I spent the morning hanging out. I would have liked to have shopped the small selection of vendors but on my first pass through on Thursday to get the punch card done I saw there weren't many that interested me. So that was out.
Because I entered the paint competition I was eligible to vote for Best in Show. I made a pass through the entries and didn't find anything I really liked so no one got my vote. I'm harsh on that kind of judging.
My Best in Show choice has to 'catch' me. It doesn't need to be the best paint job or anything. There has to be something that makes me want to take it home. I didn't see anything like that this year so I abstained.
I made good on my promise to myself to at least do a Paint and Take. That's where you sit down, pick a mini, and paint it. It's a nice way to introduce people and get them started - free mini and they provide brushes and paint.
I painted a bit on this one and realized a few things. I really dislike painting direct on their 'these minis don't need primer' models because they do need primer unless you want to wait forever and have to keep throwing paint on until it covers. I also didn't like the strangers who don't understand painting etiquette. The person who I think was supposed to be keeping an eye on things seemed more inattentive than they should have been. So I stopped after that bit of paint on her thorax.
That experience let me cross off all the scheduled paint events from my list.
I physically overdid it when I took the factory tour. Walking isn't my best thing and by this point I was in bad shape. Even after being here so many times I enjoy the tour. This year they included new areas that they bought and/or built out since the last convention so I was excited to see them.
Unfortunately my knees were not of the same opinion. I expected to have to skip the upstairs portion. I did the last few conventions. I didn't expect to have to miss other sections. The owner giving the tour was nice enough to ferry me over to the new buildings in the company golf cart tho.
One new building will be warehouse. That makes sense. The other is mostly for their streaming stuff and that didn't interest me. I may blog about that later.
In the building with the studio is a wall of names. We were asked during their last Kickstarter if we wanted our names painted on the new building. I certainly did. Instead they put them on an inside wall so they wouldn't be exposed to the elements so our names will last a lot longer.
It was nice to find my name in there. It was even nicer they're in alphabetical order.
The studio areas were efficient and they find them useful. The other areas are still being made less industrial, except the room where they make their newest type of plastic minis. I'm still not sure of that process or material. I'm also not interested enough to ask.
After a brief look at a couple of specific vendors I cleaned up what I had at the paint table and took it back to my room to pack. I still have the gift certificate that came with our VIP ticket to spend. They didn't have what I wanted in stock but they should be refilled tomorrow.
Finally there's the paint contest results. I never go to the awards ceremony and didn't see why this year shod be any different. I got a text that I won a bronze medal for this dude
Not too shabby for the amount of work I put in. I did spend time replacing the broken dagger. I also think he looks better with the replacement.
So that's day 3. Tomorrow there's more going on but I leave before the official end of the convention.
No comments:
Post a Comment