Here is another one of my Infinity armies. I took a bunch of pics with the new light box, and am posting them as I get the chance. This army was painted for my oldest daughter. She is my anime fan girl, so of course she picked the army that basically Space Asia.

Group shot. The colors are dark blues accented with golds and orange. Why? Because CRAB CLAN! (Yes, eldest daughter is the same one who played the Hida Berserker).  Bases I went with lots of leafy green because it made a good contrast with the blues.

The ladies of Yu Jing. I am not happy with how these face came out, but I was still playing around with skin tones and let the paint get a little clumpy on some.

On the power armor ones, my daughter wanted kind of a Tron effect, hence the ice blue edging experiment. I don’t know how I feel about that. It looks pretty good on the table, but I think I would have liked more different colors.

On the samurai looking fellow you can see the flag freehand I did on his back up in the group shot. It looks great on the table. The middle sniper was the first Yu Jing I painted to test the scheme.

These three, and the guy on the right in the pic above were all speed painted to have in time for a game.

The doctor and engineer with their helper bots. The girl was actually above mentioned daughter’s character in the Writer Nerd Game Night RPG. Asuka Kamiyama, Japanese street racer.

On the big guy, yes, those are Pokemon balls on his shoulder. Why? Because the two little panda robots are supposed to pop out. 🙂

The shading on the blue came out really well, but looking at the detail pics I should have used more black lining around the orange bits for definition, or gone whole hog and did a glow effect.

I think I might go back and put some more colors and contrast on the gun. The kanji on the chest is for Mountain.

The annual Life, The Universe, and Everything writing conference is this week in Provo, Utah. LTUE is the best pure writing con out there. I recommend it for anybody who wants to make it as a professional writer, or who wants to learn more about craft of writing. It isn’t fannish, there’s nobody in costume, it is just business.

It is way cheaper than the pro writing conferences. Originally LTUE was held on the BYU campus, and it was aimed at students. Over time it moved to UVU, and for the last few years it has been at the Provo convention center. Having been there for all of those I can say unequivocally that it is much nicer having gotten out of school. Just like life, you want to move on and make it in the real world? Then get done with school and go be a grown up. 🙂

I believe this is my 8th LTUE. The first time I attended I had written one book. Wow… I can’t believe it has been that long.  🙂

Thursday

9 – Writing a War: Political Unrest

11- Defining and Measuring Success: It’s a Mindset

4 – Writing Action Scenes

Friday

9 – Relevant Character Backstory

10 – Monsters, Fantasy, and Horror

3 – It’s a Book, Not a Baby

Saturday

9 – Finding Your Audience

4 – Guns and Those Who Wield Them

Forgive the lack of blogging this week. I’ve got to get Grunge edited so you guys can get your crack… err… I mean eARC fix.  But here is an interview I did with John Paul during SHOT show about the new MHI custom rifle.

It is when I watch videos like this that I am reminded I am so damned large. AR-10 series rifles normally look big on people. 🙂

I’m home from Chattacon, and had a great time. However I picked up a nasty cold while I was there. I’ve got a ton of things to write about, but I’ll just have to catch up later. Right now I’ve got to finish editing Grunge so you guys can have your eARCs. If you’ve sent me an email or PM in the last two weeks, my apologies. I’ll get back to you when I can.

In the meantime, I’ve seen a bunch of people talking about the shooting in Oregon, so it is time to repost this article I wrote a couple of years ago after some other controversial shootings:

https://monsterhunternation.com/2014/11/25/the-legalities-of-shooting-people/

If you don’t understand the legalities of shooting people, read that essay. It will keep you from looking really dumb on the internet.

I also want to write something about Iowa. Called it. Hell, I called it six months ago. I really should have Karl Rove’s job. The only thing I underestimated was the size of the easily bamboozled, believe anything White Obama says crowd. The media has given Trump 3/4 of their coverage, and the people have given him 1/4 of the votes. This will get worse as second tier candidates run out of money and drop out and the Anybody But Trump vote coalesces around fewer candidates.

This just illustrates why you should never freak out too much based on polls. Really, more people should take Stats in college.

If you are in Chattanooga come by and say hi.  I’m a guest at ChattaCon. I’m on a bunch of panels and will be doing signings throughout the weekend. I love Tennessee so I’m looking forward to this one.