13 January 2012

OEGB finished


I painted up OEGB.

He's painted as a cockatiel in honor of our old bird, Butthead aka "Tweeter" aka "The Screeching Harpy of Jawndomay. He was my wife's bird from long before we met. He hated other birds, and wasn't terribly fond of most people, but had a bit of a dog fetish. He was obsessed with her room mate's dog, and went through withdrawal when we moved in together. After we got our dog, he became obsessed again. First he would flip out if the dog wasn't within line of sight. Then it became freak-out time if the dog wasn't in the same room. Then it was non-stop screeching if the dog wasn't laying right at the base of his cage.

I wanted to like the bird but... well, he was kind of a dick. Like I said, he wasn't fond of people, and was afraid of hands (it made changing his food & water & cleaning his cage a bit of a challenge.) For I while I swore I was going to train him to be more friendly so he could ride on my shoulder, pirate style. That didn't go so well. But I did get him to be OK with taking treats (a bit of popcorn in the photo below) from my mouth, and he would give me "kisses" (gentle nibbles?) on my nose.

Tweeter had two eyes, though.

06 January 2012

Primed

I got the first bit of hobby time in about a month today. I spent about 15 minutes priming the OEGB and one of the planes I built a few months ago.

I put the beak, wings and legs on the OEGB last month. That, along with a bit of cleaning in the stoodii (while waiting for putty to cure) made up most of Decembers 3+/- hours of hobby time.

He's about 4" total height. The body roughly matches the size of the OEGR. I'm thinking about painting him similar to a cockatiel, as a tribute to our old bird. Firefox's spell check doesn't like the word "cockatiel" and recommends "cockatrice" instead.


I should really change the "vinyl toys" tag to just "toys" since I'm doing very little with vinyl lately.

02 January 2012

2012 Hobby Goals

I previously reviewed the resolution of my resolutions for 2011. As I stated in the comments on that entry, the list was a rough set of goals to look forward to. Not a hard list of things I felt I must achieve. Still, I was looking to hit about 50% and failed to get even that close. Frankly I'm a bit depressed about what appears to be the near death of my involvement of a hobby in which I've participated for over 25 years.

The 2012 list is a bit different. The expectations are a scaled down. A lot. It feels a bit like a last grasp at holding on to my hobby.


1. Play a game (or games) on at least 12 days this year. That's a game a month goal. I'm only counting my attendance at Cold Wars as a single "day."

2. Get at least 8 WWI planes completely finished, get the rest of the stands, a hex mat and play at least one game of Blue Max/Canvas Eagles.

3. Paint Romans, friends and foes. A hold over from the past two years. This year I will even set a modest number. Finish the mostly painted scutarii I started last year, and paint 4 units of Roman legion.

4. Make trees. I've got a kit of deciduous trees. I've had them for a couple years. It's about time I put them together.

5. Paint a unit of landsknecht pikemen and the pack of casualty figures.

6. Paint the strumpets. I've got 4 of them ready to go on the painting table, from the same range of Reaper figures as the previous civilians. In fact, a few more civilians would be nice as well. Let's say the strumpets plus another 6 civvies.


So there we go, my goals include painting a little over 100 figures, putting some trees together, finishing 5 plane kits plus building & painting 3 more. And 12 games. Not exactly aiming for the sun. If I can't score at least 50% on this set of goals, I'm selling everything at the end of the year.

I'd thought about adding "attend at least one local con this year and play in or run at least one game there" but sadly, that doesn't even seem realistic.