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I got up early again this morning, had
a nice waffle and some other fixins for breakfast (very yummy) and
then went off to the convention space to start the day. I got a nice
parking space really close in (parking is at a premium out there) and
walked in after everything opened up. My first order of business was
to check my class schedule, I didn't want to be late again. Then I
went over and got my Vampire bones box set. So excited! It was all
dense and heavy and full of fun things to paint. I also got a whole
lot of paint, which is good, because I'm still building up my paints
at home, and also because I didn't bring any paints with me, and the
paints they had available were a bit limited. I also called up Todd
and eventually picked up his Vampire set. I'm excited to give that
to him. After a little bit more hanging around, I went off to my
first class of the day, one on Basic color theory.
The color theory class was great. It
went over some basic terms, and gave some straightforward rules on
how to know when colors work well on a miniature. In essence, you
don't want too many colors that are too close to each other on the
color wheel, they don't offer the contrast that you want. You can
get around this by muting colors, making them darker or lighter,
things like that. Very useful. I took my new found knowledge with
me back to the paint-and-take table, where I painted up another guy
too see what I could do with his color scheme. After a little bit of
Struggling, I went back to Anne Forrester (the lady that taught the
class, and also a Reaper Employee in charge of all their paint, she
had a lot of knowledge to share) and she gave me some tips on how to
make it better. I also took my frog king-and-queen to her, and she
gave some tips on things to work on (higher highlights and darker
shadows). Very nice.
I also took a factory tour of Reaper on
this day. It was really intriguing. Reaper Brian (the production
manager, big honcho at the company) took us around and showed us the
process. We got to see their fancy new plastic injection machine,
look at how they made molds of figurines by pressing them in rubber
disks that looked like tires. Then the cut channels for the metal to
flow in and the air to flow out, and then the mold was ready to go.
If you make your own mini, you can even contract them out to make
molds and cast copies of your mini for you. Not cheap, but pretty
cool. Then we got to go back to where they cast the minis. They had
hot metal all ready to go, they grabbed a mold (asked for a mini that
people liked and Reaper Brian just remembered the mold number off the
top of his head) and cast some minis right in front of us. We got to
ask questions about the metal, the process, how hot everything got,
it was all pretty fantastic to do. And at the end, he gave us some
of the minis that he had casted. Very nice of him. I can see why
the company has so many fans.
I spent a long time after that just
working on my mini, painting him very slowly and taking my time with
the color scheme, before it was time for me to go to another class:
how not to suck. It's widely billed as one of the best classes on
offer, and I happen to agree. It was very comprehensive,
straightforward, and was focused on techniques that will help you
learn how to become a better painter. It was all very impressive and
informative.
Oh, and somewhere during all of this (I
think it was the day before) I submitted my guys to the painting
competition. The neat thing is that they took pictures using their
fancy lightbox (making everything look really cool) and then those
pictures got displayed on big TVs overlooking the main floor. I'll
admit, I sat there for a while and waited until mine came up so I
could take a picture.
Oh, and during all of this, I'm making
new friends. Just constantly getting into random, mostly effortless
conversations with people that just happen to be sitting across the
table from me, or what have you. Everyone was very, very friendly,
easy to talk to, and made me feel very welcome...even though most of
them actually were there for the first time too. I wrote down a lot
of names and forum handles, because there was no way I would have
remembered it all.
So after some more random painting
(working on lining my miniature, something from the previous class)
Reaper Brian and some other people from other gaming companies sat
down and just started talking about how the whole kickstarter thing
went. It was mostly advice about what works on kickstarter, which
wasn't really useful to me, because I'm not planning on starting one,
a lot of complaining about kickstarter's website (it does need an
overhaul) and a few interesting stories tossed in here and there. I
stayed for quite a while, then decided I was done for the day and
rolled on home. I got to talk with you for a while, missed you
greatly, and then actually took some minis outside and primed them.
One of the advantages of the new bones minis is that you don't have
to prime them, but the paint still, often, beads up and rolls around,
like water off a freshly waxed car. It's hard enough for me to paint
when my paint does stay where I put it. Having it move isn't helpful.
I let them dry off overnight, and then reorganized my backpack and
paints, and then went to sleep.
-N
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