It's been a little while since I mentioned anything about my walking regimen,
but I'm still going at it. I've switched from 5 times per week to 3 times per
week, but upped my distance per walk from 3.7 miles to 4.5-5. I've also slowed
my pace a little, due in part to not walking as much with Gina (as she tries to
get over a bout of plantar fasciitis) but a slower pace is also easier on my
knees. I tell myself the longer distance helps to make up for it.
I've also started walking in the morning instead of the evening. Starting a
walk at 6AM helps to beat the traffic, plus just moving around during the course
of the day seems to help keep me from feeling as stiff as when I walk and go to
bed soon thereafter.
I'm not sure how much of this is in my head and how much really makes a
difference, but I still feel better every day.
As I've been talking about painting
something other than Dust minis, I finally moved forward!
I did not move forward to any of the minis previously mentioned, instead I dug
out the War Rocket ships that
Jerry gave me for Christmas a year or three ago. Painting non-people is a
little different - more smooth surfaces, which I'm not quite as good at
painting, at least not yet. As such, the War Rocket ships are my tutorial and
learning squadron!
The first ship, well, the first ship didn't have a picture taken since I learned
a lot from a lot of little mistakes. First, red paint doesn't cover primer
worth crap (the above pictured ship was primed red to begin with). I also tried
varying my order of washes, highlighting, and painting (not a good idea with
light/bright colors). As such, the first ship is now sitting in a bath of
Simple Green to see if the paint can be stripped and the ship salvaged and re-
primed. This worked with a batch of Dust minis, so I'm holding out hope here as
well.
For the above ship, it was primed red - plain old Krylon Flat Red. After that I
added some gold (Vallejo) and painted anything window-looking a shade of what I
can only point at as baby-blue (another Vallejo paint). Just to see if there
was a difference in how metallic paints covered, I used a different brand
(Citadel) silver. To wrap it up I washed the ship in a black-ish wash (Citadel-
Nuln Oil) and went over everything with my usual gunmetal silver drybrush.
I missed a few spots of detail here and there, and there's an errant drop of
silver on the top of the hull. Overall, it looks about as good as I had hoped.
I'll pick out another ship later and try a similar color scheme and perhaps try
to pull out a few more details - the canopy is going to be a challenge to get
all the details and not overlap the paint.
Below is a sample of the final ship (above) versus a freshly primed ship with
the windows filled in. Before putting them side by side, I hadn't noticed just
how much darker the wash and drybrushing turned everything. It's not nearly as
comic-book-like as I originally imagined/feared.
Permalink
gaming miniatures hobbies
Job Search 2014 has been going on for a month now. I last had to search for a
job in 2006. It was the first time that I didn't have an "in"
somewhere and actually had to hunt down job opportunities all on my own. Things
have changed a little in 8 years. All the jobs are listed online (way back
when, some were only listed in the Classifieds section of the newspaper).
Luckily, job titles have gotten better so I can search for more than
"software developer".
LinkedIn seems to be the go-to source for recruiters. I've had a profile for
years but never really used it. A couple of weeks ago I filled out my work
history and started to connect with people I've worked with. Not
everyone I've worked with... I learned that lesson on Facebook. Since
updating my profile I've been contacted by 4 recruiters and replied to 2 of
them. For the 2 I didn't respond, I'm not desperate enough for a Nashville
commute just yet, and I didn't really qualify for the details of the other.
I'm not sure if making those LinkedIn connections will make a difference - does
number of connections affect whatever search parameters recruiters are putting
in? Hopefully people I haven't spoken to in over 5 years won't wonder why I'm
suddenly poking them on LinkedIn. I don't want to be a creepy Linker.
I've had 1 interview out of the 17+ resumes I've emailed out. Thus far I've
been primarily applying for PHP jobs (I like the PHP), but on paper I may look
overqualified for most of those jobs since they ask for ~5 years experience and
I've got 12 years of PHP & 19 years of programming experience. But I'm not too
dejected yet.
With that said, I still stay up until 2:00 in the morning at least once a week
scouring the job listings online because I can't sleep.
This past week should have been my 9-month post-op doctor visit, but I opted not
to go. The 9-month visit is the same as the 3-month visit. All the doctor does
is weigh you, shake our stomach to check for gall bladder stones, and in my case
say that I'm not losing weight fast enough (which as I've stated here before I
agree with, but as I'm still losing weight and have suffered ZERO
negative side effects I ain't a gonna worry 'bout it). I also had a job
interview to prep for, so that gave me enough of an excuse to skip the doctor.
At the 1-year post-op I have to get blood drawn and tested, so I'll plan on that
counting double to make up for missing this appointment.
Yesterday I finally hit the goal I've been going after for months. For the
first time in at least 18 years, my weight has dipped below 300.
Granted, it's only by 6/10 of a pound. I had yet to eat or drink anything for
the day. It doesn't matter, it counts!
Mentally, 299 seems like a bigger number to me than 300. 300 has 2 zeros, which
are nothing. 299 has 2 nines, which are big. It's silly how my brain works.
Now to keep myself under 300. The next goal is 291 - not that far away! 291
would make for a total of 150 lbs below my max from last February.
Last week I showed off my Red Yana
mini from Dust and mentioned how I finished it after deciding to take a break
from painting my Dust minis. When I primed my last batch of Dust, there were 2
other hero figures that were left to be painted. In the back of my mind, it
bothered me that I had 2 primed minis just sitting there, so before I moved on
to whatever the next batch of minis is going to be, I thought I would go ahead
and paint those two too.
The guy in the middle of the pic, pointing, is Nikolai. Thanks to a combination
of green wash and brown wash, the recesses and pinstripes on his uniform pop out
well. On the right is Yakov sporting a flame-thrower of some type. Yakov
didn't come through the painting process as well as I had hoped. He has lots of
curvy bits, especially the hoses. My brushwork didn't cover him as well as it
should have. If nothing else, Yakov has convinced me it's time to move on to
something else for a little while.
Next is either going to be the figures from Descent or the space ships from Firestorm
Armada.
Descent is painting people and monsters, so it's a continuation of the
techniques I've been picking up with the Dust painting. That means it's also
very similar. Firestorm Armada is small scale space ships, so mechanical
transports which I've yet to try and paint anything like. Totally dissimilar,
but there's going to be a learning curve with it.
I'm leaning toward the space ships today.
As always, correct spelling is optional in any blog entry. Keep in mind that any links more than a year old may not be active, especially the ones pointing back to Russellmania (I like to move things around!).
Tags have been added to posts back to 2005. There may be an occasional old blog that gets added to the tag list, but in reality what could be noteworthy from that far back?
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