Creative Questions: Episode 7

Episode Transcript

Desiree: Welcome to Creative Questions. The podcast where we attempt to review various creative projects we ourselves are part of and, or other people’s unique creations in an attempt to celebrate the creative inspiration in all of us. I am Desiree Silver, your host and owner of New Nerd Novelties, and # Own Your Weird lifestyle brand.

Liam: And I’m your co-host Liam Hewlett, back at it again, a Happy Halloween. Oh, belated

Desiree: Because of lovely people hammering last time.

Liam: They’ve been working on it for like a month. I hope that the, for whoever’s living in that home sake, that they actually finish it soon, but also for yours as well. Because dear lord, about taking your time.

Desiree: I’ll say. So what have you been up to you? Do you want to tell first? Because we got a bit of stuff

Liam: Whereas the last time we had a two-week gap, I didn’t have that much that I was looking to accomplish this time around.

I had a D and D session within those two weeks, and there was a lot of stuff that I didn’t need to get finished. And I felt like I actually did a lot in that time. There was a lot of progress that I made, enough, so that I’ve got myself set up for the next two D and D sessions, because there was a lot of combat that I had to establish. And it turned out pretty well.

So one of the things that, I’ve got them doing at the moment is their primary home base of operations. The main settlement that’s called Solo ‘Quelas.

It is. Become under siege and they’re running out of food, water, and at a rapid pace because there’s so many refugees that have joined into the settlement, for the winter.

So their objectives are to like be a relief force. They’re trying to bring magical means of creating food, water, and provisions for as many as they can.

Into the settlement. They’re trying to sneak it or break through the lines to get into the settlement.

The settlement itself has very very strong, magical defenses that prevent the siegers from actually entering in an even stronger than like your normal fortress walls. So if they can get to the touchdown, like to the finish line, then they’ll be safe inside of this protective circle. But they have to get there first. And the area that they’re going through is a snow covered forest, full of beasts and werecreatures cause that’s, who’s currently besieging, the settlement is a bunch of werewolves and boars and rats and tigers and all different manner of where creatures that came out from a jungle. So to establish that I knew that they were going to be fighting a lot of were creatures, which meant that I needed a lot more beasts and a lot more were creatures because I only had a very limited amount. So I painted a while back the werebore and the werebear and the, wererat. And I think I showed those at one during a podcast. But I also made some werewolves. I made a whole bunch more boars. I had a saber tooth tiger that I painted up. And then I had some more winter terrain that I made too for this plus I had to in lay out the board of basically making a map and making the approach to the settlement in how very similar to the last thing that I did, it’s sort of like it’s on miniature board game of them trying to get to the settlement.

And there’s many different avenues for them to be able to approach it from some less obvious than others, but all of them have their own unique challenges and encounters along the way. So some encounter might prove to be too difficult for them, or they might sneak past it. In which case they’ll take an alternate route rather than the straight line directly there. So I actually, I’ve done a lot besides the challenge. That is our main talking point for this episode just for the D and D stuff alone, there was a lot of writing, a lot of preparation that went into it. How about yourself?

Desiree: So we haven’t talked in two weeks and I was up in Kamloops for a week. So I’ve had a lot of stuff to talk about. My former employer gave us the opportunity to be part of this group called Thrive. And what they do is they help you on your next career path. So they either help you do resumes or look for jobs or interview. Or for me personally, I was looking into their entrepreneurial business stuff and they give you a certain number of points for free, which worked out to 109,000 points on their side, which, from what I can tell was probably one to $3,000 worth of stuff. Yeah. So I looked into it. I wasn’t really going to use it.

Cause that was like, you could go to school or you could do all this, this resume stuff. And I’m like, well, I’m just, I’m going to be an entrepreneur. I’ve already got the business. What am I going to use this for? So they kept calling me because it’s going to expire. I’ve had it for a full year and it’ll be done in December 1st. And I’m like, you know what, I’m going to see what they have. So I looked at their entrepreneurial stuff and they have. This is the stuff I bought with the points with the help of the advisor. I basically bought almost everything they have for entrepreneurship. I’m going to get, business incorporation for free online and they’re going to help me walk through that. I’m going to get business coaching with one-on-one half-hour sessions and access to this other company’s complete stock of how tos. I’ve got three logo accesses, which I’ve got one of them up there. Naughty nerd novelties. I sent you all three but the other two are Witches of Wizdom and the new Creative Questions.

And that’s an online basically the logo generator that I clicked through, which was a lot easier than Photoshop to make these and their mine so they are licensed to me, which is nice. All for free.

And then, they’re also getting me a headshot, like professional headshots. well. Yeah. And like kind of scared of that one.

Cause I don’t like cameras, but Hey,

Liam: Just go in costume.

Desiree: Yeah Well you need to have head shots for when I eventually write my book or, you know, like stuff that professional, things like that. If I want For

Liam: your website. It would be nice too.

Desiree: Yeah. For your website. And if I want to be a speaker, which I do eventually you need to have those professionally.

So that’s cool. Never had a professional photo shoot. Not since we were in high school.

For graduation. And then, uh, what else? They gave me, I asked them for Adobe Photoshop, the full suite, cause the suites like a hundred and a hundred to 150 bucks a month. They got me eight, eight months for free. So I was pretty happy with that because that’s a lot of money and they also got me a thousand business cards. Front and back.

Yeah. So I’m like milking it. So I’m excited about that.

But at the same time, it’s kind of scary. So I talked to the guys about the business incorporation because I don’t know much about it, which I think I’m going to do better than sole because one, it costs more. So if I’m getting it for free might as well. As well as if you are a mom or dad want to work for my business, I can pay you and it’ll work out because the business is a separate entity. So I do, I do have to do taxes for myself and the business, but the business takes all liability too. So if someone wants to Sue the business, they’re not sued me personally.

And if I, and if the business goes bankrupt, I don’t go bankrupt. So it’s a little bit different.

Liam: Yeah, I think, dad probably has some experience with that. Cause he’s had his own, at least two businesses that he’s had to register by. I think he had to do it through city hall up here.

Desiree: Yeah, his, his sole, I think, and not, uh, incorporated, like when you do incorporated, it’s a little bit different, but the good thing, also, the reason that cemented it for me, as I looked into it, you can have a healthcare spending account for you and your employees, and that’s all written off and considering we’ll have health issues, I’m leaning that way.

You’re supposed to have a business meeting with all your shareholders and your director, like once or twice a year. I already know how to do that Cause I was in Jobe’s Daughters and I’m going to be the sole.

So even if I do sell shares, still know what I’m doing. So I’m excited about it. If there might

be like more business, uh, you do have to do your taxes every year separately for the business.

So that costs a, little bit like there’s individual costs a yearly, but I think it’s worth it.

Liam: Yeah, I do wonder about that. Cause there’s a lot of, benefits for owning your own business as well. Like there’s a lot of write offs that you can put on that. So I don’t know how that interacts with a corporation.

Desiree: Well considering I’m not going to be making much money personally anyway, on my own side. And you don’t have to pay taxes even with the business being incorporated until 30 grand a year. I think I’ll be fine. Yeah. And it means I get to put you guys as employees and, you know, pay you something if you want to help me out at the markets and stuff, which I prefer if people were actually paid.

So, yeah. So I’m excited about that. I mean, it’s a lot though. This is a lot, so I’ve made.

Liam: Stuff you’ve been working on for the last two weeks then?

Desiree: Yeah, I mean, I made three logos. I worked on over 3000 words for my website. Cause. Mapped it out. I have 18 different categories. I still have to write 500 words for each. So I did at least six of those already things like, magnets pins. Yes. I had 500 words for magnets. That’s interesting. Yeah. Basically by the end I’ll have written a full book and this is why people don’t do it, but at the same time, that’s why my search optimization. I’m going to be number one in Google is because no one does. Like, it’s better, better to put yourself up there. Right?

Liam: That’s under the advice of your friend.

Desiree: Yeah. And she’s made more than one website and knows how to, how to work the system of search engine optimization, SEO.

Liam: She’s a, yeah, she’s a much more a literate person in that regard than either of us.

Desiree: Yeah, well, with the Thrive thing, I could have bought a website through them. Yeah. A slightly more complicated or a really regular one. But the website I do want to, eventually that she’s helping with me is going to be super complex. So I’m more likely to let her do it. Cause I want things like a section for members and like blog and podcasts, like it’s more complicated than that. And I’ll be selling directly from the website. So that’s all a lot more complicated, but I’m excited about it. I mean, the making of the logos was fun. It’s been a lot of work. That’s all. I’m going to come visit you guys on Saturday for a week around my Remembrance Day.

And I’m mostly going to relax.

Liam: Yeah, my vacations coming up starting next week.

Desiree: Yeah. I’ve decided that the anxiety dreams are telling me I’m a going a little too fast. So when they come up to visit you guys, it’s always going to be a relaxing time, but I’m pretty proud of myself. And then this lovely challenge we have and want to go into that.

Liam: Sure. Yeah. I’ll um, how we got started on it. I was the one that proposed the idea I wanted to, since you were going to be up for our Halloween party, which you were about a week or so ago, uh, you’re going to be coming up for the party. I figured we could establish ourselves a little bit of an activity something that we wouldn’t be doing just on our own because we have our own things that we’re work on.

And it’s mostly, at least for me, a matter of necessity. But I figured it would be nice if we had something to get us a little bit out of our comfort zones, maybe to get us to make something that we don’t usually. And so my idea was that we would, while you were up here, choose something

around the house that we could use for a craft and just take that thing and make something out of it because it’s been quite a bit of time since I’ve made a recycled craft anyway, of besides having some recycled parts go into my crafts, always. Yeah, this was very much a, we gave each other the materials and then each of us had to think of something to do with those materials. And it had to be with all of the material and mostly featuring that material, as like the primary. So

Desiree: And you could add stuff, but you couldn’t minus stuff.

Liam: Yes. So the only thing I didn’t use, if you, want to know what Desiree chose for me, she gave me a pack of old, trading cards they’re, Warhammer 40 K trading card game, a collectible card game from 2000 and two or something it said on the wrapper and, you had those lying around the house. So you gave those to me as well as a used, Coca-Cola cardboard container. That was my material to use for this project. And the only thing I didn’t use for that entire project was the wrapper on the cards, the rest of it got used up.

Desiree: I think that’s fair. That’s allowed.

Liam: I didn’t even think of it. I probably could have involved it in some way, but, I just opened it up, took the cards out and that was that. And so what I gave you was a bottle full of bottle caps, a bottle of bottle caps.

Desiree: A jam jar with the lid.

Liam: Yes.

Desiree: Yeah. Do you want to talk about yours? Do you want me to talk about mine first?

Well, why don’t we talk about yours first?

Liam: What got you to make what you like when you saw the bottle full of bottle caps? What’d you think? What was your first thought?

Well, I was already looking up things to do with bottle caps. Cause I have so many, one of
our family friends actually saved a whole bunch for me. He used to put bottle caps on his tree, so.

I have a giant box of bottle caps at home right now. And I’ve got ideas to use for them, but I would always love more.

So I was looking through Pinterest and I saw that someone had made bottle caps look like a little pitch pitcher plant, like the little venus fly traps. And so I was like, whoa, that’s pretty cool. I liked that idea. So when you gave me so many in a jar, I decided to make Flytraps coming out of a jar.

Liam: Yeah.

And I see the picture here. It looks like it turned out.

Desiree: Yeah, Dori. Dori is pretty damn proud of it. He’s like you’re going to win. I’m like, it’s not a

race. It’s not a,

Liam: Yeah, it’s not a competition, but if we’re voting, I’d say you probably did win this one

Desiree: Liam says I won!

Anyway. So what I did was I spray painted all of the bottle caps with a base coat, the same type that Liam uses for his models, a black. And then I painted the, the round side green and the inside pink with regular paints, which was a pain in the ass. Cause it’s about three or four layers each I didn’t have spray paint for those spray paint is preferred.

Liam: Yeah. Or like a good primer for the metal bits. Yeah.

Desiree: Well, the primer was good. It showed up through the paint, the paint, the paint wasn’t as good as the primer. So, yeah, so that was cool. Then I brushed them and made them look more realistic. And as I was looking through the house for other things, I spray painted the lid black as well.

You can kind of see it and the pictures so that you could see the lid was black. And I removed the

Liam: What did you usefor the base?

Desiree: I used, not cardboard. It’s like a thicker version of cardboard it’s card. Yeah. It’s a thick cardboard.

And then I, added foam. You know like foam paper foam, the little paper foam. And then I made it up on an angle by using actually some of the bottle capsule under there.

Liam: Okay.

Desiree: I stuck some of the extra bottle caps. Cause there was a lot of bottle caps underneath. And then I made the jar. I ripped off the label with some vinegar and scraping and I printed off the fly wings print from online instead of having to make my own, I went and looked for one. So I’m like, what should it be? Should it be like mushrooms that don’t have to make mushrooms? No. So I did fly wings. Cause that makes sense.

Liam: It’s a fly trap.

Desiree: Yeah. For fly traps and I found the moss and I found the floral wire. That’s what the funky wire is. It

Liam: That’s what that is. The vines.

Desiree: Yeah. It’s a nice, thick, floral wire that actually found by accident while I was looking for something else.

That’s the great thing about being in a craft house.

And then I thought I saw flies cause I went through all of my Halloween stuff recently, and I gave it away. Not all of it, but a serious closet full, to my friends and I went through it and one of them was scared of spiders. So I had to pull the spiders out so that I wouldn’t give her the spiders. And I found the flies while I was there. So I’m like sweet. I got flies for my fly traps, so definitely doing this.

So I went and found my flies and the you think styrofoam horrible? The white stuff. Have you
ever used the floral foam before the green stuff?

Liam: Yes, I, that was one of the, oh, it’s terrible. It shaves off like a bleeper.

Desiree: While you’re touching it.

Liam: Yeah, It’s it’s like dusty, it’s kind of like a condensed form of dust. It’s horrible. That, was also something that I tried to use. Not understanding most people use pink polystyrene because it was available in the house.

Liam: Well that, and you can squish it with your finger round it, with your finger. I did that today. That’s what’s underneath there, inside the bottle and underneath the bottle.

So they can be stuck in there. I’m used, I’m used to using it, but it’s a pain in the ass.

Desiree: Yeah.

Liam: Especially if you move it too much, it just becomes crumpled. Like

Desiree: Yeah. But if you use hot glue and you stick it on the ends of things like this flower foam, it’ll stick in there and keep it 3d and keep them up.

So that’s what I used. As well as the bottle caps that are under there and there’s even a rock from the landlady’s garden in the back. Yeah. And I thought of like folding some of them over. Cause that’s what they did in the Pinterest one is they actually took the individuals and folded them over. then Dori is like, well, when I thought you were going to do this, I thought you were going to use two. Cause they’d be bigger and they’d have a bigger mouth. And he’s like, oh, so I did some of them with the big mouths and some with the smaller ones.

Liam: Ah, I see that now? Yeah, some of them are folded over.

Desiree: Yeah,

Liam: Yeah.

Desiree: I think he’s really cute. And then I, found some I’ve previously had glow in the dark sand, so I threw some glow in the dark sand in there and some glow in that dark puff paint so that some of it glows. Yeah. And a little there’s one little glow in the dark spider because I found that in my resin stuff, I collect a lot of little things, one because I like little things. I have an obsession with things that are small and cute ever since Barbies. I always like little things that are small and cute. And so in my resin box, I found some spiders.

Liam: Yeah, I think that turned out remarkably well.

Desiree: I think so it’s not really something I can ship to someone, but I kind of really want to do resin again to make these as necklaces and stuff. But no, no resin until I move. Nope. But I will, I will make an Audry 2 necklace. I want one. So from A Little Shop of Horrors, Audry 2. So.

Liam: Yeah. How are you, um, how would you make it into a necklace? Like just like the little pod itself or would you give it like a stem.

Desiree: I think, well, I’ve got actually mini glass pots so I could make it come out of a pot if I wanted to. But the one I want is they basically want the head mounted on a resin kind of back board. And then I have two little leaves. So it looks like she’s coming out of it. And that would be my only just her face. But yeah, I do have like tiny, tiny, little different versions of sizes of bottles.

Liam: So this little challenge then is a prototype for a later project. Then there you go.

Desiree: It’s a possibility. I just, I’m not very good at sculpting things that small, but Hey, maybe I can get your help.

Cause you’ve been doing so much of that changing of your models. Maybe if I can’t figure it out, maybe we can figure it out together.

Liam: Yeah, it would probably could You just have to like, um, you set your expectations, right? I think that using these bottle caps, like folding it in half, you’d be all to create a decent, like necklace without it being too overly sized.

Desiree: That would be kind of cool to make one just like, you know, my eyeballs necklace, but with these as heads a, because I have a full eyeball like Pearl necklace, but, but with, you know, these heads would be kind of cool.

Liam: Maybe the only thing about bottle caps. Uh, you guess you got to watch out for the sharp edges.

Desiree: Honestly, now that they’ve been painted, there aren’t any sharp edges. Yeah. Which is nice because yeah, I want to, I saw also on Pinterest while I was looking at bottle caps, how to make roses and they’re like they do, they do, fold them and cut them out. I think dad might have the tools to do that, which I might do one day to be kind of very goth to

Liam: Yeah, you probably just need some pliers and some tin snips. Right?

Desiree: Yeah.

And then like, there’s one tool I might need to get. And that’s like, it’s a, it’s a bowl rounder kind of, it makes a round shape. Cause it’s a little bit of a ball, but I don’t think it would be that. I mean, it’s tools. I’m going to buy tools period. That’s why my Lee Valley catalog came in and I wanted something from every single page and they have resin stuff now. Dammit. I was supposed to be looking for dad.

Liam: Right. It’s dangerous. It’s a slippery slope.

Desiree: Then again, if I buy you guys something it’s mine too.

Liam: Is that how it works?

Desiree: Yeah, because we get to share tools.

Liam: I don’t mind sharing tools. I steal from dad and mom all the time.

Desiree: Exactly. I mean, I’m not going to steal your food, that’s your food, but I will borrow your
tools.

Liam: You can’t have that food back, either

Desiree: No, I’d rather not. Thanks eww.

Liam: Yah.

Desiree: So what did you do with yours? I see the picture, so I already know the answer, but

Liam: Yah spoilers jeez. I’m the one that, uh, I’m the one that brings up the. Pictures to link dump. So I always get to see everything beforehand and I have it up so that we can, discuss with a visual aid. And so when anybody that looks in the link dumps that stuff that you see there, that’s what we’re looking at as well at the same time.

So not a big surprise.

My project I did over two days. I could have taken more time, but I’m a procrastinator at heart. And I had a lot of other stuff that I was doing a lot of miniatures that I was painting over the last two weeks.

So I had my D and D session on Sunday, and then I fully completed this project from Monday and

Tuesday. Um, before I like made myself get ready for work. So a limited amount of time, I probably could have put some more. Into this, it definitely feels to me like it’s a beta of a project that I would actually be like consider a completed project and something, I would be like proud to put on the table. So this one, the other thing is that I haven’t actually made buildings like completed buildings for a long time.

Yeah, I can’t actually remember the last time I made a full completed. So it was nice to get back into it, I guess. There’s definitely some things that if I’m going to be reiterating on this kind of project I’ll know for the future, uh, and I’ll like, I, I could have still improved this one too. If I put more time into it. Regardless, the results are, as I’ve got shown here, I am actually quite happy with how some of the project turned out. Cause what I did is I took the coca-Cola, container as a cardboard container for a glass bottles of Coca-Cola and the cardboard, collectible card game pieces and I made a barn out of it, or at least some sort of rectangular structure with shingled roofing. And, the thing that I did actually like that a turned out well was the shingled roofing. I’ve done that before on a few other projects and it still holds up well, that’s kind of how I will proceed with shingled non-like wood or Cedar shingled roofs. It’s got texture to it, which the cards don’t have. I had to add that to it. Most of the stuff here is just the cardboard from the, the container and the cardboard from the cards. The only thing I really added was some Popsicle sticks to give a little bit of framing, give it some texture because there was no texture whatsoever on any of that.

Desiree: What did you add for texture on the roof?

Liam: Uh, sand. Yeah, very rough grain sand. It’s used generally to texture bases of models. So I put the shingled, like the way I do the shingles, I cut up the cards and much like you would actually have shingles on your roof. You would, I would cut a strip than partially cut that strip into what would resemble a shingle and layer them.

So there’s multiple layers of these strips of shingles. It’s basically, I just shingled it as you would a house, alternating so that they wouldn’t have like rain all go down in one slot and stuff like that. And I was fine with making it a little bit shoddy, cause I didn’t want the, I wanted it to look a bit weathered. As a barn.

I was okay with the roof, having parts where it’s like lifting up and, or looking a little bit less than ideal.

I wasn’t trying to make it a completely uniform

Desiree: I don’t think people will get that, that making things look lived in is a little bit more difficult than making them look perfect.

Liam: And it takes an extra step. Right. And that’s something that I could definitely like if I wanted to put more weathering on this project, that would add a lot more to the texture of it. Cause I could put a lot more weathering on the wood parts. Like if I wanted to go full out and make this something that would like if I was going to be putting this on a display, what I would’ve done is covered the entire thing with wood. I was just taken those Popsicle sticks and layered every single part of it. So it would have had a wooden walls basically, but that was a lot of time and effort to do all that, that I wasn’t really willing to put in for this one building. The other thing is like if I was going to be making this for myself, just like, as a part of my regular terrain features, I probably wouldn’t have made it as tall.

Cause it would, I think have actually looked quite a bit better if I had maybe cut it in half it’s heightened by half would have made it fit in a little bit more and have like less smooth space. Cause that’s my issue with it is that smooth space from the cardboard, uh, really kind of irritates me.

Desiree: Yeah, because it doesn’t look real.

Liam: Yeah, it doesn’t have like any kind of wood grain on it. Like Popsicle sticks to your balsa wood. It doesn’t have like anything there, but it’s a barn, so it shouldn’t have windows or like a patio or anything like that. The only thing it really should have are like hatches, which I’ve got one that I added to on the back and wood paneling and stuff like that, So.

Desiree: They usually have a hay Hatch.

Liam: Hatch on the roof. Yeah, I did think about that, but I wasn’t going to, uh, I wasn’t going to go all out on that one.

Desiree: Yeah, that’s fair. I still think it looks good for a 1.0.

Liam: Yeah. It’s it is certainly a 1.0. And it turned out very similar to, I have a few tents that I made. Maybe I’ll share those at some point later that I definitely consider my shitty tents.

And I only bring out my shitty tents when, people are raiding like a goblin camp or something like that, or there’s just like a hobo encampment. But I have, because I made those shitty tents. I have some ones that I’m actually quite proud of. And I use those in basically everything. They look a lot more like structured in military-style tents. Uh, so. I do consider this as like a stepping stone.

I think I will put in some more effort to make some more buildings.

One of the reasons why I haven’t been constructing buildings for so long is because of a setting of my campaign. It hasn’t been necessary. The guys have been out in wilderness. And so any buildings that may have existed have been in settlements that are not you know, a threat, like there there’s no violence in these settlements because it’s actually magically prevented. So there hasn’t been a possibility of an encounter where there’s a whole bunch of buildings I’ve had to incorporate. And so I’ve just been using my buildings that have had available to me from Warhammer fancy battles. But if the guys were to be in a more populated area or a rural neighborhood, like at least now I do have a barn because they’ve been in barns several times before. And they’ve even had encounters there that I’ve used the interiors of, uh, or just role-played it out. I bring out a battle map for it.

So I at least do have a barn to represent that at the moment. But this has definitely gotten me motivated to try building more buildings and like actually putting some more effort into it.

So this is, yeah, my, this is my 1.0. I will probably be putting more effort into making buildings in the future so that I can have myself a little township of buildings I’ve entirely created.

The actual of what I did with this project, whether I’m happy with it or not. I cut off the top, the handle of the Coca-Cola cardboard container. I split it up into two and that’s what I use to create the eaves for the front entrance and I stuck it all together with masking tape and some strong packing tape, just to give it some structure, make sure that the collapsible cardboard container didn’t collapse. So that would at least keep it all together.

And then I use carpenter’s glue white glue to get the Popsicle sticks and all their remaining shingles and things like that attached without having it fall off. And I painted it with an airbrush with a little bit of a rush in that regard. There’s definitely, I could do another pass on this with a physical brush, which would definitely help make it look a little bit more textured.

And the top of the shingles as I mentioned, I put on some rough grain sand, and then I dabbled it with sponge it’s cause you, at that point, like, well, I did color it black with the airbrush to give it some texture that, especially that grainy asphalt texture. And that’s what I use the sponge for.

Desiree: When you put the sand on, did you put the sand on with glue and then paint on top or do you add paint

Liam: Uh, I put it on, I actually have some pictures here. I put it on, in the middle, in the process during the process. Once I got the actual like roof structure completed, that’s when I put the sand on with thinned down carpenters, like thinned down white glue, and then I just sprinkled on the sand on top. And I, cause I knew I was going to be airbrushing it.

If I was going to be using a traditional brush, I would not be able to do that because it would just get all stuck up in the brush and it would remove itself from the surface. White glue is not sturdy enough to hold grain, sands of grain on it while it was being brushed. So it’s good enough when you’re dabbing it with a sponge, but you can’t brush onto when you’re using that method.

Desiree: Unless you completely saturate the sand with glue.

Liam: Yeah. And even then, like, you would probably want a stronger glue, cause you’re still going to ruin that brush with a bunch of sand particulates. I’ve certainly done that before in the past as a kid.

So this time around I could cheat it because I knew I had an airbrush. So this is the first time I’ve used the airbrush for this specific type of textured paint.

Because before what I would do as a kid, I would mix the sand in with the paint.

Right. And so I wouldn’t have to use the glue. It would be just chunky paint though. You want to talk about ruin brush? You might as well just throw it out right then.

It’s you’re never going to use that brush again for anything else.

Desiree: I think it looks very well done. Like the colors and the texture with the paint on, the roof looks pretty good. The roof was done well.

Liam: Yeah. I’m I am satisfied with the roof. Uh, the rest of it. I have, uh,

It’s definitely a 1.0 for me.

Desiree: Well, I did challenge you to use everything, so that’s why the proportions were out.

Liam: I didn’t, I, I didn’t leave any part of it behind, uh, if I had made it, the height that I think would have been more appropriate for this scale.

I would have had to have made like an additional storage shed or something like that, which probably would have given it a more, more texture for one, but it would have added a lot of time to the build.

So

Desiree: Well, as it was, I was making mine literally until we sat down. So I understand. I’ve still got purp. I got green paint all over me. I’m like a three-year-old when it comes to paint, I get it all over myself, but not all my clothes or wa or like the work surface, but I get it all over me.

Liam: Right. Yeah. I will say that. Uh, well, this I don’t, I’m not particularly fond of like how my building turned out. Uh it’s. It’s passable, depending on, like the light sources. It’s not very good when I’ve got all my light lights pointed towards it, but it’s passable when it’s in the area where I actually play D and D. So I might actually use it, in a future encounter for the guys. I usually use my stuff at least once or twice. If I’m going to put some effort into it, I’ll use it at least once or twice. But, once I get some better buildings, I’ll probably retire this one and just be satisfied with a learning experience. There are a few tricks that I do know that I could have used if I had more time, but they require some pretty extensive plus drying times. And I just didn’t have that. Uh,

Desiree: Yeah, you don’t really use a heat gun for in between drying because the stuff like this would just warp the

Liam: Oh yeah, you definitely, you definitely couldn’t do it with this kind of material for sure. Um, in general, I don’t use a heat gun at all.

Desiree: I had to use the heat gun on these because they just needed that many layers of, of paint, a heat gun can strip paint or it can dry paint depending. Really glad I bought one.

Liam: Yeah, I basically don’t use any material that’s able to point a heat gun at it, without it being very detrimental. Whether it be the plastic of the miniatures resin or the polystyrene cardboard. Yeah. There’s nothing. I want to point a heat gun towards, that it won’t be a bad idea.

Desiree: Yeah, mine was metals that’s okay. I still like look at this and the green and I’m like, I really wish I had a airbrush, cause I’ve never used an airbrush. They probably look a lot cooler.

Liam: Its own texture to it.

The thing about airbrush airbrushes, like everything you do with an airbrush much, like if you use an airbrush tool in Photoshop, it’s all very soft, right? So I’ve definitely found that I can use an airbrush for 80 to 90% of a project, but then I need to use a brush afterwards. And that’s something I didn’t do with this project. And it really does show at least to me, um, that there are some miniatures that I’ve painted almost exclusively with the airbrush, but I, at the end of it, we’ll go in and do details with the fine brush. Because otherwise it feels very soft. Everything feels soft. It needs

Desiree:The hardlines.

Liam: Yeah, you need some of that sharp detail on an object.

So I might, I haven’t, um, like sealed this one in, I might put a little bit more effort into touching it up. Maybe you’ll see the 2.0 of this. It’s possible. It probably won’t change all that. Or, uh, the next time we talk whenever that is, but it’s possible that it will change, but I don’t think it will change all that much because some of the base structure stuff that is not going to change in the meanwhile, it might get a little bit of a lipstick on a pig coat of paint though. Or maybe I’ll just build another building

Desiree: Why not,

Liam: Put some actual, like, concentrated effort into it.

Desiree: Do you have the guys this week? Or is it next week?

Liam: It’s next week.

Desiree: Yeah, I’m coming up. So I know what I’m doing in the next week. I’m going to come to visit from Saturday to Friday and I’m what I do this, uh, Poshmark. Remember I told you I posted a bunch of stuff for sale on there. Well, I actually made my first purchases there, so I’m like, well, this is bonus money.

You might as well put it back into wardrobe because. I, I always need stuff that fits. I have a hard time with clothes.

So I bought a shirt. That’s got like Halloween, kitty cats on it. That was really cute. And it actually fit. So that made me very happy. And then there was a lady that sells Torrid, which is a plus size company from the states, which we only recently got in Canada and Poshmark is all Canada. So I was like, Ooh, I want to buy something from hercause Torrid notoriously expensive, especially for shipping from the states. And I bought a maxi dress from her that fits, which I’m happy about that I’m going to turn into a skeleton mermaid dress because I always wanted one of those skeleton mermaid dresses. So basically they have a skeleton up to the waist and then they have like the skeleton tale on the dress, but finding one my size, I’ve never been able to do so I’m going to make it while I’m there.

Liam: I don’t think I’ve ever seen that.

Desiree: Yeah, it just looks like basically, you know, how the inside of a fish looks for the tail and then the inside of the skeleton of a regular person on top. So it’s basically a mermaid and then on both sides. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to use bleach. And I also have, t-shirt print paints as well, actual t-shirt paints for silk screen and glow in the dark and white.

And we’ll see how it works out ’cause I’ve never actually painted with bleach. I have sprayed a couple different outfits I made with it, but that was more of just a very basic easy version. And now I really want to do like hardcore. Cause if you put bleach on black, usually it turns red, which is really kind of interesting. If you bleach it out to a certain point, but obviously bleach, you can only leave on for a certain amount of time. Then you got to wash it, which means I might have to do it in four different parts because it’s so long.

That’s just for the for the bleaching. Forget about the paint.

Liam: Yeah, it sounds like you’re getting an extensive process.

Desire: Yup. Well, I, I, I, one thing we haven’t talked about in here, which I’ll probably bring up at some point, I made them. I made a biohazard dress. It was similar. It’s a long maxi dress. That’s what maxi means is to the floor and that one had a giant biohazard on it. And I always wanted to use this fabric that I used to use as a blackout curtain.

And the blackout curtain got bleached. So on one side it was gray and the other side it was black. So I had dyed it green and that’s what I always wanted to do. So like had this weird black green look, which was pretty fun.

Liam: I remember that curtain.

Desiree: Yeah. And I turned it into a dress. So that’ll be a time easily. Talk about that one too.

Liam: Now my plans, uh, this week, this the next two weeks, like for one my vacation starts next week. They come in two days here. Then my vacation starts I’m off for two weeks. I don’t have any miniatures that I need to paint. I am set basically for my next DND session. So I think I will actually start making some buildings and I’ll have the time that I won’t be painting, like all these other miniatures, like in the pictures that I’ve got in the link dump, the majority of the miniatures that I painted for the session are in front of the building. So I definitely painted more miniatures than I did working on the project. I’m going to make a better 2.0 that’s my goal.

I think I want to make myself a respectable building that I’m proud of and, uh, at least one. Maybe a few. We’ll see what I have time for and energy for.

Desiree: Yeah, Well, I, believe in you, you can definitely do it. And then next time we do a challenge maybe you’ll win. Okay. I’m not competitive at all, but I like winning.

Liam: I’m. Yeah. I’m, I’m super competitive, but I can recognize when I’ve been beat.

Desiree: Oh, that doesn’t happen very often with you. I should write this down that I beat you. That is.

Liam: Uh, Well, as, because we don’t generally compete.

Desiree: No.

Liam: You’re a sore loser. That’s why

Desiree: But you’re a sore winner too. Sometimes.

Liam: I certainly have been known to be.

Desiree: Monopoly. Don’t play monopoly with Liam.

Liam: We haven’t played monopoly for ages. It was battleship that I would kick your ass at.

Desiree: Yeah, battleship was good. I guess we should, uh, say our goodbyes and talk about our different things. So the podcast, not only is it available on Pod Bean obviously on Youtube and it looks like it’s updated to Google as well. So all the other ones that I wanted to attach it to they’re slowly approving them. So you can download them on those and pod bean does it automatically, so it should show up, I’m going to be changing it to the new logo that I just made recently, but it’s still the same thing.

Liam: Okay. Yeah,

I’ll uh, update the link dump and stuff like that. Then if you will send me the images, I’ll get to that. Eventually.

Desiree: Will do for sure. And then, all of the pictures, like Liam said are here on the link dump over on solo quest creative questions. And this is number, what are we at?

Liam: Seven.

Desiree: Seven.

Liam: Yep. soloquest.ca. You can find it there.

Desiree: And then all of our social media that I’m gonna post on are New Nerd Novelties on Facebook, Instagram, and the email address.

If you wish to email us is newnerdnovelties@gmail.com as well. And thank you so much for listening to our little Creative Questions show, and I hope that you enjoy your day.

Liam: And we will definitely be doing another one of these challenges at some point in the future. Cause Yeah. I’ll need a run back. I’m going to, I’ll put more time into the next one.

Desiree: Yeah, for sure. And I’ll give myself more time. I don’t like being rushed. Thank you as, so this has been the brother sister pair who bring you Creative Questions. Thank you so much for listening and have yourself a great day.

Liam: Yeah. See you guys later.