Working on my "children's" story

Been busy at work, so I hadn't had a chance to start painting figures. But then my vacation week started a couple days ago, but I've been practicing watercolor by making my own little "children's" story.

There's a reason I have "children's" in quotes.

If you don't mind a bit of irreverent humor and at your own peril, visit "Bear Brown Goes to the Corner Shop" at my private blog. The story is only five little pages; I think that's all it needs, and that's all I had planned, anyway. There's space in the storyline to continue.

But I also have figures to paint.

Varp Krigarr arrived

Here is one of the Varp Krigarrs from Red Box Games. Red Box has three or four poses, two of which are totally nude. I prefer the nude versions if only to make some of my D&D mates a touch uncomfortable around my figures.

This particular Krigar was originally sculpted as if on level ground. I simply bent the front foot down a touch to make the figure easily fit into this stepping-up-on-a-stone position. I did this originally to give him some clearance for an axe, but in the last minute, I switched to a sword (when I play D&D, I prefer two-handed swords because my D10s roll better than my D12s.)

I also wanted to do a sword, because I enjoy hammering on the little anvil. It took me two tries to get the sized blade I wanted. The other blade is going into the parts box.

I finally get all the figures together for this current batch I want to work on, and I'm out of primer. Ugh. Oh well, an excuse to go for a nice long walk to Hobby Lobby.

Blog Update: So a few folks like the white and some like the black. For the time being, I'm trying a minor compromise: The background is no longer pure black, but a dark gray. And to help with legibility, I've raised the font size in my posts by one point. It's not much, but see how you all like it.

I'm still not against going for the white background, though I agree with some that all that white glare does hurt the eyes a bit sometimes (I'm a touch sensitive to light myself.) Perhaps black text on light gray background?

I'll keep playing around with the colors, and reading what folks think about white vs. black.

Black text over white?

So reading a thread over at TMP about white/light text over black backgrounds on blogs, I was thinking about why I made the choice to have a black background for my blog (knowing it was the poorer design choice.) Essentially, I was going to treat my blog as sort of a shadowbox with photos of my figures, wip and finished, and the black background helped me achieve this effect.

But I have written some longer pieces of text, and dark text over a white background is not a bad thing. Perhaps it's time for me to make this update? What are my readers' views on the subject? Does the light text over black bother you? Is it any more difficult to read? Would you prefer a lighter background?
Pros and cons of either?

The great thing about Blogger is it's just a couple button clicks away, so if white or light background doesn't seem to work for us, then it's easy enough to change back. Let me know how you all feel about it; I may change it over to white for a test period anyway to see how I feel about it, since the final say is mine. But I have to say, looking at my little test screen here, I'm kind likin' it.

Also- My Varp Krigarr arrived!! I'll post tonight with a couple pics; he's pretty neato.

Still waitin'

I'm still waiting for my Varp Krigarr from Red Box (it's not delayed or anything- I'm just waiting for it) so that I can prime it along with a small batch of figures I've cleaned and readied. Among those figures are the rest of the box set (The New Dungeon by Ral Partha, 1989) as well as a the two Reaper goblins I came across in one of my flgs's.

They're Reaper No.s 1329 and 1330. I wish I had a little more info (mostly a year) to attach to these just for a little historical posterity. They're certainly not the oldest figures I've painted, but they still retain a little of that old-school look I am starting to prefer these days. I'll probably paint them yellow-green to add to my friend Jeff's small collection of old school stuff. The New Dungeon Box was actually given to me by Jeff, but I'm painting it up slowly but surely and giving the box set back to him (along with the few random goblins and other old-school trinkets he's piled on my table.)

Art while you wait

I've ordered a Varp Krigarr from Red Box Games to try to jumpstart my painting. It's essentially a but-naked barbarian. He should be a fun and easy figure to paint. Not sure if I'll do him up simple, or add some war tattoos. I'll worry about that when he arrives.

In the mean time, I've been keeping myself busy with my watercolor sketches. A couple months ago, I picked up a Pentel Pocket brush pen as well as a watercolor brush that holds its own water supply. The end result is that it makes it easy to pop these two tools and a compact watercolor box into my pockets and head out to draw and paint.

Anyway, here's some random art for perusal. The roller derby girl and the "parade" I actually did at work during some down time. The bridge was down on the spot (we had a random 80-degree fall day here in Iowa.) These were all done with brush pen and water brush.

Update: There is nothing to report

Well, it sounds like the Bones figures won't be coming until spring. I didn't order any, but my friend Jeff did, and I'll be painting a bunch. For some reason, I had thought they would be coming in late October.

Anyway, I'll try to get one or two random figures off the lead mountain to finish up and post here. Though, it sounds like my Dread Ball figures will actually be arriving sooner than later (I just hope I'm not on ((a planned)) vacation when they arrive.) There won't be a lot of Dread Ball figures, but there'll be enough. I'm looking forward to it.

On a minor note, I'm going to see if the Dread Ball hex bases are the same size as the Proxie Models hex bases. If they are, then I'm going to see which old Blood Bowl teams of mine will be joining the Dread Ball leagues.