Project Complete - Sydonian Dragoon

It's been a long time since my last post, I believe it was somewhere near the beginning of February. I have been meaning to make another post, but to be honest, I have a predilection to 'doing' instead of just writing. Blogging is something still very new to me, but I will make more of an effort to do so for insight into my personal growth.

The current COVID problem has certainly derailed me, but thankfully, it hasn't affected me as terribly as I see how it's affected others. I currently live and work in South Korea as an English teacher. While schools and academies have been closed for months and will continue to be for some time, I have been able to maintain employment. We had one week off at the end of February because of the situation (around the time of the Daegu outbreak), but made a relatively quick transition to online teaching through Zoom the week after. I've been experimenting with various alternatives, such as Google Forms to create tests, to figure out the best way to present material to my students. Around that time I also finished making my way through 'Head First with C', and have attempted a project to test my own skills and knowledge of what I learned before moving onto C++. I'm also preparing for a move because my landlord was asking for a larger deposit which I do not have. So between all these events, I've found myself a little exhausted and have turned to video games as my way to pass the time. It's a little bit easier to pick up and go than miniature painting (I don't know about you, but when I get into painting, I usually have to go for at least a few hours, and I always need an hour to 'warm up' before I actually get really productive).

Now, this Sydonian Dragoon has been something that has been sitting on my table for a long time (check: years) at a stage of about 60-70% completion. One thing that I've honestly had a lot of difficulty with is the completion of a project. New projects are always fun because there is a stark and noticeable transformation at a fast pace, but there inevitably comes a point where those gains are minor and you feel less satisfaction in completing these small details. That said, there was a great sense of accomplishment in completing this model over the past couple days.

What I was left with was some detail on the back of the model - the Adeptus Mechanicus symbol, some small detailing (metallics on the wires, touching up of pieces that got unintentionally hit by other paints, etc.), and the entire rider. Now, I'm the type of person who puts models together piecemeal, because I want to paint ALL the details, including the ones you'll never see (because I know, and I'll always know, and I'll never be okay knowing that something is unpainted and visible if you look at it from a specific angle), so the rider's legs were too tight to fit onto the saddle. Now, one thing that I have experienced A LOT with Adeptus Mechanicus is the breaking off of the fiddly bits. I have snapped off so many pieces of this model and glued them back on I can no longer keep track. One thing I've been concentrating on with this model was the glow effects - both on the 'energy cell' parts and the taser lance (I've been wet mixing Lothern Blue up with Ulthuan Grey).

Yesterday consisted mainly of basing it (a five-step process: basecoat Steel Legion Drab, wash of Agrax Earthshade, drybrush Steel Legion Drab, drybrush Desert Yellow, drybrush Ushabti Bone), damaging it (using a ripped sponge and Rhinox Hide), then weathering (the drybrush steps of the basing process to tie it altogether).

And that's it! I will definitely try to post more, I'm aiming to post a couple times next week between this and my other blog which charts my progress in coding.