Happy New Year!

Hello hello! I trust everyone’s holidays and beginning of 2016 is so far going well!

I ended up ringing in the new year this year at a the home of the Painting Sage with some friends, bevvies and boardgames.

Sir, I do challenge theeee!
Disclaimer: I have never watched the TV show for this boardgame. I have no idea what they say when they fight. Aaarg?

While I am not a Spartacus fan, I would actually highly recommend this boardgame – it was a good couple of hours of fun – and I won every arena fight I was dropped into.

Thank you thank you. You may call me the dice master.

Now I realise that in my last post I had only just started painting my green dressed girl buuuut, the ladies are done!!

Soon to be seen* on a Victoria’s Secret runway near you.
*skin grafts not included.

So I ended up not only doing each dress a different colour, but each girls un-dead skin tone a different colour.
Now that I’d done it, I kind of wished I’d just picked 1 skin tone and done them all the same. They don’t really look like a team like this, but ah well; I suppose we live and we learn ey?

I struggle to get ANY photos of Sybelle, because of her darker scheme, and her hunched over pose she has proven to be the worlds more giant pain. I sent a picture of her to a friend that asked how she was going – looked like a dark blob with hooker heels.
Great stuff Sybelle.

I ended up priming up a couple of Reaper Bones minis as well to try to practice painting with.

I am unsure if I have discussed this on my blog before – but it’s time to come clean and tell the truth.

I. Am. The SLOWEST. Painter. You. Will. Ever. Meet.

Legit – in the same amount of time that it takes my friends to paint 2 full miniatures I’m sitting back and like ‘Phew, glad that left arm is done!’. It’s extraordinary…

So I gave my self a time limit of 3 hours per mini. In 1.5 hours, I had skin:

Yaaaaarg! *cough-ehem* No but really, can I have purple chain mail? Pretty please? Can I? Can I? Can I?

I was so incredibly unhappy with this, that I stopped the project and he is now soaking in a tub of paint stripper.
Siiiiigh.
One day, I’ll get there I swear.

Why hello there, madame. Mighty fine to meet you. Have you ever considered, immortality?

I have started my Seamus! I am unsure why I went the extremely self punishing route of STRIPED pants, given that I now have to reproduce these on this Copy-Cat killer. . . but we persevere.

Thanks for tuning again! Catch you all again on the side upon which is revealed whence one rotates a coin mid-air. Otherwise known, as a flip side.

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Long Time, No Post!

Hello my lovely friends!

I realise that I have been extraordinarily absent for the last few weeks!

In a nut-shell, work roster changes and medical problems coming out of the wazoo changed my routines somewhat and haven’t had a lot of change for posting.

Onto Updates in the land of Gaming!! (But just to warn you, this is mostly PC gaming to follow!)

So I got accepted into the Hearthstone BETA and this game is RIGHT UP MY ALLY.
A deck building card came with fancy digital effects? YES THANKS, I’LL TAKE TWO.

I have actually entered an Australia store-chain run tournament for this, and am currently sitting 18th out of 60 players in the tourney. This is going to win me NOTHING, but it’s good fun none-the-less.

So far, my focus has been on Druid. But I’m starting to branch out a little to the other classes and am thoroughly enjoying Hunter.

Why don’t you love me anymore? You’re leaving me for HIM!? A HUNTER?
DOES HE EVEN LIFT?

In addition, I also got accepted into the Dawngate BETA.

Needless to say, it’s a lot like playing a less enjoyable version of LoL. Like, don’t get me wrong, I know it’s BETA and I know it’s a MOBA but – naaaah.

At least their character art is pretty?

OH! OH OH OH! I finally got around to playing a bit of the new Tomb Raider game! The reviews were absolutely correct.
I must say, best handling Tomb Raider I’ve ever played (and I’ve loved nearly all of them).
The UI is smart, the controls are organic, the cut scenes are amazing and the game play is involving and challenging without bordering on “Repeat this as many times are required to luck out actually getting it” as the Tomb Raider games sometimes had a tendency to do.

Welcome to my home. Hope you enjoy the lovely decor.

I have to admit, thoroughly impressed with the graphics.
As much as I think Lara Croft’s “face” is not quite the Lara Croft I have come to know at love (and let’s face it, unless she looks like a young Angelinda Jolie, I’m probably not sold), the faces are damned impressive.

The above snip, is GAME PLAY. Like….WHAT? That’s awesome.

Welp, I might leave it there for the moment – and blog a little bit more later in today if I have a chance.

Love you all my friends!!

~ as always,
A Highly Caffeinated Ellie

The Mass Effect of Pneumonia

Hello my lovelies!! *BEWARE OF MASS EFFECT 2 SPOILERS*

As you may have noticed, I dropped off the face off the planet for a week or so.

So, I was in a friends wedding (which was all hectic on it’s own preparing for) but, as luck would have it the next day I was sick. Since then, I have mostly been moping around in bed feeling sorry for myself with Pneumonia and the relative goodness of a chest infection. Uuuuurgh.

Literally, stuck in bed for a number of days with not too much energy. So, how did I keep myself amused? With the Halloween STEAM sale of course.

Ehem. Maybe I should not be left to my own devices sometimes.

As a side note, I have no idea what Painkiller is, nor do I remember selecting it – but hey, there is it.

So I started playing Mass Effect 2. This is a game my cousin has been insisting I try as it is (in her words) “omfgrjuih34r5jkfhri34 epicz”.

Hmmm…it’s not too bad.

It’s not a bad game, and it has a relatively interesting story. You start as this chick (I’m playing as Femshep) that she’s proverbially brought back from the dead to do the bidding of some group that no body apparently likes.

Fast-forward a bit and my mission is to recruit a bunch of people in to my ‘crew’.

This chick. HAH, she’s basically my own personal hooker with a gun.

Dudes name is Archangel. Why though is actually beyond me as once you see his face, it’s not heaven you assumed he dropped from.

And Jack. She’s all hardcore and dangerous and wearing like….ropes to cover her nips.
I suppose living a few months in a stasis tube doesn’t leave for a lot of time to go clothes shopping.

So I head off on these missions in this nightclub, and of course what is the first thing a player should do when presented with digital strippers? Spend all the gold on a lap dance.

If I’d seen this kids face first, I might have kept my money.

And Jacks all…

…You’re doing it wrong.

As much as I am enjoying this game, I must admit the cut-scenes are a bit excessive. Even for me. I feel more like I’m watching a movie that I occasionally participate in, than I am participating in a story with occasional movie.

Other than this, I have been working little bits on WHAT WAS my Rotten Harvest competition entry – but due to getting sick never got her completed in time.

Photos of her next!!

Look forward to catching up on everyones posts! 🙂

~ Sincerely, El

Slow to Update, Slow to Paint

So haven’t made an update for a little while because life has been waaaaay too hectic!
As a result of the above, I have also made very little progress doing much of anything else.

But! My Rotten Harvest competition entry is coming along. Just hope I have it finished in time! I wish I could take photos of it to post up and ask for advice and help, but unfortunately one of the rules is that it cannot have been published/shown off anywhere *sigh*.

I have however been keeping up to date with Mako’s ‘free-hand-along’ thread on the Wyrd forums. So far, not good.
My outlining skills are BOLLOCKS. Just seriously all types of fail was going on here.

What have you painted on the back of me? Yellow splodge I think!

And then in week 2 we filled the outline in.

Oooooh, it’s meant to be a bird. Who’da thunk it?

The filled in version looks a little better, but I’m struggling to keep it non-chalky and defined.
I also noticed that the wings are horribly uneven. And now that I’ve seen it – I can’t un-see it 😦
And I was a little careless where I put her and have ended up with a few sizable chips out of her paint. At least they’re areas I probably should re-do anyways!

Tried to get a nice photo of all of my little Infinity guys – but alas, as the Painting Sage has warned me before “Direct sunlight is not your friend”. It’s very true.

Well, I might leave it there for the moment. Going to start painting up one of my Malifaux Gunsmiths – but it will probably be slow going while I get my Rotten Harvest done!!

Love you all,
Sincerely El.

Kickstart your Baseing!

Was just thinking about kickstarter.com , and decided to patrol to see if there were any new projects I was interested in, and stumbled upon this:

(http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1843680961/base-stampers-textured-base-stamps-for-miniature-w?ref=search)

So the concept is that you can just putty (green stuff/epoxy) up your base, and use this simple stamp to ingrain a texture and shape for your base to then be painted.

Now, I personally find this is a really exciting concept, because even though the set of stamps will continue to create the same little base – you’re avoiding using your own spare skulls/pipes/swords etc to give the base a little more something, AND once you’ve stamped it, nothing to say you can’t have a go at a little artistic license and grove your own additions into it.

Quite interested to keep tabs on this one, and see if I can work up the funds to get me a couple of sets of these bad boys.

Malifaux and pretty things

As a result of this post –> Malifaux Project Shenanigans by The Wargaming Monkey … I went and purchased these today:

Can’t wait to crack these bad boys open and get painting! As the website for Mailfaux appears to have all the rules and cards available for downloads, I shall get to reading 🙂 .

Uuuugh, love the designs!

~ Always, Ellie

Ever wanted to date a pigeon?

Then have I got the game for you!

Hatoful Boyfriend is a Japanese dating sim based on the story of a girl attending an ALL PIGEON SCHOOL.
She is the only human character in this game (despite the male pigeons having human ‘avatars’), and the goal is to get to know and then date the male pigeon students.

Now, when I said that the male pigeons have avatars, this is merely a figment of the girls imagination, and the feature can be turned off via a setting in the game – if you would prefer to enjoy your male counterparts in all their feathered glory.

I have to be honest, while playing the game, I did feel a tad suss…

Normally, I don’t mind Japanese dating sims, or at least – the one or two I’ve played before – but there was something about the idea of fictionally romancing a bird that made me….uneasy.
However, that could also be the fault of the dialogue.

If you say so…

Either way, in the same rhelm as my previous post regarding ‘Umadonna’ I wonder how many others of these are out there?

Actually, I take that back.
I don’t need to know.

Haha, sincerely – El

How do you record a game?

I watch a lot of ‘let’s play’ type videos, and what people demonstrating how to do something at a certain point – what is the best way/software to record you playing a game?

Blogging from Android

This is actually one of the more impressive apps I’ve seen made for a website.
Most of the others are pretty clumsy but this is well set out actually.

From,
El on her mobile.

Someone took offence to BioShock’s forced baptism

Although I have the utmost respect for personal beliefs and the right to express them – I have to admit, this made me laugh.
Firstly because in the same breath that you say ‘I can’t play this because of my religion’ you also say ‘At least I could skip stuff in the shoot em up that involves violating one of the 10 commandments and demands I slaughter people’.
Secondly I laugh because, in what other medium would you be able to return things for this? Can people take back the entire series of Grey’s Anatomy and claim that they didn’t realise that by season 6 there’d be a lesbian character? Or take back a bitten cheeseburger because they didn’t realise it was beef? No, no you cannot.

If you choose to stop watching, playing, reading, eating or partaking in WHATEVER because it makes you uncomfortable, then that is your business. But expecting compensation/refund for your own possibly poor choices or miss-understanding about the content of something is unrealistic – that’s on you, buddy.