Cyberpunk RED - Rockerboys

Cyberpunk RED miniatures from the Rockerboys faction. Tried to evoke lots of 80's Vaporwave and retro-future Miami Vice with the color choices. The Manager has some of the most effortlessly awesome eyes I've ever done, and the skin and hair on the Guitarist just glows. The assembly was kind of a pain being resin, and you might notice some mistakes if you look too closely as these are tiny tiny minis. But I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Hopefully, I get to paint more if they keep doing that system.

Manager

Guitarist

Keytarist

Knights of House Caro Mea - The Dark Hand

The Dark Hand, or Manus Tenebrae in High Gothic, is an ancient war machine that traveled the galaxy after The Overgrowth. Eager to reclaim their home world and the forges that wrought these old machines, the knightly house of Caro Mea has joined the Mechanicus expeditionary force. Its pilot keeps the restless machine spirit at the heart of the Dark Hand busy with forest-taming operations. And while the trees of Pholos IV are more hostile than most, recent skirmishes suggest it will be called upon to enter the fray against more heady foes.

After being assembled for 5 years, I finally got the courage to paint this lumbering mech of a Father's Day gift. The under-carriage was a straightforward Leadbelcher with Nuln Oil drybrushed to highlight, and the panels are where I spent most of my time. I'm particularly proud of the blue stripes that give the flat blocks of color subtle depth. In addition, this is my first attempt at decals in some time, and Micro-sol was a miracle-worker at keeping them from being shiny. I used a black Sakura Pigma 005 for writing the name on the chest scroll. The base was mostly an afterthought, and I hope the Necron that was tread underfoot makes a speedy recovery.

 

 

 

Details

  

 

 

Drip Cup for Cast Iron Juicers

Hamilton Beach manual citrus juicers have a handy drip cup that swings out when you put a cup under the juicer, and it swings back into place when you remove your juice. Without this, the dripping juice left in the metal funnel can get all over your bar top, counter, or cutting board. If you have a generic cast iron juicer that doesn't have an attached drip cup, what is an enterprising bartender to do?

Print this thing I added to Thingiverse, of course!

The mechanism uses a rubber band of the right tension to return the cup to its initial position. As you push the cup to the side, guides slide the cup out of the way. The strength of the rubber band should be tuned to be light enough to not push over your juice cup nestled between the loving cast-iron arms of the juicer. When you remove your freshly squeezed juice, the rubber band slides the drip cup back into place. Et voila!

You'll need a rubber band, a conical shot glass (the smaller the better), and an M3 set screw. You will also need a set of hex keys to disassemble the juicer base to get the Shaft sleeve on.

Enjoy your drip-free juicer! Here are some prototype and action shots:

Star Wars Kepi from CyberSeams.com

Ventured into hat making for a Star Wars costume made for my kid. I grabbed the Star Wars Imperial Officer Hat pattern from cyberseams.com. Janet's pattern was amazing! I loved the specific brand recommendations for interfacing, and I also liked that she used actual sewing terms with explanations where a noob like myself might fall down. All my questions were answered by googling when I got stuck.

We have abnormally large heads in this family, so I splashed out with enough material for two. Most of it was available from JoAnn's. My partner sews more than I do, and she helped me make sure I had all the seam allowances and backing correct before I started cutting.

The top and crown was where I struggled the most. It kept bunching up and puckering, and I couldn’t figure out a way to get it to stop. I just lived with it once I fixed the worst spots, and you can’t see it from 10 paces. Especially on black! After finishing the cap, I found that the instructions say to cut relief snips along the seam allowance of the top. Rookie mistake that I should have realized once the puckering started.  Better luck with round two!

Skitarii, Mashal, and Tech Priest Dominus

Just finished these 12 minis, all with a similar palette. I only paint right now, so they are probably not playable on the tabletop, lol.

A different Dominus is the mini that got me back into painting 5 years ago, so it was refreshing to take another crack at this mini after having learned so much! I have learned a ton about blending and layering since then. The robes are richer, the metals poppier, and I am much more precise.

The marshal was a little disappointing, honestly. I wanted so much more from this mini in terms of greeblies and detail. It ended up being a scaled-up squad leader with a scepter. Literally, their leaders are just taller? Maybe I'll take another crack at his robes and add some trim to liven up the back of the mini. Big sigh.

The squad is where I took all my chances. Again, I painted a squad of these guys about 4 years ago, so the second chance brought many opportunities for improvement. I loved the purple glow, but I still think I can improve my technique. Tips appreciated. I'm not sure I have the heart in me to do a third squad. Going to try some Sicarians and other Ad Mech units instead.

A bit anxious about what to do to make my Next units stand out but mesh with this scheme:

• ⁠Sicarians can basically echo the black jumpsuit with metallic bits, but I feel like going with that will lack some pop. Maybe leaning into the purple energy on their blades and finding accent pieces to pop with yellow and green?

• ⁠Pteraxi are the same conundrum, but a wing vein with a green on yellow pattern might be fun. I intend to do the flamer squad. I can really amp up the muzzle burn with purple hues rather than make them glow to match.

• ⁠Dunecrawler, ironstrider, and robots: I still haven’t done any armor. I don’t want green tanks. I need a good primary color. Was thinking a brown would pull in the base colors, but drab armor is not very 40k, but I’m planning a smooth ivory for my knights. That would tie all the big boys together visually. I’ll have to think on that.

Regardless, no more AdMech for a bit! After painting a big batch like this, I am going to take a break and paint some one-off RPG figs and smaller squads with more painting variety and skill-tests. A batch of Harlequins with their diamond tights and trailing streamers would do me well.

Bad iframe-resizer Attribute Effects

 I have a site that uses iframe-resizer.  After some code clean-up, every iframe on the app broke in seven different ways. Practically, this was the worst on pages that had infinite scroll or similar events triggered as the page moved. The resizer was triggering a scroll event which was triggering loading which was triggering more scrolling! To make matters worse, the scroll event handle was either non-existent or it was from jquery, and it was absolutely no help.

In the end, we had configured the attributes on the iframe tag incorrectly.  The clean-up had caused them all to be null when compiled into the app, so they never got rendered properly. This didn't show up as null in the final HTML, and there were no helpful errors to guide us. It took a long time to root out.

As you modify a system with iframe-resizer and everything goes to hell, make sure any changes to the iframe tag attributes or configuration is actually getting compiled down properly still. It can save a world of headache.

Selling Lego - Memories and Moving On

In May of 2019, I embarked on an emotional journey that would end with me saying goodbye to most of my Lego bricks.  

Moving across the country with a 26ft U-Haul afforded a lot of wiggle roomwhen deciding what to move, and I wasn't ready to part with my most sentimental items. I wasn't prepared for the emotional flood when a friend suggested I part ways with my childhood Lego block collection. They were milestones of my childhood: I could recall which ones I got when, and the time I spent assembling castles or space ships seemed like bastions of stability in the midst of family turmoil. I was an especially fastidious child, and I made sure I had all the instructions, and I even have a scrapbook of letters I sent to Lego of America looking to reclaim a few pieces that had gone missing. I was obsessed.

I discovered a Bricks and Minifigs in our local mall, and my ears perked up when they said they bought old sets. After 12 long years of waiting, I realized my son just wasn't into them, and Marie Kondo'ing the lot seemed more and more attractive than keeping them. The rules were the collection had to be unpolluted by inferior MegaBlocks and K'NEX. They also couldn't have damaged bricks that had fallen to teeth, sun, and other damage.  They would pay a premium for complete sets and would also buy in bulk. So I had my work cut out for me:

In the end, I organized by color to make the assembly and culling easier, and then I assembled all the sets I could muster.  Countless yard sale acquisitions and thrift store hauls meant I was swimming in Tyco and Megablox as well as a fair amount of discarded Happy Meal toys. Fifty liters of Lego dwindled to a few hard-to-categorize pieces as we pawed and pushed. I made one last ditch effort to see if my son showed enough interest to keep them, but alas.  He was more interested in the sale and conversion to cash and other fun activities. As we assembled and found pieces had gone missing. In almost all cases, an hour in the bins at the resale store lead me to the right pieces. We were whole again!

The culling and assembly took us the better part of a month.  As much as it cleared space, it also helped me process the loss. I used my saved copies or hunted up online versions of the instructions for each set. I resolved early on to keep a few of the most sentimental ones instead of trying to save everything. One of my earliest memories was of Lunar Lander 6881 which I won at a raffle during a two-night stay in Child Haven after my brother and I were taken from my mom by NV-DCFS. I kept my coolest acquisitions, the big ship from the Ice Planet set (I never got the base), and the medium Imperial Navy ship for which I still had the sails.  And I made an effort to return the classic Blacktron ship to my brother after replacing the most missing pieces of any in my collection. I felt whole, even as I was loading the completed sets into the car for the last time.

 

The sale was quick, cash was in hand (I don't even remember the number now, but it was over $200), and we were back on the road. Several weeks later, I visited the store again to find my own sets back on the shelves ready to start their second life. The big sets will probably sit on a shelf until I have grandkids (if I even remember to pull them out). But I kept a set of my favorite minifigs just for show. They reside on my wall in a shadowbox.  They deserve the rest. 

Tools for Painting Miniatures

I post a lot about painting, but choosing and collecting the tools behind the craft can be just as interesting.  Here is a run-down of the tools that make my miniatures look less dull. For those looking for help building miniatures, I'll do a separate post about assembly tools and decals.

Brushes

Brushes are the vehicle for all your artistic endeavor with miniatures.  They can also be really expensive! Most guides focus on what to do (and not do) with your brushes, so let me focus on how to buy them.

For starting painters, don't worry about having all the right brushes, and especially don't buy the expensive ones! Take your starter kit brushes, maybe a bigger one for dry brushing, and learn on them. Learn to draw the brush away from the point instead of stubbing it into corners. Learn to load up the brush less than halfway. Above all, wash it thoroughly and prevent paint from drying in the ferrule. You will screw it up eventually, and your beloved companion will split, and then you can bury them. Keep a few of these starter brushes around for applying washes. Here's a picture of some of my first brushes that have bent and split over time due to abuse. Time to retire them from detail work.

Time for retirement, old friends

Keep your old crappy watercolor brushes for applying shades and washes

You will hit your stride with the next set of brushes. Having graduated from the $10 twelve-pack of watercolor brushes, the world splits into synthetic and sable. Synthetic are just that: plastic bristles.  And they wear over time mush faster than natural hair. Citadel just released their latest STC set, but The Army Painter brush set is probably the best value for your money. It comes with enough variety that you can learn what brushes are your favorite (and some editions come with a free sable brush, neat!).  If you already have strong opinions or lack options at your local store, you may be able to find quality synthetics like this Princeton Velvetouch Round 2 for a reasonable price at art stores that aren't expressly for nerds. Expect to pay about $6-8 per brush. And don't stress about getting the tiniest of brushes for the detail. The important part of detail work is holding a point and not how big the brush is! Even with better synthetics, you will gradually see bent tips as you use the brush.  This is how synthetics wear, and it is totally normal. If you treat them right, your first synthetic should last a squad or 10 figures. You will know your brush skills are maturing when a fresh brush lasts a whole army.

My standard kit

Curling bristles are normal, and they can get into tight corners!

 

Standard drybrush kit

Finally we come to the joyous pinnacle of your painting kit, the sable hair brushes. Yes, these brushes are made with actual animal hair.  And they are superior in almost every way to synthetics, but their price also puts them out of reach for most people.  They hold their shape better when loaded up with paint, and their hairs hold more paint so you can cover more area without going back to the palette. You probably only need one sable brush to start.  Grow your collection slowly, and they will last you forever. A note that the Kolinsky Sable is endangered in Siberia and import is difficult at best. So you're probably not getting real Kolinsky sable for under $25 a brush. Here again, Army Painter wins for having the right brushes for hobbyists. I inherited my Regiment brush, and it is still going strong after a decade of use by my father. By the time you're ready for your next sable brush, you will have enough experience to know if you want to go all-in on the Winsor & Newtons.

A few notes on storage: Try to keep the plastic tip covers for all your brushes.  It's the easiest way to protect them from accidental damage in transit.  If you find your collection growing and cannot bear to part with your new friends, make or buy a brush case in hard plastic (if you don't need to travel and know they will always be sitting up) or fabric like the one pictured below.  I threw it together from duck cloth in about an hour on a sewing machine with basic measurements. Your local art supply or fabric store has something similar for sale.

Citadel Colours App

Available for both iOS and Android, The Citadel Colour app helps me create and remember my color schemes.  I can create projects, track my color inventory, and keep a shopping list of paints for the next time I hit the local game store.  It comes loaded with a diverse palette, but it only offers the Citadel range from Games Workshop. If you use dropper bottles from Vallejo or the new Two Thin Coats range from Duncan Rhodes, you're out of luck. It also doesn't have cloud storage, so switching phones means transferring your inventory, projects, and history as well (my scheme images come from doing CYA in case I lose my phone). Notwithstanding, it has worked to keep me organized.  I would love to know if there were some non-GW options available out there to cover the various paint brands I might use.

  

Storage for Paint

I paint at both my house and my SO's, so this 48-bottle nail polish organizer is perfect for carrying almost my entire collection of paint pots or droppers when I'm being indecisive.  The important part of storage is being able to see the shade without having to look at the label.  Having a clear storage system that can corral a large collection while keeping them visible is ideal. Injection-molded two-sided plastic carrying cases for nail polish go by many brand names on Amazon, and they'll all run you about twenty-five bucks. I haven't found a better mobile solution than this, but I would also suggest similar nail polish storage for a workbench installation.  Both tiered shelves and wall-mount nail polish racks are going to be way more affordable, and see-through, than any miniature-specific laser cut racks you might find at your local game store.

Painting Handle

Whether you buy the Citadel handle or print your own, These little contraptions keep your mitts off the details until they are sufficiently primed sealed.  This is doubly important with Contrast Paints as it can almost be rubbed off like chalk when applied in thin coats and handled with your bare hands. You can even temporarily glue a base to a larger miniature like a vehicle so it can be mounted on the painting handle. Get one.  It's worth it.

 

The Wet Palette

I have used ceramic tiles and even tried Citadel's Palette Paper, but I will never go back now that I've started using a wet palette. The idea is simple: parchment floated atop a spongey pad allows water to pass from the wet pad, through the parchment, and into the paint. The paint doesn't bleed down into the pad, and instead stays hydrated as it dries from the top down. This flow retains water in your paint longer so it remains workable. But it also keeps your blends around longer without drying out, and it speeds up the "always thin your paints" advice that was key to so many of us making the leap from gloopy to gorgeous. Simply put, a wet palette will make getting paint onto models easier. Even if you have your doubts, you should give it a shot. And I'm going to show you how to do that as cheaply as possible. 

This is one area where I have not graduated to a professional solution because I'm so satisfied with how my DIY palette is working. The key is getting a truly air tight container like this now-discontinued Snapware. All it needs is a shallow depth into which you can lay something absorbent (like paper towels) and top that with a layer of parchment. The shallow depth allows you to have a low angle of attack with your brush.  You want this when rolling your brush or mixing paint around. The one I bought is deep, but the two-well insert can be removed with one well used as a wet palette and another used to hold the wiping cloth. The deep well is handy for transporting the paint itself.

On sale, it was cheapest of my options

All layers visible (palette, folded paper towel pad, and parchment)

All soaked up; you can see the water beading on the surface

If you don't want to DIY it, there is a $10 wet palette on Amazon right now that couldn't be any worse than what you're painting on. The Army Painter palette is possibly the most widely known.  It comes with a pad, sheets of their "special paper" that looks and feels like parchment, and brush storage.

Note: Since first publishing this, I obtained the Red Grass Games palette and have been loving it. Whatever you choose, get to it! It will change how you paint forever.

Photos

Susan Sontag once wrote, “Today everything exists to end in a photograph.” And the pandemic has only heightened the importance of good pictures to show your friends why you can't come out hiking on a Sunday morning.

My main photo rig is a photo tent lined with white polyester and a selection of backdrops that drape down the back in a long curve to remove seams from the finished picture.  In the past, I have built photo tents out of PVC and cotton, or vellum pasted to a rough frame of furring strips.  What really matters is the next part: I point as much direct light as possible at the walls of the tent in the hopes that it will diffuse through and evenly light my miniature from all possible angles.

For the camera, I will use a smartphone camera in a pinch, but I prefer a DLSR with a macro lens.  This combo gives ultra-detailed shots for individual minis. Remove the macro for group shots, and make sure you are lining everyone up in your depth of field. There are packs of lenses available for smartphones too.  They work, and they are a whole lot cheaper than a new DSLR just so you can take pretty pictures of your knick knacks, but you do you!

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!

Oddments

Stop struggling with a yellow overhead light.  Get a portable or installable full-spectrum lamp or bulb like an Ott Light or LED strip.  If you haven't received your baby book update since Middle School, your grandmother's scrapbooking light is probably up for grabs! They are cheaper now than ever before, so buy one of your own rather than stealing hers. I combine the LED strip pictured below with a Costco-bought Ott Lite that even has wireless charging built in.

Applying technical paints like snow and muck is 10x easier with a sculpting tool.  These also work with green stuff, so get a big pack of them and find just the right tool for those nooks and crannies. Moving around muck is also a good use for those small brushes you can no longer use but cannot bear to throw away.

Paint cups wit ribbed bottoms can be hell on your bristles, so go easy, Bob Ross. The wide bottom on the Citadel pot can help keep it from spilling pink paint onto the carpet of your room.  Do that too much and your partner/landlord might get stabby.

Even if you aren't painting regularly on a tile anymore, a ceramic well palette can help mix larger batches of Contrast or Washes. Cover the palette with saran wrap and it will retain water like a wet palette.