Finding time...

Gotta love that smile 

In one of the comments, a reader asked me how I find the time for my hobby, family, friends, and work (and presumably blogging). Sometimes I wonder how I do myself. I thought a bit more about it, and realized that it isn't really about "finding time", it's about "making time". I'm not talking about building a time machine (although that would be cool), but making the most of the time you have.

Prioritizing is, in my opinion, the way to go. Obviously family comes first, that goes without saying (although I've said it here for added emphasis). We have a nice little routine going. From the moment I wake up until I take my daughter to daycare, that's family time. From the moment my wife brings her home until I tuck her in bed, that's family time. Weekends while she's awake? Family time. Of course, sometimes my wife will take Emily shopping or to the movies, that's a bit of time for me, which I usually spend hobbying.

For me, work comes next. Without work there is no money to keep the food on the table or a roof over our head. Simple really. I'm also "lucky" that I really love my job. I say "lucky" in that I decided I wanted to work in the toy soldier biz, and my wife supports that decision.

A new Empire army and her favorite models on the table were my 5-year old Knights 

After family and work comes friends and hobby. Those two are kind of on par. Fortunately most of my friends are hobbyists too, so hanging out with them generally means doing something hobby-related (gaming, painting, Games Day, Adepticon, etc etc). Also, the part of the hobby I love the most is the modeling and painting, something that's very easy to do by myself, at my desk, once my family has gone to bed.

Married...with Children. My wife and daughter made the trip to 

Chicago with me for Games Day (and sightseeing obviously) 

Apparently this Ogre Bellower was yelling "Peekaboo, I love you!"

My wife is a morning person, I'm a night owl. It took us a little while to get used to that, but we've got it worked out by now. So, on any given night, I'll usually be able to get in three or four hours of hobbying (or blogging). Add that up over a week and you're looking at 21-28 hours. If my wife has given me a few extra hours on the weekend, things look even better.

But let's get back to the "making time" thing. The following ideas typically work best if you have an army project you are working on. You can more easily keep your models/materials in a tray (like the one on the table above) and keep that handy in the kitchen, dining room, office etc. Try:

• Clip your bitz from their sprues ahead of time into a small plastic tackle box. If you have a desk job you can clip during your lunch break.

• Once you have everything clipped, you can do the basic assembly at any time you have a few minutes (like when you're on hold with your phone/electricity/cable tv company). Gluing legs to bases is a fairly menial task that doesn't always require all your focus.

• Do your basing/base painting in the morning while the coffee is brewing. A simple task like gluing on flock doesn't take too long and you can get a squad done in the time it takes to brew a pot.

If you are feeling the crunch of family/work/friends on your hobby time, look for opportunities during your day/week to make time for your hobby. Oh, and things like watching TV and playing video games are a complete time sink. Cutting back on both, or cutting them out altogether, is another great way to "make time". Although I often have the TV on while painting, I rarely look at it. There are movies I've heard a hundred times, and I'm often surprised by things I've never seen ; )

So, that's how I "find time" for the four most important things in my life (family/work/friends/hobby), I "make time" wherever I can, without compromising the most important things. I'm sure that's how many of you do it too.

And just so we're clear on what I do for a living, I'm the US Editor for Wargames Illustrated. That means that 95% of the time I'm liasing with contributors, planning with our UK team, photographing cool games/models/tables, and laying out 40+ pages a month. I enjoy all of it. Sometimes, however, I also get a chance to work on a modeling or painting project for a particular article. The last one was the frozen French battalion (seen here). And this 18th Century Massachusetts farmhouse is the latest.

I converted up one of the Perry's plastic American Farmhouse kits to loosely match a few buildings that probably dotted the countryside during the turbulent times of 1775. Look for the full article in our January issue (WI291).

Of course, my daughter loves it when I bring my projects up to the dining room table. Above you can see her impression of the Big, Bad Wolf, huffing and puffing and trying to blow the farmhouse down. How cool is that? : )

Cheers
Dave

PS. Oh, and in case I haven't mentioned it before, we have another daughter on the way. She's due in late November. I'm hoping she'll be just as intrigued and delighted by this toy malarkey as her big sister is!

Kyle's Sword, and LGS

This beautiful model of Meriadoc Brandybuck (or Merry to his friends) was painted up by a friend of mine, Kyle Morgan. He gave it to me last year as a "thank you" for picking up some Games Day tickets for him before the show (apparently it wasn't possible to purchase them online from Australia).

I first met Kyle at Games Day Chicago 2009, where his Large Model beat mine for Gold, as did his Diorama, even after I loaned him some glue and paints to repair his models after a long flight from Sydney. I first mentioned Kyle on my blog back in this post here.

When Kyle gave me this piece I was stunned, so much time had obviously gone into the model and basing, and no one had ever given me such a cool "thank you" gift before. At the time I was rushing off for a week in North Carolina, and then when I got back I was never sure how to best work it in to a post.

So, why do mention it now? Only because I now own a miniature painted by a bona fide Golden Demon Slayer Sword winner. Congratulations to Kyle for winning the Sword at the Golden Demons in Australia this past Saturday.

I am yet to find a pic of his Sword-winning entry, but here's a link to his "close to finished" WIPs for his Bronze and Silver winning entries. I'll update this post as soon as he posts pics of the winner.

Oh, and I picked up some "liquid green stuff" the other day. Should be interesting to muck around with.

Cheers
Dave

The 3rd Dragoons

I mentioned my British Dragoons in my Napoleonics Update post a few days back, and now I think I have enough models painted to show you my progress. Here they are, the men of the 3rd Dragoons, part of LeMarchant's Heavy Cavalry Brigade. I'll be using these devastating horsemen in our game at Adepticon next year.

Our "what if?" scenario will see them diverted from the main action to help settle things on the battle's left flank. In the actual historical battle, Le Marchant's Brigade advanced alongside Leith's 5th Division (infantry) against Maucune's Divisions of Frenchmen. Seeing over 1,000 cavalrymen approaching, the French regiments drew up into squares - the standard tactic of the time as the square formation was nigh on impregnable to cavalry charges. However, squares were horrendous formations against infantry.

Leith's infantry division tore apart the French squares with devastating volleys and Le Marchant's heavy cavalry rode in to finish off the job.

My limited research has shown an interesting thing (or at least I think it's interesting). It seems that cavalry regiments aimed to have their men mounted on horses of the same color (or at least same color by squadron). So, for my 3rd Dragoons I've chose a very dark brown. At the start of the Peninsular War, most of the heavy cavalry were mounted on black steeds, but as casualties mounted (no pun intended), other dark colored horses were brought in to fill the ranks. It also seems that musicians were mounted on grey horses, I expect to stand out from their mates and make it easier for the officers to spot them and have them signal charges, retreats, etc. My next trumpeter's horse will be a bit lighter than this one I think.

And finally...here are the final four to join this unit. Hopefully they'll be complete by the end of the weekend. Then I can get everyone based up and photographed again.

Also, these models are from Front Rank. Nice models on the whole, good detail, but they feel slightly off in the anatomy department. I think the heads might be a bit to big, but I'm sure everything will look cool once it's on the tabletop.

Cheers
Dave

Might Makes Right! - Ironblaster and Failcast

Well, it took me just over two weeks of on-and-off painting to get the Ironblaster finished, and pretty much all of it was a treat! Such a great model, lots of detail, goes together wonderfully, and even broke down into a good amount of components for painting (so I could get all of the details painted).

Here are a lot of photos of various angles.

I tried something a little different with the Ogre crewman. After I'd painted his skin with the new mix of "Ogre Flesh" I thinned some Vallejo Charred Brown and worked it into some of the crevices. I also used some Secret Weapon Ruby wash around the areas where the chunks of metal are embedded in the Ogres flesh. Looks quite nice, I think.

I also did my first "red nose" on a Gnoblar. It urned out to be quite easy to do, and again, I think it worked out well. I'm not thinking about going back and re-doing it on my other 40+ Gnoblars though.

The horns that form both the hafts for the chariot parts, and the carriage for the cannon part, were the most time consuming part. Lot's of very thin striations to give it a lovely texture.

And even more texture on the many barrels around the chariot.

Rant ON

And now onto my first Failcast tale of woe. My thanks to the angry, yet amusing and sarcastic, young man who created the logo above. I'm not sure who created it, but I stole it from the House of Paincakes blog. I hope no-one minds too much.

To keep it all simple, I'll let the photos do most of the talking. Here's one shot of the assembled Firebelly. He looks pretty good here, right? Not too much wrong with him.

Well, here you can see him from a few other different angles. A hole in his thigh, the gutplate didn't fit properly, the head/left forearm/firebreath piece did not line up with the body and left gaps that required extensive putty work, the right shoulder did not line up well and required more putty, and - in the worst case of airbubbles I've seen in a long time - the butt and rear left leg were pitted with holes, lots more putty required. Not to mention the warped pieces I had to heat and reset.

Sure, I could've complained to GW, and had their excellent Customer Service team send me a new model, but I'm sick of having to do that for things that should been caught in the first place. You can't get it right all the time, that's true, but this was a model I was super excited about, and it came close to crushing my hardy enthusiasm.

Rant OFF

My enthusiasm is returning, and I hope to have this model painted up by early October. In the meantime, I'll paint up some more British Dragoons!

Cheers

Dave

Napoleonics Update

Things have been a bit quiet on my Napoleonics stuff this year, but I'm getting the bug to paint some more. Here are three things of note for you to keep an eye out for:

#1 - The Guns of April

A group of friends (including me) have decided to band together and put on a historical game at Adepticon next year. Should things go well there, we might put on a game each year, who knows??? Anyway, the first game we're putting on is a "what if?" scenario based on the left flank of the Battle of Salamanca (1812). With a load of British elites facing off against French regulars, cavalry, and possibly too much artillery, we expect to see over 700 models on the table. We'll have a separate blog up soon to chart our progress. It should be lots of fun.

#2 - 1st Dragoons

With much of the British infantry already in hand (see here), I've started work on the my first unit of British Dragoons. They paint up surprisingly easily, and should look pretty cool thundering across the dusty plains of the Iberian Peninsula. Photos to come soon.

#3 - Great models available via eBay!

One of our crew, Brien Dulaney, has switched sides and is now going to be working on the French (booooooo). To fund his new endeavor he has put up a couple of his British pieces on eBay.

• The first is General Sir Lowry Cole (see the cool photo above), which can be found on eBay here.
• The second is his massive unit of 95th Rifles (cool photo below), which can be found on eBay here.

If you are interested in Napoleonic stuff and looking for a great deal, please head on over and help Brien get the money he needs to buy more French (that will then undoubtedly be ground beneath the hooves of my Dragoons) ; )

Cheers

Dave