[unofficial weekender] Books!

[sundancer 43722xp 1]

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First time visitor to OTT? Then please introduce yourself in the New Member Thread and look around in the Project System. Then come back and read on…

https://www.beastsofwar.com/forums/topic/introduce-yourselves-new-member-thread/

https://www.beastsofwar.com/project/

Read all of this before you start as it will save you 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. This includes no philosophy, no home computer culture wars.

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 Hobby Hangout over at twitch.tv

If you fancy to see some nice WIP pictures go to the WAYPN thread https://www.beastsofwar.com/forums/topic/what-are-you-painting-now-2025-edition/

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Question of the week:

• What is your favourite hobby related book? Excluding rulebooks! Any kind of craft book, art book or things of that nature

And now back to the show.

[sundancer 43722xp 1]

Pledge: um… last pledges didn’t go so well so this week I will skip them

Answer: currently it’s the Terrain Essentials by Mel. I have some other books from Michael Martin (aka TWS, Tabletop Workshop on YouTube) but Mel’s book is more of a “solid advice for everything” as Michaels books have a focus.

That all my change once I find time to  read Talking Miniatures.

Music:

[zoidpinhead 12712xp 1]

Pledge:  Finish putting Persian infantry together and get some more done to the Epic Celts.

Answer:  Kevin Dallimore’s Painting and Modelling Guide was very influential in helping to show the techniques used by an elite painter.  I didn’t fully adopt the 3 stage technique and I didn’t buy into the Foundry 3 part paint system either as I couldn’t afford it.  Reading it did improve my painting and give me confidence to work on painting and develop my techniques.

Celtic theme today:

or you could have the Fugees who both nicked it but somehow also improved the sound of the sample at the same time:

 

[pagan8th 13365xp 2]

Pledge… write the next Achtung Cthulhu adventure, but do it in note form so I can be more spontaneous and without relying on ai which I did last time because I was feeling uninspired… and the adventure was uninspired as a result.

Hobby related books? If you mean how to paint, or build, or something like that… then I don’t own any.

If I need to know how to do something… then I use a search engine, or visit youtube.

[grantinvanman 6248xp 2]

Pledge: finish the commission. That’s today. All done! For now …

Book: hard to say, most would be “rulebooks”,  but 2nd edition 40k books are my thing. Major nostalgia overload.

 

[limburger 22081xp 1]

Reminds me I need to dig out my copy from Mel’s book from my stacks of hobby stuff …

I’d have to give a mention of the original ‘Realms of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness’ books (book 1 of 2 for Realms of Chaos).
It should be somewhere in my stash. It has added more depth to the Chaos forces for both 40k and Warhammer.

Stuff we would never ever see again as GW erased all pretense of uniqueness across all factions.

Honorable mention should go to the Ork books of those early days as well. I don’t know where that’s gone so I doubt it survived, which sucks. All I know it had loose pages somehow ?  Such a shame that things like the Blood axes are now a mere statline. It might be why I like the Marauders in Mantics’ Sci Fi games. Sure, they’re not the idiot football hooligan greenskins that GW used to have, but at least they are their own thing.

I’m also a sucker for what usually are called splatbooks for RPG’s in general. The more art and background the better.
It’s kind of why I like pretty much anything that Free League Publishing do as they generally have really good and thematic art.

oh … and finally there’s the artbooks by Simon Stålenhag. His art gave us ‘Tales from the Loop’. I really like the late 70’s / early 80’s Euro sci fi vibe.

As I was watching the unboxing of the new Alien starter set and GM screen (or should that be : Mu/Th/Er screen?)
I had this crazy idea that there needs to be a GM screen that has those lights and (functioning?) monitor screen.
At the moment I have zero idea how this could possibly be done and it’s unlikely that I could ever build it, but it is nice to think about such things.

And of course YouTube had to suggest this :

So down the rabbit hole of ambient sound tracks I went and I found loads more Sci Fi/Cyberpunk themed variants.
It kind of made me wonder if a cyberpunk-themed GM screen with flashing lights would be possible as well.

However I should focus on finishing stuff before thinking about new things …

[danlee 22595xp 3]

This week’s pledge is to paint the cycle 5 monsters for Aeon Trespass Odyssey, then move on to the cycle 5 titans.

 

• What is your favourite hobby related book? Excluding rulebooks! Any kind of craft book, art book or things of that nature – Well the book(s) I’m using the most recently are the Jon Hodgson backdrops books. I’ve got most of them I think and use them for all my model photography.

[sundancer 43722xp 0]

Sunday. The weekender has gone, so has the xlbs.

Now there is the hobby void!

Coffee needed. Hope you lot enjoy the peace and quiet of a Sunday 🙂

[pagan8th 13365xp 1]

Sunday is not exactly peaceful and quiet. half the day is spent with my sister and doing jobs I didn’t have time (or energy) for in the week… gardening for example.

Then I get a few hours off before it’s time to host and GM the game…

And then sunday has gone and it’s back to work for 6 days.

[zoidpinhead 12712xp 1]

Here’s something for your hobby void.  Pledge update:

All done except the shields and basing.  Should get that done later.

@danlee Good shout with the Jon Hodgson backdrops books.  I’ve only got a couple but they are game changers for improving miniature photography.

[limburger 22081xp 0]

yess … finally a bit of hobby done.
Or rather. I’ve updated instructions for future me 😀

https://www.beastsofwar.com/project-entry/1941626/?updated=true#snav

[blinky465 17178xp 3]

If anyone wants to join in, we’ve a new monthly painting competition here – https://www.beastsofwar.com/forums/topic/paintcomp-september-2025/

Pledge – to complete at least one mini (for the monthly painting comp, of course) and work a bit more on my Gouged Eye Blood Bowl Christmas team.

@sundancer peace and quiet on a Sunday? The chance would be a fine thing – I’ve been out in the garden, battling with the undergrowth, chopping down trees, fighting with brambles (the previous owners sold it as “managed wilderness” when what they meant was “everything’s dying but good luck finding it under all that lot!”). I’m finding I deliberately put aside an hour at the end of each day to sit amongst my paints and minis and that’s where I’m finding my peace and quiet at the minute!

Books? The Art of Game Design is a great read. A bit “academic” in places, but raises some great ideas for ways to take your games (if you’re into house-ruling). Other than that, I recently found an old Citadel Miniatures catalogue up in the loft and it took me on a real nostalgia trip!

Music? Since I’m being all nostalgic, here’s one from the archives – this remix version is just utterly joyous:

 

 

[blinky465 17178xp 0]

It kind of made me wonder if a cyberpunk-themed GM screen with flashing lights would be possible as well.

@limburger if you need any help with flashing lights, just shout up. You design it, I’ll build it!

[limburger 22081xp 0]

@blinky465

Help ? That means I have to do stuff with that idea that just popped into my head.
Things like watching that unboxing video that FLP put on their Alien Kickstarter and count the number of leds (two grids of 6 wide by 5 high and a monitor in between). It also made me wonder if they had any actual patterns in the movie version of that room in Alien.

I know there’s programmable leds these days. And I think there’s websites that can help prototype pcb’s as well.

The one thing I don’t know is how flexible the patterns need to be. Fixed sequences that repeat endlessly, (semi)random blinking or something like conways’ Life that follows a couple of basic rules ?

And then there’s that idea of actually placing a tablet screen in the center that could show images or other output from some source or function as a secondary screen for a laptop/tablet.

Did I mention sounds ?

*arrrrrghh* …I have visions of a terminal screen and computer noises as part of the background/art for my war room now.
Could that be the one thing I was looking for ?
Do I want something bigger than a GM screen and uses it as a backdrop for my dedicated wargaming room ?

anyways.
If anyone wants to copy my ideas and run with them that’s fine.
At this point I doubt I’d ever find a way to make this work in a way that is practical.

I’ve seen folk convert rooms into the bridge of star trek … or at least I think that’s something people with more money than sense have done. And then there’s NerdForge who do insanely complex stuff to their own home.

I doubt any of that is realistic for the likes of us. Definitely feels like way above my pay grade for me at least.

I mean … look at this:

and this

Yeah … I’m jealous of the kind of creativity and skills that people have.
I can barely think of what kind of storage I need in my room. Never mind choosing colours and patterns and stuff.
(which is why I ended up painting all my walls pure white … )

I am still thinking of doing ‘something’ a bit more complicated/interesting to what effectively is my hobby room.
I haven’t found a specific thing (yet), but in order to stop procastinating even more I have to make it functional first.
It’s kind of why I’m documenting the stuff I am doing in my project on this website.

So back to one of the many crazy ideas.
I had this idea of using something like this to integrate into my table :
https://eu.govee.com/nl-nl/products/govee-curtain-lights
I could get a router and carve the required channels into the tabletop, but in testing the curtain I’ve noticed that there is no real ‘control’ over the display outside of the app. Creating new images to display involves painting them pixel by pixel on a tiny mobile phone screen. I think I need to solve that part before I can continue down this path.

(and I think the grid of 520 pixels is not dense enough as I kind of want to see lines … like the light cycle grid game in Tron)

So yeah … plenty of ideas, often lacking in execution or practicallity. And I really really need to do some actual hobby too, which is why I’m currently focussing on getting stuff done and try to not distract myself with yet another fantastic idea.

Holiday is now over. Tomorrow back to work until Christmas holiday.

[horati0nosebl0wer 19822xp 1]

Pledge: keep painting and trying to upload pics of completed stuff from the past few weeks.

My favorite book has been the Figure Painting Techniques FAQ by Kiril Kanaev from AK. I will stand by how good it is and say the price is worth the product.  My other favorites are “The Art of …” series from Dave Taylor. Its a  Kickstarter series I continue to support.

Work has kept me busy and out of town for the past week so the progress on current projects has been stymied. I don’t know yet what my schedule is for this week and I may end up going out of town again. I’ll get in what I can and keep plugging away at my backlog.

 

FIGURES F.A.Q. – FIGURE PAINTING TECHNIQUES – THE COMPLETE GUIDE FOR FIGURE SCALE MODELERS

https://www.davetaylorminiatures.com/the-art-of-series/

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