Lookit, I Painted Something

 There has been some talk in my personal blogverse this week over the nature of blogging, and how it is sometimes just a series of "look, I made something" posts, without serious discussion or necessarily anything novel about what the blogger is doing. This is an interesting perspective to me, as I've noticed different frequencies of posting and different intensities or complexities of individual posts between bloggers. Perhaps we all have our own style. (Why am I saying "we?" Am I part of a community now?)

I sometimes envy Tradgardmastare his simpler, quicker style of blogging and wonder if I should emulate it. Just a photo or two and a few lines of text, but more frequent. It might work better for me given my all-too-wide range of interests.

I'm not quite opposite - I do post once or twice a week, and I'm not that comprehensive - but I tend to develop my posts more. Full-fledged battle reports and book review take longer to write (and assemble, when I include lots of links and photos). Perhaps a few "look, I made something" posts would be a useful change of pace.

So here's one. Still longer and more involved, though, since I'm being meta, and also talking a bit about photography and the cool stuff my library has.

You know what? I'm adding a "rambling" tag to this post.

OK. Tuesday afternoon I prepped a second round of my "painting at the library" program. I had one taker the first time, none the second. Though two of my coworkers who were busy were delighted with my painting skills (small knowledge pool, there) and sad that they hadn't been able to try. I ran DnD yesterday (with one player) and again the adults expressed more interest in the program than the kids. This is why I don't think having an ongoing scheduled program for this sort of thing works very well. One-offs, maybe, especially if they are for "special" events - a Call of Cthulhu game for Halloween, Black History games in February - like that.

But when I walked into YouMedia today and put my figures into their light-box, the teens crowded around to see what I was doing.

Just some of the cool gadgetry on display:

The counselors have been teaching photography the last couple weeks, and I scored a few tips. When these were my first results:

... one of them showed me how to touch my phone screen to pop up a "brightness" bar that allows me, I think, to open the aperture:

Damn! How cool is that!? I'll definitely use that feature in future.

Pity how the best photos always show up your mistakes. But still!

These goblins are from, I think, the 7th edition Warhammer boxed set. Both were undercoated with Army Painter Skeleton Bone spray, with skin in Militarum Green Contrast paint, details in Cadmium Yellow and wood in Burnt Umber. The spear-gobbo's robe is Chaos Black and the archer's robe Burnt Sienna. Interestingly, the latter was in terrible condition - very watery, more a wash than a layer paint - but I tried it anyway and rather liked the effect! The spear got Leadbelcher and the sword Runefang Steel, though it looks like the opposite in the photos (I did drybrush a little RS on the spear for effect, though).

This is the effect with just four or five colors and an hour's work. I'm tempted to blow the kids' minds with a Duncan Rhodes video. In fact, their interest was such that I wonder if I can get them to help me do a "look, WE painted something" post.

I can dream, right?

OK, rambling over. See you next time.