The Adventures of Geek Dad: Part 11

Happy Thursday everyone!

So usually I would be over the moon about today, as it's the day before Friday, but this week that excitement is slightly muted due to a shift I have to work on Saturday. Sure I get to have a Rest Day in Lieu because of it, but it's not quite the same.

Some good news however! Yesterday the wife and Mini Moo returned home from visiting relatives!

If you had told me 6 months ago that I would be so excited about seeing my daughter after only 2 nights absence, I'd have said that you knew nothing of me and given a mock sucker punch. But there I was for two nights in a row, sat in front of the TV and feeling lost without them both there.

But I did not let that time go to waste, oh no!

Rather than wallow in loneliness I picked up my Salute purchases and got working. (please excuse the photos, the room I took them in was dark so I had to use a flash, will take better photos when they're done)

First off we have my Night Terrors:






These dudes are standard objective grabbers for either The Dreamer or any Resser Crew. It took me a while to decide on how to base them because of a number of factors:
1). The models themselves are sculpted onto a large rock and removing them from said rock would be more tricky than is worth.
2). I want to allow for the chance that if I wanted to pick up a Resser crew, that i don't have Night Terrors looking totally out of place.

So I based them up as you can see. Sure it doesn't match the cobblestone theme of my Dreamer, but that's ok - I think of my Dreamer crew as more on 'Victorian' bases than anything, so in this instance, the Terrors are just on some rocky grassland.

Next up are my Alps:


The models themselves are pretty much unpainted at present, but instead I wanted to try making some more cobblestone bases but have them look better than my other ones. I think these came out very well.

Next up we have my modified Insidious Madness:





You'll notice the additional tentacles around the base of the model. I can't speak for everyone, but one thing I've always disliked about this model was how 2D it looked, which it what these tentacles are supposed to reduce. I can't say I'm 100% happy with the result, but if I want another one I can always proxy. Still have a few touch ups needed on the model mind.

Last but not least is The Hooded Rider:


Again this dude is largely unpainted, but his resin base is coming along nicely.
- the thing I like about this guy is that his base acts as a bridge between the rest of my crew and the Terrors.

So what's next? Well I'm going to finish all the lesser minions over the next couple of days, and then once they're all done and varnished I'm going to get started on the rider - you see he is such a detailed model that I want to make sure I give him the attention he deserves.

After all of that, I'll probably look to painting my Sulaco model I built the other week.

However how all of this will tie in to my available time I have no idea, this is largely due to next Tuesday when I am finally having my Gall Bladder out.
- fingers crossed it will be a nice simple operation with only a couple of days bed rest needed, but I have to allow for the possibility of things going wrong.

Speaking of hospitals: a big shout out to my fellow mali-blogger and twitterer Richard Smith who by now should have his little bundle of joy, hope everything goes well man!

And that's it for now, as always thanks for reading, and see you through the breach!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

He who is without sin

Good Tuesday everyone!

Today's post is a little different to normal, some may say it's a rant, others may say that it's a bitch, personally I say it's something that must be said:

So yesterday on the train ride home I was reading Kotaku.com when I came across this article: http://m.kotaku.com/5904285/i-am-one-of-those-horrible-neglectful-mmo+playing-parents

Now I need to say, it's rare that I publicly criticise someone, but this person had this coming.

Never before have I ever read something so disgusting in my whole life.

In previous articles this man has publicly attacked fathers who have injured their kids, calling them all names under the sun and doing so claiming it's video game news... The last article I read about this sort of thing by this writer was about a father who in a stupor of exhaustion had shaken his child to death while shouting "go to £&@$ing sleep!" and this writer branded this man a monster for doing it.

I can understand why someone who had never had kids would say something like this, as they would never experienced the 3 o'clock shuffle. That time when your child has something wrong with them, probably hungry, but possibly wet, possibly over heating, possibly sick/teething/grumpy etc, your brain is 3/4 asleep and everything is on auto pilot.

It's during these times that so many people admit to indirectly hurting their child; maybe they drop them, they feed them formula too hot, they fall asleep on the sofa, etc

The fact that this man can outright ridicule people who simply need help is disgusting, and leads me to think that perhaps he didn't actually help out with night feeds or similar, maybe to him these sort of things are the responsibility of the mother, so while she's walking around like a zombie with bags under her eyes from getting at most 2 hrs sleep a night, he's getting his 8 hrs plus and effing off to work during the day!

You see, I've read lots of cases about parents who shake their babies, and 9 times out of 10 the cause is literally temporary insanity. People want someone to blame and with a sensationalist media it's very easy to lay the blame at the feet of the parent(s). But more often then not they are simply not coping well with the struggles of parenthood. They don't tell people or ask for help because they're terrified of being branded a bad parent.

In these situations, the state is supposed to step in and help out, but I can tell you from first hand experience, the state has no interest. In my case we were supposed to have a home visit at 3 months in, we never had that visit, and I suspect our 6 month visit will also go by.

But for me the icing of the cake, the thing that boiled my blood, that ground my gears, that made me froth at the mouth, it was this line from his article yesterday:

"I quickly gathered them up, brought them inside and made sure the door was shut and locked, something their mother forgot on the way to work."

That's right, this man actually attempts to lay the blame for his accident on his wife, because when she left for work she forgot to lock their front door - now tell me, who here locks their front door while someone is still in their house? No one! Because it's a fire hazard! And he has the cheek, the audacity and disgusting attitude to imply that the potential injury and/or death of their kids is the fault of the mother, while he was being negligent.

Don't get me wrong, i don't blame him for making a mistake and allowing his kids to crawl off. I'm lucky, my Mini Moo can't crawl yet and I know when she can all sorts of things can happen, and when she starts walking its just a matter of time before the inevitable fall down the stairs, but I know when this happens it will be largely my fault, and it's just something you learn from.

But what sickens me more than anything else, more than any part of the actual article itself, he doesn't once apologise for attacking other fathers who like him made a mistake and were unlucky in that the mistake caused the death of their child.

So this is me calling out to that writer (who'll never read this blog) to think twice next time he ridicules another parent, as his next accident may not be so harmless.

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

The Adventures of Geek Dad: Part 10

Good Monday all,

So my week off is finally over and I now have to go back to work (not for long mind, as next week I have my gall bladder op, so I should be off work for most if not all of that week).

The latter part of last week was an interesting one:

Saturday was my wife and my anniversary, and we spent the morning at Salute 2012.

We got there at 11.30 and were greeted with the news that they had run out of grab bags. It was actually a real shame as I still have no idea what was in those bags.

There is one thing I feel must be mentioned; now I've been to plenty of conventions in my time, but Oh My God I have never been around so many smelly people in my time. And it was that unmistakable smell you can never miss, that of a person who hasn't washed in at least a week, uurgh!

The good news is that I stopped off at the stalls I intended to, I looked at Sarissa Precision (who had left their sign in their van so it was quite hard to find them) but decided against buying anything. I love their work, but I wanted to keep my money for other stalls. I'll probably place an Internet order instead.

Next up was a wooden laser cut cart from 4Ground



Sadly this is far too big to use as a supply wagon in Malifaux (requiring it to fit on a 50mm base), but it will still make some nice scenery for New Fairbank.

Straight after I popped to Renedra where I grabbed me some gravestones



And some great looking wooden fencing:



The only issue with these fences, they're actually quite annoying to assemble as they only seem to work in straight lines, no right angles.

After this I stopped off at the Malifaux demo tables, had a little chat with Spiku the Gremlin enthusiast and was thankfully sent in the direction of another stall I wanted to visit but couldn't remember the name of Simple Miniature Games where I picked up a number of Malufaux things as part of their Buy 4 get the cheapest free.

Of these purchases I grabbed:


Night Terrors



Insidious Madness




Alps




And the Hooded Rider.

Following on from this I wanted to pick up a nice base to show off The Rider so visited Kerr and King where I nabbed these set of 3 bases


After that it was time to head off and make our way to the hotel for check in. On route we passed through Baker Street Station, now if you've never done so, I'd advise that you visit this underground station as it has given me a great idea for a new fixed gaming board.

After check in, a quick shower and a change it was on to Gilgamesh for pan Asian cooking and the best meal I have ever tasted!

One thing I will admit, it may have only been roughly 24 hrs away from the house and all the child care duties involved, but it was a fantastic weekend.

That said however, as of today, mother and daughter are visiting grandparents/great grandparents in Liverpool until Wednesday - one night away from the baby is refreshing, but having a further 2 nights is actually depressing.

Still, gives me more time to model and paint!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

The Adventures of Geek Dad: Part Nine

Morning all!

Well it's Friday, which means the weekend is drawing close. Of course that also means my week off is nearly over.

But no matter, as tomorrow is one day I am looking forward to a hell of a lot!

Not only am I going to Salute 2012 with my significant other, but the two of us are following that with a meal in Gilgamesh Camden, followed by a hotel stay in Central to celebrate 5 years of marriage!

So how has this weekend been for me?

Let me tell you, this week off was just what I needed, my afternoons were spent with the wife and girl, with the occasional nap here and there (and what man doesn't love a mid afternoon nap?) followed by some tv and some evening/night time gaming.

I'll be honest here, my Sulaco I show cased on Monday, that's exactly as I left it, instead my evenings have been spent playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution for a second play through (I can not stress just how much everyone NEEDS to, playing a little of Darksiders for a second run (I've been feeling very Horsemen of the Apocalypse recently, but more on that in due course) and last night, me, my wife and 2 Guildies did a run at the Black Temple in WoW:



Now for those who don't know, this is a raid in WoW which was released a good (4?) years ago and even now is still quite a challenge if you only have a few people in your group, especially one boss who can in theory stun a whole small team until their all dead, not fun.

Thankfully the adventure was a success and we came away with the knowledge that most of the encounters are quite simple for us now, which is very good as the boss of the raid has some things that I want!

In parenting news, the MiniMoo is finally beginning to master rolling onto her tummy and then back onto her back, this is really good news as its one of the first steps on the way to her being able to crawl.

So as I mentioned earlier, tomorrow is Salute, and after reading through some pages I know of some deals I'm defiantly going to be taking advantage of (4 for the price of 3, that sort of thing) and a chance to win a foam bag too! Thankfully for the latter I'll be getting my wife's entry do that's 2 entries! Whoop!

So I mentioned earlier that I've been very much in a horseman mood recently, and this is manifested in playing Darksiders:



Part of the reason behind this is that I've been thinking of experimenting with my Dreamer crew and picking up a Hooded Rider:



This is for a number of reasons, 1 I like the model, 2 I really want to try and convert him to look more like War from the above picture and 3, the idea of using a semi fast, semi tough non nightmare opens up a lot of possibilities for my crew:

You see at the moment my crew feels like its very vapoured for the first turn or two. There's very little I can do other than move day dreams and the dreamer so that I can unleash hell in later turns. So far this is find, I love that my opponent doesn't know what my plans are and that I can adapt my plans at the last minute, what I don't like is how boring it makes the first turn of two.

This is where the hooded rider comes in! He is relatively speedy, can move to grab objectives and or fill gaps in the board but he can also be used as an added distraction.

You see in theory he can cause a nuisance and will need to be dealt with, but in theory he should force the opponent to think twice, do they send a decent model or two to deal with him, or instead hold back for the Nightmare assault. Either way there is a gamble but I think it should make things more fun for both me and the opponent.

Anyway I'd love to hear your thoughts, have you ever used something similar? Did it work out for you? If not, any advice?

Anyway that's enough from me, I'll be sure to try and run some tweets tomorrow from the show and will be writing a full report in a few days time.

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

The Adventures of Geek Dad: Part Seven

Happy Easter Sunday all!

Wow what an interesting number of days it's been for me.

It all started on Thursday, where after work I came home and found to my enjoyment a beta key for the new World of Warcraft expansion: Mists of Pandaria.

Trust me in time I'll do an initial feedback for this, but right now I have a few more pressing matters to talk about, namely The Secret World



Now for those of you who don't know this is an upcoming MMO set in a modern day Earth. The theme of this game is focused around the supernatural and conspiracy theories.

Anyway, Pre orders are now live for this, and if you order it from Amazon(like I did, this applies for other retailers too but I didn't use them and therefore can't properly vouch for them) then you get access to the beta weekends which start on May 11th, some fun stuff like ingame tshirt and ring and a wolf companion to help you bring the smacks own to some nasty zombies! And of course, there's no deposit, so if you try the beta weekends and don't enjoy it, you can cancel your order and not have spent a penny!

So with this I started thinking of a character (part of the preorder is the ability to reserve a name of your choice), and I came up with the following - with the help of my inspirational wife.

Steven Corn, before the apocalypse Steven was a simple tech geek, his spare time was spent playing FPS and Playstation, and during the day he worked for the NYPD as a tech support operative, but on occasion he would dust off his weights and pull a few reps, he never knew why, but in the back of his mind he knew he had to stay in top physical shape, that something was going to happen, and he would have to be ready for it.

Then the shit hit the fan, his friends started disappearing and he began to hear rumours of animal attacks and gruesome murders, he knew in the back of his mind that there was more to it than that, so with his pilfered security codes he snuck into the NYPD's contraband store and 'borrowed' a few things, a 10mm, a 12 gage and a rather interesting looking sword, the type of thing he'd seen in an eastern martial arts movie. He would take on his persona from the online world, for now the world needed him, they needed Mr S. Corn! No, they needed Skorn!

Ok ok maybe I got a little carried away, but you see this weekend I've been doing something I haven't done in a LONG time.

On Thursday my wife and I logged into WoW for the first time together since December, and as a celebratory treat we loaded up Blackwing Lair again and brought down Neffy in classic lvl 60 mode:



Then on Friday we did some PvP and I bought myself a level 80 WotLK dagger to use as a transmogrified skin for my current ugly dagger, and then yesterday we loaded up Aion which of course is now free to play and had a jigg around that (I forget how beautiful that game is).

Then to finish off yesterday I loaded up Deus Ex (first time since December) and played some more of that, it's just as engrossing as I remember!

Now tonight my regular Malifaux partner is coming over and for the first time since its completion, I'll be putting Chapel Hill to use!

All of this thanks to the Mini Moo's enforced 1900-1930 bed time!

I am hoping tomorrow to either play some co-op ResE5 or Hunted, should be fun!

And on that note, I leave you all, take care and keep on gaming!


- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

The Adventures of Geek Dad: Part Six

Good evening all,

A bit of a change to today's Geek Dad as I've had the day off from work as annual leave. As such rather than writing this on the train during my morning commute, instead it's from the comfort of my bath at 2100!



Anyway! This week has been pretty interesting. For starters earlier today I found out that Diablo 3 finally has a release date (15th May), I also discovered that Aliens: Colonial Marines is due out on 30th March (in the UK), and to top it off my wife bought us our tickets to Salute2012!

But perhaps more important than all of these, we think we have come to the bottom of our daughter's crotchety behaviour! That's right, it all came to a head on Saturday when my wife was having her bath and the Mini Moo refused to stop crying with me, we didn't know what to do, she had been fed, she had been changed, but she wouldn't stop crying.

It was then my wife found out about something interesting: it turned out that at this age the baby's development is focused around hand manipulation and the thought processes around this. As such they require more sleep than normal, but as an added irony, their brains are almost stopping them from sleeping.

So come Sunday, we went into town, picked up a baby monitor and started what we're calling "enforced nap time". So far it's working wonders, she's like a different baby, she still sleeps through the night, but she is so much more pleasant during the afternoons/evenings.

We've even found that if she goes down at 1930, she stays asleep until around 2300. This gives us most of our evening back to do almost whatever we fancy!

I have no idea how this is going to continue, it might carry on as beautiful family bliss, or it might go horribly wrong, but for now, I'm loving my geek time!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

To Play or Not to Play? That is the question!

Good Tuesday all,

I would like to start off today's post with an explanation of yesterday's end:

The rules in my house regarding my hobby are simple: I'm allowed to make one purchase a month. The value of this purchase is flexible, but it should include no more than 1 box, or 1 box plus accessories.

This 'allowance' was agreed between my wife and I after 9 months graft to get my money out from the red and into the black.

You see, when it comes to money I am rubbish, I always have been and I always will be, so we've created these rules to stop me maxing out my entire payslip on models and not allow for bills and mortgage.

-if anything, id say the current set up is very generous, because my wife is now on statutory pay, she has even less to treat herself.

The reason it's been so long is for one reason: advanced purchases!

You see at Xmas my wife bought me the Dreamer's crew. I knew I would need Day Dreams and a Teddy to make it playable, but that counts as 2x purchases which covered December and January.

Then in January I picked up some GorkaMorka stuff off eBay, that covered my February payment meaning nothing till March's pay.

Since then there have been countless trips to B&Q for modelling supplies, SSX and other things, we're being nice and combining all of that into one purchase.

This means nothing till April, which works for me as there should be plenty at Salute I want to grab.

That said, I've requested 2 days leave for the end of this week, if I can wrangle it (it requires HR getting a data report to me on Wednesday rather than Friday, not easy) then I should be making a trip to Stevenage HobbyCraft. I have no idea how this will fit into the budgeting - I'm sure my wife will be more than happy to let me know after reading this - but there is one thing in particular I've set my eyes on:


They're 1:72 scale, which from what I have read is marginally bigger than GW minis, and as Malifaux is marginally bigger than GW it should be perfect, but I want to see it for myself before I purchase.

Anyway, my thoughts today are of a suggestion a friend on Facebook made, it was about World of Warcraft and arranging some sort of Guild Catch Up.

You see, WoW has been playing on my mind a lot recently, and my wife and I have discussed this in great detail.

It's not that I hate WoW, I don't! As a game I love it, and I have many fond memories there, it's just with the current content Cataclysm, I have very little to do.

You see this expansion has been more difficulty focused than any other before it. Because of a vocal minority, the game has been staggered to make even the easiest of end game tasks very difficult and requiring constant team synergy.

Sure, I know what your thinking: "what's wrong with a game requiring skill?" nothing! I just don't want to have to spend 2 hours planning and running a heroic run after I've been out for 12 hours at work.

The way I see it, I get paid to work, my hobbies that I pay to do, they should not feel like a job.

When I first started playing in TBC? That didn't feel like work. WotLK? That wasn't work either, plus the theme of Northrend and ol' Lichy Poo himself was fantastic.

But Cataclysm, with it's 'IM DEATHWING! I'M A FLAMING DRAGON OF BEARDY HOT MAGMA' yeah it gets old.

So what do I do? I miss playing with the guild, but with my free time existing only in short - baby free - blocks, do I really want to spend my free time playing a game I really don't feel the desire to play?

I think I'd rather wait till Mists of Pandara expansion myself.

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

The Adventures of Geek Dad: Part Five

Hard to believe it's been a week since my last Geek Dad, it really feels like a lot less.

Well last night was my usual Daddy & Daughter night, but it felt quite uneventful, so I'll probably try and cover the week instead.

Last I left things it was the end of the week. Recently Mummy Moo, Mini Moo and I have been trying 'drinking in' when it comes to our weekly coffee shop visit, but I seem to have jumped ahead; let me take you back 4+ months when my wife and I didn't have our child;

Every Saturday we'd have our trip into town, we'd walk in, grab ourselves a Starbucks and have a relaxing while enjoyable discussion on one of the many benches in our town.

Ever since the birth of our little one this has had to change - but I must be honest, it's not just because of her.

Due to the cold and having a baby daring to wake and be noisy , our trips have been as short as possible, often drinking while walking, but recently we've tried drinking in at the many coffee shops and so far it's working well.

It's been really enjoyable to sit down, have a hot drink and talk about life the universe and everything. Now don't get me wrong, it's not that we haven't been talking, but the past few weeks have felt different.

I'd like to take this opportunity to give some advice to any expectant dads out there: Please, when your baby comes, whatever you do, don't neglect your wife's and your relationship. This probably sounds really obvious to most, but let me tell you, when you've been up for the N'th time in the night, or tired and grouchy, you feel envious because even though they spend most of the day looking after the baby alone, they're still home and not at work, all you'll think about is the things that you used to do but now can't.

In my case this was the following: going out for a 4 weekly meal with the wife, spend whole days and nights on the computer playing games and stay in bed until whenever I wanted.

Yes I know those things are really unimportant, but that's how I felt.

And you know what? She's feeling the same too! She'll even have her own things she feels grumpy and jealous about; you see, it's not that your a bad husband or father, it's that your struggling to come to terms with the life changing event that is child birth!

Think of it this way, your partner has had 9 months of growing the child inside them, they've felt it move and develop and when it was born their body released hormones to force them to bond with it. For men this doesn't happen, and this can leave us feeling alienated from our wives and babies (especially if they're fed 100% on breast as all we get to do are the nappy changes).

This is why it's important to do things like coffee house trips. You get to spend time together, it's not so formal that it's a real problem if the baby starts crying and needs soothing and your also in a situation where conversation and communication is encouraged! I believe it's these trips and our weekly Saturday routine which have stopped my wife and I having any major arguments, and when the home is a happy and stress free environment, then your baby is more likely to be happy and stress free.

Anyway, this week I was finishing off the penultimate book on my Accounting course, this was what I did on Monday and Tuesday. But that's not all! I also managed to squeeze in some more work on Chapel Hill:


First off I under coated it dark brown with spray paint from the local B&Q.


Then on Tuesday I gave it a distance spray of yellow-orange to act as slight highlighting.

Then yesterday I dry brushed the whole thing:


This was done with the film Jarhead on in the background. Possibly my favourite war film currently in circulation.

It was just after this was done that the Mini Moo woke up with a vengeance. Up until now she had been asleep, but now she was awake and needed a feed.

So on goes the universal pause button on my modelling and out comes the bottle.

Next up I took the hill upstairs to my den, rearranged the terrain on my 3x3 board and placed things in a semi usable formation:


There were a few reasons for wanting to do this. Firstly I wanted to see how it looked with the rest of my terrain, and secondly because I didn't actually know how much space it took up on the board.

As you can see, it's sizeable but does not make everything else useless.

Then with modelling glue I attached the tree skeletons and have left them to dry.

So plans for the week/weekend:
Firstly I need to add fine details like the foliage to the trees, I also need to add burnt grass to suitable places.
At some point there is also the task of painting the fences. This is probably what I'll try and do tonight.

And so there we are, I hope you've enjoyed this week's Geek Dad, and I'll see you again next week: same geek time, same geek channel!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

The Adventures of Geek Dad: Part Four

"This place is a tomb" possibly one of the most iconic lines from the film Event Horizon, (after "Liberate tutame ex inferis" of course) which coincidently is also possibly one of the best films by Paul Anderson.



This was the background setting for last night's film which played while I looked after my young one.

The night's plans were pretty straight forward, put film on, change her, feed her, put her down for a nap while I finish off my paper masche from last weekend.

Sadly things were not quite that straight forward:

Film on? Check!
Baby Changed? Check!
Baby Fed? Not quite...

You see just prior to my wife going for her bath and Mini Moo's night of geekdom began, we had dinner, fish fingers, potato rosties, potatoe waffles, a fried egg and tinned spaghetti. Not the most imaginative of meals, but my god does it taste amazing.

Just before dinner I gave the MiniMoo a feed to try and satiate her while I ate too, however after only 2 fluid ounces (she's currently on 5-6) I put her down early as my dinner was ready, this was with the full intent to carry on her feed once I had eaten myself.

Yeah... That didn't go as smooth as I would have liked, when it came to resume her feed she was having none of it, she was complaining about being hungry, but whenever I tried to feed her she would pull away.

Now let me tell you, as someone who regularly feels detached from other people and struggles to fully understand what many people feel this is quite distressing. You don't want her to be upset, you know the noises she is making relates to her being hungry, but she won't let you feed her.

So after what felt like a 30 min long battle of wills, and me reheating her bottle 2-3 times to keep it a pleasant temperature for her, finally Geek Dad won, and MiniMoo fed and was happy to be put on her squiggle mat and given a rest.

This allowed me to bring down my paper masche and get started with attaching it to its base and finishing off the paper masche.

Currently the project is looking like this:



With hope this will be dry tonight and I can get started with gluing the kittie litter to the case and basalt to the paths.

But thankfully the rest of the evening went well, she seemed to enjoy the rest of the film, and Geek Dad managed to finish this stage of his project.

That's what I call a win/win!

- Next week's film of choice? Jarhead!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

The Adventures of Geek Dad - Part Three

Morning all,

As I write this I am awaiting some minor testing at my local hospital after attending a consultation about having my gall bladder cut out - fun fun fun!

Anyway, yesterday was interesting. As regular readers may remember, Wednesday night is my wife's night to relax and do what ever she wants while I baby sit the Mini Moo that is my daughter.

Last night was no different, and as my wife relaxed in the tub and my daughter slept on a squiggle mat, I dug out my rocky out crops I had made before:



Well after making these before I have had huge problems with warping of the bases, and so I am attempting to rebase them, this time on hardboard:





I'm starting out with just 2 of my pieces as I want to see how they take to the hardboard.

Shortly after cutting the board to size and placing the rocks as desired, the youngling awoke and started demanding some attention, so out comes the changing material, on goes the kettle and on goes a copy of Mystery Men on DVD.

After a short change and feeding break, we were back to modelling!

This was simple, cover the hardboard in PVA (hence the previous warping when using card) place the rocks as desired and cover in cat litter:





As you can see these are now ready to set/dry and be repainted.

I hope to do this tonight.

And there we have it, another Wednesday done and another night with my girl. As a hint to others, I have found that my girl tends to get a bit irritable if I just push on with my project all the while ignoring her - makes sense, she's bored! So all the while I talk her through what I am doing and why I am doing it. It keeps her calm and I like to think its sinking into her subconscious for use at a later date.

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

The Adventures of Geek Dad: Part 2

Good morning all!

So I posted yesterdayabout my first game with The Dreamer, however I forgot to post about one of the more important aspects of the evening turned out:

How the Mini Moo took having someone new in the house, along with a table set up for Malifaux.

Now as I mentioned in part 1 it is my malevolent goal to raise her to be the next generation of geek with a thorough grounding in wargaming , painting/modelling and video games.

With this in mind, Saturday evening was an interesting experiment to observe, rather than being put off by all the strange new sights and sounds, instead she seemed intrigued.

On more than one occasion I would hold up a model to her and watch her expression change to that of intense concentration. It was clear that she recognised the shapes, but could not figure out the context.

- Either that or she was trying to find a way of getting the models away from me so she could gum them in peace.





And so bringing this inane ramble to an end, if you have kids or if you are planning on having them, and hope to coach them to be a future gaming partner, don't be afraid to expose them to it ASAP.

I don't know how the future will go for me and my youngling, but so far things are looking up, whether she will want to play when she is older however...

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley

The Adventures of Geek Dad: Part 1

Good Thursday everyone,

So tomorrow my youngling will be 3 months old and so I thought it might be interesting to start an irregular feature all about my experiences trying to raise her while staying true to my geek roots.

See when my wife told me we were having a child, being honest my first thought (other than OMGWTF) was all about how my hobbies were going to be affected. Selfish I know, but I challenge you to find any dad who honestly thought different.

The funny thing was, it took that announcement to get me back into modelling and wargaming. Before then I was exclusively playing video games.

I suppose my reasoning at the time was I wanted to get back into a hobby that I could do in the same room as my wife instead of hiding away in my study, plus I was raised with wargaming and role playing when I was a kid and I'd love to do the same with my youngling.

Well the past few months have been interesting. And just as I originally feared my hobbies have taken a hit. But it's ok.

I'm not going to spout some nonsense about my youngling making everything worthwhile and wonderful, as truth be told there are occasions where all I want to do is turn on my PC and loose myself in a world of evisceration and gunfire, however because of one reason or another that is not a valid option.

One thing I did discover, something they never told me about: men actually can multi-task! Rewind about 2-3 weeks ago, it's a Saturday night, my wife is having a well deserved bath, and I've got a sleeping baby in her basket, while I am trying to rebase my paper masche.

After about 5 mins, just long enough for my hands to be fully covered in wall paper paste, guess who wakes up demanding a feed? So off I run to the sink to clean off my hands, switch on the kettle to boil the water, while that us boiling, cover the lid of the wall paper paste, grab a premade bottle for the feed, all the while keeping my two cats away from my paste/models (the love to eat paste it seems) holding the baby to stop her from crying and then finally giving a feed!

I don't know about you, but I call doing all that at once pretty good multi tasking.

Anywho, let's look at last night. For weeks I've been meaning to finish off my Dreamer crew, and last night I decided that it was time. So while the little one napped, I picked up my models and got my brush wet, all the while to the sound of Kubrik's Full Metal Jacket.

Sure a couple of times Mini Moo would wake, need a feed or a change, so I'd put down my materials, give what was needed, wait for her to go back to sleep and then carry on. It may not have been a marathon painting session of 4-6 hours that I used to enjoy before, but I still enjoyed myself and got the job done.

And I guess that's the point of today's post, yeah I've had to sacrifice a little from my past times as of late, but I'm still doing what I love, it just takes a bit of a compromise.

I'm just looking forward to the day when I can do this with Mini Moo, and maybe with hope actually win a game!