Showing posts with label Blog Babble. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blog Babble. Show all posts

Monday, January 5, 2015

A kind of review: My 2014

2014 has ended some days ago, I came over those bridge days where I had to work and slowly I am getting in the hobby mood again (besides needing some vacation). Therefore I thought a view back to last year would be something nice to do on the blog and a somehow nice thing to start the hobby season with.

2014 started really slow concerning blogging. My real life kept me from doing anything fancy on the blog. First Papa Nurgle put his arms around me and afterwards I had a pretty tough project on work which kept my complete attention. Lots to learn and test out. But in the end this trouble paid off and we delivered a great product and among others are now listed 2nd place on a pretty relevant listing in our  field after a very very big company (starting from place 5). So lots of happy faces here :)

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Happy New Year to all

I wish all of you a Happy New Year or "Guten Rutsch" as we say here ;)
I wanted to write down a small resume of this year but due to our snow chaos and the longer time it took me to get to work, I had not so much time as I had hoped. Maybe I will write that post next year. But for now this will be the last post in 2014.

Hope you all have a nice party today and have a good start into 2015 .


So long,
Paradox0n

Saturday, December 6, 2014

Beautiful St Nicholas Day

Maybe this is a bit for my German readers, but I wish you a beautiful Saint Nicholas Day (Einen schönen Nikolaus). I was very surprised in the morning when I came home from my early shopping trip when I found a small bag in front of my door, containing two gunnysacks with a chocolate Nicholas walnuts and mandarins (the typical contents of those bags here). And surprisingly it was from my mom (and yes I am not living at home anymore and another yes I am over thirty now, nonetheless this is one of the very few traditions we keep). Pretty cool start into the day.

The picture shown is the nougat filled "bismarck" or "doughnut" (in German its Berliner in my region) I got for my wife in the morning. Went up at 8 and went shopping to let her sleep a bit longer today :)

So enjoy your day, especially if you spend it together with your family.


So long,
Paradox0n

Thursday, December 4, 2014

It is this time of the year again...

Fitting to all the Nurgle stuff in the End Times I jumped forward and "volunteered" for a cold this week... Therefore no Monday Morning Music/Musings and no progress in painting at all. At the moment I am happy that I can sit at my tablet and read all your blogs and take some time in between to write this blogpost now. A friend of mine already calls me "Papa Nurgle" which is... somewhat fitting at the moment ;)

But enough chatter about my illness, this week was full of stuff so I think I should stop ranting and start posting more interesting stuff for you :)

First off all the Mantic Games kickstarter for the 2nd edition rulebook (and 2 new armies, Abyssals and Armies of Nature) was funded. Pretty successfully for that, I think the overachieved by over 10 times. OK we all know now the guys from Mantic plan these kickstarters to work like that but still this gives me personally a good feeling if Warhammer Fantasy really goes down the tubes. For me this was the new rulebooks, all the freebies and some new dice and especially the new abyssal dwarf hero on winged beast and the obsidian golem. So in the end they got me as usual.

Second there was my decision last week to go for a PBA membership at Panting Buddha. In the end I was mistaken and a bit confused (too much alcohol that evening)  and only opted for a Big Bruddah but mixed it with the Golden Brick Brick itself which would be the next "grade". So sorry for the "wrong" title of the post. I already wrote about the why and the arguments are the same no matter if Big Bruddah or Golden Brick.
Since I now also have access to the Vimeo group (sorry Michael for the confusion) I am eagerly watching the videos and the exclusive content. So far I am not disappointed. And if the continue their DVD series I will be even more happy :) Love the stuff standing in my shelf.

And last but not least I am playing around with my Nikon and slowly getting a grip on it. First I thought I will need a special macro lens for making nice miniature shots. But as far as I tried around it could also work with the normal kit lens. Better to edit it in Photoshop and cutting out all the unnecessary parts than moving too close to the miniature. That perfectly fits to the experiences the Apes from Massive Voodoo write about in their tutorial. Maybe I will dig a bit more into it and write my own experiences down, for example everyone tells you not to use a flash, but my last tests where pretty nice (for a short WIP at least).


So long,
Paradox0n

Saturday, November 29, 2014

Throwing the golden brick!

So they got me at last. Yesterday I decided to go for a "Golden Brick" and join the Painting Buddha Academy, switching from the Community College to a "subscription".

From my earlier posts you know that I am quite a "fanboy" of Painting Buddha, because I really appreciate the work they do for the painting community. And with the promo the had running last week which reduced the 42€ to 35€ I couldn't resist anymore. As they explain in their nice promotion trailer that's something around 70ct a week (for me even only something of 60ct a week). And yes I spent more on the last kickstarters than that. Everything seems so logic when they explain it!


As soon as I have my Vimeo access I will most likely talk a bit more about the difference between PBCC and PBA.
Nonetheless I will continue to share the Youtube videos as soon as one chapter is complete thus promoting the free content the Bruddhas produce.


So long,
Paradox0n


P.S.: Welcome Solo Wargaming. Just added your blog to my blogroll. Take a seat and take some cookies until Tea is served.

Monday, November 24, 2014

MMM - Pump it up!

So I am back from my trip to Romania and had the muddiest hiking trip I ever had yesterday. Sometimes I nearly lost my hiking sticks/shoes in the mud... Nonetheless: I am back again!
And I will start this week with some Monday Morning Music: Danzel with Pump it up! I think this song is somehow fitting to the stuff I am writing about today.
So start the music and continue reading... :)

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Off Off to Romania and a short WIP

In a few hours I will fetch my flight to Romania. So don't expect any comments or big posts for the next week since I have neither my painting stuff with me nor do I expect to have much time. Sadly the trip is not for vacation but for work ;)

But to deliver at least something hobby related a short glance of another model on my working table: A Jotunn Hailstorm Cannon. Most likely this will be a proxy for a Death Shrieker or something.


See you in a week!
Paradox0n

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Nikon D3300 arrived

A new technical gadget in my arsenal arrived yesterday: The Nikon D3300 with lens kit (18-55mm). After some problems with the software (the software bundle delivers an older version which claims to be the newest version, but there is a newer one available on the website) and some driver problems (Win7 PnP drivers are not compatible with the camera it seems) I finally got the camera connected to my PC (thanks to the support forums).

And I began to do some test shooting with the standard setting and the first tests with the lens kit. For me the difference between our old Powershot (10 years old now) and my mobile camera is insane. With some easy positioning and using the lenses I get the blurry backgrounds and with that the depths of better pictures.

Monday, October 27, 2014

Shadows of Brimstone - First wave arrived

What a nice surprise that awaited me when I came home from work: The two "Shadows of Brimstone" core sets arrived today! Heavy, big and totally unexpected. I thought they would arrive sometime around Christmas. Couldn't wait to open it, therefore I teared open the package and was pretty happy with the stuff I got so far.
This evening I will start to break out all the markers and stuff, and maybe even glue together all the miniatures. Some of them seem to be reeeaaaally big! My wife already said: Let's grasp a bottle of whine and study the rules. Very cool, seems she likes the idea behind the game and that you can play it in coop unlike Descent where you always have the Dungeonmaster who plays against the other players.

Friday, October 24, 2014

Thoughts on blogging - 200th post!

As my 200th post I want to share my thoughts on blogging and how to behave in the blogosphere. After analyzing my statistics and reading many different blogs, blogging styles and checking what other blogs do (and don't do) my mind started working and after giving it a second and a third thought I feel now the urge to write some more personal view on this whole blogging stuff. The article is already some weeks in the pipe and I never felt it ready. But as my 200th post I think it is allowed to be seen :)

As you perhaps know, this blog started roughly 2 years ago as a test balloon because I just wanted to write more in English and thus practice the language. I had the choice between a tech-blog about my work or a more fun thing about the war-gaming hobby (which at this time started anew for me). I decided to combine both experiments and write about the hobby since work stuff I don't want to do in my spare time. Meanwhile I had lots of ups and downs and I even think about opening a bi-lingual hiking blog together with my wife and writing some tech based articles about my work on the blog of a good friend of mine. So blogging taught me to gather my thoughts and put them into words and practiced my English (even though it is not as good as it should be). And the most important fact: It helped me to keep at the hobby, even with longer brakes and stuff.

Thursday, September 18, 2014

More impressions from Norway: Models in Flam museum

So I will continue to show some of my pictures from Norway. This time I only have four pictures which I have shot in the Fram museum in Oslo. When my wife first told me that she wanted to visit the museum I thought "Nah not interesting" but oh how I was wrong...
The Fram is a pretty famous ship, which was used in Arctic AND Antarctic expeditions and has quite a history to tell. The museum contains the Fram herself (yes the whole ship!) and the Gjøa.
The main hall which contains the Fram is four floors high and you can wind up your way up to the deck hop on it and discover the complete ship. On the different floors you can see lots of items from the expeditions and at some places also some small dioramas which I will now present to you.

Norway Fram museum Norway Fram museum
Norway Fram museum Norway Fram museum

If you are interested in more information about the museum or the ships, just visit the linked sites :)

Hope you enjoyed it.


So long,
Paradox0n

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Hitting the 40k visits mark

So wow! I just checked my statistics and saw an unbelievable number oft hits there. Over 40.000 visits on my blog! Although I know that most oft the traffic comes from Google and other crawlers I am pretty happy. Even more since I know that most oft the spambots are now blocked out (can see that pagehits did break down after I changed the comments to registered only).

So a big: Thank you! to everyone who is reading this blog.

And I take this oportunity to make the small anouncement that I will post again more (hobby) stuff. Had to take some time off doing other things like working and hiking (especially in Norway and the Black Forrest) until I found the motivation again to interest me for my plastic mountains ;-)

So stay tuned.
Paradox0n

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Impressions from Norway

As promised I will post some of my Norway pictures. Today I want to start with some more hobby related pictures which gave me some nice ideas for bases/weathering and an idea how stuff "grows" in reality.
So without anymore babble I let the pictures speak. "A picture tells more than 1000 words", right?

Earth, Stones and Trees

Some impressions from our first hiking trip. Liked how the area looked, a bit "highland" feeling.

Norway nature Norway nature
Norway nature Norway nature
Norway nature Norway nature

Ice | Nigardsbreen

Some impressions from Nigardsbreen. After we did a small hiking trip to one of the arms in the neighborhood, we decided to go to the big one which is one of the biggest attractions in Jostedal. We booked a short guided tour and therefore I could take some nice pictures from the glaciertongue itself. We didn't climb up too far, but it was very impressive. Next time a bigger blue ice tour ;)


Nigardsbreen glacier Nigardsbreen glacier
Nigardsbreen glacier Nigardsbreen glacier

Weathered truck in swampland

One nice thing I stumbled upon when we did our last hiking trip was this rusted truck. It was nearly reoccupied by nature and was really cool.
Truck in swampland Truck in swampland
Truck in swampland Truck in swampland

That's it for today. If you liked it please say so in the comments, I can post some more pictures of Norway if you like. For example on our canoe trip one part looked a bit like the place where the hobbits paddled through ;)


So long,
Paradox0n

Monday, September 1, 2014

MMM - Dan Bull 40 years of gaming and back from Norway

The leisure times are over... My vacation in Norway was way too short but with lots and lots of impressions. If you need ideas for your display bases or army displays Norway is the country to travel to. I live in a really nice area (Black Forrest in Germany) which has an incredible landscape, but Norway was even more spectacular since it combines all kind of landscapes.
I have been climbing the heights of waterfalls, wanted to explore caves, did some glacier hiking and some canoeing in a fjord. And took more than 1000 pictures which I will show you some of them as inspiration for your future projects as soon as I have sorted them.

For today I will just show you a nice music video from Dan Bull: 40 years of gaming. I am curious how much of the stuff you know, my first video game wath Ataris PONG in the living room of our neighbours and since then hasn't stopped :)


Hope you enjoy it!

So long,
Paradox0n

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Vacation! Finally!

Trolltunga in Norway | Copyright by Visit Norway
Trolltunga in Norway
Finally I am off to Norway! Should have been there already for more than a week but due to some health issues of my wife we had to let my sister-in-law and partner travel without us.

But now we will catch up and meet them in Bergen and enjoy the second half of the trip together. Too bad that we missed the good weather and jump right into rain and storm (nice since we want to sleep in our tent). So cross your fingers that the weather will get better soon and I don't have to fear that my tent is blown away in the night ;)

Plan is to visit Bergen, Finse, Trondheim, Trollheimen, maybe Jotunheimen, Oslo and some stuff in between, Then back to the ferry which brings us to Denmark and finally a 14 hours drive back to Germany.

Outdoor adventure here I come!


See you in about two weeks!
Paradox0n

Friday, July 18, 2014

[Update] Man the trenches! Fighting the spam wave

Most of you will not have seen the change but nonetheless I will give you a short update and explanation why I changed my blog comments and added the captcha although I am not a friend of this.

In the last weeks where I have been absent from the blogosphere some spambots seem to have taken over my blog and bombard me with one spam mail after the other. At the moment the number it is somewhere around 30-40 a day. Luckily blogger filters 99% of them out so that they don't get published on the blog itself. But nonetheless a notification mail is send to me about that.

So please let me get away with this breaking of rules until I have found a better solution.

[Update] Since so many of you commented here, and gave me the tip to switch to disallow unregistered comments, I thought about that and decided to give it a try. So please my fellow anonymous users who really want to comment use some kind of OpenID or just drop me an email.
Captchas are therefore off again.

So long,
Paradox0n

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Painting a Fire elemental with Ben Komets from Painting Buddha

I am still alive and digging through videos and sometimes even blogposts. But my private projects (planing a hiking tour in Norway and the needed training) or my aquarium (which made some troubles lately) keep me away from painting and even blogging.
But today I stumbled upon a very nice (and free) painting video from our brudahs at Painting Buddha where Ben Komets paints a tabletop quality version of a Drakerys Fire Elemental. So sit back, watch and enjoy:



And as much as I hate advertisement mails, the one from Michael got me rolling and I will surely save me an Early Beard (so funny!) for the season 1.2/1.3 DVD bundle. I loved the first DVD set they did and want to support the work the guys at Painting Buddha do.


So long,
Paradox0n

Monday, March 24, 2014

Real life incoming!

Maybe you wondered if I am still into blogging after this really quite time now. Yes I am but my Work-Life-Balanc eis totally out of control. The last weeks we are preparing a bigger relaunch of the companies web page I am working at and are now in the hot phase for it. Last week I even was on a working trip in rumania which brought lots of nice impressions (although I didn't see much other than the office I was working at). Since I was "announced" as technical frontent responsive this is quite a change for me, I have much more responsibility now and want to stand up to the expectations my colleagues put into me..

Therefore I don't find the passion and quiet for painting or even working on my blog. Which is a shame since I finally got an answer from BoLS concerning the addition to their blogroll. I even don't find the time to follow my dearest blogs so please bear with me and be sure that I will have a look into all your blogs and will comment again when I find the time.

Hope you all have a good time until then.


So long,
Paradox0n

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Where's the rum gone...

...I would ask if I would be Jack Sparrow. But since I am definitely not I ask: Where is my motivation gone. It seems the two weeks fighting of the cold sucked out my complete energy. At the moment it is pretty hard for me to hop on my bike let alone painting miniatures. I am glad that I can fulfill the stuff at the office. Which is pretty stressful at the moment.

Sorry to give you no new pictures of my miniatures or anything. Meanwhile you can watch other people who are awesome :)





So long,
Paradox0n

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Strange Blogger/Google+ behaviour

Just a short notice for you out there: At the moment I am not able to comment on all your nice posts and stuff because I have some strange problems with the Google comments. They show me that I am logged in, I type my comments and send them and BAMM they are lost somewhere in the blogosphere.
I recall that Mr. Lee had this problem too some time ago, so if anyone of you reads this and has solved it, please hit me either by a comment or (if known) by an email.

Thanks in advance,
Paradox0n

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