#it's just ebay with a coat of paint on it

[sergle]

Literally bc Amazon is THE same business model, but it's made to look more streamlined, as if you're always buying From Amazon even tho a ton of the listings on there are in fact from different sellers, like you can find on ebay. They are both online marketplaces.

the difference is that ebay purchases actually show up where I tell them to

some ppl are scared of ebay, and I think it's so funny because it'll be like. one of my sisters wanted to know where I got a particular lotion, I sent her the ebay link, and she's like omg I'm scared, what if they take my card information..... GIRL. amazon is worse!!!!

[flufflecat]

Don't lose your HEAD, fordsy! *canned laughter*

[gabessquishytum]

Hob is a superlative thief.

He sometimes breaks into museums or other high security places just because he can (breaking into the Geneva Freeport was very cool ~ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Freeport ~ he didn’t even steal anything!)

Anyway he heard through his favorite unsavory circles, that Roderick Burgess had acquired some awesome priceless "magical" thing a little while ago. Well Hob is nothing if not curious.

Besides, Roderick Burgess is an actively horrible person, stealing from him would be a distinct pleasure. Hob hadn't even decided he was going to steal whatever the thing was, but he was going to take a look,,,,,and if it was less magical and more "kill the world" then he would grab it and drop it off with the most trust worthy government type he knew. And Hob honestly expects it's a kill the world thing, since you know magic is not real.

Hob was NOT expecting a person, person-shaped thing, pissed elder god thing, enclosed in glass and iron. How a douchebag like Roderick Burgess was able to trap and contain an elemental force of the universe Hob did not care to find out, but he knew he couldn't leave it in Burgess's "care."

Should Hob be finding seething man-shaped thing beautiful; stealing things tends to get Hob hot, sure, but he doesn't think it's ever been quite like this. Hob hopes he gets out of this mostly still sane.

OOO this is a super fun idea!!! I just think it would be really fun if Hob is just doing crime for fun and because he finds it kinda... hot. He's absolutely not freeing Dream for altruistic reasons, no way... he's just got a reputation to maintain when it comes to thievery!

Dream is less than thrilled to see yet another human coming up to his cage, but this time... its different. There's a small tool which cuts a small circular hole in the glass and lets the air come rushing in. Hob also smudges the binding circle (in fact, he upends a bottle of water to wash away the paint completely). And with that, Dream can use the rushing return of his powers to explode out of the glass orb.

He's obviously glad to be out, but he realises immediately that his tools have been stolen and dispersed. Which is when Hob pipes up again, and offers his assistance in recovering them. Who better to track down stolen goods, than a thief? By the time Dream reluctantly accompanies Hob back to his car, leaving the mansion and its occupants behind in eternal sleep, Hob has already tracked down the bag of sand via ebay.

Dream is still skeptical, but when Hob accompanies him to hell and somehow manages to pinch the helm from right under the demon's nose... he starts to think that it might be worth keeping this annoying human around for a while longer. Even Matthew is impressed. Especially when they all make it out of hell in one piece, and nobody even has to play the oldest game.

The ruby is obviously problematic and Dream almost forbids Hob from coming with him at all. But Hob is adamant that he always finishes up his jobs. He heads to the diner with Dream, just about resists the urge to go crazy and rob everyone in the place. In the end Dream doesn't need his help, but it's kind of nice to be just hanging out anyway. Obviously there could be nicer circumstances for a date, but Hob is kind of feeling some kinda way about this particular elemental force...

And Dream is obviously struggling with the events of his imprisonment, but having Hob around is a nice distraction. Even if he keeps finding Hob’s hand rifling through his coat pocket ("how BIG is that pocket?! I got my whole arm inside!" "It contains a multitude of unknown universes. Keep your fingers to yourself.")

Hob settles for holding Dream’s hand instead. Which is even better, actually.

[attemptingwarhammer]

Week #27: The Grimdark Brainrot Era Begins!

So, like you've all seen me say multiple times now, I'm not that in love with my paint scheme for my army anymore. I've just kept going with it because I don't know how to fix it and I have models that need to be painted.

I think I may have cracked the code on what to do.

So I was thinking on what I could do to improve my army's paint scheme. I like the concept, colors, and story I'm trying to tell with my army, but the way I'm executing it is wrong. Then I remembered that I had done that kind of Grimdark style for the Space Marine Combat Patrol side of the starter box I got for my school.

Normally you'll use colors like black or brown as the under coat to make it look like the armor is worn and seen battle. But then I thought, why not use a different color? What's stopping me from using my green as the under color and then sponging on the whites I use for my army before hitting everything with aggrax? So I took one of the marines from an ebay lot I purchased awhile ago and did just that.

This was a mistake, because this better fits the story I'm trying to tell with my army than what I was already doing. This is worlds better than any of the Plague marines I've painted thus far. I've punched through a mental barrier. The only problem is now I have to repaint a majority of what's already been painted. This will be a challenge, but I've painted all of these models once before. I can do it again. I'll probably strip them just to make things easier on myself.

[yellowjacketsfashion]

HOW TO MAKE MISTY’S EQUIPMENT MANAGER JACKET (Part 1):

Supplies:

* Gold/Navy Windbreaker

* Printer

* Cardstock

* Colorfast White Fabric Sheets (these work for Inkjet printers but you can use any other fabric sheets that work in your printer).

* Heat ‘n Bond

* Black Fabric Paint

* Thin Paint brush

* Exacto Knife/Box Cutter

* Clear packing Tape/ Scotch Tape

Optional:

* White Thread

* Needle

Step 1: Aquire your jacket.

It’s supposed to resemble the jacket Misty wears so you can either try to find one on your own or look at the close matches I found for the coat Here. I bought mine off eBay but if wanted to you could probably sew one or buy one brand new etc. It is important to do this first because everything else builds off of this step.

Step 2: Size Patch Designs.

You can use the photos I provided below or your own but you’ll need to paste them into a word document. From there you can size them up or down to reach the size that you like for printing.

Depending on the size of your jacket your patches can be bigger or smaller, but once you’re happy with the sizing you can then move onto the next step.

Step 3: Print Patch designs

The “Equipment Manager” design is to be printed on cardstock to make the stencil sturdy. If you had to you could also print it on normal paper but you’d have to be more careful with it and it might not work as well.

The Yellowjackets logo is to be printed on the fabric sheet because it will be turned into the patch. Follow the instructions on the fabric sheet container to make sure you print it right.

I found it helpful to make a mark on a regular sheet of paper before I printed it so that I could see which side the design gets printed on as that’s very important to know for when you put the fabric sheet in the cassette.

Step 4: The Equipment Manager Patch

* Once you’ve picked the size of patch you like best coat the front and back of the design in clear packing or scotch tape. This step is important so that the paint doesn’t seep into the paper and potentially create unwanted smudges on the jacket.

* Once you have the tape in place you can cut out the letters with an exacto knife (I didn’t have one so I used a box cutter but either one works fine). For letters containing holes (e,p,a,g, etc) you could either leave a little strip to hold the holes onto the outside of the stencil (which you’d have to paint in after the rest is painted) or just remove them entirely and free hand the inside lines of the letters.

(Also it’s a good idea to cut this on something that is thick so you won’t cut through the surface you’re working on. I used a sewing mat but thick cardboard can work too).

* Once finished it should look something like this:

* Before you paint the design on it’s a good idea to put the coat on to determine where you want the design. I based the position of mine on where the words were in relation to Misty’s collar so the letters are in a similar spot.

* From here you are ready to paint the design onto the coat using the stencil. Make sure you push the stencil down when painting otherwise paint can get underneath it and mess up the design.

Also, don’t move the stencil around when painting (I taped mine down to combat this), keep it in one place and don’t lift it up until you’ve finished.

Something else to keep in mind is not to gob the paint on near the edges because it can smear underneath (especially if you don’t have the stencil pushed down enough).

* Once you’ve finished painting the design, let it dry down before you remove the stencil so you don’t smudge the paint.

* Once the stencil is removed you can go in and clean up the edges of the design. The lines won’t be super sharp and you may have some small smudges so you may need go in and fill it in to make it look nicer. I found a small brush very useful for this step.

Before:

After:

(if you’ve got the black paint in spots you can’t fill in you might want to get a yellow fabric paint that matches the jacket to paint over it).

* You’ve now finished this side of the jacket!

In the next part I’ll be using the heat n bond to attach the Yellowjackets logo patch to the jacket (an possibly using thread to seal the edges of the patch but I’ll have to see if I can get it done). If you’re doing this for Halloween and I don’t get the second part out before then you can look at my Letterman Jacket post for essentially a tutorial on how to use the heat n bond for patches.

If you have any questions about my process feel free to ask! I’ll work on getting the next part out soon!

[tiikerikani]

Throwback Not-Thursday (2012 v 2024)

Gerrin Goblinkicker, Dwarf Hero (sculpted by Bob Olley)

This was the last figure I painted before starting up again in 2020.

I'm known to be insufferably/irredeemably stuck in the past, so unlike normal people who might strip and repaint their earlier figures, I painted a whole other copy. This dwarf figure is still in production, so I didn't need to wrangle one from eBay at stupid prices. I even happened to have a matching base (they had come in a 3-pack and I still had the other 2—these are discontinued).

On the old version the middle of the shield is just off-center if you look at the model from that corner and it just feels like something is wrong. For the new version I decided to place him along the diagonal of the base instead of the side. I think this way it is clearer which direction he's facing—though it's actually the feet that are aligned to the diagonal and not his face, so it's still kind of off.

I considered painting a whole pattern onto the shield instead of leaving it plain wood, but I didn't want it to be too different from the old version, so I just changed the shield boss to brass/bronze for contrast.

I had placed him too far forward too; I think I was trying to center the feet on the base instead of the figure overall.

I used the same static grass from a plastic film container of it that I got from somebody. I have no memory of where it's from and this is the only figure I have that uses it. I wonder if it's from 2000/1 when I'd just learned to paint, since a pinch of grass on the base appears to have been typical on Warhammer figures from that era. Maybe I used it on Battletech figures I painted for my classmates at $5 a pop. Anyway, it sits on a bed of green stuff instead of a thick layer of PVA glue (which shrinks so you'd need a lot of it to fill up the hollow base, but that's how I did things back then. didn't know any better).

Recipes

The base blue paint on the old model was Ral Partha's Dragon Blue (highlights in Sky Blue). I still have the Dragon Blue pot and wanted to use it but the paint doesn't stick to the primer anymore so I guess it's dead. It's a bit drowned in black wash on the 2012 model, and here's what I did on the new one:

Speedpaint Beowulf Blue (as you do because, you know, vikings). I didn't shake it enough so it came out a bit purple

Thin layer of Ultramarine Blue

Wet blend Wolf Grey into Ultramarine for first highlight

Gorgon Hide for second highlight

The green base was a bit trickier since the Army Painter Warpaints do not have a match for it (maybe the new Fanatic line does, dunno). But I made it work with a solid coat of Greenskin and then Speedpaint Shamrock Green (the latter of which is a decent match).

P.S. The old Ral Partha Bronze paint is really more of a brassy color. It's not orange-ish at all.

Bonus: Super-black background tutorial (kind of)

When you take the photos, use a sheet of black velour / flocking as the backdrop; Green Stuff World sells these in various sizes but the material is originally used in other things that need to be super dark, like telescopes, so you can probably find it in places where astronomy stuff is sold.

You'll never get all the dust and speckles out of it with a tape roller so just remove as much as you can.

Editing the pictures—I use GIMP:

(Optional) Crop your image. You can do it now, or at the end like I do.

Adjust levels and do color corrections as needed.

Fuzzy select the black area around the figures. 10% tolerance worked for me, but go lower if the figures are dark. You want to avoid picking up parts of the miniatures.

Invert the selection.

Copy and paste to a new layer and put it at the top. This layer will be transparent and contain just the figures and a lot of dust speckles.

Create a new white layer and put it under the transparent layer. Now you can see all the speckles against the white background.

Clean up background with eraser tool.

Hide the white layer and create a black layer. (Or just put the black layer above the white one.)

Clean up any stray dust with eraser tool.

If fuzzy select was overzealous and took out too much (you can flip the solid layers on and off to check), copy/paste those areas back in from the original picture.

[fairykukla]

I picked up this cute doll table set on eBay. They said it was a table and 3 chairs, but the 4th chair was included!

My friend has this set and I admired it, but it seems to be pricey when I find one. I was delighted with the deal!

And as cute as the paint job is, I have something else in mind.

To be fair, I realized too late that I ought to have used a primer, but I don't mind adding layers. Here is the first coat.

Second coat.

Third.

Maybe one more coat?

Then, I'm going to add white spots to make it a toadstool-themed set!

I'm going to make the table look like a mushroom for sure, but I might just paint little 'shrooms on the backs and seats of the chairs.

Or maybe I'll make little upholstered seats out of polka-dot fabric.

Gotta wait for the paint to dry.

[vintageshits]

soooo, look what just came in the mail yesterday!!!

as i said in some previous posts, i wanted to read c&p in english (my mother language is spanish, btw, so i’m sorry if, sometimes, my grammar is terrible) to be able to comment it with all the tumblr girlies that gather around the hashtag…

and so i began looking for it all around the internet and in libraries from my town, but all i was able to find were these ones:

and then an image came to my mind…the cover shown on the goodreads app.

so my journey trying to find that cover began…and it finished quite soon because I found it fastly on ebay.

when i held it in my hands I questioned myself: “why pay 500 mexican pesos for a worn-out, old book, instead of 321 mexican pesos for a brand new copy? just for the cover?” i wondered and wondered, and overthought about it until i found out why i was so keen on finding this edition…

this 1991 edition’s cover features the 1881 painting “a student” by russian artist nikolai yaroshenko.

which is one of two yaroshenko’s paintings that feature the intellectual, nihilist youth of russia back then. i’ll get to that later. this is the other painting of this pair:

this one is named, obvs, “the girl student”.

now, going back to the first painting. i found some interesting information about it. the first, and most appealing, thing is that it depicts a poor student, how do we know this? because he's wearing a rug over his coat, and only rich young men could afford warmer fur coats for the cold seasons.

so, back to why the hyper fixation with this cover...i think i like it because it was a great choice that is quite allusive to raskolnikov's background, and it somehow makes me feel that it depicts him as a person rather than as a criminal because, i mean, almost all of the other covers you can find on the internet, or at bookshops, almost always refer to the crime, like, there's always an axe, or blood, or even raskolnikov lifting the axe behind alyona ivanovna... but this much-mentioned cover only shows us a poor student from the second half of the 19th century, who may be struggling, who may be sleeping "in a closet", who may owe 3 months’ rent...just like raskolnikov at the very beginning of the novel.

and, of course, knowing the painting's historical context, knowing that it belongs to the russian realistic movement, helps me to build a better mental image of rodya lol.

oh, damn, am i verbose about a book cover?

[dysfunkt1on]

Never mind last night there wasn't much sleep at all for a different reason than usual and a far worse one. I just entered predrome for a migraine that I'm now praying in the next couple days sizzles out. I spent much of today kind of delirious and in pain all over my head. With what little mental clarity I did have I was able to go on Holister and buy a new jacket that isn't fake Chinese garbage flooding Amazon and Ebay that I didn't know I was getting when I ordered my last one as from the pictures it looked like a normal coat but for the fishy low price I should have known better. I only learned what horrible mistake I made when I noticed the initial tracking was some Chinese shipping company and the seller was only some location in the US a bunch of items got processed at. They're getting really sneaky like that on big selling sites now. I now only buy near mint second hand on ebay or new from the official store sites themselves because it's not the first time this happened with an item. At work I had all the extra coffee I could to push myself through and it when I finally got out it was very evident why I had a migraine as it felt like early spring outside with almost no wind when the past few days have been near or below freezing with whipping winds. Whenever I even move my head it erupts in a mini explosion of pain and my eyes feel like they are 5000 pounds. The person ordering the tickets for movie actually mistakenly got them at the movie theater in the mall and said it was alright so I guess this weekend that is wear I'm going but it'ss be later in the afternoon and getting out around 6 PM from a movie is gonna feel weird since I'm so used to late night shows. I might wanna go shopping around anyways while I'm there or might even actually stop in Barnes and Noble next door. I went for a ride with them today to get some take out against what I said I was gonna do yesterday cause I was in a very "fuck it" migraine-y mood and wanted something other than suffering and coffee for dinner. The little trip out for a while did make me overall feel a bit better since there's just something that really puts me at ease with an evening ride in the car to some stores. Maybe because for a short time it provides a little shelter from the world when home doesn't really feel like home. Stills feels empty though because its just some family member who helps me out sometimes and feels more like some temporary shelter to breathe in. When I'm here there's always a sense of frantic danger in the air, never a time when I don't feel like I'm at least somewhat scrambling about trying to prevent some inevitable collapse of my world that can be coming any moment. the alone time I get here is scarce and the amount of things I'm working on at once to eventually escape their choke hold on my life is endless. I'm really getting sick of every day of my life feeling like breaking out of an open air prison. Can't enjoy much or smell the roses when you're constantly growing eyes on the back of your head and needing to walk on eggshells around everyone else. All the eggshells are also made of the most ordinary aspects of my life I need to suppress to not paint a bigger target on my back. I'll take any peace I can get in between the lines but the problem is sitting in someone's car listening to the radio or an isolated trip to the store isn't going to get me anywhere. The ugly part is continuing to pick up the pieces to try to make some coherent picture of what is going on and who I am. A situation with so many layers that even what is safe is highly subjective and I don't have many references to go off of.

[willowwind78]

If Only I Was a Better Painter

How Not to Paint Miniatures: the Pastor Jen Way

There are a great multitude of lessons to be learned in these two photographs. Here's 2 for today.

Lesson #1: Contrast paints and Speed paints are awesome IF you are a good painter.

I love contrast paints. They create depth and shade with a single coat. However, if you are like me and paint often ends up in places you don't want it, like back onto the belt, Contrast Paints DO NOT cover up mistakes! Because of the transparency and need for multiple layers you can't just dab a little paint back over it and erase the mistake that you didn't catch fast enough to rinse off.

Lesson #2: Yes, every painter should have 4000 or more different bottles of paint in their arsenal.

For those of you who need validation for your ridiculous wall of paint, THIS IS IT! After you have based, washed and maybe even dry brushed your model, you still find mistakes that you want to cover up. Unhappy accidents. If you only have a few colors and you spend most of your time mixing shades, best of luck trying to recreate the original shade you created or find a new shad that matches the final product of your painting. But.... IF you have every color of paint on the market in 4-5 different brands, guess what?!?! You can find one that works straight out of the bottle to correct your error. Go buy more paint!

Lesson #3: Owning 4000 bottles of paint is expensive. I highly encourage you to buy my miniatures so that I can. If you become my friend, I would even let you come over and paint with me. And maybe after we have built some trust with one another I'll let you use paint from my collection too because I am NEVER going to use it all. But I'll be darned if I don't have the color I am looking for!

willowwind78 on eBay https://www.ebay.com/usr/willowwind78

[munsonology]

NO BECAUSE...Eddie getting literally swarmed by reader with hello kitty merchandise, her room is filled with hello kitty and Eddie thinks its the cutest thing he has ever seen

eddie watching you eat hello kitty pancakes and hello kitty shaped sausages off a hello kitty plate just makes him smile, he buys you more hello kitty stuff and by buy I mean steal because some of the items are drop dead expensive

he steals you a vintage hello kitty rotary telephone and hooks it up, he calls you on it and talks you to sleep on it, eddie wont admit it, but he loves it when you ramble on and ramble on and on about hello kitty related stuff, he just absorbs the information.

you even walk to school with him in hello kitty clothes, he walks with you with your hello kitty lunchbag and bookbag, you even introduced him to gudetama the lazy egg saying how its just like him

"Look Eds! It's you!" You giggle out pointing to a Gudetama themed hoodie.

You let him try it on, his face is all red and he can't stop smiling.

"Eddiepoo the lazy egg!" You tease and hug him, kissing his forehead.

He could've sworn he died then and there right there.

You’re in my walls!!!!!! My hello kitty jacket was delivered yesterday and I can’t wait to wear it I’m so excited

Eddie would buy you everything hello kitty to your hearts desire. He’d battle in eBay auctions for 90s merch for you.

He didn’t know how much of a fan you were until his first night over at your place. Your bedding was hello kitty and you had that little bunny and frog thing on your bed.

“Eddie that’s mymeldody and keroppi! Apologize!”

Then the next morning he awoke to the cute sight of you cooking breakfast. When you served him he couldn’t help but smile seeing this cats face on the pancakes and toast.

“Do you have a hello kitty oven?” He teases.

“They don’t make an oven…..but I have a instant pot in the cabinet,” you respond.

When the hello kitty super cute friendship festival comes to Indianapolis he goes with you. Turns out robin is also obsessed with this cat so Steve drives everyone.

“I don’t know why you guys are so obsessed with this random cat,” he complains in traffic. When you saw Robin’s keychain collection you immediately bought her a ticket, then demanded Steve drive. Eddie’s van was not gonna make you miss anything!

“She’s not a cat dingus!” Robin shouts from the passenger seat, pinching his arm. “She’s a human girl”

Eddie snorts and you glare at him. “What? She’s a cat baby”

“No she’s not! She has a car and a boyfriend”

“Is it a dog?” Steve laughs.

“Dear Daniel,” you and Robin say.

The boys groan not willing to start an argument they can’t win. At the festival, they take pics of you and Robin with all the friends and hello kitty herself. Eddie even buys you the hello kitty sweatshirt and matching accessories. Robin takes Steve’s wallet out his pocket, “hope you have a high limit loser!”

Later that night, you show Eddie your special sleepwear. You hop on his lap, your fluffy shorts riding up when he grips your ass.

“I didn’t see this at the merch table,” Eddie says playing with the straps of your top.

“This is from Amazon.”

He cups your tits, lowering the top to expose them to his warm hands. “Is this hello kitty’s sister?”

“No that’s her twin mimmy,” you moan. His fingers hand made their way inside your bottoms. He slips two fingers in your hot cunt. He easily finds your gspot, his thumb finding your clit.

“Who’s this baby?”

You grip his shoulder. “Cinnamoroll. She’s hello kittys puppy friend.”

“Cinnamon roll huh?”

“You said her name wrong.”

Eddie’s hand stops moving. You whine and grind down on his palm for friction. “Eddie c’mon!”

“I think I’ll paint you like my little cinnamon roll,” he teases. “Would you like that?”

He slips a third finger inside, your warm walls coating his hand in your wetness.

“Yes I’d like that Teddy,” you cry as a small orgasm washes over you. Your equally small squirt trickles out like a leak to Eddie’s wrist.

“Oh I think you can get wetter than that kitten.”

I actually went to the hello kitty super cute friends festival and it was the best time ever! And I can’t wait for the hello kitty cafe to come back 😭

[galadhir]

Well, I didn't expect getting a sword for sword dancing to be so hard.

I really wanted a sword like this A sword that looked like a sword - like you could sharpen it and then it would be a weapon.

Unfortunately the only sword that was in my price range and was available in the UK is aluminium with a paint coating. But I thought I could live with it, and the lightness of aluminium was a bonus considering my fibromyalgia. See the grey sword here.

So I ordered it and waited what felt like months for it to arrive. The receipt said that within 3-4 days I would get an email with a tracking code, but I did not get such an email. I waited for ten days, then I went on the website to see if there was a contact number and found their chat.

Someone on the chat told me that he would find my tracking number and that the sword would undoubtedly be with me soon. I waited a couple of days to see if it would arrive.

Then I checked the tracking code and found that the tracking number was linked to a Mr Ahmed Hussain in an entirely different county from me.

I tried to get back on the chat only to find that the chat box had disappeared.

This was beginning to feel suspicious.

Then I went on holiday with my family, and my son - on hearing the saga so far - dug around in the trustpilot ratings for this website (the only one that still had swords available out of every other sword retailer I had found.) He said that their ratings were abysmal and most people reported either getting broken swords or not receiving anything at all.

He then found a new sword on a site I had not discovered. It was 40" long and made of iron, which would have been very long and heavy, but what was I to do?

Their website said it would arrive in 3-4 days, and by now I was desperate. I figured I could stop the payment on the first sword, so I bought the new sword.

I got home from the holiday and the first sword was there on the doorstep.

Two swords! I thought. I suppose I can sell one of them on Ebay. Other belly dancers must also be desperate in the face of this sword shortage.

Then - while I waited for the real sword to arrive - I practiced with my horrible grey sword and developed something of an emotional bond to it.

It is in fact exactly the right size for me, and easy to balance, and relatively light on the head. I liked it, apart from the paint job.

So, more than four days passed. Eventually I began to wonder where the other sword was, and I went to look on the receipt for that too. With a more careful reading, I realized that it said that it would arrive 3-4 days after posting - with no promises about how long it would take them to post it. The receipt also said that they would send me an email to confirm when they sent it.

They had not sent me an email. Therefore they had not even put it in the post yet.

I leapt to my computer and sent them an email asking if I could cancel the order, and they replied the same day, re-listed the sword on their website and refunded me the price.

Good! I finally had a sword, and only one sword.

But the more I practiced with it, the more I came to hate the fact that it was silver like a silver car. There were even metallic sparkles in the paint just like metallic-finish auto paint. And the hilt was the same colour as the blade, as though the blade was part of the hilt fittings.

I wondered if I could paint over the blade with chrome effect paint, but further research suggested that there just isn't a paint that looks like metal. It's all going to be disappointingly matte.

Time to break out the gold leaf

I bought a gilding kit, a book of gold leaf and a book of silver leaf and did a hack job of covering both blade and hilt with thin layers of metal.

Result - behold the shiny sword!

This will certainly catch the light and flash as I dance. It isn't the sword that I wanted, but it is now a sword that I think I can love. And I bet no one else will have one like this :)

[pumpkipodge]

So I've had this Pop Star Lark 2012 doll sitting in my "eventually will customize maybe probably" box. Her body was broken (I got her from a savers) around uhhh 5+ years ago and just could never get over how gigantic her head was. Well fast forward to February of this year (2023) and I'm cleaning out my stock and see this doll head just sitting there still with factory paint and the like. I've had an azone tan body I got off ebay a year or so ago sitting around and was like...oh okay fine, lets see what I can do.

Well this is what happened. Firstly, I made her bigger ears because they just didn't look proportional to her head, are they now? No, probably not but I like them better. 2nd was fixing her mouth, don't really like the open smile look on the doll so more apoxy and a side smirk was created. She's currently just in some shadow high clothes as I sit here debating what sort of outfit to make for her. I dont' have a name idea for her either, and I've restyled her hair because when I got her she was clearly a child's doll and there was marker/ hair cut at those fun stick up angles and uneven everywhere.

Some pics from today, and chilling with some Rainbow Highs that belong to my mom. Overall I'm happy with how her face and hair turned out. I wanted her to have that sassy kinda look and believe it was pulled off. I also learned apoxy is a beast when you only have grey colored and need to repaint it to skin tone. So the lips went a darker brown shade for that grunge look, and her ears took a couple of coats to get as close as a match as possible to her face.

[smallerplaces]

We have window frames starting to go in! Dad ignored my repeated statements that I needed to do another coat of paint on the shell before gluing in windows (which are a different finish of the same color) and told me I could do touch-up around them.

The entire day on Monday was like this. I say something. Dad agrees. Dad then does something else entirely and tells me I can just work with it. I feel like a terrible person for being so annoyed at someone who is building me a dollhouse (this kit is beyond what I could have handled on my own), but I think I also have a legit beef with Dad's style of handling disagreement. Maybe tomorrow will be better, as there's reason to hope he's spending this afternoon at his friend's shop, improving his work truck. (To his credit, he did voluntarily steam his own asparagus last night, which sounds like a euphemism but means exactly what it says.)

Meanwhile, wall panels were we didn't replace the hot glue are falling apart and having to be properly glued.

We cut templates for the wallpaper because Dad says the insides of the walls will not survive light sanding -- and there are so many wood glue glops from fixing them that there's no way to apply wallpaper without having it look like it's all lumps. So the plan is to trim the manila templates after the house is assembled, glue the wallpaper to them, and glue the templates to the wall. We've done this before, with a Dura Craft house that we were rehabbing in fully built condition. That one also had the "slot the walls into corner posts" construction.

To ease my general irritability, I have ordered a fireplace for the living room, which will have room for it due to skipping that pesky stairway. (seller's photo)

While the condition's not so pristine as the seller claims (which I'm not going to ding them for -- I see what I'm buying, and the price was 40% lower than the cheapest truly pristine one), a little Restor-A-Finish should take care of it. We already own every shade of Restor-A-Finish known to humankind.

This specific fireplace is all over eBay at so, so many price points, with one seller claiming it's high-end Bespaq (it isn't) and another showing the original Concord Miniatures box. The more I window-shop, the more it seems that Concord Miniatures had a wide, wide range of quality: some of their pieces are exactly like today's Town Square miniatures (which used to be Aztec), while others look like they created pieces based on the House of Miniatures kits (which were bought by Houseworks, so who did own Concord?).

While ordering a fireplace mantle, I'm thinking of skipping the chimney. It's one little block, with no chimney breast on exterior or interior, and no chimney pots, and it's the official Thing Most Likely To Fall Off or Be Inconvenient in Moving the House. Burning wood in working fireplaces has been all-but-banned in this part of California for years now -- in theory, there are a few days a year when it's legal, but good luck in identifying them -- so it wouldn't be odd to have a mantle for pretties but no real fireplace infrastructure.

This afternoon my plan is to run amok with the semi-gloss trim paint, finding all the spots where the old wood slurped it up, or where I missed a joint. If that goes well, I can start on improving the shell paint.

[squirmydads-creations]

I once worked with a scenic designer who told me, “You know what your problem is? You like to work.” I answered, “No, I just like getting things done.” In the distant future an ancient race of Space Elves has perfected anti-grav flight and dimensional travel, but they still have to walk to work for some reason. This is an early drawing of a Games Workshop Eldar War Walker, and I thought they were pretty cool. Some people said, “Isn’t the pilot too exposed?” Nah, there’s a force-field thingy protecting him. The newer versions of these do have canopies, but I prefer the more exposed look of the older version. 26 years ago I bought two metal Eldar War Walkers, and 6 years ago I picked up a plastic one from ebay. One metal Walker was built and painted 26 years ago….and the other waited a few decades for it's turn.

While digging through my parts bin I also found an old Eldar Heavy Plasma Gun and used it to finish up-gunning the newer plastic model Eldar WarWalker. The previous owner had primed him blue so I gave him a quick black wash (2 parts water to one part paint) to darken his base tones and to have black fill in all of his cracks and crevices. After black wash or black primer they got a whit dry-brush treatment as I want their final colors to be brighter.

The areas on the models that have had white dry-brushed over them will be painted red, the black areas are a reminder to me to paint them in metals. The one on the left has had a leg test-painted in “Khorne Red”, which I guess is supposed to look like blood? It looks to me like Rose colored lipstick, but I’m color blind so who knows? The tone seems okay though and the paint is strong enough that it only needs one coat for good coverage. Since my brush has to reach past the pilot to get those areas it’s best to do them now so I don’t screw up the paint job on the pilot. Next I went through and hit all of the brass areas; joints, engines, guns, controls, etc. I really like the dirty gold look of the P3 brand “Dirty Brass”, it’s perfect for a lot of details. Which is a paint I really like and I just found out that it’s OOP so I quickly ordered two more bottles for the future.

Models for Eldar machinery are usually crusted with little “soul-gems”, which have a long convoluted and ultimately irrelevant story justifying their existence. Mainly they look nice painted gold. I like having these all finished now, it closes a small task loop that has been sitting open in my head all this time.

[deepautumncolors]

💅🏻 ~Manicure Monday~ 💅🏻

Hi everyone! I’m back to show you a color called Lava Red by Rimmel Lasting Finish Pro. This polish is packed with microglitter that gives it a burgundy shimmer within a black base that looks sultry and vampy. It’s finally making its debut on my nails even though I bought it almost ten years ago. I tried to wear it sooner, I really did. But every time I started to put it on, it just looked… ugly, so I would take it off my first couple nails and paint them with something else instead. But this time I persevered, and I’m glad I did because I eventually got it to look how it’s supposed to. In the pictures below, you can see how it looks almost black in dim lighting and how the deep red only shows up in direct sunlight.

Shade:

Sunlight:

The polish is very runny, so it comes out extremely thin. The first coat shows up as an unpleasant see-through blackish brown color that doesn’t look as good as it does in the bottle. I still love the wide brush with the rounded tip that makes it easy to work around your cuticles, but I don’t think the formula is as good as the other polishes from this collection. I read some other reviews and none of them mentioned that, so maybe I just got a defective bottle or something. I loaded up the brush with a thicker amount than I normally would and got it to look a lot better with the second coat, but even the third one still didn’t make them fully opaque. I can still see some patchy spots on my nails in certain lighting, but I decided to stop at three. I don’t know if it’s going to stain upon removal, so I probably should have put on a base coat in case it does. Too late now, though!

I decided to wear it at the beginning of December as a precursor to Christmas. It would also be a great color for Halloween and anytime during the winter. I usually reach for a color like this in January or February, but I already have some new colors I want to try over the next couple of months. This one is discontinued so you can only find it on Amazon or eBay, but if you like it and want to wear something similar, I suggest Midnight In Moscow from OPI’s Fall 2007 Russian Collection. It’s very close and should be fairly easy to find in drugstores. Overall, this polish isn’t one of my favorites because of the watery consistency so I probably won’t be wearing it again anytime soon, but it’s a very sophisticated color!