devolutionary

Mistakes were made!

The key part of "Opportunity Party" is "Opp" and it always has been.

Yet another day I wish people would learn what separating art from the artist was about, rather than them believe it means what they hope it means.

GW has somehow managed to refine the style of design for their two big tentpole games into what I will now refer to as Patreon STL Aesthetic.

Behold, a bizarre proof of life. Depression and the world been kicking my ass, progress has been slow, but I've been working through my Ulthwe to add to my existing Alaitoc for 2nd edition. Some still WIP pics. #oldhammer #miniaturewargaming #warhammer40k

In my efforts to try and work through my depression and despair at my professional life, I am forcing myself to just apply a spot of paint on a few models as I am able. I'm very much hoping it stops me from feeling like I'm failing by doing nothing at all. 2026 is so good guys, love it!

Dangit, I want to see my Ulthwe stuff painted, but I am very much in another painting lull right now, motivation is rock bottom from work stressors I suspect.

Digging through my pool of Finnish infantry for Flames of War, trying to figure how to build varied yet comprehensive teams for the infantry company I am working on. I have a great many excess dudes with sticky bombs and molotov bundles.

Continuing to fight down the revulsion at work around "maturing our AI usage", why did I not become a carpenter or something?

Well that's my weekend sorted with the rapid delivery of The Wendigo, time to figure out some tones across my pedal stack and figure out how I want to manage all this gain.

With Matariki tomorrow, I get an extra days head start on my winter week off. A necessary period to prevent me from inflicting my true nature on people at work, I intend to play a bunch of Epic, Battletech, and paint up some Ulthwe Eldar. And nobody else is home for 48 hours too? Delightful!

I love when I get spam mail calling me a pervert and they recorded what I'm looking at as though I should be afraid. Oh no, vintage miniatures, vtubers, and Yogscast videos, the shame! Honestly any porn is probably the lesser of incriminating evidence compared to the Hololive brain rot.

The truly unfortunate reality right now is that usage of AI coding tools and tokens is now a metric. I can't afford to not have my job, I have to look after my family. I very much feel like a failure, but that's corporate development life at the end of the day.

After several months, I have completed my minimum for my 2nd ed. Chaos Space Marines Black Crusade. I still need to figure out how to get a full army shot worth a damn, but for now the (best) Thousand Sons are completed #warhammer40k #oldhammer #thousandsons #miniaturewargaming

Spent an hour reseating my pedalboard, sorting out a complicated A/B chain, 20+ cables... and there's so much noise that I don't know what cable is causing the issue. Huzzah!

It's always a good reminder to myself that companies being shitty is a good enough reason to not buy their shit. I had very much been eyeing up a new Fender guitar, but I fucking ain't now.

An indulgent excursion into Death Guard for the penultimate contingent in my Black Crusade. Played around with lighting on the plasma gun and added weathering to the rhino, the only weathering Ive done in the entire army. Better photography too I think?? #oldhammer #warhammer40k #miniaturewargaming

Ehhhh. They did that same thing they did with Mk III - worse helmet, worse backpack, and now the added sin of being lazy and not giving it's own jump pack. I'm happy with upscaling and reworks, but these are beloved and well selling designs, so it's a bummer (the damn helmet vent blows)

Took over a month, the Noise Marines were profoundly unpleasant to paint. Fabius on the other hand was so much fun to work through. I feel like I do need a tutor for photos though, youtube tutorials and online articles are doing bloody nothing #oldhammer #warhammer40k #miniaturewargaming

It took a genuinely concerted effort to reduce my paint range down to just these (excluding some historical, specialist, fluor, and my 90s citadel collection) easily 4x this many pots now in a bix box under a desk.

You know it's been a day at the office when the first thing I do when I walk in the door is pour a vodka. I know it's not a healthy coping mechanism, but man, getting lectured by former senior management at Air NZ is enough to make anyone's cringe meter go off the charts.

Fucking no, that's stupid on every conceivable level. The fuck are you smoking, GW?

Undiagnosed, but I did just get fixated all day on making my own map of the 40k galaxy M41 because all other versions were just terrible for what I wanted.

The noise marines are proving to be painful to finish. I am not enjoying them, and they are holding up the queue. I do however need to get them done, so hopefully this week. Hopefully. Ugh.

World Eaters done! Kharn and his 8 sacrifices I mean chosen warriors. The plastics were the worst part, while Kharn was a bloody delight to work on. I've really found the joy of working on characters ever since I did Vulkan years back #oldhammer #warhammer40k #miniaturewargaming #worldeaters

Been a hot minute since I busted out Blender and thought about firing up my printer, especially since I printed all the arms and backpacks for my vintage projects. But hey, Orks need to fly...

I'm so annoyed at how boring the new 40k Ork kits are that I'm hate buying the old boyz kits before they are gone. I know that isn't exactly a statement, I know it's still giving them money, but god dammit the new Orks are such a mundane meh for my tastes. Grumpy, unreasonable old man mode ends.

I don't think miniature wargaming and model painting is really the space to be calling folks Luddites when they disapprove of your AI plagiarism and auto-colouring of classic art works. You're in the wrong fucking space buddy, we paint dolls with little brushes.

Working in tech in 2026 is more soul crushing and depressing than I ever could have imagined.

Iron Warriors contingent complete. It was nice to have a relatively easy paint scheme for once, aside from the damn stripes. 30 year old decals are also always flawed in application, but that's OK, they're neat either way. Nights Lords next? Lightning... #oldhammer #warhammer40k #miniaturewargaming

As I'm building up a pool of 4th/5th edition Empire stuff, I have a hankering to rebuild a ton of 5th ed Bretonnia, which I don't need because I already have a large 6th edition Bretonnian army and help me please I have issues.

I never really looked at Daemons in the 90s, so this stat line was very confusing to me and contradictory to everything I am used to Nurgle being.

First 2e Chaos unit done, a Veteran Alpha Legion squad protecting a Sorcerer. Next up probably the Word Bearers, or maybe some WHFB work. Posed as ever on the wonderful terrain work of @doctorspork.bsky.social #oldhammer #miniaturewargaming #warhammer40k

I feel like my past 16 years as a professional developer in corporate tech has reached a decision point, and it is eating me up. I can't not get paid, my family and others rely on me, but it all feels like giving up on the part of the job I actually love, the creation process.

Sometimes if I wonder whether I am being too much of a purist with my era specificity in models. Is it really such a crime to have a 6th edition cannon in a 4th edition army? Do I need those very specific weapon parts? Yes. Yes it is.

Shit, at least I get a reformation of Nevermore that sounds sick with a vocalist who does justice to Warrell's legacy.

Every day it's another horror to make you want to leap. Or stay in bed. Shit's a real struggle mentally, emotionally, and I'm still living in relative comfort in my little south pacific hideaway.

Neat! Looking forward to building a French force, I really like this period technologically. This makes Monday a bit nicer for sure #flamesofwar #miniaturewargaming

Me: after 2 months of 6mm, I need to paint a nice, easy, simple army. Also me: 5 different colour schemes on the most detail cluttered miniatures of the era, that sounds fine. I am dumb.

Trying to decide what palate cleanser I want to paint next. I feel like I should paint some of my vintage 90s stuff, but I might just have to do the all plastic Grey Knights so I can enjoy the simplicity of metallics.