dispatches from terra incognita

Category: Superheroes

Paint Table Saturday + 24

Here’s the paint table as of yesterday. A frenetic hodgepodge mirroring the mind of the painter (but not really in that good creative way, more’s the pity).

Scattered about you see several Hirst Arts pieces in various states of completion. The kobolds from earlier could still be found still skulking about, four or so rebased Heroclix, and the primed chaps and chapettes to the right are Foundry Darkest Africa.

Satisfaction Unforeseen

One of the bones they throw to public school teachers is periodic respite to recover from post-traumatic stress. It is my custom to fill these breaks with sufficient industry that my return to the kindergartners is a welcome relief.

During the past two weeks, for example, I constructed a brace of bookshelf headboards for my sons’ beds, performed the usual chores on our acre farm, and indulged in a mess of hobbying. The Mega Minis townsfolk featured yesterday were, in fact, the third substantial project I completed. The second was one I hadn’t anticipated. [The first was making a gaming mat from an old bed sheet, caulk, and lots of flock].

My older son is a superhero enthusiast and for a time, years back, he amassed a modest collection of Heroclix and Heroscape figures. He played both games a bit with friends, pitted them against Lego constructions, and then eventually allowed them to gather dust. At the onset of this break, he challenged me to a super-heroic skirmish on the new wargames table (which I built on the last break…). We decided to give Ganesha Games’ Power Legion a whirl. The sole spanner in the works was that I cannot abide those enormous click bases.

[As an aside, I’ve always considered myself to be an imaginative person. One would think, therefore, that I could employ said imagination to overlook the occasional gigantic rulebook or bottle of soda nestled among the scenery. Sadly, this is not the case. I find that with the little people and terrain I paint and build, a certain quantity of verisimilitude is essential. So, the click bases had to go.]

Rebasing the Clix was an unexpected detour, but I found the process thoroughly pleasant. Since I didn’t do the paint jobs on the figures (and had no intention of repainting them), I could ignore their simplicity. It came as a surprise (as always) how spectacular the Chick Lewis Magic Wash makes paltry painting skills appear. Please to forgive the cellphone photos — I’ll admit that a fruitless quest for the perfect set up to photograph my creations is one among many reasons that I haven’t posted in æons.

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