Travelogue Update

I had the fortunate luck to take another travel trip with work. Unfortunately, this one included a significant amount of work (training all day followed by dinners/work all evening). Not one to miss a chance to learn while on travel though, I wanted to provide an update to my previous Travelogue post.

Depending on how much you travel, there are some items to which you must specifically consider. I had the pleasure to get selected to pass through airport security with the pre-screened travelers (TSA Pre) . This is an amazing experience and one that allows you to travel without stripping, without removing your electronics, and without removing your liquids. So what does this mean, well speed obviously, but more importantly you can pack your paints securely and not have any concerns of one popping open to spill out onto your deodorant. This is great if you are planning on packing up your +BattleFoam Pack M.I.N.I as I had laid out in my previous Travelogue.

For both of these trips, I've stayed at the Springhill Suites by Marriott in Columbus, OH. There are some very nice features to this hotel. The first is the set-up of the suite. As you enter there is a little seating area with mini-fridge, microwave and coffee maker. This means you can make a quick trip to the grocery or gas station to stock up on sodas/water, etc. and be pretty functional for an evening of painting. Dividing the space between the "living" space and the bed(s) is the desk and the LED television.
The TV is on a swivel and has good viewing angles from all spaces, except you have to turn to see the television while at the desk. The desk has three LED lights mounted directly above the desk surface with an adjustment knob to allow you to adjust the brightness. I couldn't figure out how to get photos of the brightness, but lucky me; I'll be back there in a month to try again. There are also ample plugs available on the desk to support any number of electronics and of course wired or wireless internet connectivity. I'll take more photos on the next trip, but I typically have my laptop up to access Google+, Facebook, any number of blogs and other images from specific searches to help guide my painting with the lights on full blast so I can see. These three lights are bright enough to clearly see the details on the +reapermini bones for painting.

Now to the set-up that I had experienced and didn't discuss previously. First, you can't effectively travel with everything you need. You could include a palette inside your suitcase, but just as effective; snag a Styrofoam plate from the breakfast buffet. Use the disposable coffee cup from the coffee bar or in your room to create your brush wash. Though I wouldn't drink out of the glasses in the room because they aren't really washed; for the same reason, I don't recommend using those to wash brushes. You will also need to grab some napkins from somewhere so you can clean out your brushes. You will have to make a decision as to how well you are able to protect your sable brushes, though traveling with additional brush cleaner takes up more of your quart sized bag of liquids. If you lay out your plan, you could get away with using older brushes depending on your scope and intent.

Travelogue: Business trip painting

I decided to try to take some of my Reaper Bones miniatures with me on my business trip. I thought this would be an easy feat, but there are some definite issues you need to know before you pack. In the states you still have to consider the need to pack liquids in a quart sized bag, the bottle or pots you take will easily meet the <3.5 oz. requirement. The potential hiccup is that you also have to fit any toothpaste, deodorant, hair product, etc. into that quart sized bag.

I packed what I thought would be easy figures, Reaper Bones rats and spiders. Now ordinarily this would have been great, I even had a plan for painting them. I selected my colors (white, black, two shades of grey), but I hadn't tested any of these before. Turns out the black was too shiny and the white too white. So that gave me a two color palette and I didn't want them all the same. I also took a brown wash, but never got to the wash phase.

I packed everything using my Battle foam P.A.C.K. mini. I had already customized the pick foam tray so it could hold a variety of bottle, pots, or figures; so that was not a problem. Of course the paints didn't travel in the kit and the space for figs was large compared to these miniatures, but that was fine. The brushed went into a little sleeve area with no issue. I probably wouldn't pack quality brushes that way though.

I've definitely learned some lessons. Test the paint scheme first. Set out a realistic set of goals, better to achieve them all then miss the mark. Know he colors you actually need and pack efficiently. This would work like a charm with units if you are well planned. At least I can try again next week.

Purple worm done

After a week of distractions, softball practice, baseball practice, and some family dinners mixed in, I am calling this purple worm done. The colors are a mix of Citadel and Reaper Master Series. I tried to stick to the traditional color scheme for this purple worm. The mouth and teeth are based on blood worms (familiar if you are a fisherman).

I've included the Reaper Bones Cleric I painted and talked about previously. This shows the scale of this fig, which happens to be the same height as the frost giant. I will be going back to that soon to get finished.

Well no chance to work on much over this next week. I am headed out for a work trip from Sunday night until Wednesday night. Too bad, there is a new Reaper Bones challenge up and business trips will make it tough.