I love this miniature. Even though he suffered some damage in our last move, I wanted to paint him as-is and see how much I could salvage. All in all, I'm pretty pleased with how he turned out. I'm gathering up all my damaged minis and painting those first. (We don't discriminate here at Mocha Minis). You can find more pictures of Gargoyle and some of the work-in-progress steps here
Tabletop = Mind. Blown.
Evidently, I've been living under a rock. While I've thrown myself into work for the past 2+ years after being given a nice-yet-time-consuming promotion, I awoke from my stupor at ReaperCon 2014 and made a concerted effort to get back to my geeky roots-- mainly, tabletop gaming & my love of the miniature painting hobby which I picked up in 2011.
Enter Tabletop. While I have wholly ignored Twitter during the under-a-rock span, I re-entered the Twittersphere and discovered an article I found about the über-successful crowd-sourcing venture that set a new record for web series funding: over a million dollars to fund the third season of "Tabletop". In case you haven't heard of it (like if you just came out of a coma), Tabletop is a web series created by Wil Wheaton & Felicia Day where they invite guests (usually high-profile YouTubers, bloggers, celebrities, and big wigs within the gaming industry) to play various tabletop board games. Once discovered, I watched for 4 hours straight before I realized I should probably tear myself away to do something else... like eat. So we ordered in Chinese food, popped open a bottle of wine and watched some more.
Growing up, my family had "Game Nights". My family's game nights were rowdy, neighbors-might-call-the-police events where we'd laugh & shout over one another and stay up until 2am. Even now, many years later when we get together during holidays, it's the same-- with the added benefit of exposing my husband to our unique brand of crazy. He fits right in. My husband on the other hand, didn't grow up with family game nights, but played role-playing tabletop games, mainly D&D, with his friends for years. (He's actually the reason I got into miniature painting!) After watching the first season of Tabletop, we wanted to go out and buy our favorite board games from the show and make some friends with no existing social life just so we could play all day.
I want to bring back "Game Night". In fact, that's probably the strongest argument for having kids so far (long story short, children kind of frighten me). If you have kids, they're obligated to play goofy board games with you. Kids are the best way to mask acting like one yourself. People no longer think you're weird & immature for watching Pokemon Black & White, now they just think you're great parents for watching it with your kids. And if anyone asks why you play so many games you can blame it on the kids too. "Hey Tommy, you're getting Super Dungeon Explore for your birthday [because Mommy wants to play it]. Isn't that great?" Meanwhile, the kids grow up thinking you're the best. Love it.
On that note, here's what I've got so far on the gargoyle. He's almost done!
Road Trips & Beaches
The last few days have been incredible. My husband graduated on Friday from dental school and my in-laws rented a beach house where we celebrated with family & friends all weekend. After the graduation ceremony, we hit the road:
The beach house was beautiful-- built right on the beach just a short walk away from the water! While the hurricanes had kicked up lots of red seaweed that washed up on shore, we were able to enjoy the sand & sun from the wrap-around deck. The pups loved it too!
My husband and I enjoy both tabletop and console gaming. While my husband didn't grow up with "game nights", over the past few years, we've been actively trying to convert my mother-in-law to tabletop gaming. This trip was no exception! We played 7 Card Samurai and I have to say-- I think it was a hit! We played 5 rounds and it was a close game in the end. I tried a few different strategies, and in the end I favored the steal-rice-early-and-defend-quickly strategy. (I won!)
7 Card Samurai
Before the whirlwind of awesome hit, I made sure to make time for miniature painting between my last post and this trip-- and here he is! I brightened the stony Gargoyle up with a green wash, applied my first series of highlights on his skin, put a base coat on the armor, and focused on finishing the runes on the column. I still have a ways to go-- stay tuned!
