Update Quicklinks: Printing, Painting, Blog
Hello! Friends, family, fellow hobbyists & bloggers and everyone else. I hope you are having a great day so far. It is that time again, what is the current status of all things crazy going on? I don’t know about you but life here at the Crazy Mad Scientist household are exciting and just got a little bit more interesting.
Finally, after a much anticipated time we have welcomed a new gamer to our family. Im so excited to welcome our new son to our family and are all happy and healthy. This very tiny kid came out at 10 lbs 10 oz (4819 grams) and is 21 inches long (53 cm), needless to say I’m thrilled to have him in the world. I’m already scheming on how to fit in my hobby time around naps and imagining all the games we will play together.
Also with the new addition I have been taking inventory both physically and mentally of the status of all my Hobby Goals for the 2021 year. Its definitely going to be more difficult to stay on track but I think if I gauge my goals ahead of time we can still get things done. Some things i’ve been blazing through and others not so much. I’m still collecting data but will fill you all in as soon.
Printing Updates
In terms of 3D printing I have been absolutely determined to build myself a kingdom. I have no idea if all the buildings from the Kingdom of Thamarya will fit on my gamer table, aka the dining room table, or not but I have been having fun for sure. The most recent addition to the collection is the General Store this is bringing the total set up to 5 buildings. Assembly is not 100% completed and write up is in progress. I’ve also started on printing the mausoleum.
I can’t stop imagining all the props, scatter and miniatures I want to make in honor of celebrating the construction of this setup. I am trying to not get sidetracked in printing all the small things but have already dabbled a little bit into a carpentry and blacksmith props.
Resin Printing has definitely slowed down a bit for the time being as I catch up in my documentation and do not want resin to end up on my hands with a newborn.
Painting Update
As for painting, I finally finished assembling, post process clean up and priming all the pieces for the Blacksmith and Cottages from the Kingdom of Thamarya Kickstarter. Both required different types of print clean up and I tried many different techniques for gap filling, customization, and even encountered a few new issues and troubleshooted.
Now I am working on painting these three buildings and finding inspirational concept art. I am hoping to batch paint them and finish them quickly. The largest thing i’m struggling with is picking the color for the roofs. I can’t decide if the roofs of the various houses should be variable or one consistent color. Realistic or Whimsical. What do you think? I have the Fishers Hut with a blue roof. Should they match?
I might be personally leaning towards a red/orange roof shingle on the cottages and a blueish grey on the Blacksmith. Who knows we will see.
I also recently got some chipping medium from Vallejo and considering to approach a weathered over grown vine appearance on one of the cottages.
There is definitely a balancing act between experimentation and moving slowly with just getting them done to move on. Either way its a win win and any form of hobby done is a success and reward. Are you a fast and done or slow and steady painter yourself?
As for the Wood Painting deep dive. I have not forgotten about it, and am planning how I want to approach it. I was originally going to do large experiments and big categories but think i’m going to instead add slowly. First up painting different wood tones and an experiment on underpainting!
Blog Update
The blog is growing much faster in viewership and reading than I anticipated which is wonderful. I have actually hit my 2021 follower goal in less than 6 months into the year! Thank you for all the support and following the blog if you are one of those people. This is the first of my 2021 hobby goals that I have hit for the year and absolutely did not expect that. I’m honored.
The blog is also getting several hits for a few articles and guides and appearing on the front page of google for searching. I still have no idea what I did to warrant that as I haven’t worked on maximizing my Search Engine Optimization, SEO, but think its very cool that people are finding the site like that.
I have a lot planned and working on added more pages for navigation and am finding myself commonly referencing my own work and status updates to track my projects which is fantastic and exactly what I dreamt it would be for myself. However I do have quite a few one off write ups and posts that I need to create good navigation to and so it does not get lost. You will potentially find more pages that say “Work in Progress” for this reason. Please let me know if you see or experience any out of date links or broken links.
I think with the new little one around the writing and building of the site organization and structure are the perfect tasks as my movement around the house is still a bit sluggish.
Conclusion
Overall I am much more excited and happy with the improved pace and momentum happening in both the digital and physical hobbying. There was definitely a slow down in April but May I have been working hard to build it back up. Now to finish up and knock out some of these mega projects i’ve been working on and some catch up on the 2021 Hobby goals.
As always happy hobbying. What have you been working on? Have a specific highlight you are proud of?
Happy Crafting,
Carrie aka crazmadsci