2021 End of Year Round-Up

Welcome to a somewhat belated end-of-year round-up. If the Oscars can spend three months processing the past year, I feel that this should be afforded to the rest of us. Nevertheless, as interest I have included one cat picture in this post for each month by which it is overdue.

Last year was uneventful prior to May, when I traveled back to California to visit my parents and get vaccinated. Once vaccinated, and nearly two years after moving to Europe, I was finally able to do a bit of travelling. In August I met up with my family again for a vacation in Venice and the Dolomites. In September took a long weekend trip to the historic towns in the South of Czechia, and finally rounded out the travel season by returning to Bohemian Switzerland national park in the North of the country.

Left: A cat browsing the wares of a Venetian shop. Right: The Cinque Torri in the Italian Dolomites.

Besides the ability to travel, the other major development of the year was a resurgent interest in art making. In the spring I decided to take up Warhammer miniature kitbashing as a hobby (perhaps not the most sound financial decision). Over the summer I assembled a modeling and painting workshop in the closet off the hall of my one-room apartment. I even acquired an airbrush and compressor, though my DIY compressor setup is just an air-tank attached to a bicycle pump.

Left: My studio setup inside a triangular closet. Right: Safety gear worn during operation of the airbrush.

My first (and current) kitbash project is a group of Orks wearing stolen Tau pathfinder gear and stealth suits. So far I’ve painted two out of three batches of miniatures, averaging about one miniature per month. Hopefully I’m able to paint a bit more regularly this coming year, though I’m perfectly happy to take my time and not rush the bashing and painting process.

Left: Four pathfinders wearing the sneakiest shade of purple. Right: Stealth suits combined with Ork bits.

Besides miniature kitbashing I’ve also found myself sketching more. I found an art group that meets once per month in a tea shop to sketch and chat, and I’ve also started to experiment with digital illustration software again (if only to make very silly fan art).

Left: This cat is the proprietor of the One Poem tea room in Prague, the regular haunt of the Prague Free Art Collective. Right: Fan art depicting Biwa from Heike Monogatari and Fushi from To Your Eternity reimagined as characters in SK8.

To summarize, it was another good year for me. If you noticed, I didn’t mention anything about game development or programming projects. My goal for this current year is to make sure I carve out some time for game dev. I’ve already made some progress on that front this year, but perhaps I’ll save that for a future post.

Originally published at http://www.musinggriffin.com on March 27, 2022.