Author Archives: tony

Movies in 2009

Posted on by

Here’s a random collection of movies that might get released in 2009, and some random comments from me.  I don’t have any good inside sources so I’m relying on magazines, imdb and other on-line resources to get this list together so I apologise if it’s all bollocks.  Plus, this is for UK releases, some of this stuff has already been on in other parts of the universe.  Oh and it’s stuff that interests me, so you’ll see a huge genre slant and an absence of high quality drama.

The Spirit

Hmm, I’ve not been impressed with the trailers and the buzz so far.  I fear that the style will overcome the substance and The Spirit will be a flop, and I guess the most it can hope for is ‘cult status’.  A cop dies in the line of duty and comes back as The Spirit to fight against Central City’s evil underbelly.  The only thing I’m looking forward to now is Samuel L Jackson’s performance.

Excitement factor: 5/10

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

I have pretty low hopes for this prequel to the two Underworld movies.  I fear low production values and a bad script.  I may be wrong, but I just feel the story has been told once already and this is purely a cynical cashing in attempt (yes, most of Hollywood blockbuster material is about cashing in, but sometimes it’s less cynical).  It may turn out to be a kick-ass fantasy action movie with witty dialog and solid direction, but …

Excitement factor: 6/10

Continue reading →

Painting Diary – Chronoscope – Sasha DuBois – part two

Posted on by

The eyes have it

First thin layer of flesh tone paintThis is the second part in a series of articles covering the progress of a single miniature painting job (Sasha DuBois, Time Chaser).   In the first article I covered the basic preparation of the miniature.  In this article I show you how I can take a perfectly good miniature and ruin it from the outset with a hack skin and face job.  Rather than just include a long line of images near the end, I’ll scatter them throughout the paragraphs, each one has a title which should let you know which stage it’s at.  For full pictures and descriptions you can still check out the Picasa web album.

Once I’d prepared the figure I had a think about basic colour schemes and skin tone.  I’m really uncomfortable painting much other than ‘sun beaten caucasian’ skin, I’ve tried a range of colours in the past from the realistic to the fantastical and either my technique doesn’t suit them or I’m just not able to convert what I see in my head into colour choices and colour application on the final figure, so I went with my traditional skin colour choice.  For the rest of the figure I want something bold and colourful, this is a steampunkish / sci-fi figure and I really want it to be vibrant.

Continue reading →

Breakfasts!

Posted on by

Ah Christmas week, a week of relaxing and eating breakfasts you’re not allowed to eat during the rest of the year (well, it’s my tradition and I’m sticking to it!)

This morning Grete had Belgian Waffles with Canadian Maple Syrup (pure) and I’m having (too many) crumpets with butter.  Grete has more waffles in the cupboard and some croissants for some point later in the week.  I normally cook a fried breakfast on Christmas day but in the last few years we’ve run into scheduling issues.  We don’t really get the breakfast done cooked until 11 o’clock or sometimes later, and that pushes our roast dinner back until the early evening.  Neither of those things is good for my diabetes really (by the time breakfast is done I’m usually desperate to eat), so this year we’re doing fried breakfast on Christmas Eve and something smaller on Christmas Day, so we can eat the dinner at more like 2 or 3 o’clock.

Ah, crumpets, sweet crumpets already I feel your white flour sugary badness flowing into my blood and making me a little giddy.  Soon you’ll lift me high and then dump me suddenly, alone, cold and shaking in the wilderness of high GI food and yet I shall love thee no less and in two days we shall dance this dance again.

Inspiration

Posted on by

Like anything creative, you paint your best miniatures when you’re inspired (by the figure).  Oddly, inspiration is a bit random, you can look at a miniature lots of times and not be inspired and then one day just get an image or a colour scheme or something finally clicks and you get excited by the prospect of painting it.  We set up in the lounge this evening and decided to watch some Black Adder and do some ‘crafting’, so Grete got out a rug she’s making and I dragged all the paints through from the computer room.  I intended to keep working on the Sasha DuBois piece for the diary and maybe potter about a bit with some others figures (I have a zombie army I’m supposed to be painting after all).  However, I picked up one of the heavy metal nuns I had started and was just inspired to finish it.  It ended up being worthwhile because I found a hair colour I really like and think looks very effective which I then used on the Sasha piece.  We watched all of the first season of Black Adder and half of the second and I finished the nun (flesh had already been done although I did a little extra washing and dry brushing) and I’m really pleased with the overall finished piece.

Photo’s don’t do it justice, but I don’t have time for two hobbies (painting and photographing really small things so they look like they do in real life), but here’s a few pictures anyway.  More posted in the relevant picasa albums (in progress and complete).  I think I made a claim that I’d be doing these figures using blending, but let’s face it I suck at that and I’ve proven I’m no good at keeping creative promises, so I’ll probably stop making them.  The figure on the right in this photo is the one I finished.  The full unpainted set are here.  I might try and keep the same colour scheme running through them all, a mixture of scab red (mmm lovely) and dark blues with gold edging, but then again, I may not.

I am pleased with the result, I think I did the best I could although I wish I could get the edges tighter and get the colours blended better but that’s either going to come with a lot more practice or never come at all.

Either way, I enjoyed painting this figure and I enjoy the result.

Stress free shopping

Posted on by

Just got back from what has to be our most stress free ‘last shop before Christmas’ in the history of Christmases.  Granted we’d got loads of stuff already buying it in little bits over the last 3 weeks, but there’s always fresh stuff you need, bread, milk, veg, etc. and Tesco was totally empty at 8:30am this morning!  We grabbed some breakfast, and then sorted the last of the food.

No need to go shopping again now until next Saturday.

We’re not penny pinching this Christmas but we’re certainly budgeting, and so far we’re within budget, although I have to pretend I’m not paying for more tooth work in February and I don’t need a new wing mirror.

Painting Diary – Chronoscope – Sasha DuBois – part one

Posted on by

Introduction

Figure in blister packI wanted to paint something and I also wanted to write some reasonably lengthy and meaty blog posts, so I thought it made sense to combine the two things.  Welcome then to my first painting diary where I’ll cover the process I followed to paint Reaper Miniatures’ Sasha DuBois (part of their Chronoscope line).  The whole article is split up into several parts, and this is part one.

It’s worth saying what this series of articles is not.  They’re not a guide on how to paint, they’re not an example of the right way to paint, they’re not about how you should paint.  What it is, is purely a diary about how I painted this specific miniature.  At the moment, I’ve got no idea how the figure will turn out, I may ruin it, I may give up half way through, I may finish it and hate it, or complete it and be really proud of it.

Along with the blog posts I’ll be updating a Picasa web album with all the photo’s I take.  You can check out all the photo’s in the on-line gallery here.

I was going to track the progress of a space marine I got (for free!) when I bought some paint, because it would be something totally different for me.  I’ve never painted a space marine, I don’t usually paint sci-fi miniatures, it’s male, and it’s fully clothed.  However, I eventually decided at least for my first painting diary (on this platform) that I’d stick partially to form.  Hence the figure is female and is at least partially naked (bare midriff), however it is at least a sci-fi miniature.  So, here we go.

Continue reading →

Officially on holiday

Posted on by

Grete’s dad has headed out, so the cat are now trying to work out if the house is safe or not.  Bubbles is pretty confident the coast is clear but Fizz is going to take a lot more convincing, and I have the bleeding fingers, wrists and thighs to prove it.

However, since I now have no more responsibility until I go back to work I am officially on holiday.

Weekend progress

Posted on by

So the cats are sort of coping with the presence of a dog, Bubbles is being oddly bolshy and while obviously not happy about the Not Cat that is walking around her house she’s coping ok.  Fizz however is in hiding and has been for the whole weekend.  She is not happy at all about the dog.  Funny that Fizz is the dominant cat but Bubbles is the one being most normal.

Lord of the Rings Online – a review – part four

Posted on by

Welcome to the fourth and last part of my short (yeh yeh) review of the Lord of the Rings Online (you can find parts one, two and three behind those links).  As Grete said while she proof read the third part for me, it’s not really a review, more of an introduction to the game.  Generally I agree, although I could argue it is a review, but not a critique.  Either way, it was a little longer than I expected when I decided to answer Ottaro’s original question.  Hope you found it useful.

4. Other Stuff

There’s the stuff that makes up a game (the content, the system, the graphics) but there’s also the non-stuff or maybe the quantum-stuff which is much harder to pin down which makes a game worthwhile and gives it longevity.  I’ll talk about those things here, I’ll give you a list of all the stuff I remembered I hadn’t spoken about, and I’ll finally (thank the Greek gods finally) wrap up.

4.1 Immersion

A game can’t be totally responsible for your eventual immersion.  People with hectic lives will find themselves being dragged out of the game, or distracted and not able to ‘lose themselves’ as easily as people in quiet households.  Some people find it easier to focus on a single thing and immerse themselves for many reasons than other people.  But a game must certainly take some responsibility for enabling that immersion.  If the game constantly drags you out of the action because of the control system, or if the information on screen is so anachronistic that it constantly reminds you you’re playing a game then it’s always going to be harder to feel fully involved. If the graphics on the other hand are impressive, representative and make you feel like the world could be real, then it’s going to be easier.

Add to this the other players and to a lesser extent the other non-player characters and how they behave.  If the players around you are constantly discussing their mortgage or car purchase in an easy to read channel, or the NPC’s act dumb all the time, then suspension of disbelief becomes harder and harder.

How then does LoTRO rate?  Well firstly you need to remember I’ve played exclusively on a roleplaying designated server, and that means people are pretty keen on keeping out-of-character chat to a complete minimum and limited to the /ooc channel only.  In that respect, it’s very good, people try hard to talk in-character in fellowships or in /say and there’s very little non-IC chat to remind you about the bills you should be paying.

Alongside the well behaved players, we have NPC’s in LoTRO that sometimes call to friends for help, sometimes run away to shoot at you from range and sometimes call you names during the fight, it’s not going to win AI awards but it certainly helps.

Finally, the beautifully rendered world sucks you in, and before you know it you’re staring into fires in Goblin Town feeling the warmth and wondering if that smell is roast pork or maybe, just maybe, somewhere, a Hobbit is being turned into dinner.
Continue reading →

Pretty tired today

Posted on by

More emotionally tired than physically, and not really able to think of anything worthy to blog about.  The final part of the Lord of the Rings Online review will auto-post at 9pm.  I enjoyed writing that, enjoyed writing something substantial over a number of days, I may try and do something similar maybe about miniature painting.  Perhaps I’ll pick one figure and blog about the whole painting process.  Maybe I’ll get bored long before that happens.

Grete’s dad is visiting today, staying overnight.  The cats will have to cope with his dog so we’ve moved their food, water and litter tray upstairs so they can continue to do what they do (eat, drink, shit, sleep) without being disturbed.  He’s taking our presents for Grete’s sister, brother-in-law and their kids down south with him when he heads out on Saturday.