23 June 2016

Two Things I Need



I need to make this mug idea a reality. (Luckily, it's easy to get a one-off custom mug these days.)



I also need to get this shirt...





19 June 2016

All Quiet on the...


I've been quiet the past month, largely because I've been really busy. That's a bit of a "good news/bad news" story. I'll start with the good. A lot of it has been personal & family stuff. Everyone seems to be getting married this Spring/Summer, as well as the usual assortment of other events & activities. I'm even trying to enjoy the outdoors and get a bit more active, too. I'm the crazy old man on a skateboard for the first time in something like 25 years, and I'm finally learning how to swim!

I also finally got back into a long overdue vinyl (multiple) toy commission project. I didn't measure, but he's something like 8"-9" tall.


I'm not sure if I shared the other two before. (I haven't completed no. 03 yet, he's been the big hold-up lately, before I finally decided to go ahead and work on nos. 04 & 05 recently.) They're on my art & toy page. Blog. Whatevs. I also painted a little one for my niece's birthday. She's been repainting Littlest Pet Shop toys (more or less a similar thing) as well as doing a lot of drawing. I had briefly wondered if it was a little too weird/creepy for a young kid, but she's the only reason I know what Five Nights at Freddy's is, so I'm probably safe. :)



So now to the bad news. We have been living in the top two floors of a a duplex for years. Things started off OK, but unfortunately the family below us moved a few years ago, and since then we've had a string of bad tenants living below us, as well as some problems with one of the neighbors. Not minor nuisances - I mean serious threats to health and safety. I feel that we should have called in Exterminatus long ago.


So we are hunting for a single family home. No more mystery tenants and their problems.

Hunting for a rental home sucks.



Of the limited choice available, it boils down to this: you can have a nice house in a shitty school system, or a shitty house in a quality school system. This is something I've never had to deal with until recently. In fact, one of the reasons we live where we currently do is the great schools. Unfortunately, the only options around here leave us at the mercy of sharing a house or apartment with mystery tenants, and that has not been working out.

Naturally I am concerned with how this will impact my gaming hobby. ;) Not that I've gamed much, but I still daydream about that part. We still haven't signed a lease, so there is a lot still up in the air. However, we did find a rare nice home in a good (well, one of the best around, actually) school districts. The problem is... it's small. Probably no gaming table, and I'm not even sure how a painting desk will pan out. I will consider it a challenge in downsizing and efficiency.

Also, moving into a single means my small gaming budget is going to be crunched further. Luckily I think I'm set with quite a bit to paint for a while. In fact, I just scored a rare eBay bargain, and acquired some of the middle-era Citadel metal wight cavalry on plastic skeletal horses, and the all metal mounted wight lord.



Lastly, I have been feeling the itch to start a very small scale sci-fi skirmishing project. I've been envying a lot of the oldschool Rogue Trader projects I've seen on other blogs & forums. So maybe something like that, or Inquisimunda. Or maybe something along the lines of Space Hulk in gameplay -- confined combat, limited scope, and accessible to solo play. Some friends and I used to play very small point games of 2nd ed. 40k on Space Hulk & Adv. Space Crusade tiles and enjoyed that quite a bit, too. Not sure... I like the idea of avoiding "armies" -- so more like rogue traders, pirates, etc.