5 More Minis with Not Chan Li Jr

04.21.2019

A little random painting got finished! This batch of minis was "random Chronoscape just to relax and show some progress." I hereby mark that as a success! This batch of 5 non-related minis included:

• Stubbs, Biker Thug. When going through the Chronoscape catalog, there was a "biker" selection, which I bet can be tracked to being produced about the time Sons of Anarchy started to get popular.
• Space Hero. Why Space Hero isn't named more obviously after someone from Firefly - Capt Tight Pants would be perfect - I don't know.
• Chan Li, Martial Arts Master. This is the 2nd Chan Li I've painted. I hate to admit I did a better job painting the first one.
• Phat Clark, Gang Boss. Maybe this one was designed for Shadowrun or a similar sci-fi dystopian future game? Another one that's been sitting in the package for so long I have no idea why I got it in the first place.
• Dr Dread, Super Villain. NOT Dr Doom. Dr Doom never entered my head until I showed Daniel a pic where I started as "robot with a yellow tunic" and he said "oh, I thought that was Dr Doom." Duh, that makes much more sense!

As there was no reason to paint these other that "fun" and getting over the disappointment of how the last batch of minis turned out, I was in no hurry to get these painted nor had any formula or pattern of how they should look in mind. Once again I returned to my best working method of using washes as much as I could. I also thinned out the paint, a lot. Instead of using water, I remember I had thinner medium. Thinner medium is a horrible name, and I had to have 2 people explain to me as to why to use it. Thinning with water, as I've done for years, works but it's inconsistent in how it thins the paint. Thinning medium thins evenly. All paint has thinner in it. Whenever I dole out some paint and there's unmixed, usually milky/murky fluid - that's thinning medium! The color is called pigment by those that know more than me, and when you put medium with pigment and shake vigorously, you get paint. That was the explanation that stuck with me.

As I had years ago painted Chan Li, who I affectionately call Chop Saki because I've never been convicted of being politically correct, I thought I would reverse the clothing color scheme and see how my skills had improved on the new Chan Li. New Chan Li would not be called Chop Saki Jr as that's too obvious. No, he is instead Juan Tahn Soop. Chop Saki had a good skip shade - just enough of a yellow tint to look Asian. Juan - Juan ended up with a sunburn. The Pale Skin base was too white. I tried some shades of brown and orange to get away from that, but it did not go the right direction. Sunburned and dirty Juan it is, in the end.

Dr Dread, as I mentioned above, I didn't see as Dr Doom but just another robot. He started out with a yellow tunic as I was using some bits of yellow wash on other figures and the yellow wash works well on clothing and hair. After it was pointed out to me that this was really Dr Doom, I wondered how well a green wash would cover up the yellow. I've got 4 Citadel green washes/shades, and the brightest (Coleia Greenshade) covered the yellow just right. I think there may actually be some yellow highlighting that comes through in a couple spots that looks natural.

There's more shifting of numbers than what actually got done on the progress chart. Some of the "to paint" Walking Dead packs only had 2 minis instead of 3. More importantly, when calculating the percentage of what's been done, the total to calculate against should not just be what's left to paint, but also include what's been painted. You know, the TOTAL! Kind of a downer that I hadn't made almost the 50% progress that had been shown, but that always felt overly optimistic. Now I know why! Obviously, I can't do math.

After all the ups and downs of this spreadsheet since trying to keep track of my progress, I think I really am at 33% of what I want to get done completed (13% overall).

Already primed and ready to see what progress I can make over the next week or two are 9 Walking Dead minis. Now you can easily figure out how I came to find that some WD packs had 2 minis in them instead of the 3 I was used to.

Permalink dreams gaming miniatures reaper chronoscape

Poot

03.19.2010

Thursday morning I awoke from not just a dream, but a series of dreams. In fact, I kept going back to sleep to find out what would happen next. Much like my dream of the one-eyed monster, this doesn't make a lick of sense.

• Dream 1: I am intrepid 1940's newspaper reporter "Poot" Smith. It is not 1940, it is present day. My catchphrase is "Adirondack". Somehow, that's a dream.
• Dream 2: I am wearing pajama bottoms, and pajama bottoms only. I am outside the Forrest Gump house in Alabama and decide to go jogging. I start jogging down a road which I know to be an old airstrip. In front of me are 2 women jogging, and I don't want to bother them but they're going too slow. I pass them and notice they seem to be talking about me in disgust. I realize I've got jogging plumbers crack, so I hike up my pajama bottoms.
• Dream 3: I'm reaching the end of the runway (yes, my dreams really do link together like this) where it forms a t-intersection with a dirt road, the dirt of which has been recently churned by a large tracked vehicle as the tracks are still readily visible. I turn left. I still have only pajama bottoms on and am worried about my feet. Luckily, after a curve and over a hill, Mom and Terry's house can be seen. There are teenagers milling about, because this is the house that's used for gang initiations. Not necessarily bad gangs, even the glee club would use it. The initiation is always to go in and bust up the bathroom on the 2nd floor (there's 3 floors), because everybody is amazed at how the bathroom is cleaned up when they come back the next time. They don't know anybody lives here.
• Dream 4: I'm inside the house, starting at the top floor and working my way down. I pass someone going into the bathroom and say "for god's sake don't fuck it up too bad" and continue on. I see a woman that I know who has a little girl (maybe 9?). I tell her that this is where my mom lives and asks if she wants to see my room. We go into my room, which is where all the extra pillows and blankets are thrown when they're not used. Also in this room is an older woman (just think Wal Mart greeter) in a recliner, hooked up to a dialysis machine. In front of her is a tv tray with a tv on it. I go to her and ask if she needs anything, maybe some water? She says she doesn't need anything and reaches forward to turn the tv stand a little. I ask again if she's sure she doesn't need any water.

After that I couldn't force myself back to sleep anymore. Now to go over the fun stuff!

Dream 1: "Poot" Smith? Of everything above, the part that's stuck in my head the most has been 1940's newspaper reporter "Poot" Smith. I've got nothing there.

Dream 2: I don't know the last time I wore pajamas, much less pajama bottoms. I'm pretty sure the last time I managed a jog was 1985. Plumbers crack happens more often than I want to admit.

Dream 3: The house was really one some friends of Mom and Dad had in St Florian. From what I remember it was hex-sided and at least 3 stories, out in the woods near either a lake or a river. I would have been around 4th grade age, so I don't remember much else except it was a neat looking house.

Dream 4: The woman hooked up to the dialysis machine was very reminiscent of one of the ladies I worked with at Humana in the Pharmacy.

None of this explains where the parts of my dream came from, just that all the parts are wierd. Like me, I guess.

So, until next time, "Adirondack!"

Permalink dreams

Virtual Dreamscapes Revisited

11.30.2006

I've spoken before about a city that's managed to stay fairly persistent in my dreams for quite a few years now. There are certain areas that pop up consistently - a long hill leading to a bridge to a peninsula that I want to think is Guntersville. An amalgam of buildings that are, in my dream, Birmingham-Southern College. These buildings are connected underground by an catacomb of air ducts and crawl spaces that somehow only I have ever discovered, plus I can fit! There is a residential section along a steep hill which causes car engines to whine and almost stall before reaching the top. There is the home of my first job, Humana Hospital, with the elevator supported by heavy gauge chain that starts to snap every time I get on the elevator.

It's been a while since I had a dream take place in my little persistent dream world - which thanks to Jer I've taken to calling New Vertiform City. It's been nice to not dream of that place. For many years I was stuck getting on the elevator at the hospital and having to jump off at the last minute before the bottom of the elevator snapped loose from the chains holding it. I would also be stuck in the catacombs of the buildings at BSC trying to get to a part of the library that was inaccessible through any other path. Who would design a library that way? It may have been stress that would induce a dream here, because the dreams were always stressful. Maybe that means the past few years have been less stressful?

Last night I had a dream, a vivid dream. In my dream, I was in front of the house of a couple of friends who had just gotten a new 2-seater convertible sports car - it's not a car I would recognize now that I'm awake, so just imagine a generic 2 seater convertible. The friends aren't anyone I would recognize, other than a husband and wife (that I don't really know). I saw the car and said "Wow, a convertible! I love convertibles! You've got to let me drive!" At this point the 3 of us comfortably got into the front 2 seats of the 2-seater convertible sports car. I backed out of the driveway, and it started raining.

Through the magic of dreamtime, the top was instantly back up on the car. Since it was a 2-seater, and there were 3 of us in the car, I found that my upper torso and head were sticking out of the drivers side window. But that was ok, I could still drive. And evidently we were all still comfortable. The rain had become an intermittent sprinkle, so I continued to drive down the street.

At the end of the street there was a stop sign, and the street intersected with another street. As I stopped I saw 2 women in summer dresses crossing the street, but both were holding their arms across their bodies as if they were naked and trying to cover everything up. While stopped at the stop sign I noticed that both women were drenched, probably from the rain that had made me put the top up on the car. I bet they're covering themselves because the rain has made their dresses cling to them like a wet t-shirt contest! Being me, I hung a left at the stop sign and started following the 2 women.

We had nary travelled a block before I was reminded that were weren't supposed to be going down this street, we were supposed to turn left. In my dream, this made perfect sense,so I turned left. I suddenly found myself faced with a steep hill in a residential section. I remembered this place! It was the residential section on the hill! Evidently I knew where we were going. My dream then skipped to us pulling in front of a house in a row at the top of the hill - I guess once I knew where we were I could skip the part on how to get there. We walked into a house that had a huge, garage type opening for a front door smack dab in the middle of the front of the house. as we went in, 2 skateboarders came out, doing tricks, flipping their skateboards up and riding along the wall. As we went back toward the back of the house, I saw the people huddled about (which is all I remember now) and thought "we don't need to be here". At this point I turned a corner and saw a room with a large fire door bolted shut, with a "do not enter" sign attached. I looked at the door and suddenly realized that this was on of the doors into the catacombs and passageways of BSC that led to the library. I knew where I was, plus how to get somewhere else! I never knew these 2 places were connected.

With this realization I woke up. I woke up and laughed. Somehow I've managed to connect the geography of my dreams. I really hope this is something that sane people do.

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Winter Storm 2006

02.06.2006

I awoke early this morning, due in part to a freaky dream involving newborns and a Rubbermaid container with 4 snakes in it, but the two had nothing to do with each other, and it's really a story best left for some other day. After an hour of not being able to go back to sleep, I finally turned on the tv to find that Morgan County was under a winter weather alert. I tuned in to our local "the sky is falling" weather experts, and saw that they were predicting a frosting of snow for the early daylight hours. I managed to fall back asleep soon thereafter and fitfully finished a couple hours of light dozing.

Upon awaking (for real) to the dulcet tones of the Tom Joyner Morning Show, I clicked on the tv to see what was going on outside. It sounds odd, but I keep my windows well covered so it's much easier to turn on the tv than to open a door or peek through a curtain. The local "sky is falling, etc." weather reporters had their "Winter Storm 2006" graphic up. And the top story: There was no snow.

I would bet that at least 350 days of the year, we get no snow. Today, it was the top story.

That had people out in the field in Decatur. There was a slight drizzle, but no snow. In fact, it was 40° in Decatur. But no snow. They went on for a good 4 or 5 minutes about how there was no snow.

I can see it now at the end of March when the temperature suddenly rockets up to 70°: Heatwave 2006.

Oh, the #2 story this morning: VP Dick Cheney was coming to Priceville for an invitation only fund raiser. A visit from Cheney beat out by "No Snow".

Permalink dreams rambling random

One Eyed Monster - The Dream...?

02.08.2005

One morning last week I woke myself up laughing. Evidently I managed to have a dream that I thought was hilarious. The details of the dream are enough to either make you agree or sign a petition to send me off to therapy.

The first thing in my dream was a monster. Not a normal monster, but only one I could invent. First, take one of the Pokemon red and white balls. In place of the button that opens the ball, put a blue eyeball. There we have the head of my monster: actual size. Next dress the monster in an oversized, turtleneck, ratty old sweater, where you can't actually see any arms, legs, or body. There you have my dream monster. The voice of the monster was being supplied by Ron Livingston, best known in the nerd world as Peter Gibbons in Office Space

In my dream, the monster was trying to escape my grasp as we were waiting in an office. It seems that someone in the office was trying to sell us on the idea of putting the monster in its own reality series. The monster kept yelling "No! No! Never!" but I would look down at it and say "But you have to be in it. You're the star! The show's called The One Eyed Monster!"

I should have woken up then, but no. The monster managed to escape to one of the bathroom stalls that lined one of the office walls (oh, like that even makes sense). I fought to get the door open, until the little bugger dashed out the bottom, went out an open window, and jumped on a bus that was passing by. I couldn't get through the window to give chase, so I stood there, arm raised against the window, yelling "but you are the one eyed monster-r-r-r-r!"

That's when the laughing started enough to wake me up.

Analyze it all you want, there's a field day of hidden meanings in there. Why was I holding the one eyed monster? Why did it get away (do I have no control?)? Where did it go? Why was there a line of bathroom stalls in an office? Can I kill my own brother (brother?... brother...?)?

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