ReaperCon Fun - Part 1

What. Just. Happened? I attended a whirlwind of ReaperCon fun and returned with two Gold Medals and a Golden Sophie. I'm shocked and truly humbled! 

Compare that with my Certificate of Merit from last year-- I've come a long way! With so many talented painters, sculptors, and mentors at this convention, I'm inspired to paint every week and continue to work on my painting skills. I'll write more about the classes I attended, upload my pictures, and share my detailed thoughts on the entire experience. But for now, I'm home safely and recovering from an amazing past few days! Here's what I took home and what pieces I entered:

ReaperCon 2015

Entries

Some of the pictures were photographed in some funky lighting. I also realized (after the fact) they picked up a lot of dust in my carrying case on the trip home. Whoops! Final photos to come soon on my main page.

  1. Corvus Belli - Infinity Hacker
  2. Dark Sword - Euterpe
  3. Reaper - Betty, Space Heroine + Illyrian Scout
  4. Hasslefree - Mystic Warrior Jen
  5. Reaper - Andromedan Hunter

ReaperCon Prep - Part 1

I've made progress! It's not a lot, since painting is still emotionally taxing given everything the family's still going through, but it's enough to make me proud. I finished one of my competition entries! Behold, Hasslefree "Mystic Warrior Jen" (the first picture is for scale):

I also finalized my ReaperCon itinerary today. It includes advanced painting classes, basic sculpting, advanced basing, airbrush classes, and two evening banquets and plenty of unscheduled free time. Last year, I took several full days of back-to-back classes which resulted to little time to socialize and relax. I shuffled quickly from class to class for eight hours straight and absorbed as much information as possible-- totally worth it (for me). I enjoy binge-learning things I'm passionate about. While I don't recommend over-scheduling one's self during conventions, I found that cramming that much information into my head (and taking plenty of notes) improved my painting ten-fold. 

While there's plenty to look forward to at this convention, I'm most excited to see the friendly faces I met last year. Some are accomplished, full-time professional painters, others are casual hobbyists-- many of whom won multiple medals last year in the painting competition. I was inspired by their knowledge, graciousness, and encouraging words. In fact, one of the friendliest of the bunch is teaching some classes for the very first time! Since I don't currently have a "Blog Roll", I wanted to list a few of the talented folks I met in person at last year's convention. These individuals have positively influenced me in the past year (apologies if I've missed anyone!) and I encourage you to check out their websites and/or examples of work. In no particular order, here are the people I can't wait to give a great big hug to when I see them in two weeks!

Jessica Rich "The Brushmistress" 

Michael Proctor of "Clever Crow Minis" 

Rhonda Bender a.k.a. "Wren"

Kuro Cleanbrush (check out his Youtube tutorials!)

Cash Wiley of "The Wiley Brush" 

Shannon Stiltz of "Queen Penguin Productions"

Andy Pieper a.k.a. "TaleSpinner" 

Max Styles a.ka. "Hot Chicks Jeff" (my own personal nickname for him!) 

Now I'm working on my newest Reaper mini I hope to enter in the competition, with my future color-scheme inspired by the character Kaylee's costume design from the show Firefly. Right now I'm still working on her face and blocking out shapes with liner. I have far too much to do with several works-in-progress during the next two weeks. Trying not to panic!

Christmas D&D Gaming

Hope everyone is having a lovely holiday season! Just for fun, I want to share the audio recording (broken into three parts) of the holiday-themed Dungeons & Dragons we played recently. It's one of our new Christmas traditions where we come up with crazy 4th level characters in a single-session adventure set up by our DM (or "Dungeon Master", a.k.a. "Game Master"). This is only the second time we've played 5th edition and so far, I think it's a lot of fun and allows for a lot more improv freedom than previous D&D editions. In our "one-off" games, we play our way through a seasonal story filled with goofy puns and familiar pop culture characters in a single-session. We don't get too bogged down in the rules so it's accessible to those who haven't played the game before, and 4th level characters are interesting, but not too complicated for less-experienced players. In fact, "Ugg" is played by our friend who has never before played a tabletop role-playing game like D&D-- so happy that he had such a good time! We've hosted similar games this past Halloween and Easter, and I can't wait to help plan the next one! In the recordings, you'll get to meet each of our player-characters the three of us created (in addition to the many other personalities brought to life by our DM):

Ugg (It's short for "Ugg") - Human Barbarian
Throzen Stoneheart (a.k.a. "Stockwood") - Dwarf, er, um, Fairy-something? 
Catnip "Kitty" Silverbells - Gnome Bard

Dungeons & Dragons is the game that introduced me into the world of miniature painting and I have a special place in my heart for it. It's something I want to play with my friends, my family, and one day when I have offspring of my own, I want to share it with them. It's imaginative, it's spontaneous, and if I ever meet someone who says, "Oh I played D&D, it wasn't any fun", I'll smile & tell them "Well, then you're doing it wrong" invite them to one of our seasonal one-off games. Hope you enjoy sharing in our fun!