Crossing the Ditch

The movers are picking up everything tomorrow, so I’m going to be offline for at least the next two weeks without update possibilities. I’ve pretty much sorted what I’m going to be taking with me painting wise until all my stuff arrives in late June.

For simplicity’s sake, I’m just going take over a selection of Fallschirmjäger so I can get started on the 1940-41 figures. This means I only need to take over a few bottles of Vallejo and a couple of brushes as anything else I need I’ll get from Spotlight or direct from BF via mail order (bases mainly). I’m also going to take the opportunity to buy some Foundation paints once I’m in Aus so I can experiment with an alternative way of doing German Dark Yellow on some of the Mid-Late War FJ vehicles I have: Kettenkrads, M/C Combos and Kubels/Schwimmwagens.

So the plan is to have quite a sizable backlog of photos and progress reports ready for posting once II’m back online. Because of the timeframe before I take up my new position (early in June) I’ve about a month of free time to get organised and get into a nightly painting regimen with the support of Kirsty. It’ll be slow going initially no doubt, but If I stick at it, the simple nature of the paint scheme for the Fjs should mean I can get a fair amount done. The real kicker is going to be gradually accumulating all the DFS230s and Ju52s I require but I have a plan in mind for those.

Kirsty mentioned she was out of plain Black and White so I’ll also be taking the opportunity to see how Derivan compares to Vallejo, particularly in regard to black as the Vallejo black is one of the smoothest paints I’ve ever come across.

Back in a few weeks,

P-J

The Timing is Right

As I potter around organising everything for the movers to pick up in 7 days time, I’ve been considering the limits on ‘net traffic as a regimen I’ll be introducing once I have a permanent new connection as from June. A couple of hard decisions need to be made regarding what sites I’ll continue to peruse for mIniature news and updates but I’ve pretty much whittled down the discussion forums I ‘ll be frequenting to no more than five.

I’ve been spending lots of time grabbing ideas and inspiration from GWP and The Guild, no matter that there are a couple of anal retentive types who nitpick sometimes for the sake of their egos. However it’s easy enough just to ignore them as people do stay on topic and the eye candy is spectacular.  Whereas at TMP, the dross significantly outweighs any benefits, and to be honest recent developments in subject matter make me very wary of having anything to do with the site now, particularly in regard to having my business linked even indirectly to it, let alone my actual name.

I can get my news elsewhere, usually from discussion boards, club mailing lists and alternative dedicated miniatures gaming news sites. Secondly I’ve no real desire to interact with many of the regulars on the TMP discussion boards. Very little appears that is of use there and the interface is as moribund as it was in 1999 when I first bothered registering.

Instead I’ll be looking at groups with a real sense of community, groups that don’t indirectly put my family relationships at risk through association with certain subjects, and groups that are proactive and supportive yet don’t take too much time to visit or discover information.

And as for the business side of things, I’d feel a lot more comfortable about putting my small advertising budget towards such groups as The Guild and GWP because of the benefits I receive from them as well as the support network.

It may be time to go back to the old days of mailing lists for specific rules sets  and topics rather than looking at generic everymans guide type sites. At least in part, because I will need to keep a tight focus.

P-J