This was supposed to have been posted ages ago, but alas the day we got home from WorldCon we all came down with Covid and still suffering!
Well the day started with a trip to the Glasgow Dental Hospital for an emergency appointment, and I have walked away with an anti-biotics, which can’t be filled in England, so a trip to a pharmacist before we cross the border.
Me and Lindsay then got into the SEC where we had a snack and chilled out for a bit, and I headed off to the panel on Baldurs Gate 3.
That was a naming panel with its senior writer and games director, and a few of the voice actors in the audience too.
Great panel and a lot of fun
After that, it was next door to a panel on Safety Tools for Tabletop Roleplaying Games which was a very helpful panel and a lot of useful tips were obtained.
And that’s me done for a WorldCon for the next 5 years, as a disabled man pretty much completely dependent on benefits a WorldCon not in the British isles is just out of reach.
Myself, Lindsay and Megan are all however planning on attending EasterCon next year, I have just spent a bit of time on AirBnB pricing somewhere up, sadly the Hilton is way out of our budget!
I missed the early morning of the con due to toothache, I just needed a bit more sleep, and I am at the point where I am having to use water to try and numb the tooth and reduce the pain
Heading for the 1pm panel I wanted to attend which was panel on What are Reviews For? Balancing Critique, Recommendation, Promotion and the Art of Criticism in the written review, mostly cause I really want to get back into reviewing books
O had to leave at the 40 minute mark as my toothache briefly became overwhelming and I could no longer concentrate at all
So I took a break went and got an energy drink and a Mars bar, then made my way back to the Crowne Plaza for 3D Printing: What’s Available, Getting Started, and Current Trends, and having recently bought myself a new printer, and Elegoo Saturn 4 Ultra, I really wanted to attend this panel, like very much so!
It was a great panel and had people ranging from a basic hobbiests to a DARPA engineer and they discussed tech from the basic £75 addictive printer, right up to multi-million printers that can create objects out of titanium and beryllium that have been sent into space
Really wish this was recorded so I can watch it later
My next panel was Making Space for Making, cause yeah my space is kinda tight so tips and hints on how to optimise that would be handy.
I finally got to sleep about 2:30am, once I was asleep it was fine but in general as soon as I go upstairs at night in the house the toothache hits.
Gonna try taking my painkillers a bit earlier today, but in general I cannot wait to get home to my own beds.
We started the day with a lorne sausage and egg stottie and then realised that Lindsay’s legs had swollen a huge amount over two day.
So she and Megan decided to rest up and be online attendees today, so me and Paul headed off in his car so he could charge it, but ran into a slight issue.
The owner of the house was holding a wedding and right where we needed to drive through, in order to leave, was where they were taking photographs.
So we had to wait a bit of a while, but eventually got underway and successfully made it to the SEC and got Paul’s car on charge, though that was a chew on cause of Paul’s impatience.
My first panel of the day was in the Crowne Plaza and was Tabletop Games: Then and Now, which as you will all know is right up my street, and that was looking at the revival of board games in the past couple of decades.
Was pretty good, but could have used with a bit more focus on actual DIY recording, there seemed to have been an assumption of using professional studios to a degree.
I really wanted to ask a question, but they left only 4 minutes for questions so only a couple were able to be asked and they spent a lot of time answering them, so my question never got asked.
The question would have been, for the DIY audio book producer, how will machine learning technologies like background noise removal impact them either positively or negatively.
But yeah very little on DIY stuff and a big focus on celebrity narrators and really professional level stuff.
Overall, have to say, my least favourite panel so far, felt like they hadn’t read the panel description and just spoke about their work with people like Wil Wheaton and Stephen King.
Then it was back off to the Crowne Plaza off to Governments in SFF, a topic I am always interested in.
Fairly interesting, especially as it looked at why so many SFF stories look to monarchy and empire as the types of governments they talk about.
I had wanted to get into the Personal Branding workshop, but failed to get selected for that.
I know the panels have been an actual lottery, but myself, Lindsay and Megan have put our names forward for at least one every day and not been successful in getting into any of them.
I know it’s supposed to make it more fair than someone simply turning up early to sign up, but when you get knocked back in for every single one it’s fairly frustrating, almost like why am I even bothering.
After a brief wanted round the Hucksters room, I then attended You Never Walk Alone: The Best Animal Companions in SFF which was a good and interesting panel, but there was a lot of rambling and in general stories about the participants animals, which is never a bad thing!
The final panel of the day I attended was on the 30th Anniversary of Stargate and that was the most fun panel of the day!
I asked a question about the lesser known members of the franchise, Infinite and Origins, which none of the panel were at all really familiar with!
After that kinda had to give up the toothache was too much so I retired to Hall 4 and had some gyros for my tea.
We attended the parties for Japans Halcon, which was pretty fun and the Dublin 2029 party, which both me and Lindsay have a soft spot for, as we both really loved Dublin 2019!
Oh last night my sleep was dreadful, like properly terrible!
So dragged myself out of bed and had a lorne sausage stottie, cooked by Paul, but burnt but tasty.
Then myself and Paul got dropped off for a 10am panel, I went to The Second Difficult Album, a panel about podcasts and how to take them that little bit further.
I struggled with this one, simply because the room was very hot and poorly ventilated and air conditioned.
And whilst I have had zero issues following people wearing masks, one of the participants had a mask that made her particularly hard to follow sadly
After that I wanted into an Ashoka panel, but that sadly was full so I grabbed lunch, I though we had made a packed lunch, but alas we didn’t so I had some Jammy Dodgers and a Calypo!
Following a wander round the hucksters room, I headed off to my next panel which was Creative Content Creators, in an attempt to pick up some hints and tips for the podcast and battle reports stuff!
It was pretty good, with a lot of suggestions that I admit we have heard before, mostly in consistency, and just jump in and do what you actually want to do.
So yeah might get that other podcast I really want to do done
Then I had to rush down to try and catch The Dark Room, a show I have been wanting to see for years, but never have managed to get tickets for whilst at the UK Games Expo
And I got in with a bit of time to spare and had a really really good time, it was as funny as everyone said it was and was over the moon to be able to finally attend this well loved show, that has been on my radar for over a decade!
And finally for the day I wanted to attend the Tubes and Grams, Blogs and Toks: Reviewing Across the Internet panel
I am not really a cosy gamer, but it sounded fun, and my hope that Lindsay and Megan would find some games to play other than Animal Cross and Dreamlight Valley, actually may have worked.
After that I grabbed a quick snack (a chicken and stuffing sandehich from McCoys), then headed to my next panel, Writing for Video Games.
I have no plans to write a video game, but we do write for Heresy events and Company of Legends, so hoping I could pick up some tips and hints to improve that
After that I went to a panel called Big Bytey Bugs! When Is the Next Computer Apocalypse Due? which was really interesting and considered the issues facing the world, given our dependency on IT and IT infrastructure, especially in the wake of the CrowdStrike failure recently
And I asked my first question of the day which was about the recent attempt to insert malicious code into xz and our current dependence on just a handful of companies for various parts of the internet.
The it was a panel for the 25th Anniversary of The Mummy, which Megan has been chomping at the bit to go to, it’s one of their favourite films.
Was quite fun, lots of the jokes being talked about and a general agreement that Tom Cruises should never have existed!
My last panel of the day was Worldbuilding in Gaming which was something I am very interested in, particularly for our Horus Heresy events, and perhaps that novel I dream of one day writing, not probably never will!
And we just got into it with an amazing set of games, which came down to a single point tipping it in the favour of the traitors, even though Mission 1 was kind of biased in favour of the traitors.
After that we judged the armies for the best army award, a choice that is based not only on painting, but on theme and composition, which was won by this Ultramarines army from Michael Weatherstone
Game 2 followed which was a draw, so the Loyalists could now achieve a draw overall
I also picked up Stormbringer 77 this morning, two copies, one to make a Knight-Draconis and another for the Stormdrake Guard to join the one from last week.
Right now in the studio, we have a Powerline brining in a connection from the modem downstairs, when we started this project, it exclusively provides a connection for the server
We also have a TP-Link Deco S7 Mesh access point which most other stuff connects to, which provides a faster connection than the Powerline.
But the server, for some reason doesn’t like working through the Mesh.
Regardless, the connection to the server desk started out on the floor, crossing over it and creating a major trip hazard.
To provide power, I had to route an extension cord around the room, and that’s what we did with the network cable.
I got a 20m Cat 8 cable, and just wrapped it up with the power cable using zip ties and then took it around the room, and into a new switch under the desk.
It still needs clipping to the door frame to the eave, but I am doing that tomorrow
But alas, Lindsay decided to move out of the studio and as a result the switch is now no longer required, but I guess better to have, than have not
We also added a Wi-Fi card to Megan’s PC, not so much for the Wi-Fi, but more for the Bluetooth capabilities, that way she can use a wireless controller.
Yeah I know a USB dongle would have been cheaper and easier, but I have always found their performance to be so so.
And this kind of gives them another option for connecting their PC to the network.
Power
It might sound silly, but phone charging has always been a bit haphazard, I normally just plug the phone into the PC, but look I want convenience.
So I grabbed a cheap MagSafe charger, I did have a Qi charger, but I have found Qi to be annoying as it’s just a chew in to perfectly align the coils and it’s slower, and quite inefficient.
So we bought two paint shelves to store 72 Citadel paints each for a total of 216 pots, plus a 72 dropper bottle rack, as I expand into ranges such as Two Thin Coats, Army Painter and TT Combat.
We also grabbed a few accessories to help with this, we grabbed a funnel for popping resin back into a bottle, plus a few things like scrappers and a restock of nitrile gloves!
But of course she moved downstairs, so this moved with her, and I have this same one on my desk
I had purchased some time ago a bunch of Elgato Wallmounts and was only using one of them, but with the 3D Printer and paint racks, I now needed to use these for real.
So now these hold both my Keylight Airs, my Overhead camera for the painting table and my FaceCam for use when painting
We also got an Ultrasonic Cleaner to put in the studio to do a mix of things, partly for cleaning my airbrush, Megan & Lindsay’s jewellery, our glasses and resin models etc
It allows me to take the PS5 off the desk, and also charges two of the controllers too, meaning I no longer need the controller charging station sat on the desk
So what’s the plan for the future, well I need a new Besta unit to store more board games as a good chunk of those have now moved to the studio where Lindsay’s desk used to be.
And I need to sort out a lot of cable management, for my PC setup and Megan’s, but that’s probably a job for the winter.
The rest of it is just gonna be sorting out what’s in the room and how I can better organise the storage.
What I Am Modelling
I started off with a couple of squads of Assault Intercessors for the Dark Angels.
A few weeks ago I won a bottle of resin from Elegoo on Twitter and that got delivered this week, a nice bottle of 8k water washable space grey, perfect for the Saturn 4 Ultra when it arrives in a few weeks hopefully!
Grabbed a couple of issues of Stormbringer 73 to add two units of Ardboyz to my Ironjawz, and along with the issue coming with my Subscription will give me an awesome three units of them to form a nice core of the Orruk Warclans army.
I won a voucher from a competition for Amazon, which allowed me to purchase a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth PCIe card for Megans PC, mostly for the Bluetooth for her to be able to use a wireless controller.
Yes I know I could have gotten a cheap USB dongle, but I think the extra reliability of the card is better, plus Wi-Fi is a nice backup to have.
Initially we bought a cheap Chinese one, but the card was a dud, the chipset wasn’t the MediaTek one described and was a far inferior RealTek one, plus the driver site appeared to be filled with malware, so that got sent back to Amazon.
And yeah replaced it with the far more trusted TP-Link!
The reason we have gone for this, despite only having around 30 dropper bottles, is that I have decided for many basic colours, I am shifting to Army Painter Fanatics, with some select Two Thin Coats plus a few others from various other ranges.
Also got myself a couple more Elgato Wall Mounts, which will be used to mount my Keylight Airs, given the desk space currently used for the stands will be taken up by the paint racks, and the new 3D printer.
The past weekend we painted the wall in Lindsay’s room that had the insulation work done on it. Friday morning, myself and Megan removed all the stuff from the wall and then painted two mist coats on the wall.
Saturday we were all knackered, so bugger all got done, but Sunday came, and we got three coats of brilliant white on the wall and it looks a lot better!
I also did the ceiling in the studio, where the workmen cut a hole in to stuff the roof with insulation, because its the part of the studio that’s been bothering me most.
Just popped up every time we did something in the room, I did a coat up there, and yeah looks nice
Other than that I am being bothered by a tooth infection, but I am seeing a dentist on Friday, right now it feels like my tooth is going to explode and leave shattered tooth all over my mouth 🙁
What I Am Modelling
I started off by painting the Enforcer Commander for my T’au to complete their second Combat Patrol
What I have found a good use for so far, is to put one on my army boxes and link it to a Google Doc with whats in the box in it, and I think I am going to do this with all my army boxes over the next few weeks.
It was also Humble Choice week, so I got that and ended up with
This means I am now on 2470 points before the next edition drops!
Still to finish I have a couple of units of Squig Hoppers, some Squig Herds, a Dankhol Troggoth, Skragrott the Loonking and some Rockgut Troggoths.
Get My Drukhari To 2000 Points – 58% Complete
No progress, need to buy some more units, I have some more Helions and Reavers to paint, but that’s it right now.
Want some Wracks, but having issues getting them.
Complete My Video Game Geek Hardcore 10! – 60% Complete
This month I completed Final Fantasy II Pixel Remaster, it’s one of the alternative three, so will only count at the end of the year if my main ten aren’t done
This week has been much of a muchness, there isn’t much going on at all
Just waiting for WorldCon I guess and a the Heresy event
Got to get a shift on with a few things, but this week has just been meh
My depression is getting kinda bad, but I have a project of refurbing the studio to get on with
What I Am Modelling
I started out with the Blade Champion for the Custodes, who will do double duty, being in both the 40K Combat Patrol and being a Shield Captain in Heresy.
To start a long awaited studio refurbishment project, I bought the first of a few paint racks we are going to need from TT Combat, this is a rack to hold 72 Citadel pots.
The plan is to have 3 of these plus a rack for 72 dropper bottles.
I also bought a 20m Cat 8 cable to route data to the server and Lindsay’s desk without creating a trip hazard!
Now because this was delayed by 24 hours, Amazon gave me a £10 gift card to compensate me, it was like £8.
So I used this to buy a network switch for the studio, this will go on the end of the 20m cable and then be split into Lindsay work laptop and the server.
