I hope everyone had a lovely Labor Day weekend! It was a busy one for me-- I helped entertain visiting friends, watched the Acquisitions Incorporated D&D from PAX Prime, drove 7 hours roundtrip to attend a best friend's wedding shower, and dipped my toes into the world of podcasting! Last week, @SnickernackS reached out to me about my bummer-of-an-experience on a local game store (seriously, I have the worst luck!). We chatted about it and thought it would be a great idea for a podcast-- what to do/not to do, how to act, what to bring, etc. She put me in contact with Larry over at Models Workshop who also runs their podcast and they asked me to be a guest on the upcoming episode. Excellent! We're all in different time zones, so we originally decided to record fairly late (10pm-12am midnight on Saturday night my time). However, I had an epic adventure trying to get home in time to record. Here's what happened...
On Saturday morning, I loaded up the car and drove to another city to attend a party-- a wedding shower to be specific. It was a lovely shower with friends and family, and I wouldn't have missed it for the world, even if it did take me over 4 hours navigating a horrible storm along the way that made me an entire hour late! After the party, I headed home knowing that if I ran into more storms, I would barely make it in time to eat and prepare for the podcast that night. By the time I made it home over 10 hours after I'd left, I was glad I'd acquired my "Podcast Loot" well beforehand. Check it out!
As luck would have it, the crew was ready to record early and I still needed to familiarize myself with the recording program and calibrate the settings on my Snowball microphone. Whoops! Luckily they were patient enough to walk me through it before we recorded and I scanned over the notes fairly quickly. During my personal disorganized scramble, I had completely forgotten that I hadn't anything that day besides two deviled eggs, a miniature lobster-topped cracker thingy, and a mini chocolate mousse dessert cube (which was delicious by the way). I had a long, socially-taxing day and being super-nervous about my first podcast, I decided to pour a glass of wine. (Lesson learned: don't drink on an empty stomach, especially during a podcast) Looking back, we definitely lived up to the "After Hours" aspect-- more party than podcast toward the end!
Our podcast started off with a bang and it was like going to a pub party with a bunch of your fun mates who love to laugh and joke about inappropriate things. Yeji, Clint, and Larry are a freaking riot! Their podcasts are generally 1.5 hours long, but we just kept having fun and kept the tapes rolling- we ended up recording over 2 hours and 15 minutes! It was casual and fun and hopefully I didn't embarrass myself too much. What did we talk about? Oh right! Our main topic revolved around Painting Classes. I popped in to talk a little bit about my Troll Night experience but more importantly, reflect on what I think makes a successful class.
- Set Clear Expectations
- Is this a Paint Night with friends that get together and paint casually?
- Is this a Class where instruction will be given. Is it for beginners?
- What should people bring? (Palette, water cup, miniature, etc
- Plan Thoughtfully
- What topics will you cover?
- Will there be materials/miniatures provided? Outline of technique(s) you'll cover?
- What style of class is this? Instructor demos or guided paint-along?
- Be Social Aware & Compassionate
- Be welcoming (especially to those new to painting!)
- Make people feel comfortable-- have an ice breaker and/or help introduce others
- Be patient. Give constructive feedback appropriate to each individual's skill level
We go into more detail in the podcast along with some less-helpful-but-more-hilarious drunken rambling later on. If you're interested in either, have a listen here and don't forget to follow Models Workshop on Twitter!
Other than the epic podcast, I've been playing with the idea of streaming on Twitch. One year ago, I discovered Twitch and had future daydream of buying a webcam and streaming live online as I painted. I finally bought one! Since we've been talking so much about online painting hang-outs, it may become a reality in the near future now that I've made my own account. Getting set up on Twitch seems fairly daunting, but I think it'd be fun to interact with people online and grow both my skills and the community at the same time! Here's Dannin Deepaxe looking sassy and limbless as I play with camera settings-- don't worry, her arm's almost done and soon to be attached!
What do you think? Would you tune in to watch and interact with a miniature painter on Twitch?