HASO - Reverse Bored Humans

This is gabriel-wolfe-wordsmith's story about what else can happen when a human gets bored and has access to tools and scrap. If you haven't read HASO - Bored Humans please do so and you'll get even more amusement out of it.

The reverse here also holds true. Give a bored human a pile of scrap and you will come back to find a fully functional ship…or somesuch strange device. Humans quickly become the junkyard beings all across the galaxy.

“What did you do before this?”

“I used to just salvage scrap from old ships and melt it down for the metals.”

“How did you get your tentacles on interstellar ships to sell from that?!?”

“Simple: i hired a human. I originally thought she would simply help deconstruct junk ships for easier melting. I even gave her two screwdrivers.”

“Two screwdrivers?!?! Are you a madbeast?! I’ve heard what a bored human can do with one leverage optimizer.”

“Like I said. I wanted her to take things apart, makes the scrap easier to melt in smaller pieces. Never thought the human would do things in reverse. Left for a cycle to go watch my sibling’s egg-hatching and came back to find six fully functional ships in my scrapyard.”

“Are they safe? Surely they couldn’t be..”

“I’ve had a dozen inspectors look at every one. Other than the lack of production number stamps they seem to be right off the factory line.”

“So now you sell ships.. What about the human?”

“Oh i let her keep tinkering in the scrap yard. She seems happy there surrounded by things to ‘play with’ as she puts it. I give her a bonus for every ship she builds.”

“What does she do with the bonuses?”

“Buys coffee and chocolate. I’m starting to think both are crucial to human brain functioning.”

“I have heard of humans going mad without them…”

“Maybe i should buy her some extra just in case…”

“HEY BOSS! I MADE ONE THAT GOES TWICE AS FAST!”

“Twice as fast as hyperspeed?!?!? How?”

“Not sure but it does. You gotta see it. Just took a trip to earth and back for more coffee from my favorite little shop. Got there and back in fifteen minutes! And ten of that was waiting in line.”

“That's half the galaxy away…”

“Great job Gabrielle! I’ll triple your bonus for this one!”

“Sweet! I'm gonna go grab a snack.”

“Surely she realizes she could patent that and be unimaginably wealthy??”

“She doesn't seem to care. I will patent it and give her half the profits. It is only fair.”

“You are a braver beast than I. Keeping a human around like this. I loose tufts of fur from stress just thinking about nesting near a human.”

“Once you get used to the strange noises late at night you sleep quite well.”

“Are you so certain her experiments won’t vaporize you in your sleep?!?!?”

“Of course. Since I started sleeping in the ‘coffee shop’ she built on the lot I feel completely certain I am safe from any collateral damage from her experiments.”

HASO - Humans Sleep Anywhere

Ah Tumblr, the source of so many bits of small fiction. I really should consider joining it for my own writing. Anyway. This week's contribution is from piwnymisiek.

“Human Steve?”

“Sssh, Drblx” - Alice raised a finger to her mouth. “He’s asleep.”

The grklonian eyed the human in question suspiciously. “ How is that even possible?”

“To fall asleep with your face in your breakfast? He’s been up working for over fifty hours, had to pass out at some point.”

“But why did human Steve not retreat to the safety of his sleeping pod, human Alice? Is he that exhausted? Does he need medical attention?”

“Nah, give him an hour and he’ll crawl to the pod on his own. Wait, ‘safety’?”

“Well, I assume you don’t treat each other as a threat, but to allow himself such vulnerability in front of a grklonian…”

Alice snorted. “Drblx. You’re a crewmate, a friend and a ball of fluffy pink fur. You’re lucky Steve didn’t use you as a pillow.”

Drblx, one of Grklonian Dominion’s most seasoned supersoldiers, had never felt so insulted in their life.

HASO - Bored Humans

 This gem is from injuries-in-dust on Tumblr.

Give a bored human a screwdriver and you’ll find a pile of scrap where your ship used to be, with a proud looking human sitting nearby. 

“Boredom is a dangerous thing to a human.” 

“I don’t understand,” Chuul’s mandibles clicked nervously, “why not simply take the tool from the human.” 

Minxx’s antennae stood straight up, a sign of shock, fear, or surprise, “You don’t simply take something from a human. If you do they will either turn the ship upside down trying to find it again, or they will replace it with something else that will lead to more destruction.

“I speak quite literally by the way. Human-Mark used to have a tool he called an “Hex Key” he used it to remove the doors to the clothing storage areas in his quarters because he was bored. When he lost it he literally turned the ship upside down by reversing the gravity.” 

Chuul’s tentacles curled up defensively, “Gravity controls are locked, how-”

“No one knows how.” Minxx shook her small wings as the memory of suddenly falling upwards returned to her. “but his reasoning was that the tool would fall out of whatever hiding place it had come to rest within. He had not considered that all tables, chairs, equipment, and personnel, would also fall. It took weeks to clean.” 

To be fair to the human, Mark had only intended to reverse the gravity in his own quarters but had, quote, “pushed the wrong button.” A sentence which would send fear through any intelligent creature in the known galaxy. To be completely unfair to the human, there were still stains on the ceiling in almost every room of the ship from dropped food, chemicals, various other liquids, and even a couple of empty bowels. Some races just didn’t find the idea of resting comfortably in their sleeping quarters, only to be suddenly awakened as they fell ten feet toward a ceiling which had now become a floor. Mark was no longer allowed near environmental controls. 

Minxx continued, “He did not find this “Hex Key.” However, he did find the screwdriver and it seemed to please him when an owner was not located. The captain let him keep it since it seemed that it would keep him from doing any more strange things to locate his original lost tool. We did not consider-” she trailed off as her wings quivered again. 

There was silence between them for a few moments, Minxx was almost unwilling to continue and Chuul was almost too afraid to press for more details. Slowly, but surely, Minxx calmed herself enough to speak again. “we did not consider what he may be able to do when armed with a leverage optimiser.” 

“We were given shore leave while the ship was being fixed after the gravity incident. Thank goodness the captain took out act’s-of-human insurance or it would have cost the profits from our next five cargo hauls.” The premiums were high, but it was worth it. “After 14 rotations, human-Mark began to complain over the lack of stimulation, he called it “bored.” On the 15th rotation he disappeared for some time and he had hoped he had found some new activity to occupy his time.” 

Chuul did, but at the same time didn’t, want to know, “Had he?” 

Minxx waved her antennae in confirmation, “he had. He was located in one of the cargo holds, using the screwdriver to dismantle one of the mining probes. To, quote “see how it worked.” It was almost 90% deconstructed.” 

Mark had claimed it was almost 10% REconstructed, as he was trying to put it back together again, but couldn’t quite remember where all the parts went. In Mark’s words, the captain was a “glass half-empty kinda guy” (whatever that meant) and wrote DEconstructed on the claim form for a replacement probe. 

Chuul’s natural camouflage kicked in and they took on the colour of the chair they were sitting on. “Those probes have no screws for the leverage optimiser to use, how did he-” 

Minxx’s wings shivered again, “no one knows how. He just did.” 

Chuul was silent for a moment. He’d never served on a ship with a human before. He’d heard they made things “interesting” and if you ever got into trouble, a human was the very best thing to ever have on your side. It was why they were so many job opportunities for humans in the alliance. All the same…the thought of a human causing such damage and destruction just because of a lack of mental, or physical, stimulation was a more than a little frightening. What if the human wanted to see how the engines worked, or the weapons?!!  “Maybe I should transfer to another ship.” 

Minxx’s antennae curled, a smile to her race. “You are safe. The captain has found a way to occupy our humans free time. During our last stopover, he commissioned a shiny orb be constructed.” 

Chuul coked their head, “what is a shiny orb?” 

Minxx’s curled antennae moved up an down; a sign of mild laughter. “It is nothing. A sphere made of shiny metals, humans do like shiny things, roughly two feet diameter made of a collection of gears, levers, screws and switches which appear complex and should have a function, but do entirely nothing. The captain handed it to Human-Mark and stated: “see if you can fix this.” and Mark has been “tinkering” with it during his off-duty hours for almost 24 rotations now. He can take it apart and rebuild it as many times as he likes, but it will never perform any task.”

Chuul was just thinking about how their captain must be a genius, when the door to the mess hall opened and Human-Mark entered. He was carrying the shiny orb under one arm, and his screwdriver in the other hand. He looked around, seemingly not noticing any of the crew members. He smiled when he spotted an empty liquid container and sat down at the table with the cup. 

Chuul and Minxx watched curiously as Mark set the orb on the table in front of the cup. He used the screwdriver to tighten one small screw and flipped a switch. At once there was a whirring and clicking of clockwork, a blinking of lights hidden in the depths of the machine and even a TING from a small bell. Then a small funnel-shaped piece of metal opened up in the side of the machine and poured a small amount of hot, black, liquid into the cup.

Mark jumped to his feet, pumping the air and yelling loudly enough to send Chuul’s camouflage reflex off again. He grabbed the orb, abandoning the cup of steaming hot liquid, and moved to the door. 

Minxx stared after them, “Human-Mark?” 

Mark only paused for a second in the doorway. He was prominently displaying his predatory teeth. Chuul had read about these “smiles” but it was still disturbing to see. “Can’t stop Minxy. I gotta let the captain know I fixed his coffee maker.” 

With that, he left. Leaving Chuul and Minxx frozen in place, dumbfounded. 

Wherever Chuul was going to transfer to, Minxx began to hope she could get a posting on the same ship.

HASO - Humans and Pets

I think I'm going to have to sign up for Tumblr just because it keeps providing me material. This is a multi-user contribution, which is kind of the fun of social media sites.

radioactivepeasant (setting up the story seed)

It occurs to me that as much as “humans are the scary ones” fits sometimes, if you look at it another way, humans might seem like the absurdly friendly or curious ones.

I mean, who looked at an elephant, gigantic creature thoroughly capable of killing someone if it has to, and thought “I’m gonna ride on that thing!”?

And put a human near any canine predator and there’s a strong chance of said human yelling “PUPPY!” and initiating playful interaction with it.

And what about the people who look at whales, bigger than basically everything else, and decide “I’m gonna swim with our splashy danger friends!”

Heck, for all we know, humans might run into the scariest, toughest aliens out there and say “Heck with it. I’m gonna hug ‘em.”

“Why?!”

“I dunno. I gotta hug ‘em.”

And it’s like the first friendly interaction the species has had in forever so suddenly humanity has a bunch of big scary friends.

adrenaline-revolver

“Commander, we must update the code of conduct to include the humans.”

“Why? Are they more aggressive than we anticipated?”

“It seems to be the opposite Commander. Just this morning a crewman nearly lost their hand when attempting to stroke an unidentified feline on an unknown world. Their reaction to the attack was to call the creature a “mean kitty” and vow to win it over. Upon inquiry it seems they bond so readily with creatures outside their species that they have the capacity to feel sympathy for an alien creature they have never seen before simply because it appears distressed. I hate to say this commander but we must install a rule to prevent them from endangering their own lives when interacting with the galaxy’s fauna.”

“I see what you mean. So be it, from now on no crewman is allowed to touch unknown animals without permission from a superior officer. And send a message to supplies about acquiring one of these “puppies” so that their desire to touch furred predators can be safely sated. 

beka-tiddalik

“So I hear that you’ve just recruited a human for your ship.”

“Yes, it’s the first time that I’ve worked with these species, but they come highly recommended. Say, you’ve worked with a few, what tips can you give me? I’d hate to have some kind of cultural misunderstanding if it’s avoidable.”

“The first rule of working with humans is never leave them unsupervised.”

“Wait, what?”

“I’m serious. Don’t do it. Things. Happen.”

“But wait, I thought that I heard you highly recommended that every crew should have at least one on board?”

“Absolutely, and I stand by that. Humans are excellent innovators, and are psychologically very resilient. If you have a crisis, then a human that has bonded with your crew properly can be invaluable. Treat your human well and you should get the best out of them as a crew member. Their ability to get on with almost any species is legendary.”

“But Toks, didn’t you just say…”

“The trouble is that they will potentially try to bond with anything. If you leave them unsupervised, you have no idea what kind of trouble they can get themselves into. It was sheer luck that the Fanzorians thought that it was funny that the human picked up the Crown Prince to coo at him.”

“Crown Prince Horram, Scourge of Pixia?”

“The very same. Surprisingly good sense of humour. But don’t even get me started on that one time with the Dunlip. Al-Human wanted to know if they could keep it. As a pet.”

“A Dunlip? You mean the 3 metre tall apex predators from Jowun?”

“Yup. Don’t leave your humans unsupervised.”

“I’ll uh, take that under advisement.”

uristmcdorf

“Seriously. Get a supply of safe animals for the humans to bond with or they will make their own. I mean, they will try to befriend anything they come across anyway, but without any permanent pets they can get… creative. Don’t even get me started on the time one of them taped a knife to one of our auto-cleaners and named it Stabby.

Three weeks in and when we finally caught the wretched thing, half the humans on crew tried to revolt about us “killing” Stabby by removing the knife.

“How… how did you resolve that sir?”

“Glaxcol made a toy knife out of insulation rubber and strapped that on instead. Quite a creative solution, I suppose.”

“And that sated the humans?

“Worse.”

“Worse?”

“They thought it was so funny they made a second one, strapped false eyes on springs to both and held mock battles. Then decided Stabby and Knifey were in love and now none of them will allow the others to stage fights between them any more.”

foxmartini

“So, if I supply my Humans with safe bonding pets they will behave better when on other planets? Where do I get safe bonding pets?”

“Realizing the havoc their species created with their bonding needs, Earth has been kind enough to create an inter galactic ‘pet’ shop as they call it, the order forms are on the bridge.”

“If they get a pet this should prevent any knife welding auto-cleaners?”

“Yes…”

“You don’t sound very reassuring.”

“Well… You have to understand that some of what humans find attractive about their ‘pets’ is actually what makes them dangerous. Not all of what they consider ‘safe’ is what we would consider ‘safe’.”

“OK… I am getting a little nervous about this.”

“No, no, it’s fine, I’m just saying you should maybe keep an eye on what they order. Ask them to describe the creature before they get it. For example, the first time I had a human on board I let them order a pet without checking what it was.”

“What happened?”

Well, when it arrived it was a 25 pound fanged and clawed feline creature called a Savannah Cat. My entire crew was terrified of it, it was agile and could easily have seriously injured someone, but the human had no fear of it. They insisted on carrying it around like a child, and they would squeeze it’s ‘beans’ as they said, forcing the creatures claws out, and then they would show people it’s deadly claws while saying, and I quote, ‘look at its adorable claws, this is what it uses to kills things, isn’t it cute?’“

“Seriously?”

“I have also heard stories from other crews that their humans ordered canines that weigh as much or more then they do, and they sleep next to the giant creature.”

“You are not making me feel better with these stories…”

lianabrooks

“Captain, the Mei-Human has ordered a new bonding pet. And it arrived.”

“Is there a problem?”

“It is the size of my hand, has eight legs, and there is a label on the box that reads VENOMOUS.”

“This must be a mistake. Let’s find Mei-human and see if she can explain how this happened.”

They found Mei-human working in the science lab…

“Mei-human, your bonding pet has arrived but there seems to have been a mistake made in shipping.”

“Oh, no! Captain, did Fluffy die?”

“Fluffy?” The captain moved six tentacles in confusion. “Who is Fluffy?”

“My Martian Fur Spider,” Mei-Human said. “You told me I could order anything as long as it was cute and loveable.”

“Mei-Human,” said the bosun, “our understanding is that arachnids are considered frightening to humans.”

“Well, some people don’t like spiders, but I think they’re adorable! I already picked out a name and made a small habitat for it in my quarters. Fluffy will love it.”

The captain and bosun exchanged worried pheromones. 

“What about the warning of venom?” the captain asked.

“Oh, Martian Fur spiders don’t produce enough venom to kill anyone, even when they’re grown. I checked to make sure Fluffy couldn’t hurt the crew. The bite will only itch, but they can be trained not to bite.”

The captain flapped its gills in a breathy sigh. Humans… “Very well. We will unleash the Fluffy.” 

The captain and the bosun walked Mei-Human to her quarters and delivered the small box containing Fluffy the Martian Fur spider. As the doors opened they saw that Mei-Human had cleared her longest wall and stacked balls of yarn over most the floor.

“Mei-Human,” the captain said as a feeling of dread filled its soul, “how large will Fluffy grow?”

“Oh, no one has ever grown a Martian Fur spider larger than three meters before. She’ll fit in the ship, no problems. I measured the corridors. And they can curl up very small when they want to. The yarn is just there to give her something to cuddle in when she sheds her outer skin.” 

Mei-Human smiled cheerful as she released a glistening red creature with luxurious fur and two-inch fangs onto her floor.

“Isn’t she the cutest?”

Making My Own Contrast Paint - Part 2 - Paint

Here's the rest of it! Part 1 of the process went over the trials and tribulations of creating colors from inks and went over color theory to some point. That's irrelevant if you're using existing paints that you want to turn into contrast paints. Mostly. Unless you want to change up the colors. But go read that one if you're interested in my journey.

This is where you turn color into paint. I'm using 'color' to be generic about what is being used - inks, paints, pigments, whatever. Without color you end up with clear and that's not really helpful as a contrast paint.

Here's the two artist mediums you use to make paint. Notice I specify that they're artist mediums. You can get very similar things by the craft paint for less money but you get what you pay for. Save yourself headaches (more on that later) and get the artist grade products. Craft store brand is just fine and the stores tend to have coupons. You're not going to use a lot at any given time so it's a wise investment.

• Flow improver
• Matte medium

Flow Improver

This is exactly what it seems to be. This will thin out your mix and extend the drying time (bonus!). It's better than water in the respect that it has .. stuff .. that works with the paint medium instead of just thinning it out. Most of the time water works fine. For this, get some flow improver.

Matte Medium

This is the important one. This makes paint. It makes the resulting blend 'sticky' so it will work as paint. Contrast paints are a heavy wash rather than a true paint so the mixing is going to be different. This is where I had my problems.

Note - don't try to get around this one by using matte varnish. Let me explain why this one caused me a lot of issues because I was stubborn.

When making washes for terrain I like to use matte varnish. It works well enough to make things sticky and it varnishes at the same time. Contrast paint seemed similar enough that I could follow the same process. This is not true. The varnish isn't sticky enough and I couldn't get the viscosity right. That's why I gave up for a while before getting matte medium. Don't make my mistake.

Making Contrast Paint

OK! Here's the good stuff! In the page there's a link to a video that got me started. It's an interesting watch by an interesting creator but I won't double link it. The end result he found was equal parts ink, flow improver, and matte medium.

Well. That sounds simple enough. My confidence was high as I measured out drops.

The results? Not so clear cut.

My problem was viscosity. I didn't have a real bottle of contrast paint to use as a guide for what my end result was supposed to be. If I could only have tried it once I would know where I was having problems. ONCE! Alas with the pandemic situation and the lack of painting groups at my local game stores I didn't have the option to play with someone else's expensive paint.

I honestly didn't know how the paint was supposed to turn out. So I kept testing and testing and testing until I gave up in frustration. Then I sulked and went back to it. I had plenty of primed figures I could use for testing but I never could get it quite right.

I think I may have had it once but didn't paint them correctly so I considered it a failure. Maybe.

I finally gave in and bought the paint. My local game store was very limited in colors so the one I got I'll probably almost never use. I messed up there and should have gone to the store with more selection so I'd have a paint that wasn't so specific. But this store isn't doing great so I gave them the money instead. I'll figure out a use for the paint. Probably. The important thing is I could finally see the viscosity I needed.

I use my palettes to see how paint will look and react on miniatures. The vertical surface shows viscosity and opacity. If you don't use welled palettes keep a scrap of flat polystyrene for the same purpose. It helps if it's the same color as your standard primer but that's up to you. My helpful painting hint for the day.

The green arrow shows the actual contrast paint. You can see where it covers then creates a pool. That's what I needed. And that's what I got, as you can see from my own results around it.

The problem is that 1:1:1 doesn't work all the time. Color viscosity, climate, and just plain luck play factors in the process. So here's how I experimented to do what needed to be done.

Stupidity note. When I mixed up the bottles of color I added matte varnish and flow improver to them, hoping I could use them right out of the bottle or with very little change. As I stated before I used the wrong thing. But the combination of them made it similar enough to the inks that it worked. After the bottles are empty I'll fill them up with the ink mixes (if I think I need that much) and deal with the new proportions at the time.

Remember when you start that you're putting in 1/3 of the amount of the final mix. That's important if you only need a little. Since I was painting a bunch of figures this is what I did.

Step 1 - Matte Medium

Matte medium is the base for this so I figured I'd start with a fixed amount. The measurements are in drops. I started with 10 drops of matte medium

Step 2 - Flow Improver

This one will be a starter amount and adjust it based on what your color medium is. Inks are the thinnest so they'll need less flow improver. Pigments are the driest so they'll probably need more. So start with less.

Step 3 - Color

Add as much color as you did matte medium. Here's your 1:1 ratio you should be able to keep constant. You'll still tweak but at least you have a baseline. Mix well.

Step 4 - Test

Put a drop of color on a vertical surface and watch how it moves. If it runs, it's too thin. If it runs down into a blob without leaving color behind it's too thin. Remember you want it to move a bit then pool on its own.

By now it should be obvious. Adjust your mix using ONE drop of the appropriate medium and test again. You're in the adjustment stage now so don't overdo it. It's much better to slowly add more than to guess how much you need then find out just how wrong you were.

Continue testing until you get that result shown above.

Here's my final result. The yellow on the left figure is real brand name contrast paint. The skin is mine. You can see they're almost identical in terms of how they behave.

Using Contrast Paints

This is something I had to learn as well. These aren't used like regular paints. Trying to do that leads to disappointment and frustration. I know that.

First and foremost - don't use your good brushes for this. You don't need them and you don't want them to take the abuse they're going to get. Mild abuse but still abuse. The biggest potential problem is getting paint into the ferrule since you load the brush when working this way.

Buy yourself a set of decent synthetic round pointed brushes with decent size barrels. You do want to load the brushes but not too much. I'll get to that.

Step 1 - Fill your brush

This may take a few times to get a decent paint load onto your brush. You'll learn the balance but you want enough paint to make sure you can get the recesses filled but still be able to pull off excess with the point. So don't soak the poor things. Just load them well. This is where the potential for paint in the ferrule happens and cheap brushes take that worry away.

Step 2 - Dab it on

You're not actually painting at this point. Starting at a high point on the area do a dab/paint and watch the paint move. Then do the same thing in another similar area. This is where it gets weird as opposed to painting because gravity is involved and there's also wicking from paint already on the figure. Use the tip of the brush to pull off paint that's too thick and press to add more paint.

It's best to try this out on a couple of sample figures to get the hang of it.

Be very careful you don't overload these washes. They may look fine from the top but when you turn them over you find out where all that extra paint when and there's big glops of paint below. Those suckers are tough to remove. Even with good paint remover you'll be picking away at them. So less is more when doing this.

Step 3 - Refine

Don't overwork the paint but go over the areas and remove excess from recesses and paint over areas where it's too light. This is a final step since the paint is still very workable. After you're happy enough with it set it aside

Step 4 - Wait

The combination of mediums makes this a slow drying process. I leave mine overnight between coats. I know there's videos showing how to use contrast paints to finish figures in very short amounts of time but those are using the brand names and I don't know what their composition is. They probably do try quicker. But there's no harm in painting up one color on a couple of dozen figures and letting them sit. Then you do the next one, etc.

Also try to avoid the "I'll paint another color that doesn't butt up against the one I just did" thinking. You're going to smear the first one. No matter how careful you are you're going to end up touching the fresh paint. Accept that these are going to take a while and have other things to work on while they're drying.

Summary

As I stated earlier I wasn't a fan of using The Dip (that includes the Army Painter method) in the past. And I'm not saying I'll use this on a regular basis or as a main method of painting other models or armies. But for these models I find it a very useful way to get the style of painting I prefer with minimum effort.

Here's the end result of my skin experiments. I'm not sure that I need to worry too much about how the undercoat pools since the green is pretty dark and covers it up anyway. I'm still pondering putting a touch of the undercoat on the highlights of these when the time comes. It may or may not be needed and having a hoard army means there's a lot of models.

Making My Own Contrast Paint - Part 1 - Color

 

I've been kind of  hinting at working on a hobby project for far too long now. That's because I've been starting and stopping on it. Now that I think I've got it ready for prime time it's also ready for the blog.

I've split it into multiple parts because I know how wordy I get in these things. The less chatty and more 'technical' version will be a page that has necessary information. The blog posts are more the journey of how I finally got to where I was pleased with the results.

For those who don't know Contrast Paints are Games Workshop versions of a heavy wash, in their official colors that they use in all their various and sundry products. They're also expensive. For some reason I thought Vallejo had already put out their version of these but I can't find a reference so maybe I'm confused. Warcolours (a not very well known company that should be known better) created their Antithesis line which is the same thing. Army Painter is supposed to be releasing their own as well.

Obviously this has become a fast and popular way to paint. It's still just heavy washes tho.

I'm stubborn. Go figure. I'm already working as best I can not to give GW any of my money when it comes to making my ork army. I've done excellent so far. So of course I went on a search to find alternatives to buying their overpriced paints. I wasn't sure I was going to like them. I've tried painting using The Dip and haven't been happy with the results. I've always ended up stripping them and painting as usual.

In this case the more cartoon-like paint jobs I'd been seeing appealed to me. GW 40K orks are cartoon-like in general. They're the silly faction. That's what appealed to me, both in the models and in the way that they're played. So of course I wanted to give it a try.

YouTube is as it always is - a treasure trove of material for hobbies. I found a video (I'll link it in the page when it gets made) on making your own contrast paints. Actually I found quite a few videos but I like this guy's style and he goes into how he did his own testing. Plus I had the materials on hand. Kind of.

A heavy wash is made up of three things:

1. Color
2. Medium
3. Thinner

If you already have paint the colors you want then you're golden. Move on to the next part which is turning those into contrast paint/heavy wash. I'm going to chat about color here.

Color can be inks, paints, pigments, whatever. For the green skins I planned on using F&W acrylic artist ink because I have all those colors due to an excellent clearance at Hobby Lobby. That and the video shows him using inks so why not? I broke out the inks and dusted off my memories of color mixing.

One of the first things was that I kind of wanted to get close to matching the GW colors. The Paint Rack phone app - wonderful thing, download it and pay to unlock all the features - showed me that I had no paints close enough in value to use as a reference. Of course. Hundreds of colors and nothing was a close enough match. Good thing I had the inks and the internet.

I found someone who posted pictures of all the contrast paints and how they look on a finished product. I won't link to that, mostly because once I downloaded the pictures I didn't save the site. It's got how the paints look over all three colors of primer - white, grey, and black. I was only concerned about white since I wanted the brightest color I could get.

I wasn't just mixing one color either. As the picture at the top shows I needed two - the undercoat and the top coat. That's two experiments in color. I took my notes and counted my drops, then compared the results. I had a lot of things like this:

FYI - All those are rejected mixes. But it showed me the differences that resulted from using different green inks and the other colors I mixed into them. I did a lot of this. Ink is cheap and none of these have the artist mediums in them to make them anything but color testing. You can seen the beginning of the streaks where I tested them when they weren't a pool of color at the bottom. The palette well is angled so they did a nice transition from thin to thick on their own.

I was testing the ratios of green to yellow and different shades of both green and yellow. You can see that the results turned out quite different. It was a great way to relearn how colors work. I do have some books on mixing acrylics into thousands of shades but didn't refer to it (much) in this process. Instead I used my intuition and what I already thought I knew.

To cut to the chase I did find colors I liked for the pair. They're not the ones in the top photo either. I just liked that pose and how it showed both layers. The real results will be in a post showing off the full paint jobs. The final recipes will be in the post.

I needed other colors as well if I was going to do all contrast paints on these. Another video showed the results of that and I didn't mind the results. So more color testing.

I made a couple of other colors than this but you can see the two different browns. Yes. Purple and blue were used in making that brown. It's why they're on the palette, so I could have a reference back to them. Brown is a funny color and I'm not going down that rabbit hole here, especially since it isn't even a real color.

I made a black paint that is mostly Payne's Grey with a touch of black. Again, color mixing and theory here. Black is not a color. It's a tint. Payne's Grey is a very nice rich dark grey that's translucent. The black was to make it just a touch darker and to make it a little more opaque. That mix worked.

I did screw up with red. This is where I would have put a picture of the result but for whatever reason I don't have one. I swear I took pictures of all of the parts of the process. The screw up is I forgot how transparent red is. It's why it's so difficult to paint good red. When I put it on the mini I got a really weak and ugly result of some red in the recesses and a slight hint of pink on the highlights. This was not what I wanted. That's when I remembered the opacity problem and when I set the whole thing aside for a while.

Yellow has the same issues as red most of the time. Since ork yellow is any shade of yellow you want I didn't bother to mix a shade. The only reason I mixed a red was because I didn't like the straight red inks for orks. I felt it was too wimpy. I have not tried the yellow ink contrast paint so I can't say whether or not it's a problem.

After my sulking break I went back and resolved the issues with the paint itself. I do have my skin colors and mixed up bottles of them (that's another story) but also had been thinking about using more contrast paints on the mini itself. I'd been wavering between that and paint with a wash/glaze layer. I settled on contrast paints.

More color experiments! I took pictures of the colors then the resulting mix and how it looked when painted. These are small experiments - the palette wells are less than an inch across. 

The one on the left was supposed to be Brown 1, since any three colors mixed together become brown. They did not in this case.

Blue 1 is planned on being a slate blue, probably.

So. Blue 1 didn't turn out to be slate. This happens. It's a lovely shade.

The right is Brown 2, once again trying the concept of 3 colors equals brown.

Ok. Brown 2 isn't bad. It's a nice neutral-ish brown. I can deal with that.

Let's go wild with Brown 3! Primary colors baby!

Brown 3 is once again green. I'll talk about that below. I added another drop or so of red to see if I could shift it.

Brown 3 finally shifted into a brown. Kind of a brown. A very greenish brown.

Brown 3 gets more red! I wasn't going to let this color mix get the best of me. The excess of red made a reddish brown after moving out of the green range.

Going back to Brown 1 after seeing what red did for Brown 3.

OK. Let's not get into what shade we could name Brown 1.

Blue 2 is trying for the slate color again. Or maybe denim. That's Payne's Grey in the middle.

Too dark. More light blue into Blue 2.

Blue 2 as done as it's going to get.

This is where I stopped experimenting with color for other areas of the minis and decided that I would use my existing paints. I have all these colors so there's no reason to try to reproduce them except for the fun that was the experimenting. Don't get me wrong. Experimenting is fun and I'm glad I did it.

If you've got the materials and interest in what makes up colors then by all means have at. I could do this because I have all the ink colors. If I had to buy more of them I would have seriously considered just buying the paints given how expensive bottles of ink are, how little is used, and the unknown of what colors I needed. In the short term the actual paints would have made more sense. Probably the Warcolours paints but you never know.

Rather than show you painted minis here's the final colors I settled on for the ork skin. Ignore the white in the middle well - that's primer I used for touching something up. But the streaks up the side of the palette well in the middle are important later.

HASO - Star Trek Crossover - Humans Being Humans

Normally I'd skip these because they are a different genre of fanfic but there's some out there I do like. Today I bring you one from Tumblr (big surprise) and roachpatrol.

Klingons: Okay we don't get it.

Vulcan Science Academy: Get what?

Klingons: You Vulcans are a bunch of stuffy prisses but you're also tougher, stronger, and smarter than humans in every way.

Klingons: Why do you let them run your Federation??

Vulcan Science Academy: Look.

Vulcan Science Academy: This is a species where if you give them two warp cores they don't do experiments on one and save the other one for if the first one blows up.

Vulcan Science Academy: This is a species where if you give them two warp cores, they will ask for a third one, immediately plug all three into each other, punch a hole into an alternate universe where humans subscribe to an even more destructive ideological system, fight everyone in it because they are offended by that, steal their warp cores, plug those together, punch their way back here, then try to turn a nearby sun into a torus because that was what their initial scientific experiment was for and they didn't want to waste a trip.

Vulcan Science Academy: They did that last week. We have the writeup right here. It's getting published in approximately six hundred scientific journals across two hundred different disciplines because of how many established theories their ridiculous little expedition has just called into question. Also. They did turn that sun into a torus and no one actually knows how.

Vulcan Science Academy: This is why we let them do whatever the hell they want.

Klingons: .. Can we be a part of your Federation?

HASO - Exploration

Tumblr! I do so enjoy the variety that people sift out of there. Today's contribution is by the-grand-author. Tidied, etc. I did approximate the temperatures because I didn't feel like doing research to find out if the ones used were in F or C. So I did my best.

Alien: And you say the poles of your world would get as low as -100C with wind chill?

Human: Yup, with blizzards you can't see through every other day just about.

Alien: Amazing! When did you manage to send drones that could survive such temperatures?

Human: .. Well actually ..

Alien: What?

Human: .. We .. kinda .. sent .. people.

Alien: ...

Human ...

Alien: What?

Human: We sent-

Alien: No. I heard you. I just- What? You sent .. HUMANS? to a place one hundred degrees below the freezing point of water?

Human: Y-yeah...

Alien: And they didn't .. die?

Human: Well the first few did.

Alien: PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE???

HASO - Volcanic Islands

Good old Tumblr. This time from val-tashoth. Touched up, etc.

Alien: You're telling me you have .. settlements. On islands with active volcanism?

Human: Well, yeah. I'm not about to tell Iceland or Hawaii how to live their lives. Actually it's kind of a tourist attraction.

Alien: What? The molten rock?

Human: Well, yeah! It's not every day you see a mountain spew out liquid rocks! The best one is Yellowstone, though. All these hot springs and geysers from the supervolcano-

Alien: You ACTIVELY SEEK OUT ACTIVE SUPERVOLCANOES?

Human: Shit, man. We swim in the groundwater near them.

HASO - Habitable Planets

A gem from Tumblr user crazypages. This is under the concept that Earth is Space Australia, for reference. As always I tidied it up a bit in the retyping but didn't change the spirit.

Alien: I'm sorry, what did you say your comfortable temperature range is?

Human: Honestly we can tolerate anywhere from -40 to 50 Celsius, but we prefer the 0 to 30 range.

Alien: .. I'm sorry. Did you just list ranges below the freezing point of water?

Human: Yeah, but most of us prefer to throw on scarves or jackets at those temperatures. It can be a bit nippy.

Other human: Nah mate. I knew this guy in college who refused to wear anything past his knees and elbows until it was -20 at least.

Human: Yeah. Everybody knows someone like that.

Alien: ... And did you also say 50 Celsius? As in, halfway to the point of water boiling?

Human: Eugh. Yes. It sucks, we sweat everywhere, and god help you if you touch a seatbelt buckle, but yes.

Alien: ..... We've got like 50 uninhabitable planets we think you might enjoy.

HASO - Bird War

This one is an image from Reddit r/humansarespaceorcs but without attribution since whoever made the image posted on Facebook didn't bother to include that part.

Jerry: Yeah? What is it?

Zilbur: I've been looking through your planet's history log and I need clarification on something.

Jerry: What is it?

Zilbur: I've found something called "The War of the Emus". What was that about?

Jerry: Uhhh....

Zilbur: Human?

Jerry: Well it was .. when we .. kind of .. went to war against .. emus.

Zilbur: What is this "emu" you speak of?

Jerry: It's a type of .. bird.

Zilbur: A what?

Jerry: A bird is a type o- 

Zilbur: I KNOW WHAT A BIRD IS. What I meant was that did you just say that you went to war against birds?

Jerry: Yes.

Zilbur: *inhales* WHY!?

Jerry: If it makes it any better they were pests that ate our crops.

Zilbur: No. It doesn't. You wanna know why?

Jerry: Why-

Zilbur: THE HISTORY LOG SAYS THE EMUS WON!

Jerry: Right. I forgot about that.

Zilbur: IDIOTS! ALL OF YOU!

HASO - Not Noticing Pain

From @nonbinarygaymergirl on Tumblr. This seems to be part of a cooperative writing effort between a lot of authors using the same characters. There's no specific order to them since they're bits of story.

The humans were at third meal when Zork'ak sat on the bench. The nutrient researchers had been experimenting with the human flavors, attempting to add it to the meals. This bowl had a slight ‘savory’ undertone that Zork'ak very much enjoyed.

Wren moved over to allow Zork'ak to sit next to her, which caused a weird constriction around xer straque, xer fluid-pumping organ. Wren smiled at xem, and it happened again. Xe might need to go to the medical wing after meal.

"I don’t feel sorry,“ Adam was saying.

"You sprained my wrist!” Steve was clutching his extremity to his chest.

"You should’ve landed the right way.“

"Oh, shut up,” Carrie grumbled.

As Carrie lifted her utensil to her mouth, Zork'ak caught a glimpse of a long cut running the length of the lower half of her extremity. “How did you hurt yourself, Carrie?”

She looked surprised. “Where?” Zork'ak carefully traced the line with xer talon. Carrie twisted to look at the scabbed cut. “Hmm. Wonder when that happened.”

"The piercing of your skin sends pulses through your nerves, correct?“

"Well, yeah.”

"So you should feel it.“

"Well, I mean. You usually do. I guess I just didn’t notice when it happened this time.”

"Sometimes our body can be more focused on other things or like the pain is so minor we barely notice or remember it,“ Adam said. “I mean we obviously notice big things.”

"I probably cut on something while we were at the collection field.“ Carrie continued eating.

"She also is the kind of person who doesn’t notice a lot.” Adam closed his eye in what Zork'ak had been told is called a ‘wink.’ “I, on the other hand, do notice things like this.” He flipped his extremity over to reveal two blue spots on his arms. Zork'ak did not study human bodily science, just behavior so xe did not know what this medical condition was.

"What disease do you have?“ Zork'ak leaned forward to look at Adams, running a talon over the skin to see if it felt different. Xe had been told that xe could touch the humans without asking permission in these situations.

"Oh, it’s not a disease. It’s called a bruise. It means my blood vessel, the tube that brings the blood to all my organs, was ruptured. It’ll go away after a few days.”

"You rupture delivery vessels that are necessary to keep your organs functioning and it does not affect your body?“

Adam shrugged. "We have multiple blood vessels.”

"Is this an extremely painful occurrence?“ Zork'ak had noticed humans did not seem to mind pain.

"Nah. I mean, you can usually tell if you are going to bruise because it hurts a little when that spot gets hit, but very minor.”

"So you don’t notice when you are cut but when one of your… blood vessels,“ Adam nodded,” blood vessels ruptures but you do notice when you touch an object too hard.“

"Uh, kind of? It just really depends.”

Zork'ak did not understand how some humans would notice these nerve impulses but others did not. Xe turned to look at Wren, who had been listening to the conversation, and noticed a dark purple spot on Wren’s upper extremity.

"What is this?“ Xe pointed at the spot on Wren’s arm.

"Uh,” Wren tried to twist her extremity. “Where?” She was stretching it out, twisting around, finally able to look at the spot on the back side. “Oh, bruise.” She poked it. “Ouch. That hurt.” She proceeded to press it again. And again.

"Wren?“ She touched the spot again and wrinkled her nose. "Why do you continue to press the spot that hurts?”

She looked at xem. “You know, I don’t have an explanation really. I guess it doesn’t hurt that much so it’s enticing to keep pressing it to see if it hurts more each time. I’m not sure.”

"How did you get that bruise?“

"Couldn’t tell you.”

Zork'ak looked back at Adam. “I thought you said you all noticed when you have ruptured your blood vessels, and that one looks more painful.”

"Hers is a dark color because it’s healing, not because it’s more painful. Bruises are nearly the same pain level. Some hurt when you press them,“ he cut his eyes at Wren, "but having them doesn’t hurt really.”

"She does not know how she received hers.“

He looked at her arm, then his. "Like I said, it depends.”

"But.“ Zork'ak was looking at their bruises. "How do you-you don’t notice-I do not understand.” Klyls always noticed any abnormality in their body’s functioning. There was not a time that Zork'ak had not noticed something causing xem pain.

"It’s complicated, I guess. Our species doesn’t have set rules really.“

"I have noticed.” Xe looked at Wren. “It makes your species quite hard to study.”

She laughed. “Good. You can’t know all of our secrets.” She winked at xem then.

Zork'ak found it hard to breathe for a fraction of a cycle. Xe definitely needed to go to the medical wing. 

HASO - Earth's Oceans

Today's contribution comes from Tumblr user taste-of-ink. taste-of-ink likes the word 'like' and started every section with 'and'. I couldn't post it without a little tweaking. Sorry taste-of-ink.

Humans inviting aliens to visit earth after a long mission and aliens being really excited to go and see the infamous planet that led to the development of such universally renown species but get one look at the ocean and are just What the fuck is that? 

Humans are like Oh yeah we don’t fuck with that.

Aliens are like You literally hop galaxies with little to no understanding of what you’ll find but you won’t venture into your own aquatic abyss?

Humans simply say Scan it.

Five kicks later and aliens say Fuck that fuck that fuck that what the fuck how are you all alive let’s go back to the black holes.

HASO - Galactic Superweapon

Copied from the Reddit sub r/humansarespaceorcs. Formatted for clarity. Reddit. 'Nuff said on that.

Testsubject276

Human Communication Officer: Emergency frequency opened with the captain of the Kalthorian army, sir.

Human Captain: Let it through.

Alien: HUMANS. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT.

Human Captain: Calm down buddy, what's wrong?

Alien: We recently scanned the storm of the sol system planet Jupiter and found an ancient civilization ending weapon at its center!

Human Captain: Ohh you mean Crosshair Station.

Alien: You... Named it?

Human Captain: Yeah, we've been trying to destroy it for a LONG time, thanks to advanced tech from some of our galactic collaborators we were able to blast the thing with an EMP so powerful that the AI core fried.

Alien: You WHAT.

Human Captain: Relax, we pulled the AI out and plugged in our own, we call her Cammie. We've been upkeeping it ever since, scrubbing away alien code and substituting our own. It now serves as our central solar system defense.

Alien: You do realize you managed to commandeer an ancient superweapon that has plagued outer galaxies for millennia?

Human Captain: ... Would you like to purchase some of our electromag nukes?

Alien: We'll take twenty.

HASO - Food Temperature

A Tumblr thread that has been circulating as a screen shot/image. Formatting is preserved from the original posts except where I simply can't stand what they did.

artaline

human: *is heating up food*

alien: why are you doing that?

human: you see I want the particles in my food to vibrate at just the right frequency

dannydanuselessstuff

Human: *is eating ice cream*

alien: wait you forgot to make that one vibrate!

human: well, you see, not with this food

cardozza

This one is already vibrating at the desired frequency, but if it starts to vibrate at a higher frequency I lock it back in the cold box

asgardreid

Human: *just reheated pizza in the oven*

Other human: *is eating a slice of the same pizza, but cold*

Alien: *exasperated sputtering*

GenCon 2021

Instead of doing a day-by-day series of posts I decided to do a single summary post for this convention. I'm far less invested in this one and I'm literally only here to shop. I will try to get pictures of the con itself as much as I can.

Day 0

Day 0 is the travel day. For the 2nd time I misjudged the timing and got to the airport late enough it was a frantic scramble to the gate. I can't even blame the lack of travel for so long for my mistake since I didn't travel any more before the pandemic. This trip had a full plane and I was wedged in a front row seat that has fixed seat separators. Good for my seat mate since I'm wide. Bad for me because I'm wide. The flight was 2.5 hours so it wasn't overly unpleasant and a learning lesson on planning my airport arrival time better.

I said 2nd time because I did the same stupid thing on my trip home from ReaperCon.

I brought my walker this time and it seems to help. Being at the con itself will be a true test. I had my duffel over my shoulder as well as my new-to-me backpack so this wasn't a true experience. I did find people seem to be more considerate and helpful when you use one. Nice to know.

They do have an official Block Party as a kickoff event tonight but I didn't go. I don't get a rental car for this trip and didn't see the value in a pair of Lyft rides when I don't know anyone here. I'll have access to the food trucks when I am there.

My hotel is NOT the one I stayed at last year. I was able to get the nicer one that faces it for a good room rate. My room overlooks the old one which I find amusing.

I can see my old room from here!

The hotel has an airport shuttle for a nominal fee so that saves me one Lyft. The shuttle driver ignored me trying to get his attention until one of the people waiting for their Uber/Lyft saw it and quite emphatically got his attention for me. Yay walker.

No hot breakfast as advertised as a hotel amenity. That's common these days if disappointing since I like to load up on the hot breakfast included in the room stay. Instead they offer a sack version that I'll get to discover in the morning.

The room is nice enough. Spacious and only a few things to show it's not that great. A few carpet stains. Some wear to the furniture. That general feel of an inexpensive hotel. Still, it's tidy and has a good bed. We'll see how the shower is in the morning - the true test.

I took the room pictures the morning after I arrived because I forgot to take them earlier. I'm allowed. It's spacious and decent enough. I booked a 2 star hotel, I got a 2 star hotel.

I did spend far too much time having to talk to my boss today, both texts and calls. I knew there would be some due to things that were put into motion Monday but I had to cut him off in the evening. It's my vacation.

As expected this will be a delivery food trip. Even if there were restaurants in what most people would consider walking distance that wouldn't work for me. Tonight was a Rueben sandwich which was quite tasty. Thank goodness I'm not on a tight budget this year tho.

I brought my Chromebook and a thumb drive of movies for my evening enjoyment. Tonight was The Mummy with Brendan Frasier. I think I need to buy some overpriced movie snacks from the hotel shop for the next movie night.

I split the difference between Eastern and Mountain time for when I went to bed. As expected the bed was comfy and I'm pleased to say the curtains blocked the light. That's not always the case.

I set my alarm to get me up in time to get breakfast and take it back up to my room. Then I have a few hours before heading out.

Vacation, remember? 

Day 1

3 snooze alarms later I dragged myself out of bed, put on my 'should never be seen in public' comfy clothes, and got my breakfast sack.

A small muffin, a mini peach yogurt, and a Jimmy Dean microwavable egg and cheese breakfast sandwich the approximate size and density of a hockey puck. Those went in the room fridge for later and I went back to the warm comfy bed.

As I was getting ready to leave my room the fire alarm went off. Really? Again? I didn't smell smoke and didn't hear anyone rushing about so I finished getting ready and left my room. Housekeeping was doing their business and said it was a false alarm. But honestly it wasn't what I wanted on this trip.

Lyft to the convention center and the day began. I specifically decided to show up well after the doors opened to avoid the worst of the crowding. I succeeded.

The halls were darn near empty. I was probably between events but the number of people was low. I've seen other pictures showing the crowd I was trying to avoid. It was when they were waiting for the vendor hall to be opened. I've got a picture like that from 2019 and sadly the crowding seemed similar this year.

As you can see the vendor hall was not overly crowded. More people showed up later in the day but still it was lightly populated with some congestion points.

I won't say I shopped too much but I did walk too much. My original plan was to walk half the vendor hall today, then the rest tomorrow doing any buying that I missed. When I reached aisle 1300 out of 2600 I was there. Half way through. So of course I kept going.

I quite stupidly walked the entire vendor hall. The walker helps more than I could have expected but I still had a tough time of it.

It wasn't all walking and doom. There was just doom at times. The bolter is a very nice piece and I couldn't loot it. The chainsword needs two hands for me to decently lift it much less mock-wield. From what I heard it's a resin cast and I could see it had already been dropped and broken once. There was another weapon and a thunder hammer available for pictures but this was enough. I think the sparkly cat ears set it off nicely.

The sparkly cat ears get their own mention. I got them at GenCon 2019 from the Exploding Kittens human vending machine. Not only are they darn cute they work to keep my hair off my face. Considering how warm things got in there that's a huge consideration. It also styled my hair into beach waves, as I found out later that night. No one got to see the beach waves.

My impulse purchase for the convention was a hand turned pen set. I'm trying to do more hand writing (per the other posts) and figured not only would I get a nice pen set with both ball point and nib options I'd help one of the small vendors who took a space in the hall. They only had two thinner pens that fit my hand and both were in the sets. Therefore I bought a set.

Talking to some of the vendors I found out that people were canceling right up through the week before. That explains why I couldn't find some and the empty spaces. There were empty spaces even with a good chunk of the vendor hall closed off. In a way it's a good thing for the smaller vendors who were able to get in and hopefully they did well.

I ended my convention day by picking through dice sets. Technically these are sets you take or leave as packaged but this is the reason I'm at the convention. I very much dislike buying swirly sets without picking them myself if at all possible. I'm friendly enough with the booths that they cut me slack and let me dump out the dice to pick them over.

This is where I found out just how much the day had taken out of me. I was far too close to dropping and by that I mean literally dropping. I got about 2/3 of my dice picking done before I accepted that I couldn't do more. Then I crept to the convention hall entrance, stopping when I could find a place to sit for a bit. I still don't like having to use the walker but being able to use it made the difference.

I was tired when I got back to the hotel. I decided on Chinese food and was mostly disappointed. How can a restaurant that completely nailed crab rangoon make fried rice that bad? A question for the ages I guess.

I slept very well on the huge bed. I forgot just how big a king size bed can be for one person.

Day 2

Today I ate the breakfast I got yesterday. Of course the cheese melted so that most of it ended up not being on the muffin at all. They do that. And the density comparison was correct for the muffin. Very dense. But it was food and that's what I needed.

Technically this hotel is 'housekeeping on request' per the sign on the mirror but it turns out they're doing it every day unless you opt out. OK... I opted out because I don't need someone to tidy up the bed and take away towels every day. I do take all the food garbage out of the room and dump it in the lobby trash bin that's on the way out. I dislike having food garbage sitting around.

Lyft to the convention and off I went. Today should be far less strenuous because it's all shopping, no browsing.

More photos showing that the crowds weren't really crowds when observed. There were clumps of people who seemed to be there together and then singles. In general it's the best that could be expected from the convention. Later I'll look up their stated attendance and get a feel for just how many people were there. Today is when I think more people start showing up to spend the main days at the convention. This is why I leave after today. Smart, right?

I was still dragging from the previous day and took it slow to buy the rest of my dice. I picked over more sets and bought what I wanted. Then I bought a few more things that I didn't expect to buy. But hey, dice.

After hauling myself to the convention entrance I fired up Lyft and experienced their little joke called 'surge pricing'. I will say it was prime time on a Friday so it is somewhat my fault for wanting to use the service then. But seeing that the ride was more than twice the price of the previous day was frustrating. I didn't have Uber loaded so I could compare and of course the yellow cab company uses an app to schedule pickups (the local taxi was a suggestion from a local sharing the stone seat outside). After grumbling and waiting the price dropped a few bucks and I accepted that I was going to have to pay the higher price.

Once again I surfed through Uber Eats to find what I wanted for dinner. I finally settled on what seemed to be a local Mexican restaurant. I was trying to avoid chains because, well, I can get that anywhere. I had a really good coupon for UE and used it to get what I hoped would be tasty food.

My delivery driver called and said they couldn't get into the hotel. The police had it blocked off. Really? Again? What now? After taking some pictures from the window I headed to the lobby to find out what was going on and to try to find a way to get my dinner.

Another guest was nice enough to meet my driver in the parking lot behind the hotel and get my food for me. The walker did its magic again. I increased the driver tip for this delivery.

This time it was a suspicious package. Someone else who had been taking video had some of the bomb disposal crew wandering around. After chatting with the nice police officers in the lobby for a while and seeing the desk team fielding the situation I went back to my room to eat. Eventually it all cleared out without any loud 'boom' noises.

The food was excellent.

Day 3

Today was packing up, checking out, and meeting up with a friend who was driving in to have lunch with me and take me to the airport. They live far enough away that I felt bad for them to make the trip for such a short visit but they insisted. I hadn't seen them since I attended their wedding and they were quite insistent.

We found a couple places to shop while we talked then had a leisurely lunch before heading to the airport. They were a bit confused since it's a small airport and they're used to a very large airport. But it all worked out and THIS TIME I was there well in advance of my flight.

The flight itself was just bumpy enough not to allow for beverage service. That was disappointing because I wanted to see if my gift of chocolate to the flight crew would 'buy' me a full can of soda again. Not that I needed one. I just wanted to see if it would. But nope. This time I did get more of a choice in seating and took an aisle that wasn't in the front row. My thinking was that the aisle would give me more room to spread out than the window seat I always took before. I was mostly right. If the person next to me hadn't had a solid suitcase under the seat in front of them it would have been much better. But I can't complain.

The neighbors took good care of the cat and she showed up from under the bed when I set my duffel bag down. Then she was cuddly for the evening. My adventure was over.

Summary

If I figure in the cost of the trip those are some stupid expensive dice I brought home. Mind you they're test sets and may never get into production but still. Stupid expensive. The 2019 trip had me filling in big gaps in my collection so that was more reasonable but this time it was pretty much all test sets and one other one I happen to like. I also got to see two people I don't get to see. The third is a local and it's funny that we spend more time together there than here. But that's life.

I'm very glad I took extra time off work after this trip because the cumulative effect of this one and the one before are hitting me hard. I'll recover.

Will I go again next year? That's an excellent question. As of writing this post I'm going to say I won't be going back. If there are new test sets I want cherry picked I can ask one of the people I know who work at the dice booths to do it. If there aren't new sets I want then I would have no reason to be going. Of course this is all assuming I'm not in a heavy relationship with someone who wants to go.

I fully expect not to be going again.

I'm glad I was able to go before the pandemic and get the real feel for a huge convention. I'm glad I during what may be considered a lull in the pandemic because I got the feel for what things may be like in the future. That and I had the experience of travel and being around people again.

I can't talk about the games, panels, and other convention events since I never had any intention of attending them. Those make up the bulk of the reason people tend to go to these. I go to shop. It turns out I don't want most of what they sell.

The vendor room is more than just sales. It's game companies doing demo play. It's showing off new products. It's a way to see the wares and experience them in a way that can't be done. It's huge. After shopping those hundreds of booths I still ended up buying nothing from them except that one thing I could get at almost any vendor fair. That's kind of sad and shows me how much I don't need to spend my time and money.

That's my 2021 GenCon trip.