It Came from the Lightbox: Gallowdark

I finished painting the Into the Dark / Boarding Action / Gallowdark terrain this weekend! It’s been such a huge lift over the past couple of months, it grew exhausting.

Here are some lightbox shots of a couple of pieces. Not everything, obviously: it’s Into the Dark + Shadowvault + the Soulshackle upgrade sprues (so basically two Gallowdarks and two upgrade sets). Most everything here is in sets of four.

If I counted right: 165 pieces. Yeesh.

I did a little work with fluorescents; I think the result is fun enough I’m annoyed I didn’t do more of it. Odds it’ll ever be useful is nil, but I think it’s fun.

And! I was able to fit everything in a single container for storage. Everything’s in a single 17L Really Useful Box. This is possibly the most satisfying part of the project: the perfect storage solution.

Things I Enjoyed: Feb 2023

Silicon Valley

I just did a rewatch of the whole run of Silicon Valley and it’s still great. As a software developer, I hold the end of Season 1 Middle-Out scene as one of the all-time great comedy scenes ever put to screen.

On the rewatch, I appreciated many more of the callbacks they threw into the show than I did on my initial week-to-week watch as it aired.

Fleishman is in Trouble

This was a challenging but compelling watch. Stressful and sad, it ended on a note that was a little too cute for my tastes, but throughout I just couldn’t look away. I’ll watch anything with Claire Danes in it, and she’s only one of several heavyweights here. Strongly recommended, unless uncomfortable shows about divorce, insecurity, and grief are going to bring you down.

The Rocketeer

Weirdly, I’d never seen it before! I remember it having an outsized presence in Nintendo Power and it being a thing, but I’d never actually watched the movie. Unclear Pod put it on my radar, though, so we rewatched it over the weekend and what a treat! On the back of The Rocketeer, we’re talking about doing a tour through the adventure movies of the 90’s over the next several weekends. I know I’m hot to rewatch The Shadow.

(As great as the film is: I’m glad I didn’t watch it when it came out because that movie opens on Jennifer Connelly rolling a stocking up her thigh… and that absolutely would have impacted the way my pubescent brain was wired.)

Things I Enjoyed: Jan 2023

Have I done nothing but post terrain workbench shots since December?

White Noise

I read White Noise back as an undergrad close to 30 years ago, and it had a pretty big impact on me then, but I haven’t returned to it since. I enjoyed the Netflix adaptation quite a bit. Unfortunately The Airborne Toxic Event, having been placed in my forebrain by Baumbach, looms large every time I see coverage of the tragedy in East Palestine.

The Northman

I don’t know why it took me so long to get around to The Northman. Eggers has only delivered bangers so far, and The Northman was no exception. I remember seeing some criticisms of it that ran along the lines of “It’s just Hamlet :eyeroll:” and you know what? Fuck off with that! It was an excellent adaption of it, and there are much, much worse works to adapt than Hamlet.

Wednesday

I should have hated Wednesday. I expected to hate Wednesday. I didn’t hate Wednesday; I really enjoyed it.

Painted Models – 2023 02

(None)

I’ve been jammed up with this Into the Dark terrain literally all month. Haven’t gone a month without finishing at least something since December 2018. This is the fifth time this has happened since I’ve started tracking this stuff in Jan 2010.

Workbench

Finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel here. More than a third, less than halfway through washing stuff. Need to get more mineral spirits before I press on.

Deeply sick of this project. Ready for something, anything else.

Workbench

No progress in the last few days (thanks work), but I’m getting there!

Almost there: once the lower right corner is done, gloss varnish and oils next!