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Jul. 7th, 2022 09:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kittydesadeWell. That's two hours of my life I'll never get back, and while I'm glad to have learned the parts of my airbrush as well as I did, I wanted to be painting and relaxing for those two hours, not taking apart my airbrush and putting it back together and getting increasingly more stressed as I did so.
Basically I primed a bunch more minis, having gotten them to bases and glued them in and then I sprayed out the last of the primer, rinsed the airbrush, and started taking it apart to clean the bits. I probably, realistically, don't need to do this every time but I thought I knew what I was doing and I wanted to acquaint myself better with the airbrush. I did do that! I also didn't quite put it back together correctly the first time. Or the second time. Or the fourth time. So I kept taking it apart, poking it, putting it back together, hooking it up again and putting some faintly tinted water in to see if it was spraying, pouring out the water again, taking it apart, cleaning it a bit, putting it back together, still not working... watch a video. Poke things. Take it further apart, spend 20 minutes panicking over that, put that back together again... and finally I found out, mainly by deliberately putting it back together wrong for a second to make sure I hadn't misread things, what I was doing wrong. And I fixed it. And not that this will make any sense to anyone who doesn't know the parts of an airbrush but apparently the narrow end of the needle chucking guide is supposed to come up through the slot and behind the trigger, not just lay tilted forward against the trigger. Okay then.
Glad I learned it. Wish I hadn't spent two hours and a lot of stress learning it. And now it's after 9pm and I am probably not going to get nearly as much painting done as I wanted.
But. In other victories, I tackled the bugs I'd gotten yesterday with a promptness. I hadn't tackled them yesterday because I was finishing up scans, but today I did the last of the scans and turned them in within about an hour of sitting down to work, and I opened the bugs I'd gotten back. Fixed a bunch of them. Narrowed down the last one and am taking it to standup meeting tomorrow to get another few sets of eyes on it. Helped a co-worker with one of her bugs that had been bothering her. And did not freak out. And I scheduled time to work with my boss on one of the other bugs that's been stubborn, the last one in the 30+ bugs on that site. So many bugs. Holy crap. So, work victories were had as well.
And my giant box of terrain equipment came, so there's that to play around with. The turf from Woodland Scenics, which I wasn't sure about, actually does look like it'll be great for basic soft short grass. For slightly longer grass there's some... well, grass, and then for even longer grass that I can cut and make tufts at the end with gel superglue there's some other kind of grass. Field grass, I think it's called. I have fake water, I have several varying kinds of sand, I really want to make some skeleton or monster or something standing on black sand with a river of blood around it. And now I have the equipment to do it! Plus some other tools and miscellaneous stuff for putting together and embellishing minis. AND I placed an order for a terrifying amount of historical miniatures from a UK company so I'd better not fall out of this habit/hobby for at least six months. I have Janissaries, Roman legions, Celtic berserkers (they're nakey, it was funny), something to do with El Cid, a couple pack mules, and I don't know what all else coming. I think there's some Spartans in there. I am a bit punchy and tired so I don't know but it's going to be fun. Along with my Dark Sword Critter Kingdoms stuff and whatever else we have in the craft room. It's a lot of minis. My dear non-mini-painting-husband backed three Reaper kickstarters for their full collection releases before he stopped.
At any rate. Overall I think the day was a net positive! I just could have done without those two hours of "augh!" But I learned things. I still have an airbrush. I have a clean airbrush even, and now I have primed minis for mummies and primed minis for Knights Who Say Fanta. That's enough to keep me busy for a while.
Basically I primed a bunch more minis, having gotten them to bases and glued them in and then I sprayed out the last of the primer, rinsed the airbrush, and started taking it apart to clean the bits. I probably, realistically, don't need to do this every time but I thought I knew what I was doing and I wanted to acquaint myself better with the airbrush. I did do that! I also didn't quite put it back together correctly the first time. Or the second time. Or the fourth time. So I kept taking it apart, poking it, putting it back together, hooking it up again and putting some faintly tinted water in to see if it was spraying, pouring out the water again, taking it apart, cleaning it a bit, putting it back together, still not working... watch a video. Poke things. Take it further apart, spend 20 minutes panicking over that, put that back together again... and finally I found out, mainly by deliberately putting it back together wrong for a second to make sure I hadn't misread things, what I was doing wrong. And I fixed it. And not that this will make any sense to anyone who doesn't know the parts of an airbrush but apparently the narrow end of the needle chucking guide is supposed to come up through the slot and behind the trigger, not just lay tilted forward against the trigger. Okay then.
Glad I learned it. Wish I hadn't spent two hours and a lot of stress learning it. And now it's after 9pm and I am probably not going to get nearly as much painting done as I wanted.
But. In other victories, I tackled the bugs I'd gotten yesterday with a promptness. I hadn't tackled them yesterday because I was finishing up scans, but today I did the last of the scans and turned them in within about an hour of sitting down to work, and I opened the bugs I'd gotten back. Fixed a bunch of them. Narrowed down the last one and am taking it to standup meeting tomorrow to get another few sets of eyes on it. Helped a co-worker with one of her bugs that had been bothering her. And did not freak out. And I scheduled time to work with my boss on one of the other bugs that's been stubborn, the last one in the 30+ bugs on that site. So many bugs. Holy crap. So, work victories were had as well.
And my giant box of terrain equipment came, so there's that to play around with. The turf from Woodland Scenics, which I wasn't sure about, actually does look like it'll be great for basic soft short grass. For slightly longer grass there's some... well, grass, and then for even longer grass that I can cut and make tufts at the end with gel superglue there's some other kind of grass. Field grass, I think it's called. I have fake water, I have several varying kinds of sand, I really want to make some skeleton or monster or something standing on black sand with a river of blood around it. And now I have the equipment to do it! Plus some other tools and miscellaneous stuff for putting together and embellishing minis. AND I placed an order for a terrifying amount of historical miniatures from a UK company so I'd better not fall out of this habit/hobby for at least six months. I have Janissaries, Roman legions, Celtic berserkers (they're nakey, it was funny), something to do with El Cid, a couple pack mules, and I don't know what all else coming. I think there's some Spartans in there. I am a bit punchy and tired so I don't know but it's going to be fun. Along with my Dark Sword Critter Kingdoms stuff and whatever else we have in the craft room. It's a lot of minis. My dear non-mini-painting-husband backed three Reaper kickstarters for their full collection releases before he stopped.
At any rate. Overall I think the day was a net positive! I just could have done without those two hours of "augh!" But I learned things. I still have an airbrush. I have a clean airbrush even, and now I have primed minis for mummies and primed minis for Knights Who Say Fanta. That's enough to keep me busy for a while.