Being the season it is, I had to suggest a list of the ten things any computer oriented fan of Steampunk would enjoy, whether they had to be laboriously made or purchased. So here’s ten of

• Steampunk Keyboard Kit – The first easy piece to add to your setup, this allows you to join your keyboard to the era for a paltry $400 USD.
• Headset – Here is a project that looks relatively simple and one that can be completed by determined hobbyist such as we find in the wargaming world.
• Professor Ocularo X-Ray Monocle – Now you can see what evils lurk behind hills and other masking terrain without cheating (too obviously).
• Victorian PC – Not a project upon which I would embark, but one I would dearly love to own.
• Doctor Grordbort’s Contrapulatronic Dingus Directory – Valuable just for the joy of using the words “I own….”
• Ironman Style Helmet – In case you ever feel the need to go for a motorcycle ride.
• The Bug: Steampunk Computer Mouse « Jake of All Trades – I don’t know if this would contribute to or cause carpal tunnel.
• Personal Computer into Brewery – I don’t drink but I bet this thing could be jimmied to dispense Diet Coke! Now you know why the Russians/USSR were the first into space.
• 8ft Steampunk Frankenstein Computer case mod – Why own a grandfather clock when you can have this?
• Steampunk Computer by Old Time Computer (Yanko Design) – Now for an apple knockoff.

Bonus:

I don’t know of any serious computer user who believes that less power is more. The same holds true for Steampunk fans and their gadgets, but just take a tour of Bruce & Melanie’s Steampunk Victorian House Tour (brought to you by Apartment Therapy Boston) if you want to see .

stupid parrot

A young man named John received a parrot as a gift. The parrot had a bad attitude and an even worse vocabulary.

Every word out of the bird’s mouth was rude, obnoxious and laced with profanity. John tried and tried to change the bird’s attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing soft music and anything else he could think of to ‘clean up’ the bird’s vocabulary.

Finally, John was fed up and he yelled at the parrot. The parrot yelled back. John shook the parrot and the parrot got angrier and even more rude. John, in desperation, threw up his hand, grabbed the bird and put him in the freezer. For a few minutes the parrot squawked and kicked and screamed. Then suddenly there was total quiet. Not a peep was heard for over a minute.

Fearing that he’d hurt the parrot, John quickly opened the door to the freezer. The parrot calmly stepped out onto John’s outstretched arms and said “I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions. I’m sincerely remorseful for my inappropriate transgressions and I fully intend to do everything I can to correct my rude and unforgivable behavior.”

John was stunned at the change in the bird’s attitude.

As he was about to ask the parrot what had made such a dramatic change in his behavior, the bird spoke-up, very softly, “May I ask what the turkey did?”

Well, the numbers are now officially crunched, and I can share the info with you, so without further ado…

QUESTION ONE: How old are you?
The average age of the respondent was 45 years old. The oldest respondant was 71 years old, and the youngest was 20. At 42, I’m a relative youngster

QUESTION TWO: How long have you been involved in wargaming?
The average respondent has been involved in the hobby for a mind-blowing 34 years! This is mind blowing because according to hobby industry experts, the average persons ‘serious’ involvement in a hobby is only seven years….The longest respondent has been active for 54 years. The Shortest, only 5. At 15 years, again, I’m a relative lightweight

On a side note, I crunched a few additional numbers and found out that the average age that a person gets involved with wargaming as a hobby was 15 years old. This is entirely within range of the ‘golden age of 14′ theory in pop-culture analysis, which postulates that for each individual person the ‘golden age’ of anything is the way it was when they were 14 years old…

QUESTION 3: How did you initially hear about the Old-School Wargaming movement?
Someplace on the web: 29.5%
From someone in person: 6.8%
Email mailing list: 25%
Always been ‘OS’: 6.8%
The Miniatures Page (TMP): 13.63%
Old-fashioned dead-tree book/magazine: 9.09%
“I never really considered it a movement”:6.8%
Don’t Remember: 2.27%

Not a whole lot of surprises here, really…

4. Do you consider yourself ‘old school’ first and foremost, or is it part of your overall wargaming interest?

OSW first and foremost: 36.36%
Part of overall wargaming intrest: 56.81%
Declined to answer question: 4.54%
“I’m more Old Fart than Old School”: 2%

In all honesty, I expected the ‘first and foremost’ rating to be higher on this one, closer to the 50% mark than it is…

And last but nowhere near least:
5. What aspect of Old-School Wargaming appeals to you the most?

Social aspects/OSW folks are more fun to game with: 18.18%
Visual appeal/ like the miniatures : 20.45%
Rules are more fun/ more enjoyable: 38%
Nostalgia/Like the old-school writers: 13.63%
“Gentlemanly Charm”: 4%
Creative aspects: 9%
“Not really sure”: 2%

Interesting factoids.

I can’t find much info on importing WordPress into Joomla, so that might be the biggest holdup, but I’d appreciate comments on this.

Originally I had in mind a scheme for the entire miniature that would look like the staff – dark colors fading up to light ones. Barf, was that a mistake! I tried again with a more limited pallette and used the ocean color triad. I think the results were much better.

The nice thing about fantasy miniatures is that there is no one correct way to paint them!

I left the staff the way it was, however, as the color shift was smooth and added character to the miniature. I painted the colors in first, then went back in and lined the filigree with brown and green liner so as to outline the gold filigree. The staff and hands came as a separate piece so I added them after I had painted the rest of the figure. I placed one end of the staff in a piece of blue-tac and painted and sealed the first part of it then just held on to the staff to finish painting it. The face was quite hard to paint as the details were tiny.

I washed the face with a black wash first, then used the Reaper light skin triad to highlight up to the lightest color. The right-most picture is not as good as I’d like it as there is a reflection that makes the horn look like the paint is not put on properly. Another new technique I tried here was shading metals in the same way as other colors. I outlined the ridges with brown liner mixed with a tad bit of black and then shaded from bronze to new gold (as the highlight). The figure was sealed with Reaper’s brush-on sealer.

Overall I am pleased with how it came out. We’ll see what the auction brings in!