Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Work in progress

So far, so good for this year.  The first week back I wrote almost every day.  Maybe not huge wordcounts, maybe not the best words, but that's for editing.

When I wasn't getting some writing done, I was doing some 'round the house jobs.  Not enough time in a day for both writing and house sorting, it seems.  Still trying to unpack, sort and set things to rights.  Once you're done moving, there's the big, important stuff that you unpack first.  Then the more 'steady state' items that you use more or less often.  Finally, there's the last things that you use the least, but still need unpacked.  In our case, if only to make space.  Especially considering that stuff is occupying the suite your parents are moving in to.

Besides that, there were some good games over the remainder of the holidays, including a Firestorm Armada game where my dice were on fire!  Sweet, exploding rolls.  Also a custom scenario which I will post shortly, after I adjust a few things we shook out during gameplay.

My year's project, Dragons Don't Share from Reaper (the Bones II Kickstarter) also saw some progress.  First up was to clean the parts, which you saw in the last post.  Next up is to boil them.  The boiling softens the parts and for the Bonesium material, it tends to push them back into their original shape.  They have a tendency to warp during mold removal and subsequent shipping and handling, so boiling, then dousing in cold water helps get them back to the original shape and hold them there.

The boiling:

This was just plain tap water, set on the stove at high to boil.  Once nicely bubbling (and toiling and troubling), just put the parts in and let them sit and soak in the heat.  Best done while building some other models.

Once boiled, remove: (tongs are a must here)

And place in the cold water (also in another pot).  Some people use ice water, in this case it I didn't find it necessary.


Though, I did find I had to overbend the parts in some cases, as they wouldn't return to a full flat condition.  I did this while they were still warm, before the water fully cooled them.  The cold water helps as water soaks in a huge amount of heat for its mass (also explaining why it is such a good cooling medium).  In this case, the overbending overcame the elastic region of the material and they now sit almost perfectly flat.

Repeat for all the pieces of the castle ruin, and the base area is ready to clean.  By cleaning I mean take away the mold lines, flash, and otherwise tidy up the model.  More on that in the next instalment of Dragons Don't Share.

I also took the time to work on my Razorthorn class battleship.  Not a lot, but I put the full body ink wash on the ship.  It looks really good in the details, bringing a depth to the crevices and other detailing, but it made the large, flat areas look dirty.  Not keen on that look, and I think I'll apply the ink more judiciously for future models.  It will need some cleaning up for the flat areas, but the weapons, hull plates and other details look good.  Next up is a cleaning pass with the base colours, then highlighting begins.


You know, it didn't feel as productive, but when you list it out, I actually worked on a bunch of things.  Not too bad for the first few weeks of the year.

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