crazmadsci Uncategorized

State of the Crazy: March 30, 2021

Update Quicklinks: Printing, Painting, Blog

Happy Monday late Tuesday evening everyone! I hope it has been a productive week for you and everyone is doing well. This crazy household has been well with the largest nonhobby related highlight being that we got a new car in preparation of adding yet another tabletop gamer to the family. ETA 2 months and counting!

This week has been surprisingly productive. Overall I could have sworn almost every print i’ve done over the last 4 days was going to fail as there were record storms of thunder, hail, and rain. It was the most rainfall in 48 hours recorded for my region in over 10 years. I cannot believe that we never lost power and that I kept starting 18 hour plus prints trusting our cities electricity, like a crazy person. But huzzah! I never had a fail and power never went out. This along with several other things has put this crazy crafter in a very great mood. 

Printing Updates


Printing this week has been immensely successful for me. In the last week or so I have taken the plunge into a new resin, the Epax Hard Grey resin. Previously I have been using Elegoo ABS-like resin and many of the supports on my prints have been failing. Many of the larger monsters don’t come out at all and pull off from the supports. However since changing materials it has been smooth sailing. I feel like my failure rate has decreased by an order of magnitude but would have to consult my spreadsheets more thoroughly for a definite value.

Here are some direct examples of Elegoo fails vs Epax Hard (dark grey) successes.


I have also been successful at printing and assembling quite a few larger monsters which always feels like an accomplishment even though I feel like I go through resin incredibly faster. Sorry wallet and handsome husband. Three finished and assembled monsters include a Graveyard Stone Golem, Guardian Dragon, and Ettin models. Several more have been started and are in progress of assembly.

For the FDM printer I have been finishing up the cottages from the Kingdom of Thamarya kickstarter. In this print project I decided to print not one but two buildings. There are 3 variations of the model, one being two story and two being different 3 story options. I opted to create the two story variant and a 3 story. This took an immensely long time and even longer because either i’m juggling WAY too many projects or my little dungeon master in training walked off with several roof pieces. Even my husband tried to help me find parts that I printed. In the end I was forced to reprint several pieces. Maybe one day in the future i’ll find some extra roofs laying around to use for who knows what. At least I have the magic of 3d printing to replace pieces.

Kingdom of Thamarya Cottages


I also lost a few pieces for the Blacksmith building and reprinted them. On top of that I printed for the first time with “Transparent” filament. Although PLA is commonly more yellow in color from production after modification and treatment people can create semi transparent prints. It can be complicated and a lot of features are involved to consider when printing. Knowing I wouldn’t get a true see through print was not important but I really wanted the coals from the Blacksmith to be glowing and will attempt to paint really thin layers to give it the effect I desire. All in all i’m really happy with the result.

First usage of transparent filament for a lighted coal effect

Painting Update

This week like the consistent theme of March I have been doing very little painting. I started to paint the plaster of the Blacksmith but just couldn’t fully immerse myself into the project. I realized that I still had pieces and things I wanted to do on the print itself before I could truly call it ready for painting. The first part was that I decided I wanted to try a glowing LED portion for the first time ever in any of my collection to date. Since it was a Blacksmith why not have a glowing forge of hot coals?

So I did a bit of modification to the original design and drilled and cut out a hole for a tea light. I also used a bit of milliput to smooth up the edges as I didn’t want sharp plastic rubbing or potentially cutting people as they pulled the light in and out to flip the switch. In an ideal world I would have modified the STL file before 3d printing it but too late for that now. Not wanting to paint any of the stonework until I had the hole drilled this was something I absolutely HAD to do before continuing on in the project. I think it went really well. Although it was a bit more difficult to cut out a hole because I had to cut through not one but two floor pieces that was a seam in the building assembly.

Tealight hole drilled into Blacksmith model

Blog Update

For the blog I have planned to start a Deep Dive series of write ups posted on Fridays regarding research, experiments, and methods revolving around a category in the tabletop hobby. I am really excited to see where this goes and would be keenly interested in hearing your thoughts as I progress through the month. For more of an introduction to what is a Deep Dive you can find my write up here.
I have slowly been cataloging more miniatures & sculptors as well but the process has been slow. The goal is roughly 2 miniatures logged a day which seems reasonable however as I encounter miniatures that I have 3d printed and/or painted and they do not have write ups I require myself to have a write up for them before the go in the index. It will get done but slow and steady wins the race. 

Conclusion

All in all its been a really great week. I solved the riddle to a lot of my 3d printing issues, changing resin brands. I assembled buildings and models i’ve had laying around. I have started tackling some of the storage problems I have inevitably begun having since my printers. On top of that I did two things for the first time, the use of tealights in my builds and printing with transparent filament.

Now if only I could have this kind of week of tying up loose ends every week.

As always happy hobbying. What have you been working on? Have a specific highlight you are proud of?

Happy Crafting,

Carrie aka crazmadsci

crazmadsci Deep Dive, Goals

Introducing: Crazmadsci “Deep Dives”

Introducing a new post series: Deep Dives

As a 2021 Hobby Goal it is my ambition to work on “Deep Dives” of 4 different major topics. This is a post series i’m extremely passionate about and look forward to starting.

What is a deep dive?

From an analytical standpoint a deep dive is an “intense, in depth analysis of a certain problem or subject.” What does that mean for the tabletop hobby? Well for one I want to research, explore and experiment with all the different ways myself or my fellow hobbyists tackle a subject in the tabletop space. Either painting, printing, playing or something perhaps something else entirely. A deep dive will document my entire journey, the successes, failures, and methods.


The Never Ending Questions


The primary goal of a deep dive is to begin to answer some of the many questions I face when crafting and playing. Some of those questions include:

Where do I even start for X Project? How do I break out of the rut of doing the same method over and over again? How do I make my collection of scatter, miniatures and terrain stand out and be unique as opposed to all look the same? What materials do I need? What problems will I face? What is the lore or history around this project?

The downside is that some of these questions end up becoming so overwhelming for me, projects never get completed or even started. Uncertainty and fear of messing up especially when I have so little hobby time can be debilitating.

Since the purpose of crazmadsci.com is all about sharing my experiences in the hobby, how about also including my experiments?

Introducing…


The crazmadsci DeepDives. This area of the site is going to be the location of all my “experiments” or rather rabbit holes. For painting I admit while learning and figuring out color schemes, paint recipes, paint techniques etc. I do have an affinity for painting along with others or taking the advice and experiences of others to heart. Almost every youtuber, guide writer or instagram poster has a different method of painting bone for example. Or depending on the area of focus either via 3d printing, buying kits, or foam crafting the process of painting terrain may vary based on materials and tools on hand. The goal of my deep dives are to attempt to figure out not only why these other hobbyists make these decisions but also what suits my current skills, materials, and preferences the most. Why not take advantage of time spent by others to figure out what works?

Perhaps painting bones, wood, metal etc in a dozen different ways apiece will give me a wide array of experiences and examples to choose from to help diversify my hobby playbook.

Deep Dive Goals


What are my goals for the Deep Dives:

1) Learn numerous ways of tackling a problem

2) Increase the diversity of painting in my collection

3) Grow in both mentality and skill for the hobby as a whole

4) Understand more the mentality of others who are also in the hobby

5) Create a collection of choices or swatches, when painting for future inspiration. A portfolio of sorts.

6) Document the process so I do not forget what i’ve learned and have reference material to go back to.

Deep Dive FAQ:


1) Will the deep dives stay purely focused on painting? 

Absolutely not. I plan on doing deep dives and focus research on many aspects of the hobby such as miniature photography, materials for crafting, various aspects of 3d printing and more that come along the way. I do want primary focus for the time being to be on painting though.

2) How do I choose what is researched? 

This will mostly be revolving around the subject matter that currently perplexes either myself or a reader. Once we encounter a question we will tackle it as it comes. However there will sometimes be some larger pre-planned projects resulting in a “series” of posts and experiments.

3) Once researched once will I ever go back?

Absolutely! As I grow in the hobby i’m sure my questions will as well requiring me to constantly come back and fine tune. I”ll try to keep every major category numbered to more easily follow along. Find more guides online that you think I should try myself and add to the collection. Don’t hesitate to bring them up as I will constantly be evolving myself.

4) Where will my “research” be coming from?

All of the experimentation will have references & links to the original source of that method. Sources will come from as many places as I can find: Youtube, Blogs, Random search engine responses, Pinterest, Facebook, Discord groups, etc. No credit will be taken in my hobby experimentation but rather become a repository to hear how something is solved in numerous different ways. All ideas, methods, and concepts learned from a particular location will have the citation to go with it so you can hear it from them as well. 

5) Format of Deep dives on the site:

The current intent is to post more about my current project progress rather than just start and finish. So hobby posts which subscribers/followers of the site get notified of upon publication will get updates of project progress after milestones are completed. Eventually upon project conclusion a reference page will be created so we all can go back and refer to images, paint schemes etc as needed. This will make it easier to find information down the road if you are not following along. Also all posts will be hyperlinked for easy navigation. Posts will occur on Fridays if a series is in progress. 

Potential Future Deep Dive topics

Current areas that I as a hobbyist am planning to investigate (No order of importance):

  • Painting Bone
  • Painting Wood/ Trees
  • Printing with Transparent filament
  • Supporting models in FDM & Resin
  • Miniature Photography
  • Flocking & adding foliage to my terrain
  • Painting castle/ruin terrain, various stonework
  • Painting Skin, humanoid and other

Conclusion

For the month of April I am currently planning on doing a 5 part series on a deep dive into painting Wood & Trees. Starting with its introduction on Friday, April 2nd. Stay tuned.

This will allow me to better compile my experiments while answering some of the many questions I have about the hobby. Perhaps others might have the same questions as well or if i’m lucky answers. These deep dives could also prove valuable in the years to come as I hope to repeat or reuse pieces of builds or add to my collection. Lastly the aim of this is to instill confidence and a form of accomplishment in the hobby. It is incredibly easy to always feel like nothing is ever done in a space of never ending goals and projects.

What kind of questions do you have in the hobby space? Have any questions about painting wood and trees? 

As always Happy Hobbying,

Carrie, aka crazmadsci

Wood Painting Deep Dive Part 1

New Website Sections!

I’ve recently added new sections to the website to make this conversation and others for deep dives more easily accessible. Found under Painting you can navigate to either the homepage of all Deep Dives or directly to Wood Painting for more easily accessible information and pictures of the color palette.

Deep DIve HomePage
Wood Painting

Previous Write Ups

crazmadsci Uncategorized

State of the Crazy: March 22, 2021 & Major Website Additions

Update Quicklinks: Printing, Painting, Blog

Hey everyone! Happy Monday, I hope your week starts out well and you all had a productive hobby weekend. Looking at my notes it definitely appears that I missed posting last week, my apologies. Over the course of the last two weeks there was definitely a period of time where I ended up in a “hobby rut”. I broke my 77 day hobby streak on Instagram to rest up, feel better, and spend a little bit of time with my family and it has been a challenge to get back into a groove to put paint on a brush. I even took a few days off from 3d printing, gasp.

However I have worked extensively to add more functionally to the website and although there will appear have more empty sections to various places on the site it is a step in the right direction to build the foundation of what is to come. Below in the Blog section of todays write up I go into detail of some of the things i’ve been working on as well as its vision.

Printing Updates

For printing over the last two weeks, I took almost an entire week off from printing anything on my Prusa FDM printer which if you are a regular reader know that is not a normal behavior for my hobby. One very special event did happen while printing this week though. After about 3 years of printing I finally got my first spool tangle and print failure. I can truthfully say it has never happened for me until last week on a spool of ESun PLA+. I will admit that the error did result in poor handling on my behalf and I let the filament get loose and fold in on itself. But I feel like I have finally joined the club for people who have encountered this issue. In case you are not familiar with FDM/filament printing this means that a knot was created in my filament causing the printer to not be able to feed and continue printing. I am glad I know what my printer should sound like and ran over as soon as I heard something was wrong. This could have been a really bad issue.

The tangled spool in question.


Resin printing i’ve still be working on miniatures from Lost Adventures Vol #1 but need to go back and resize and finish up the files released for Lost Adventures Vol #2. Its been going slow as i’ve been experimenting and even moved to trying out a new resin, Epax hard grey. I will do a massive dump of print logs and such when the project is completed.

Painting Update

As for painting I will admit i’ve been in a bit of a hobby rut due to breaking my hobby streak but I just recently started back up painting two things:

1) The carnival wagon that reader grumpgnome101 suggested I work on. Thank you for the input! I am going to attempt to make the wagon painted in bright colors to suggest it is trying to attempt to lure in customers at a carnival. This will also add more variety to my wagon collection. This is also inspiring a write up series i’m currently working on. Stay tuned.



2) Finally getting some paint on  the blacksmith building from Kingdom of Thamarya. It has been slow as I have been seriously debating on attempting to print using transparent filament for the first time in order to create a working tea light in the interior furnace to really make it feel alive. I have decided i’m going to go for it!

At this point it looks like I might not be painting any miniatures for the month of March, but work is still getting done.

Blog Update

This is an area I have sunk a massive amount of time. I am definitely motivated to catch up in my notekeeping for the site and continue to actively work on flushing out the true image of the dream I have for this place. Overall I am hoping that this blog will become more than just a list of archived posts that lose relevance over time or contain valuable information that is hard to find in the future. As a result hierarchical pages are being developed with a massive amount of cross referencing for easy navigation and capability to find things.

I am currently working on flushing out primary areas of the site which will hold my many ramblings, guides, and experiments. I will introduce sections as they are developed.


The first major area that I started to jump into as it is a 2021 Hobby Goal is to catalog my entire collection and host at least the basic information and photographs. At the moment this will only be my printed & purchased collection either painted or unpainted. Yes this means that my pile of shame/ sea of grey will be shown to the world but perhaps it will also motivate me to paint more of it up. I am currently not including the digital collection of files and STLs on my hardrive. Perhaps in the future.

New Major Site Category: The Collection

The Collection will be the primary landing page for all of the things i’ve created or purchased through this hobby. I has broken it into 9 primary categories:

  • Miniatures
  • Scatter Terrain
  • Terrain
  • Buildings
  • Greeblies
  • Dungeon Tiles
  • Bases
  • Bits
  • Accessories and Props


Each of these categories will not only have indexes, galleries, and crosslinks to the various print logs and painting writes ups I do but also provide images of inspiration and direction on where you can acquire these models and figures.

Eventually I hope to have everything crosslinked so if you find a base you like there will be a corresponding writeup/guide on how it was created in the painting section of the website that is linked and easy to navigate to.

Examples:

Curious as to if dungeon tiles are for you? What kind of dungeon tiles are out there? The collection can show you how i’ve used my tiles, what areas I hope to improve upon, what tiles are in my collection, paint schemes, and guides on what to consider when deciding on using dungeon tiles for yourself.

Even an area of the hobby that I am still not fantastic in: Foam Craft. I am trying to keep track of all the small incredible bits and bobs which could help to assist adding those fine details to your crafts with greeblies. Greeblies are all the little things that you may not want to hand craft but rather use the advantages of 3d printing to enhance your tabletop and crafting experience.

These are just a few of the things I have planned for The Collection which will essentially act as the glue to showcase all the other various aspects i’m working on.

New Site Section: ABC Miniature Index (By Name)

To get started on fleshing out the collection i’ve started (very very new) a ABC Miniature Index by model name. This index will go by file name of printed models or name of manufactured model purchased. The entire index is created to easily move from A to Z while also breaking up what will eventually be a massive collection of miniatures for easier loading on your browser.

Currently each miniature will look like this in basic information:

Information It will contain

  1. The name of the model
  2. A link to the print log (print set) that the individual model belongs to
  3. A listing of where that print set originated from in this case Lost Adventures Vol 2 kickstarter.
  4. What the model is made out of, its size (in case that matters to you for scaling),
  5. Where you can acquire the model
  6. Who Sculpted or created the model
  7. Its price (now. I do not document how much I paid for it in the case of kickstarters or patreons as they are bulk discounts)
  8. How much it essentially cost me to create if printed
  9. Lastly the miniature number which is purely for my own database documentation.

Let me know if you think something is missing from this list!

New Website Major Category: Index of Creators and Sculptors

A special feature included in the documentation of each miniature in my collection will also contain information on who sculpted & sold the model or model set. This is going to be a really cool addition to the site as I have also been creating an Index of Creators and Sculptors. This will showcase the individual artists of the models so if you enjoy a specific aesthetic perhaps it can show you more created by them found on the site.

This will also include information that could help you the consumer know more about the various storefronts there are out there. I will include answers to questions like:
“What is their STL distribution method”
“Where can I purchase more of their models?”
“Do they allow merchant licenses?”
“Is this good for FDM/Resin printing?”
“Do the models come presupported?”
“If I subscribe to their Patreon is there a discount code for MyMiniFactory or other stores?”
“What is my personal experience & review of them?”

Some of these questions are incredibly difficult to answer unless you have supported or purchased from the creator so eventually the Sculptor/Creator Index will be a reference point in helping others make an informed decision if spending the money to support them is right for you.

At the moment the Sculptor & Creator section will grow as I encounter each individual in my miniature collection as it gets added to the site. I do not want to discuss the practices or provide endorsement/ review of a company unless I have personally used at least one of their products. If you have a question about a company, brand, sculptor, Kickstarter or Patreon let me know. I will investigate the group and likely add it to the print queue to create a page.

Conclusion

I know this update was a massive amount of information and i’ll intersperse the intro information and goals of each section onto their pages for future reference as well. I have been working hard to bring my dream to life of creating a home which can be a useful resource for other hobbyists such as myself. Everyday a little more gets worked on and I am proud of what has been accomplished in such a short amount of time. Thank you for reading.

Happy Hobbying! Don’t forget to share what you have been working on.

Sincerely,

Carrie, aka crazmadsci

crazmadsci Uncategorized

State of the Crazy: March 10, 2021

Update Quicklinks: Printing, Painting, Blog

Its that time again for my weekly updates! Man time moves way too quickly. Also I cannot believe it is March. Before I begin my weekly summary I have to give a massive shoutout to my Baby Sister as its her Birthday today!! I love ya sis.

As for what I’ve been doing for the last week. Well lets just call it “If at first you don’t succeed try try again.” For both FDM and resin printing i’ve been testing and testing my printing settings in attempt to improve both print quality and success rate for the various difficult prints i’m currently attempting to accomplish. I’ll get into a few of my experiments down below.

This week was also exciting because it was Reaper Con virtual expo! I was so pumped to be able to attend virtually and have so many virtual classes that were absolutely free. I ended up recording most as I did not get the time to sit and paint along as much as I would have liked.

Printing Updates

As I’ve said above this week has been entirely focused on the beginnings of going down the deep deep rabbit hole of experimentation. On the Prusa FDM printer i’ve been attempting to figure out support settings for various roof pieces of the Kingdom of Thamarya Kickstarter. Since most of the roof pieces do not have a good flat plane of which start for printing, I am forced to float the pieces while using the support material as the starting point. Because of this and the whimsical nature of the roof it is more difficult to really tune in the support settings for a smooth underside of printing. Since it is the underside I can easily craft over it and smooth it out so the pieces are absolutely functional. I am just a perfectionist. I keep telling myself that once I nail the overhang/bridge printing of these roofs then my support settings will conqueror any terrain life throws at me.

This weeks deep dive support setting: Support Density.

Example of Orientation for printing the roof of the Kingdom of Thamaraya Cottage
Example undersides of roof prints with varying degrees of support density. Not shown a 35% density test.

As for resin printing I’ve been really trying to dial in my exposure times using Elegoo ABS-Like resin for my sonic mini 4k. Knowing that not all presupported models are alike i’ve started to encounter some that are giving me more trouble. Knowing that others have had success with them i’ve been determined with walking the fine line between great dialed in exposure times while also making sure that 1) my prints adhere to the build plate and 2) adapt to the small supports provided by some companies which are incredibly difficult which require higher exposure values. I’ve even been going so far as making reference charts for myself. Its still an ongoing experiment but I believe i’m starting to understand it all better.

Exposure Validation Matrix Testing
Exposure Time and observed miniatures of 4 different goblin files.

There are some weeks when you can crank these out and others when all you do is experiment. Sometimes it can test your patience and endurance but i’m determined to learn as much as I can about the 3D printing hobby. This is yet another reason to start a 3D printing guides and troubleshooting section on the website.

Painting Update

This week in painting i’ve definitely suffered from extremely lofty goals. There is so much I want to accomplish but yet I am struggling to start and finish projects. This week the focus was definitely ReaperCon Virtual Expo. I went through the entire online class schedule and picked the ones I wanted. However I think I signed up for 8? classes and only sat through 2. I recorded as many as I could and got notes written downloaded to access later but it is definitely a lot of content to go through.

Preparation for ReaperCon

On top of that I spontaneously had the house invaded by my family. Although it was great seeing them as I haven’t seen some since August it definitely cramped my style in the planning of painting over the weekend.

Overall I’ve decided to attempt to wrap of some projects on the site and printing projects in order to lessen the amount of things happening on the hobby space. This will definitely result in painting less but also a large portion of mental sanity.

Blog Update

The Blog as seen some growth over the last week most namely the addition of the Painting homepage of the site. It is still largely empty but gives an image of the direction I hope to go in for the future of painting for the site.

As always my ambitions & goals are far exceeding my output. I am still adding content regularly but some content is not yet ready for you incredible readers. I don’t have a timeline but I promise i’m doing my best to really build a solid foundation for the future of the site.

I’ve really struggled with finding a balance in accomplishing all the things I scheme and plan about. I believe it is a combination of being a perfectionist, absolutely exhausted from life due to being in the 3rd trimester of pregnancy, and having so little hobby time. I have soo many ambitious project ideas and choosing which ones to knock off the list is hard. I am always extra motivated knowing that people are interested in particular things. Do you think if I have a potential project page of things I have been scheming about, you’d be interested in helping me narrow it down by nominating ones to work on? Let me know what you think.


Again thanks for reading. Feel free to comment on what you are working on as well. Happy Hobbying,

Crazmadsci

crazmadsci Uncategorized

Catfolk Fisher: Lost Adventures Vol 2

Quicklinks: In Process Photos, Final Photos, Where to find STLs, Conclusion

Print Log: Heartwood Tradefolk Storytelling Poses

In February, I finished only one miniature for the month. This Catfolk Fisher was a model I’ve wanted to paint since I saw it on the Lost Adventures Vol 2 Kickstarter page and extremely wanted to paint as I was working on the Fishers Hut project. In my miniature collection I have so few miniatures that are just living their life and aspiring to do more than kill monsters. Almost all my miniatures wield weapons or are monsters. I love being able to grow my collection beyond that. It also gives me a ton of opportunity to just have fun with it.

This miniature painting project was definitely one however where I feel like I dreamt beyond my current skill set. For the first time ever I created a mood board containing images depicting different aspects I wished to capture for this model. The most notable goal was in making the cat calico. Having spots of different colors yielding to a truly unique and one of a kind coat. While painting I realized I did not like the attempt and instead just turned him into an orange tabby cat. While I think I did an ok job having his jacket as red with an orange coloration of lightening really kinda just blurred the colors together. This was supposed to be mitigated by having different colors broken into the fur of his coat.

Positive things about this paint job is that I made one of my first stabs at free hand painting by painting on a woven texture to his hat. I definitely feel like the intent and message comes across well but I of course see growth potential in my brush control. I printed the wooden floor base from the Welcome Pack of the CastnPlay Patreon and painted it quickly, due to project burn out.

Overall, I see a lot of room for growth in this miniature and definitely lost focus of what paints I used, how I used them, etc due to jumping around projects so much. In the end of the day this is good practice and yet another miniature for the collection. There is nothing disappointing about that!

Don’t miss the in progress shots and final photos below! See you next time.

Sincerely,
Crazmadsci, Carrie

In Progress Photos

Final Photos

Where to Find the STLs

This model is from the Lost Adventures Vol 2 kickstarter which can be found on the Lost Adventures Co website and consumers can purchase for $8.99. Design/ sculpt of this set was by Andrew Biernier and Matt Gubser and distribution made by the company Lost Adventures Co.

crazmadsci Uncategorized

Painting: The Hobby is the Journey

So I admit it. I have been avoiding talking about and showcasing my painting skill, or rather what I consider lack thereof. While deep down I know it is not true and that I do know some things about painting figures and terrain, I admit to still feel very much in the infancy of where I eventually desire to grow and become. So what is wrong with posting about personal growth and showing in detail my painting skills?

I struggle showcasing my skill because I am aspiring to turn this site not just into a blog of my personal past time in the hobby space. I aim to turn this site into a cornucopia of material, tutorials, assistance and inspiration for others. However, it is difficult to feel like I have enough authority to write or share on a subject these days when there are so many living examples of expert skills and mastery on the internet. Imposter Syndrome begins to sink in.

So I am forced to ask myself the question. What am I going to do about it? The answer is complicated and one I have been giving a lot of thought. To start I am going to lean into the questions, lean into the experimentation and all the vulnerability that goes along with it. Perhaps readers and others will find something to relate to. Besides wouldn’t putting it out there and seeing the transformation firsthand really be something special? Showcase the journey that my boys can one day see for themselves?

I commonly listen to podcasts and watch more YouTube videos on the subject of painting miniatures then I admit to actively doing. Going with the advice of 10/90 from Uncle Adam of Tabletop Minions I am definitely not painting 90% of the time and watching to learn 10%. I like to pretend that its because of the baby and having so little hobby time. In reality there is fear related to jumping into a project and finishing it. Not wanting to “Ruin” the model. This thought process probably deserves a write up of its own in the future, and one I need to let go of.

However the most recent podcast of Trapped Under Plastic “How Should Beginners Learn” has really struck home with me. Scott the miniature maniac stated that miniature painting is not like grinding your WoW from 1 to 60. That there is no end to the hobby and it is constantly changing and growing. Attempting to jump straight to the end is meaningless. Painting is about the Journey to get there. As someone who has a video game background longer than miniature painting the difference in mentality while basic is a fundamental shift for me. MAN! Why am I so embarrassed showing my journey? So lets change that. I shouldn’t be ashamed of my current location and progress, I mean I have fun painting. That is what is important.

Introducing: Painting

Today marks the launching of a new page which will grow to do exactly what I aim to tackle my insecurities and goals. This will both serve to showcase my growth while also being full of reference material of project documentation and links to places where I’ve learned techniques and skills.

This page will consist of 6 primary categories to help navigate to different areas of the painting past time. Eventually these categories will grow into their own pages and in depth write ups. And of course like any crazy project potentially grow into more categories.

Miniatures: This will contain a showcase of my growth and painted miniature collection.

Buildings and Terrain: This will be a listing and gallery of painted buildings and terrain. I may possible split scatter terrain into another category in the future.

Basing: The collection of bases for miniatures, ramblings of techniques & thought processes of a basing a miniature as well as inspiration of different types of bases.

Tools and Materials: What are the tools and materials at my disposal? What are my personal must haves?

Tutorials and Techniques: There is no better way to learn than to try to teach. Write ups of the various techniques, documentation of information from various sources and my journey through them.

Experimental Deep Dives: How many different ways are there to paint something? How many recipes of bone, wood, leather, armor etc? What is my preference? This will be a deep dive study into how others achieve their goals and direct comparison for future reference material on painting recipes.

Conclusion

The progress of growth in all hobbies is the journey and not just the destination. I need to let go of mental barriers and just jump in. Lets grow the site to be a organized repository of this growth so people can follow along in areas they desire for themselves.

What are you working on? Thanks for reading.

Sincerely,
Crazmadsci, Carrie

crazmadsci Goals, Retrospective

State of the Crazy March 1, 2021 & February Retrospective

Update Quicklinks: Life, Painting, Printing, Blog, Hobbystreak, Hobby Goals

Wow I can’t believe it is already time for another Retrospective, I can’t believe how much shorter February feels and it is only 2 or 3 days shorter than other months. Regardless lets get to it!

Last week I finished the Catfolk Fisherman from Lost Adventures 1. Stay tuned for a painting write up later in the week! I also spent a good deal of time cleaning up models, building another organization shelf on my desk, assembly of the Blacksmith (another write up on the way!). Not only that I FINALLY got to play a game of Frostgrave for the very first time. All of these things are actually so exciting for me I’m going to be releasing a post about each one this week.

All in All I feel almost like I’ve not accomplished anything last week. Perhaps it was due to having a visitor for several in my home for the first time since July. I kept up my hobbystreak but it was still incredibly difficult to deep dive into any one task. Instead I jumped around to various tasks and necessities I had around my hobbyspace.

Now for the retrospective….

Life of February

February was overall a quiet month. I feel like it moved in a blur without a massive milestone or event happening. The largest and most exciting thing that happened is that I saw more snow this month then I ever have living in Tennessee. Since moving further south it is rare to get snow and snow that sticks past noon the next day is a unicorn. While we didn’t get as much snow as many surrounding areas the 3 inches of ice and snow lasted almost a full week resulting in my handsome husband working remotely and the whole feeling like it shut down. There was zero infrastructure for snow that other than the interstate and highways no roads were treated or plowed. This was such a crazy concept for me as I grew up in the mountains. Regardless it was fun however I did run out of filament and almost out of resin waiting for a package that was 8 days late. No worries we still got plenty done.


Painting Overview

As for painting in the month of February I accomplished 1 miniature and 1 building. The building, the Fishers Hut took quite a bit of time and was a roll over project from January. Overall i’m happy with it. Enough so that I even put up my first display shelf in my hobby corner so I can see my created stuff and be inspired!

As for the miniature I completed the catfolk fisher from Lost Adventures Vol 1 the Tradefolk Storytelling Pose pack. While I feel like I could have done a better job and put more time into the paint job. I in truth got distracted and didn’t take good enough notes on the paints I used and couldn’t remember what to blend with. I guess that is what you get for juggling so many things at a time.

While I feel like I could have definitely spent more time painting this past month i’m still pretty happy with my progress and growth in skill. There is definitely a difference between some of the early paint jobs and now.

Catfolk Fisher

Fishers Hut


Printing Overview


For the month of February I got quite a bite accomplished in the printing category. As a whole I worked towards printing 4 different kickstarter projects I am currently juggling.

Lost Adventures Vol 2 (Greensea): This contains most of the miniatures I have printed this month including the Catfolk Fisher I painted. I am working towards printing everything and at this point have been making steady progress. Largest hurdles of what is released is two sets of models I wish to rescale smaller to true D&D scale and the 3 released buildings. FDM & Resin Print project
Kingdom of Thamarya: This is predominately the buildings I’ve been focused on printing, First with the Fishers Hut and now the Blacksmith. Next building is still slightly up in the air but I am currently leaning towards the cottage. FDM focused print project
Monstrous Encounters- Undead Rising: This FDM supportless miniature campaign I supported in 2018 and began printing in September 2020. I got distracted finishing this project when I started resin printing and desire to finish the collection. It is very close and I just got a page created for it to keep track of my progress! FDM exclusive print project
Lost Adventures Vol 1: Being the 2nd kickstarter by Danny the 3DPrintingDM from 3dPrintedTabletop, is also one of the kickstarters I aspired to complete as a 2021 goal. I have begun printing these models, more specifically the miniatures. Currently Resin Exclusive Print Project

Over the course of February I estimate that I printed:

Two Buildings

Blacksmith
Kingdom of Thamarya

EverSpring Temple (Early Test print)
Lost Adventures Vol 2

4 Different Groupings of Terrain/Scatter:
Waterwell, Breadcart, jungle trees, and Fallen Jungle tree sets

Waterwell
Breadcart

Miniatures:
11 FDM Miniatures (Various Monsters from Monstrous Encounters)
73 Resin Miniatures (Lost Adventures 1 and 2)
Note this does not count duplicates and print failures.

All in all i’d call it a successful printing month. Wouldn’t you?


Blog Overview


As always this is the section i’m most critical. I keep having to re-evaluate my time and how long it is taking to do something. I have accomplished quite a lot in the month of February. Lets do a quick review of the blog.

Posts: 7 published (4 update posts, 3 painting posts).
Pages: 28

Posts vs Pages:
Overall I have been attempting to document the when of a project via posts and through my weekly updates. Pages currently consist of the How something was accomplished, directory of a project, or future information. Since posts do go to the “blog” section of my website and archives along with notifying followers of posts I am attempting to not spam but also publish consistently. The downside of this is that I update pages with significantly higher frequency than post resulting in the reader discovering less of the content that is being added. If you are reading this and have any suggestions i’m all ears.

Pages of note this month created are my Work in Progress (WIP) page. This houses a listing of all the current projects i’m working on. It directs to the various kickstarters I am working on and what is contained in them along with printlogs, what i’m currently working on, and what is in the print queue. I have been attempting to update each project’s page whenever I create a print log which is 2 to 3 times a week.

I have also created pages for the kickstarter projects I’m doing:
Lost Adventures Vol 1
Lost Adventures Vol 2
Monstrous Encounters – Undead Rising
Kingdom of Thamarya

The coolest part about the project page for me is that I am beginning to reference the site significantly more and more as time progresses as a way to track my own projects as opposed to using my Evernote and Trello Boards. It is really cool to see myself finding the site useful which was a goal all along.

As a result of attempting to make more of these foundational pages I am yet again behind on the print logs and data of what i’m working on. Don’t worry I haven’t forgotten and am working as much as I can.

Last but not least I surpassed my goal of the month and gained 4 new followers to the blog. I am so excited that people are showing interest. Thank you, truly and deeply thank you.

I also received my first comments to various posts on the site. I am absolutely tickled pink! I will respond to each and everyone if you have something to say.

Hobby Streak breakdown by Activity in February


Hobby streak documentation can be found on my Instagram. Breaking this down by what I did or worked on for the week helps me to visualize what I’ve been doing or focusing on. It actually has been really helpful to me as days can sometimes blur by.

Below is an overview of my month based on Hobbystreak documentation. As a whole I spent a lot more nights focused purely on the website while painting less. While I wish I painted more I do not think it is currently a loss. I do think it is hilarious that my photography time went up because I took photographs 1 more night than January.

2021 Hobby Goal Summary


February was a month of slow and steady wins the race. Nothing of significant note for the Goals but definitely making a dent.

Below I broke down my goals and color coded based on work put into. Green means essentially “on track” or “better than expected”. Yellow is “in progress” and Red means “no progress or does not meet up to goals currently.”

Painting

  • Paint an average of 4 days a week
    • All but the last week I achieved this goal
  • Have greater than 183 hobby days (more days than not)
    • 59 hobby days and  32% completed towards my goal
  • Create 12 different bases for miniatures
    • Did not work on any basing in the last month
  • Paint to completion at least 24 models (regardless of size)
    • Painted only 1 model last month making it 3 instead of 4 painted.
  • 4 deep dives to paint techniques or methods/recipes of painting
    • no progress

3D Printing

  • 6 mega projects
    • Making major progress to this goal with trying to wrap up Monstrous Encounters & starting Lost Adventures Vol 1
  • In-depth study of supports for FDM
    • no progress
  • Learn how to support resin
  • Inventory 3D printing/tabletop collection
  • Develop a deeper understanding of print settings

Blog

  • Weekly update write ups (Mondays)
    • State of the Crazy Posts do get written but not on time nor consistent.
  • Weekly Page addition to site (Fridays)
  • Complete Digital Catalog of what I have made
  • Complete Beginners write ups to 3D printing
  • Get 25 Followers to Blog 4 followers! Thank you people 25% of goal completed

Until the next time,
Crazmadsci aka Carrie Day