[unofficial weekender] 1 week until Christmas 2020

[sundancer 42978xp 2]

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Read all of this before you start as it will save any trouble later.

First thing you must do is make your “pledge”. It can be anything gaming related, big or small, and you don’t even have to finish it. No, in here, happiness is the road. Have fun doing whatever it is, but it is not a race. Accompany your work with pictures or we might think you are do something sinister and just using us for cover.

You are also presented with a few questions. It is to get the conversation started. Try and keep your answers ‘conversational’, no text speak, and certainly no “basically”. This is how we all get to know each other better. While you are here feel free to tell us a story, show a picture, joke, tales of love or woe, or just add your own little bit. This is the whole point…in here it is just us.

If you have never taken part before we may bark and bite, but we also like a cuddle! It is all done in the best possible taste and it is character building. feel free to give as good as you get.

A few other things to note: NO RELIGION & NO POLITICS! Glasgow pub rules are in effect. If you need to make a better point then it is fine, but don’t take the piss. And always keep it civil.

Play plenty of music to go with your work. Loud and through proper speakers. Write us a playlist of things we might not have heard before.

Now, after all of that there is only one ‘real’ rule in here and it cannot be broken: NO DICKS! (Exceptions may be made for little fighting men with little plastic/resin/metal wieners)

And don’t forget the highlights of the weekend: The Weekender on Friday and XLBS on Sunday. And the little show that is the unofficial Hobby Hangout over at twitch.tv

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Questions of the week:

• Are your devices up to date? (Software patches and updates)
• Do you have a working backup?
• When did you last check your backups?

Yes, I just had a bad case of faecal matter hitting spinning blades. Not personally but one of my customers.

[sundancer 42978xp 3]

• yes.
• yes!
• end of November.

Now coffee.

Also: I got a Kickstarter delivered… won’t tell which one… you’ll need to watch the next uHH 😉

[blinky465 17028xp 3]

• No – I build custom hardware and unscheduled updates breaks stuff if I’m in the middle of a development cycle (yes, I’m looking at you, Unity). A stable, working platform is more use to me than the latest, patched but ultimately flaky one!
• Yes
• Last night

 

I’ve not been as active on the forums in the last few weeks, but am looking to get back into hobby time over Xmas. Is it just me, or has forum activity dropped off a cliff in recent months? It used to be quite vibrant, but since Discord launched, the forums feel pretty quiet.

Is that where everyone has gone? Are all the cool kids hanging out on Discord and ignoring the forums now?

[doomriderParticipant 1411xp 1]

• yes
• yes
• I guess I’ll do it now just to be sure

Looks like Yule has crept up on us again and I finished none of my lock down hobby goals (the joy of working from home all year round is that the work never stops).

[limburger 21708xp 1]

1. Are your devices up to date? (Software patches and updates)
   I think so … MS certainly forces updates often enough and everything that has firmware is at the latest version.
   The biggest challenge is that some of my devices have had zero updates for years now ….
2. Do you have a working backup?
   Nah … live on the edge.
3. When did you last check your backups?
   See 3

I probably do need to check my password storage.

Final bits of my Conan RPG kickstarter have been deliverd. I think 4 years after deadline is some kind of record.
I think that they over estimated how much content they had when they did the kickstarter, because the last set of splat books feels thin. OTOH they are too thick to be added to an existing book. The art and layout is great though.

Tainted Grail wave 2 has been delivered (and I haven’t even started on the wave 1 baseline story content :grin:)
And there’s the Sentinel Comics Superhero RPG

That one is big enough to do some serious damage.

Work will continue on my Soviets … progress so far :

oh … and I was crazy enough to drill those barrels.
It’s weird how being stuck at home can motivate you at times.
I think I may have discovered how to motivate myself and get back at it.
The only thing I need to avoid is getting stuck in front of my tv 😉

We needs music :

I think this one was posted here once before :

 

[crazyredcoatParticipant 13642xp 2]

I have one last essay to write tomorrow and then my semester is done…thank the gods… Been a rough one with lots of ups and downs…though mainly downs, I guess. Maybe. Anyway, enough of that. 1 week left…feels like December has been like 4 days long. Is that just me? Anyway, no definite plans for what to paint once I’m finally free of school for a few weeks. I might do another of my Ultras Lieutenants, but I also might paint some more Game of Thrans. I literally got asked a question on a Volcanology exam about ‘Dragonglass’… 😛 Ramblings aside…

Are your devices up to date? (Software patches and updates)

Maybe? Most of mine auto update…my bigger problem is finding time and effort to clean the damn things… Taking out heat sinks always feels like I don’t got time for dat!

Do you have a working backup?

For my schoolwork…kinda… I ought to start thinking about backups… I am a very disorganised person…

When did you last check your backups?

See above…

@blinky465 I’ve noticed it’s a bit quieter around here, too. Used to be if I popped in once a week there was 3 pages of new stuff to sift through…

 

[sundancer 42978xp 0]

Is that where everyone has gone? Are all the cool kids hanging out on Discord and ignoring the forums now?

@blinky465 I think it’s a combination of “Forums are on their way out”, “Discord is more instantaneously” and a general “I’m tired and I can’t bring myself to interact any more”.

Personally for me it’s the later one. Even bringing myself to write this took a day because work is currently really exhausting. I would really look into the statistics of ontabletop.com to see if the overall clickrate has dropped as much as the forum activities have. I think there is a drop even thought one that is as high as the downfall of forum posts.

[scribbs 14509xp 2]

Been a few weeks since I posted here, so I feel qualified to comment. It has mainly been a lack of time combined with overall fatigue. I’ve often found caught myself thinking ‘I’ll reply to that later’, but never managing to get around to it. I’m probably reading just as many posts, but interacting requires a bit more time/effort that I’m struggling with at the moment.

Questions: Yes everything is up to date, I believe my backups are functional, and from that you can tell that I don’t check them enough!

I’ve just finished a couple of Napoleonic British officers, but have mostly been working through some models that arrived last month from the Statuesque Kickstarter (please excuse the poor photo).

[limburger 21708xp 1]

I’d say both Discord and Forums have their place.
Chat is nice for saying ‘hi’, but it sucks when you need to look at things that happened in the past.
Forums are great for keeping trains of thought on the rails, but they lack the immediacy of chat and blogs.

IRC never replaced the BBS …
And Discord is just the fancy new name/version for IRC and the various messengers that existed in the good ol’ days.

btw … why are blogs called blogs anyway ?

Or maybe I’m too old to understand why Twitter, snapchat and Instagram and the rest of the anti-social media such even exist ?

blergh … need distractions from The Event(tm) (stay indoors!).

Anyone else tired of this constant bombardment with ‘feel good’ Christmas movies and Christmas-themed episodes in tv-series ?

I say we kill Santa … it’s just another name for satan anyway.

[sundancer 42978xp 0]

Or maybe I’m too old to understand why Twitter, snapchat and Instagram and the rest of the anti-social media such even exist ?

No it’s simply a change of times. People want to know and see everything at any time at an instant. And they don’t let themselves have the time to reflect on most what is said and broadcasted. That’s why I stopped being active on twitter or facepage. I take occasional peeks and then I’m off again.

Anyone else tired of this constant bombardment with ‘feel good’ Christmas movies and Christmas-themed episodes in tv-series ?

I would if I had regular TV. But with Netflix and Disney+ I pick an choose. Escapism for the win!

[blinky465 17028xp 0]

I started some new minis the other day. Although I was finally not-upset with my “stylistic” edge-highlighted cartoon style I’ve spent twenty years trying to shed, I thought I’d give “volumetric shading” a go (you know, where you split a mini into basic volumes then paint each with appropriate highlights and shadows).

I wasn’t happy with the result, so photographed it and turned the image black and white. As I expected, there was a lot of mid-tones and not much variation in “volume”. So I thought I just needed to mix some brighter colours.

Then I watched this:

And now my brain is leaking out of my ears and nothing makes sense any more.

 

[sundancer 42978xp 0]

Leaking brains is a bad sign I think….

[torros 23816xp 2]

Questions about things I know nothing about

 

OK answers

1. Who knows?

2. Who knows?

3. Who knows?

 

Still. Struggling with Iberians.  Hopefully get some more finished this week

[torros 23816xp 2]

Never heard of volumetric shading. Maybe your over thinking  this painting thing

[mageParticipant 20596xp 2]

Howdy y’all,

 

My pledge is to finish a unit of ten Necron Immortals and a The Deceiver for my Necron Army from Warhammer 40,000. Hopefully it will all get done by Christmas day.

 

(1)   Yes I think so, but honestly, if they run I don’t care. It’s a minimially important part of my life. Like, microscopic.

 

(2)   Nope. Old School. Does the cloud with saves count? If so, yes, kinda. Phone and Nintendo Switch

 

(3)   Never.

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