In early August, I met up with Darlene on her way back from Wisconsin and we spent a few days hanging out (and playing games) with Dave and Martha at their home in Conifer, Colorado. We then headed out in the camper van to wander around exploring a bit of Colorado for most of a month. On our return, Darlene kidnapped Martha and brought her back to California to stay with us for a few days.
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I decided to try a relatively quick and simple wash painting of the miniatures from my Nemesis board game, focusing on giving the creatures (or “intruders”) a nice scary look. They came out great!
It took just a few steps but still most of a day. I coated the originally gray plastic figures with a black spray-on primer (Rust-oleum Flat Black) and then, after that dried, I sprayed white primer from above (Rust-oleum Flat White) to create a sort of highlight/shadow effect over which to apply a wash. (A wash is a very diluted mix of paint that you brush all over a figure – it tends to collect on edges and pool in crevices bringing out detail and definition, depending on how you brush it.)
I used three color washes from this Citadel Shade Paint Set. The primary shade was blue (Drakenhof Nightshade) and then I blended a bit of red and green washes here and there (Carroburg Crimson and Biel-tan Green) to give it a more interesting look. I did a little bit of detail painting in the fleshy parts around the creatures’ open mouths and then painted in the floors and bits of equipment on some of the stands. To keep the project short and simple, I just applied several coats of different solid color washes to each hero character corresponding to the player colors rather than painting all the little details realistically.
Last step was a spray-on, matte clear coat (Krylon Matte Finish) to protect the painted figures from handling while playing the game.
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Humboldt Redwoods State Park (California)
With Darlene out in Wisconsin visiting her family, I loaded up the van with Pan and Hera and headed up to the Pacific Northwest for a couple of weeks, visiting with my brother and some friends in the Portland/Vancouver area as well as exploring a bit of countryside – while avoiding the smoke from the wildfires already flaring up.
 Visiting with Corey and his family |
 And with Jon & Siobhan |
Glenn and Michele then joined me in their new van for a little tour around Olympic National Park.
Hiking in Olympic National Park (Washington)
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While visiting my brother in Portland, I was able to give him, Michele and Seaerra the chance to try out just a little bit of the virtual reality experiences I’ve been going on and on about excitedly for months:
If you’re interested, I write about what it’s like to experience VR in this post – plus I have a longer demo video. And for more about Microsoft’s updated Flight Simulator, see Flying All Over the Planet.
With everyone fully vaccinated, starting in mid-June we were able to get together for in-person board gaming again – and so much more fun than the entirely virtual meetups during the past year.
Some of the titles we’ve been playing recently: The Crew, Now Boarding, Near and Far, Burgle Bros., Sagrada, Azul, Nidavellir, Viticulture and Viticulture: Tuscany, Mechs vs. Minions, Covert, Cartographers, Acquire, Cloudage, Captain Sonar, Railroad Ink, Pret-a-Porter, Bang!, Smartphone Inc., Crazy Karts, Kanban EV, Sidereal Confluence, Between Two Castles, Vindication and Brass: Birmingham.
Update: We got together again on the last day of the month for Shikoku, Steampunk Rally, Cosmic Encounter, Feierabend, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Master Word and Villagers.
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Well, not really so unexpected – turkeys and baby deer in Santa Cruz…
And another bear in North Tahoe…
And now, in August, a mama bear and her cub:
From a full lunar eclipse, early morning, May 26th in Santa Cruz:
We drove out to the sea cliffs near Pescadero Beach this morning to see if we could spot some whales. We lost the sun on the way over but we did get to see what I think were gray whales as they swam near us for a while:
