stuff I Have Painted

The tiles went really quickly as far as the painting goes, but they actually ended up taking far longer then they should have had because of dry time. Going forward I will do a couple things differently:

First off, I will just do more tiles at the same time so that all the tiles have a chance to dry. Or, if I know I am going to be doing a small number of tiles I will co-opt my wife's hair dryer.

Second, as shown above, I did one side green and the other kinda like a desert. Future tiles will be one side more green than desert, and the other more desert than green, but both sides will have elements of each other. That way, no matter which side I use, it could all fit into the same map.

The canny eyed reader may notice that I did not do the borders of the tiles yet yet. That was because, as of last night, I didn't know how I was gonna do them. I decided this morning at some point in my 40 min commute that I will probably just do a bright color instead of a natural tone to identify the tiles as my own. That way, maybe someday, we can make a giant map with multiple sets and I will still know which tiles are mine.

On another topic entirely, my friends gave me some awesome feedback on my fire warrior. The reoccurring thing being that the tonalities between the green of the armor and the gray of the garment are too similar so there is not a lot to make him "pop". I am 100% certain they are right, but, as of now I am not going to change a thing. I am kicking around the idea of envisioning the army as a whole and applying the concepts normally used on one model to the scale of the army. That is a shit way to articulate what I mean, but basically I will choose units in the army to "pop" instead of spots on the single model. My "pop" will probably be my large Kroot squad, and I will try to accomplish contrast with the disruption patterns on my vehicles. Really, as I am playing a lot of transports, the Devilfish chassis should be the thing seen most if you across the table from me.

I got a buddy headed to Boulder, CO to take over a Pita Pit there that is having a going away party tonight. If you are ever in the neighborhood shoot in there real quick and give him some business. The food is legit, and you get a lot of it. I probably won't get a lot done tonight with the fire warriors as all signs point to me getting home late, and probably drunk. The last time I painted drunk the out come was less than stellar. I am not sure if Terrainguy from the DaMommas Boyz has photo evidence or simply the model itself, but either way, the aftermath was an evil from old times.