staffatemyblog
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He/Him, 26 Nerdy person with a thing for painting tiny plastic dudes. Icon created by the lovely qsy-draws-a-lot, banner created by the fantastic corantus
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It *is* a problem that charismatic species are often focused on for conservation at the expense of less charismatic but important species, but threatened species that are the subject of a lot of public outreach and education are also typically strategically selected.
I suspect that monarch butterflies are an example of this. Milkweed is a highly valuable plant for pollinators and a host plant for like. 400+ insect species. Getting people to plant it to save monarchs is funny because you're essentially finessing people into saving a ton of other insects that they wouldn't ordinarily care about
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Solitaire in the style of Vriska Serket (Homestuck)
Just in time for 4/13! Commentary under cut.
The Lessons Learned
#1: Learn As Much As You Can Before Letting Your Mini Anywhere Near A Brush
As first figures go, this was honestly not as bad as it could have been, but I am an outlier. (and the second figure would be much worse.) Since the proverbial canvas was so expensive, it was a lot of "measure twice, cut once."
youtube
This was the main thing I used, and save for the face looking like chewed-up bubblegum, it came out relatively okay for a first try. Overall, this guy's a legend and this would be far from the only video of his I would reference.
#2: It's Okay To Be Inspired
What really hooked me on Warhammer in general is that you can paint things in your style. This is appealing at first, but if you're not an artist, you're going to be exposed quickly in the worst way possible, and that's by the color wheel theory. If you don't understand contrast and coomplements, all the technique in the world won't save your figure from looking like an eyesore.
This is where "established" characters that you are mimicking end up being your saving grace. If canon material is your bag, that works: You certainly won't lack as far as exact guides then! But in my opinion, you learn a bit more by improvising and trying to make something similar to an established character. Chances are they're popular because they have an appealing color scheme. As it happens, Vriska's various blue motifs really complement her orange, which is something I never realized way back when.
Also, reinterpretation was inevitable. I had initially considered freehanding the sun symbol on her lapel, but when everything was smaller than my pinkie, I just settled for making her jewels yellow. The real masterstroke was taking the Harlequin's Kiss weapon and recoloring it as the Warhammer (oh hey) of Vrillyhoo.
I just took the general colors and used Spiritstone Red on the rounded bits, and made something analogous to it. It's still the neatest part, imo.
#3: The Best Way To Start
For every color, I had a swatch. I had one base color, which I then doused in a shade, and then added one layer paint as the main color and one shade lighter for highlights.
#4: How To Make A Shiny Figure
There's a special paint called Ardcoat that puts a glossy texture on, but something that's a little more muted that gives a shine is... shade paint! I didn't shake the paint pot enough and created a fun glossy texture that you can see on her knee. (I learned how I accidentally did this by asking at my local Warhammer shop, lol)
#5: Don't Be Afraid To Make Mistakes
I'm sure there's more than just this wrong with this figure, but the Solitaire is supposed to be leaping off that little rock there. There were glyphs where I was able to put in a glowing line of Baharroth Blue that was watery enough that it filled in the little gaps on its own. It looked fantastic once...
Unfortunately, I overfilled my brush and it sloughed over into the other creases and ruined the whole effect. I also slopped Mordant Earth onto the stones and made it too ugly.
But that's just it. As much prep work as I was going in with, there was always going to be a mistake, and on a personal psychic level it feels bad when you make it. It ruins a whole day of painting lol. And you can't really stop those emotions, but you should at least try.
#6: You're Not Married To Your Army
It's inevitable that getting your first figure leads you to think about a whole army of them, but I had this distaste in my mouth when I thought about making more than one Vriska. For one, I didn't like any of the other Harlequins or Aeldari, or more importantly, I couldn't think of fun color schemes for them. The thought came to mind to make the ships similar to the Batterwitch/Condesce, but they were too similar color-wise (and even in the symbology!) where it just felt redundant. I get a special kick out of making something different from the boxart, because that's the point in my opinion.
I coped for a while: Green stuff or 3D print horns for the other figures to make them trolls? Suck it up and just use Vriska's color scheme for the others? In the end, I just gave up and called this a practice run. This is still my favorite figure. I'm just happy the first one turned out so nicely, relatively speaking, so I don't really have a lump of paint surrounding what was once a figure like a lot of first-time painters.
But no worries. Because I'd definitely fuck up the next one. 😅 That's for a new post.
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slapping modeling clay around blindly without thought or purpose, i look down and find a perfectly sculpted replica of myself seated at a table with a lump of modeling clay before me, similarly shaped into a still smaller instance of the same scene. and i am afraid to look up
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Quiet Quitting is when you're not doing anything wrong but the vibes are off
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Lastest photo of our building they destroyed half of the building unfortunately where is our apartment 😔💔.
This was my daily view from my room 😔
They destroyed everything 😭
And here is the link to help us rebuild our apartment when we back.
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it's so funny how graffiti is like a non issue that effortlessly reveals peoples' reactionary tendencies.
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i feel like not enough ppl are factoring in the cultural clash between laios and shuro and the many micro agressions shuro faced while being in their group. literally the name 'shuro' in itself is one
his name is toshiro 😭 lets also not forget that he has his own communication issues, in the opposite way that laios does- thats literally a factor in their argument, that his envy for laios's ability to express himself sincerely manifested as part of his distaste for him.
ig all this to say like, was their fight heart wrenching, especially when reading laios as autistic? absolutely. anybody whos ever been in laios's position knows how much it hurts to realize someone you thought was your friend doesnt actually like having you around, especially when they didnt tell you and you had no way of knowing due to not understanding their cues. but im begging yall to step back and see the nuance of this situation cause im gonna be real a lot of you are kinda just brushing over it acting like everything is toshiros fault and that hes a terrible person when in reality hes an average guy who really, really clashed with laios and it led to a very long misunderstanding due to their supremely opposite methods of communication. even laios and toshiro, after letting everything out in their fight, were able to come to an understanding and start a foundation for an actual friendship built on better communication
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“You were a radical, and then you were betrayed. Then you hid out with the Inners, and then you become a big hero. So why is Naomi Nagata here with us now?”
“I think this is our time - time for the Belt to stand up. If not now, maybe never.”
Naomi Nagata in episode 3x07 “Delta V”
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me fending off fruit flies in the kitchen while i’m making a sandwich
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