Painting Again

With the second session of the new Pathfinder game past, I decided it was time to paint some of the miniatures picked out by players to represent their characters. These two minis have been in my collection, primed black and wanting, for about eight years now. The first was this elfish ranger:

I’m not happy with his right hand, which has been remodeled several times and eventually pinned after breaking at the hilt. The cloak also has some strange coloration due to a repainting; I glued my finger to it while adding the sand base and subsequently ripped off parts of the base coat.

The necromancer has been half finished since the day I got it. I actually painted over some red in favor of blue-complementing brown. The runes on the scroll are clumsily painted on (this smaller resolution version of the image handily conceals my frequent erasing with white paint).

As an aside, I learned how to take pictures of miniatures with my 50mm lens. The f-stop was at 1.8 for the pictures in the previous post, which in poor light at macro distances produces an extremely narrow focus. With the f-stop increased to 5.0, near the lens’s maximum of 5.6, there is a deeper field of focus. I am pleased with the results, though the miniatures are a little shiny as the matte varnish was still wet when the pictures were taken.

Cross posted on 25mmk.

South Carolina

My clumsiness cost me the life of my Canon 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 lens on the second day in South Carolina. Well, it still occasionally focuses manually under 70mm, but that’s only marginally helpful when you intend to use it with one hand while drinking at a wedding. Turning the lens on its end is also accompanied by a magical metallic tinkling noise.

Getting the lens repaired on short notice was not an option, so I decided to search for a cheap stand-in. This is when I discover that Greenville is a Nikon town (boo? hiss?). The only Canon retailer nearby is a Best Buy that will gladly sell you lenses that take eyeball portraits at a conversational distance. Fortunately, I found someone selling a Canon 50mm f/1.8 for about retail on craigslist. The lens was in great shape, and he threw in the UV filter (switching to Nikon, I guess).

Unfortunately, I had never before used a fixed focal length lens. Getting the desired shot as a point-and-clicker involved a lot of shuffling around and patience, not aided by the dim light. There are a few gems from the album, one of my favorites above benefited from the professional photographer’s flash(es).

Blue Paint

Green was a top contender, but I ended up painting my room blue; a more muted shade than depicted. The light in the room is strange even with the flash (no flash in this picture, though) and I'm still rocking Expression x1 with the Canon. Brand awareness is the only aspect of photography that I can honestly say has improved since I purchased my camera in June.

With no supplies the project cost me $57 and that includes an extra quart of paint I picked up in case 1 gallon wouldn't cover my 400 square feet of wall space. It did, with some to spare. That some spaces could use a second coat doesn't bother me given that this room is not a permanent residence.

Two Days At The Park

A trip to Yankees Stadium on Sunday and the recently opened High Line on Tuesday gave me the opportunity to experiment with my first “real” camera, a Canon EOS 40D I purchased in celebration of my impending 28th birthday. My father, brother and eldest sister dabbled in photography, but the bug only bit me recently; no doubt a quote on Ffffound about documenting everything. I'm only playing with aperture and manual focus to start (the easiest things to play with on a 28-135mm zoom lens), but I hope to tinker with other aspects soon. Regardless of my artistic foibles, the camera is definitely the best (to date) of my impulsive birthday buys.

Anyway, I liked the High Line. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it was an excellent public space. The mingling of rusted tracks and wildflowers against a skyscraper horizon put me in a good mood. I was reminded of the wilderness in Colorado; we reached the trail head of our seven-day hike by steam locomotive. After the train pulled away it was just a lonely set of tracks in the mountains and this sense of amazement. Okay, there was a bit of "Oh, fuck, the train is gone. Now what?" I was with experienced hikers (Oleg's recent video of receiving morphine in the E.R. after a Black Widow bite notwithstanding) who wouldn't lead me astray, right?

The new Yankees Stadium is amazing. I liked Citi field, but Yankees Stadium blew me away. We had nosebleed seats near the left field foul pole, but spent only two thirds of an inning there. The full-view standing area, above the field level and below the mezzanine, is where we spent most of the afternoon (with Mike, a lifetime Mets fan, cringing at every one of the 15 Yankee runs). We eventually circled around to the bleachers and sat for the 8th and 9th. Regardless, you definitely don't feel as pinned to your seat as you did at the old stadium. My recommendation: get the cheapest tickets and just walk around. It's a much better experience.

I probably need a flickr account. 700 pictures in 3 days.