ReaperCon 2016 Dates

Latest news: ReaperCon dates have changed!

Rather than late-April/early-May, the convention will be in late-October. While there's been a bit of an uproar with the initial "I have to wait 6 more months?!" (which I admit was my first reaction), I'm interested to learn the additional reasoning behind it. I can only assume some things at this point (which can be ill-advised), and I'm sure it has something to do with event pricing, available site dates, expanding space, and possibly the Hilton Garden Inn and other guests being overwhelmed with our late-night shenanigans :) In any case, the Bones III Kickstarter will demand much of the Reaper team's time in the coming year. To help myself sort through my feelings about this change, I decided to write a list of my own personal pros & cons about my favorite annual convention: 

Pros

  • Bigger space: more inclusive & room to expand for amount of guests & events (i.e. classes won't need to be held in hotel guest rooms due to lack of space)
  • Open-concept gives more versatility for events, vendor expo space, etc. 
  • Hotel won't be far from the convention site (~3 miles)
  • No need to choose between ReaperCon & AdeptiCon in 2016 
  • More time to paint!!! That's rarely a bad thing (unless you're a procrastinator like we can all be)

Cons 

  • Not held at the hotel: Less convenient, especially for those without cars & con-goers who carry lots of supplies around during the day (me). I'll have to make sure & pack light!
  • Open-concept: potential for high noise level & without lobby/hotel rooms to escape to (ouch)
  • Dates aren't in the "slow months" at work. Requesting vacation during Oct may prove challenging 
  • Con is now over a year away and that means longer to wait :(
  • It's change. As a "Type A" person, I struggle with change. I was looking forward to the convenience of the hotel

While there's no such thing as "the pros outweigh the cons" (since each idea holds different weight to each person), the fact is I have not seen this venue. It may just be one big concrete room with no sound barriers or it may be one open room with smaller, quieter rooms off to the side where they'll hold additional classes or events. I'm sure there are additional reasons for the new dates, and it's silly to try and predict what may/may not happen as a result of this change. Honestly, I know what I'm upset about and that's change and the unknown. I at least knew what to expect with the convention held at the Hilton Garden Inn and now I have no idea. However, Reaper has over a year to make it work and I'm sure they have some creative solutions for some of the "Cons" I've listed above. Either way, I'm looking forward to ReaperCon 2016 and I know without a doubt: it'll be worth it! 

Slowly but Surely - WIP July 9

Wednesday was a long day. My boss is going on some well-deserved mini vacation and I'm attempting to keep things moving in her absence. While I consider myself a fairly smart cookie, evidently the world decided to speak a different language overnight and forgot to inform me of this "small change". Today at work I was feeling quite capable, right up until I was met with a barrage of e-mails asking for favors, files, and projects I knew nothing about. Only then did I realize that over half of our team is on vacation and/or out-of-the-office. Not wanting to start my first day flying solo hitting "Reply All" and saying the equivalent of, "I've read your e-mail three times and I still don't have a clue what the **** you're talking about" (but I daresay I thought it), I remembered that scene in Zoolander and had a good laugh. After that I jumped in and did my best to figure it all out. They say immersion is the fastest way to learn, right? Bring it on!

Fast-forward to the painting. I watched the latest episode of Tabletop while we ate dinner and I prepped my table for painting. The deck-building game "Legendary" was featured and the guest line-up this week was great-- Allie Brosh from "Hyperbole and a Half" blogging fame, Brea Grant from Heroes, and Mark Fischbach, whose voice is so nice I just want him to narrate my life. Or just talk about anything. Probably about Marias (you'll have to watch the episode-- I posted at the bottom). 

Fast-forward to painting. I'm making painfully slow progress on my very first Kingdom Death miniature. I've been able to sneak about an hour's worth of painting in every few days and I've been blocking out dark sections for painting NMM armor, prepping the head and cape before I can attach it to her body, and starting on her sword. Since I'm practicing high contrast and a non-conventional skin tone with this model, I'll need to make sure I spend a good amount of time painting her armor and sword. I've started blocking out sections of the sword with some rough blending. This miniature will be stylized and I'm not too concerned about making her look too realistic. However, I will need to do some more research on swords to see exactly how I want to paint it. I'm not sure I want to place the highest highlights in the center of the blade-- that seems too obvious and boring. Maybe I'll offset it enough where it's the brightest somewhere in the top 1/3rd of the sword height to add interest. In any case, the head and cape are primed and drying and I'll pick back up where I left off this weekend. I'm hoping to get much more done on Sunday and finally start my 75mm project :) Stay tuned!

 
 

I also took the time to find "Scroll Guy" (Reaper Bones "Darkrasp") after digging around in several moving boxes. I was able to scrub him with dish soap and dry him off for a future #SpeedPaintChallenge. Hey, remember those? Yeah we should do that again. Who's in? 

Wobbly Wednesday

Last week I was totally irresponsible. After mourning two family members in the last two months, moving to a new city while paying for two places until new tenants move into our old place (and dealing with our soon-to-be-former landlord's rude realtor), our new house flooded Monday. I give up. Since I wasn't going anywhere and the squishy wood floors and the deafening industrial floor fans were driving me absolutely crazy, I drank too much wine and painted late into the evening. I may have taken some goofy miniature-painting selfies. Yeah, that happened.

I also couldn't make any decisions-- I had been making them all day at work and at home, so when I sat down to paint, I was mentally and creatively exhausted. I still forced myself to paint so I asked other people to make them for me: 

"What should I paint first?" [the little one]

"I think I'm going to paint her cloak red & purple. Does that sound good?" [sure]

"What color should her eyes be?"  [green]

"Should she have makeup? [yes] What kind?" [Bold red lips]

It may sound silly, but that idea was the key to unlocking a Paint-By-Numbers approach that didn't tax my brain. I was able to paint late into the night and not be emotionally-attached to my mini. Otherwise, I second-guess my decisions and become extremely frustrated if it didn't turn out the way I originally envisioned. 

Here's where I was just getting started on the miniature face...

...and where I ended up at the end. 

She's a little chunky in the face and her mouth is a bit sloppy but I have to say, she turned out better than expected (especially considering the amount of wine consumed during that paint session). It was fun, but not something I'll repeat any time soon-- that next day was rough! I've painted a bit more on her since then and cleaned up the corners of her mouth. I love painting leather and skin, so that's what's next before I tackle any metals. I'm going with a Little Red Riding Hood theme on this one and I'm looking forward to painting her more tonight. 

LOL check out the cat fur that's found its way onto to the sticky base