- Mixing paint with ink is a great way to achieve a smooth blend. The next step is figuring out how to keep the paint/ink blend from drying up on my palette. Perhaps a wet palette is in order?
- It's easier to paint details with a detail brush! A stroke of genius, really.
- Ink tends to overpower paint. Mix with care.
- Washing refers to painting over a painted area with a heavily watered down paint mixture. The idea is to tint the washed area a particular color, typically for a blending effect.
- Highlights often go both under and over a wash.
- Base coats are not a finished miniature.
- Base coats and washes are not a finished miniature.
- Base coats, washes, and highlights are not a finished miniature.
- Base coats, washes, highlights, and base are not a finished miniature.
- Base coats, washes, highlights, base, and sealant is a finished miniature (I think??).
- Paint the base coat. Then wash and highlight as many times as necessary to achieve the desired effect. I've found working from light to dark is the most natural approach to highlighting for me, but I may need to reverse this as I learn to wash.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Painting Miniatures: Evening 2
Things I've learned so far:
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Soul Calibur IV
Fighting with coworkers usually isn't fun. But when you're fighting in the honorable ring of combat that is Soul Calibur II, it has its appeal.
I recently picked up a copy of Soul Calibur IV for the XBOX 360 at store-closing event in Covington. I'm notoriously picky and stingy when it comes to buying games, but I couldn't pass up a solid fighting game with character customization for $14. I've been playing with it for about a week, seeing what they've done to my old favorites (Mitsurugi, Seung Mina) and discovering new favorites (Yoshimitsu, Nightmare).
Overall, I'm a big fan of any game that lets you customize your character's appearance. So, one of the biggest draws for me to Soul Calibur IV was the character creator. For those who aren't familiar with how it works: you can either modify and existing fighter or create a new fighter based off the fighting style of an already existing one. You then get to equip the character with various costume pieces (headgear, shoulders, shirt, etc.) and select the colors of the individual pieces of equipment. Presto chango, you have your new character.
...or so I thought. In actuality, it's a bit more complicated than that. Each character has three base stats (Attack, Defense, and HP) as well as five special stats (Power, Impact, Gauge, Boost, and Special). Those stats depend entirely on 1) what weapon the character is using and 2) what individual pieces of equipment he or she is wearing. As you can imagine, what I thought were simply nifty cosmetic options quickly became the key components of properly min/maxing characters for their utmost fighting potential. And of course, new and better pieces of equipment are earned by playing the game and unlocking achievements, so you can upgrade your character's equipment and complete more difficult achievements, and so on.
D'oh! It's the MMO gear grind.
Now, it's not all bad. In fact, what I haven't mentioned yet are the skills you can earn and equip. Skills are unlocked when you level up with an individual character (leveling seems to be based on how many rounds you play with an individual character). Each character can equip a maximum of four skills and each skill uses up a certain amount of a special stat or two to equip. For example, to equip "Guard Shave B" on Yun-seung, you must have achieved Level 3 with Yun-seung and have 50 Power to spend on equipping the skill. Skills may do things like give a chance to automatically ward off an opponent's throw attempt, steal a minor amount of HP when you strike an opponent, or increase the damage you do to your opponent's guard meter ("Soul Gauge") when he blocks your attacks. In short, these skills can affect how you play a particular character or deal with an opponent with a unique skill set, and in that regard, they add a welcome amount of depth and dynamism to a typically flat genre.
One more gripe: none of this is ever explained. Not in the game, not in the manual. While some of it is rather intuitive ("Oh, when I equip this sword my Attack stat goes up by 5%!"), it took me a little tinkering to figure out the connection between leveling up, skills, equipment, and special stats. It's possible all this was introduced in Soul Calibur III (I skipped it), but a brief tutorial about character creation, leveling up, and unlocking equipment would have been helpful at the beginning.
Finally, it's worth pointing out that you CAN play certain modes of the game (Arcade, Versus) with skills and equipment effects turned off, so you can be stylin' without worrying about being a statistical gimp.
All in all, I've been enjoying the game and it looks like it'll be more than worth the $14 I spent on it. I'm looking forward to unlocking all the equipment and skills, but you'd better believe I'm doing it with a walk-through at my side.
I recently picked up a copy of Soul Calibur IV for the XBOX 360 at store-closing event in Covington. I'm notoriously picky and stingy when it comes to buying games, but I couldn't pass up a solid fighting game with character customization for $14. I've been playing with it for about a week, seeing what they've done to my old favorites (Mitsurugi, Seung Mina) and discovering new favorites (Yoshimitsu, Nightmare).
Overall, I'm a big fan of any game that lets you customize your character's appearance. So, one of the biggest draws for me to Soul Calibur IV was the character creator. For those who aren't familiar with how it works: you can either modify and existing fighter or create a new fighter based off the fighting style of an already existing one. You then get to equip the character with various costume pieces (headgear, shoulders, shirt, etc.) and select the colors of the individual pieces of equipment. Presto chango, you have your new character.
...or so I thought. In actuality, it's a bit more complicated than that. Each character has three base stats (Attack, Defense, and HP) as well as five special stats (Power, Impact, Gauge, Boost, and Special). Those stats depend entirely on 1) what weapon the character is using and 2) what individual pieces of equipment he or she is wearing. As you can imagine, what I thought were simply nifty cosmetic options quickly became the key components of properly min/maxing characters for their utmost fighting potential. And of course, new and better pieces of equipment are earned by playing the game and unlocking achievements, so you can upgrade your character's equipment and complete more difficult achievements, and so on.
D'oh! It's the MMO gear grind.
Now, it's not all bad. In fact, what I haven't mentioned yet are the skills you can earn and equip. Skills are unlocked when you level up with an individual character (leveling seems to be based on how many rounds you play with an individual character). Each character can equip a maximum of four skills and each skill uses up a certain amount of a special stat or two to equip. For example, to equip "Guard Shave B" on Yun-seung, you must have achieved Level 3 with Yun-seung and have 50 Power to spend on equipping the skill. Skills may do things like give a chance to automatically ward off an opponent's throw attempt, steal a minor amount of HP when you strike an opponent, or increase the damage you do to your opponent's guard meter ("Soul Gauge") when he blocks your attacks. In short, these skills can affect how you play a particular character or deal with an opponent with a unique skill set, and in that regard, they add a welcome amount of depth and dynamism to a typically flat genre.
One more gripe: none of this is ever explained. Not in the game, not in the manual. While some of it is rather intuitive ("Oh, when I equip this sword my Attack stat goes up by 5%!"), it took me a little tinkering to figure out the connection between leveling up, skills, equipment, and special stats. It's possible all this was introduced in Soul Calibur III (I skipped it), but a brief tutorial about character creation, leveling up, and unlocking equipment would have been helpful at the beginning.
Finally, it's worth pointing out that you CAN play certain modes of the game (Arcade, Versus) with skills and equipment effects turned off, so you can be stylin' without worrying about being a statistical gimp.
All in all, I've been enjoying the game and it looks like it'll be more than worth the $14 I spent on it. I'm looking forward to unlocking all the equipment and skills, but you'd better believe I'm doing it with a walk-through at my side.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
I recently read Seth Godin's Linchpin: Are You Indispensible? for the marketing monthly book club I take part of. Despite still waiting for the copy I ordered to actually arrive, I was able to head on out on a couple occasions to Borders and Barnes & Noble to give it a read.
My feelings on the book are split. I'm both skeptical of Godin's proposal and inspired by it. I'll get the skeptical side out of the way first. To explain, Godin says that we all must become "linchpins" or face a good chance of being an unhappy, uninspired, unprofitable cog in the corporate machine (you know, the machines that are doomed because of the rise of social media). What is a linchpin? To be a linchpin is to "be remarkable, insightful, an artist, someone bearing gifts. To lead." Oh. OK. Be extraordinary, intelligent, creative, and charismatic and you'll stand a good chance of being successful? Not really breaking any new ground there, Copernicus.
The inspiration I gleaned from the book came from one main point he actually takes from Steve Jobs: "Real artists ship." What does that mean? It means you have to actually produce your art. It was his elaboration on how to produce your art and overcome the siren song of sloth and self-doubt that I found most valuable in the book. To summarize: cut out everything that seems productive but isn't actually required to ship your art. Contemporary target numero uno: the internet. Dancing kittens are great, writing and commenting on interesting blogs are great, but do they get you closer to making your masterpiece? Probably not. So ditch 'em. And when you finish your product, your art? Start on your next project. Don't get distracted with the zillion little attention-grabbers available to us these days. Furiously brainstorm, get to work, and don't stop until you hit that ship date. Then ship. And give. That's right, give it away. Produce your art for its own sake, share it with the people who welcome it, and success will follow. Why? Because you're contributing something. You're inspiring people with what you created. And people like to be around contributors. Will everything you do be a hit every time? Of course not. But let's say it takes ten bad books before you write one really good one. If you never write books to begin with, you'll definitely never write a good one. Sweet. It's time to just do it (TM Nike).
My question now is: how do you find a situation that allows you to fail enough before you succeed? I guess that's why he also recommends that you keep your day job. But try to be a linchpin there, too.
BE AWESOME. ALWAYS. AT EVERYTHING.
What did I miss?
My feelings on the book are split. I'm both skeptical of Godin's proposal and inspired by it. I'll get the skeptical side out of the way first. To explain, Godin says that we all must become "linchpins" or face a good chance of being an unhappy, uninspired, unprofitable cog in the corporate machine (you know, the machines that are doomed because of the rise of social media). What is a linchpin? To be a linchpin is to "be remarkable, insightful, an artist, someone bearing gifts. To lead." Oh. OK. Be extraordinary, intelligent, creative, and charismatic and you'll stand a good chance of being successful? Not really breaking any new ground there, Copernicus.
The inspiration I gleaned from the book came from one main point he actually takes from Steve Jobs: "Real artists ship." What does that mean? It means you have to actually produce your art. It was his elaboration on how to produce your art and overcome the siren song of sloth and self-doubt that I found most valuable in the book. To summarize: cut out everything that seems productive but isn't actually required to ship your art. Contemporary target numero uno: the internet. Dancing kittens are great, writing and commenting on interesting blogs are great, but do they get you closer to making your masterpiece? Probably not. So ditch 'em. And when you finish your product, your art? Start on your next project. Don't get distracted with the zillion little attention-grabbers available to us these days. Furiously brainstorm, get to work, and don't stop until you hit that ship date. Then ship. And give. That's right, give it away. Produce your art for its own sake, share it with the people who welcome it, and success will follow. Why? Because you're contributing something. You're inspiring people with what you created. And people like to be around contributors. Will everything you do be a hit every time? Of course not. But let's say it takes ten bad books before you write one really good one. If you never write books to begin with, you'll definitely never write a good one. Sweet. It's time to just do it (TM Nike).
My question now is: how do you find a situation that allows you to fail enough before you succeed? I guess that's why he also recommends that you keep your day job. But try to be a linchpin there, too.
BE AWESOME. ALWAYS. AT EVERYTHING.
What did I miss?
Monday, April 12, 2010
Books, part deuce.
I recently had the opportunity to spend a great deal of time reading, so I figured it was time to update my "15 Books that made an impression on me" list. Here's a new "Top 5 Enjoyable Books I've Read" list (it's four in the morning, cut me some slack).
-Patrick
- Catch-22. Still number one. Joseph Heller's writing of the damned-if-he-do, damned-if-he-don't Yossarian remains my favorite absurd piece of literature ever. However, it is closely followed by...
- Don Quixote. A newcomer and an amazing book, especially considering it was written in the 16th century. Where is your Shakespeare now, England? Well, just across the Channel actually, but that hardly matters. Another absurd piece of literature, this time highlighting the ridiculousness of knight-errant literature (that's right, it's a book written about books). I'm not a big fan of the ending, but you'll have to read it and judge for yourself. I ain't spoilin' it!
- The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien's classic. The extent to which ol' J.R.R. fleshed out Middle-earth sparked my interest in world-building, setting development, and even foreign languages.
- The Dao of Pooh. I decided to put this one down instead of Winnie-the-Pooh simply because it uncovered some of the gems in the original books that I had missed in childhood and without it, I would have probably forgotten all about the adventures of Pooh bear. I'm told its not actually a very good explanation of Daoism, but it sure is an amusing read!
- Ragtime. I would have been completely oblivious to the very existence of this book had it not been for Dr. Josef Jarab, a Czech professor, literary critic, and former senator who taught the only actual English class I took in college. I feel very fortunate to have studied under him. That said, this book stands on its own merits. Engaging historical fiction with a colorful smorgasbord of characters whose individual stories weave together to give the reader a warmly quilted depiction of American society in the early 20th century.
-Patrick
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Is the introvert dead?
Is the introvert dead?
My personal journey from introvert to extrovert was a matter of boredom. As a kid, I couldn't be happier if I could sit on top of a heater vent with a book and a blanket and read all day. Homeschooling was great because I didn't have to deal with people I didn't like and didn't want to talk to. I could just learn, learn, learn.
But the story has changed now. Public middle school, high school, college, and now, the job market. I'm an Intercultural Communication major. I love interacting with people: learning about people's lives, passions, dreams, and fears. Nothing is more interesting or personally satisfying when I can sit down and have a deep, honest conversation with someone.
I'm told the key to success on the job hunt is networking, networking, networking. Now, it could very well just be the field I'm looking at (Marcom, PR, Customer Service, and recently, Hospitality), but I get the feeling that even in a more stereotypically introverted field (say, programming), it would be nigh impossible to land a job without getting out there, meeting the right people and making the right connections. If you don't put yourself out in front of a hiring manager, you're not going to land the job.
Will the introvert be eliminated from the job market by "natural selection?"
My personal journey from introvert to extrovert was a matter of boredom. As a kid, I couldn't be happier if I could sit on top of a heater vent with a book and a blanket and read all day. Homeschooling was great because I didn't have to deal with people I didn't like and didn't want to talk to. I could just learn, learn, learn.
But the story has changed now. Public middle school, high school, college, and now, the job market. I'm an Intercultural Communication major. I love interacting with people: learning about people's lives, passions, dreams, and fears. Nothing is more interesting or personally satisfying when I can sit down and have a deep, honest conversation with someone.
I'm told the key to success on the job hunt is networking, networking, networking. Now, it could very well just be the field I'm looking at (Marcom, PR, Customer Service, and recently, Hospitality), but I get the feeling that even in a more stereotypically introverted field (say, programming), it would be nigh impossible to land a job without getting out there, meeting the right people and making the right connections. If you don't put yourself out in front of a hiring manager, you're not going to land the job.
Will the introvert be eliminated from the job market by "natural selection?"
Monday, August 31, 2009
OK, so I lied, I'm not updating it regularly. Back to blogging!
So here I'm going to do a Facebook post that I'm not actually posting on Facebook, because I don't want to fill people's news feed with my pointless drivel.
15 Books, off the top of my head, that have stuck with me:
1. Catch-22
2. The Lord of the Rings
3. Redwall (and subsequent books)
4. The Belgariad
5. Mere Christianity
6. The Analects of Confucius
7. The Bible (New Testament, mostly)
8. The Chronicles of Narnia
--Here's the part where I just start listing off books I remember reading and being mildly affected by:
9. Naomi
10. Ragtime
11. Winnie-the-Pooh
12. Crime and Punishment
13. American Gods
14. ???
15. ???
Wow, that was harder than it should have been. That's sad. I figured I would remember more books than that. For sure, I've read more, but apparently none of them have left much of an impact on me. Weird.
So here I'm going to do a Facebook post that I'm not actually posting on Facebook, because I don't want to fill people's news feed with my pointless drivel.
15 Books, off the top of my head, that have stuck with me:
1. Catch-22
2. The Lord of the Rings
3. Redwall (and subsequent books)
4. The Belgariad
5. Mere Christianity
6. The Analects of Confucius
7. The Bible (New Testament, mostly)
8. The Chronicles of Narnia
--Here's the part where I just start listing off books I remember reading and being mildly affected by:
9. Naomi
10. Ragtime
11. Winnie-the-Pooh
12. Crime and Punishment
13. American Gods
14. ???
15. ???
Wow, that was harder than it should have been. That's sad. I figured I would remember more books than that. For sure, I've read more, but apparently none of them have left much of an impact on me. Weird.
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