This week myself and Lindsay were due to visit Suffolk via Nottingham to see my family, cause there is stuff going on down there.
Alas Lindsay came home from Oxford the previous weekend with a horrendous chest infection and sadly as a result, we couldn’t risk the journey, cause there is a vulnerable person there that we couldn’t risk passing it on to.
She ended up ill for 9 days and has only just gone back to work today, anyway, it is what it is, and we plan to go down in a fortnight.
What I Am Modeling
I was going to initially paint some Space Wolves Intercessors, but my Russ Grey was dry as the Arabian dessert!
So I started on some Ultramarines beginning with a Squad of Aggressors, this time with Boltstorm Gauntlets
Followed by a 3D printed Liutenant Titus, cause annoyingly I cannot get the plastic one from Games Workshop, everytime its restocked in the store, I can’t get to them in time. So yeah ended up printing this one!
Since the pandemic I have noticed that in the middle of the year, I seem to keep have a slump, just all my plans, motivation and drive drops off come the heat of the summer.
I dunno what it is, this year was no different, other than a nice bump for WorldCon, I have lost all my vroom, and I don’t know why.
In the day it feels like time just gets away from me and I don’t have the capacity to fit things in, perhaps it not having a proper schedule or just never quite recovering from Covid, I just don’t have a clue.
I know Lindsay’s moving anger workspace into the studio and then out again did really throw me and screw up my flow, but given that this has been happening for the past four years, I can’t blame that.
I know that there are things I wanna do with life, I am just bad at figuring them out and sorting out what I am doing with my time and life.
Maybe now that the house is settled into its shape for what I hope is a bit more long term I can kinda sort that out.
My plan is to sit down and hopefully convince Megan and Lindsay to help me sort out some sort of reasonable schedule to help get me back on track.
What I Am Modelling
Started out with a couple of Leman Russ Vanquishers for the Solar Auxilia, these are going to be getting a lot of use at Heresy Camp in May, but I do need a 3rd one
So yeah 3D printing is starting to really reap some rewards with me being able to print some fantastic models that I am really happy with.
But I am very wary because at the same time, I don’t want to be the guy that prints everything, I like the models that companies make.
But damn the process of pouring the resin in the vat, sending the file from your PC to the printer, and seeing these amazing models come out, it’s kind of addictive!
I have been saving for a platform upgrade for my PC and in the Prime sale, bought myself this nice little B650 board to allow me to go to an AM5 processor
It was my birthday on Saturday, my 42nd, we had originally planned something grand because my 40th was a disaster, but sadly due to various personal things happening we had to make it much more well, not a lot at all.
We had a lovely breakfast of stottie filled with Lincolnshire sausages and mushrooms, and I opened my cards and a present from Megan and Lindsay, which was a Dieselpunk RPG called Age of Steel!
After this we headed to Middlesbrough, where we had a Wendy’s for lunch, followed by a visit to the Renault dealership, where we checked out the Megane, which is currently the favourite to be out next car come March.
Then we headed home, where I had a little nap!
Cassius
At 5pm we went and picked up a cat, Cassius
We hadn’t planned on adopting a new cat, but we had a bunch of spare rescue food we had bought for Jenny, and when we dropped it off at the rescue, well, Cassius convinced us he should come home with us.
So after a short couple of weeks whilst he had his vaccines, we were able to pick him up, and bring him home. He is a one eyed boy, having lost it in a fight when he was on the streets.
After a few weeks in which I really haven’t been doing terribly well, a mixture of illness, the black dog and fatigue, I am really trying to get back into the swing of life, and actually do some stuff.
So lets try to get stuff done and not simply be depressed and sleep my life away!
Heresy Camp
Some cool lads led by Scottish Graham are running a Heresy Camp next May, and this is the list I am think of taking, bringing the Ultramarines out of Storage, and using some Legiones Auxilia.
XIII: Ultramarines
+ Rite of War: +
Rite of War: The Logos Lectora (UM)
+ HQ: +
Centurion . Master of Signals: Artificer Armour . . Bolt Pistol . . Chainsword: Chainsword . Master of Signals
Originally I was gonna play it on the Steam Deck, but it only had a Silver rating on there from ProtonDB, and apparently the PS5 version has Spider-Man and the Steam version doesn’t, so yeah, no brainer
I picked up the disc for £5 when the live service side shit down a while back
What I Am Creating
The second Combat Patrol Magazine Battle Report got published, and it included the debut of my new intro video!
What I Am Spending
I got issue 3 of Combat Patrol to add a squad of Infernus Marines to the Dark Angels
I did try to give him some tuna one Sunday as a treat, but alas, he savaged my finder and he must have thought he was being picked up, which he is not yet comfortable with, and gave me a nasty bite on my finger, which got very badly infected, resulting in two hospital visits, two courses of antibiotics and lots of pain. He is lucky he is cute!
It took us by surprise as until very recently she had been in perfect health with zero issues, and we are all very much devastated by this.
Jenny was a special girl and we are all going to deeply miss her.
3D Printing
The 3D Printer developed a fault just before WorldCon, the touchscreen died and could not be fixed via software.
But credit to Elegoo, they were super awesome and when provided with video and photos of the error shipped a replacement screen right away, and with the video they provided, was a quick 10 minute fix.
I now have it running fine, and figured out where to find the timelapse videos from, which is cool, kinda tempted to print something really big just to see the video!
Yeah I can see myself getting addicted to this particular hobby!
What I Am Modelling
So my 3D printer is now up and running and Turing into a little bit of a minis factory!
So I started off with this Overseer for my Imperial Fists, a new Consul without a model yet, and now he is gonna be part of the options I have for the Fists.
I finally finished reading The Heart of Iuchiban by Evan Dicken, which was good, but I am not sure why it took me so long to read, a review will follow in time!
Siege of Vraks by Steve Lyons was good, I wanted a bit, I dunno, more from such an iconic war when put to prose, but it was fine.
And myself, Graham & Chris started playing some Space Marine 2 together!
What I Am Creating
The next episode of Edge of Empire was published
Doing some battle report videos for the Combat Patrol Magazine and published the Issue 01 video
What I am Spending
Got a few bits for some 3D printing!
First off some new resin to play with, following everyone’s recommendations I grabbed this bottle of Sunlu ABS-Like Resin, cause literally everyone was telling me this is the best sort to use!
And I also got the last two issues to build Swampboss Skumdrekk, with the one from my subscription to be used to build a Snatchaboss on Sludgeraker Beast!
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!
