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So hey, I've known you guys for years. Kinda dropped off when we had kids, but I think everyone here is pretty level headed and only a handful know me IRL. This is rambling, and long. The whole mess is this. I am obsessed with Japan. Literally obsessed. I had a wonderful two week trip with my wife there. Before that I spent a few months learning Japanese so that reading the signs, knowing kinda the gist of what people were saying, etc, was somewhat possible. My interest actually started around back when I was teen, around bonsai and arts and craft, and the influence Japanese design had on it. The language is brutal. I want to know more. The culture is fascinating. The food in general delicious. The food? Eatting it, cooking, drinking green tea and matcha saved my guts. I shed 20 lbs, kept it off, my digestion improved. My IBS improved, my sibo went away. The wife had a blast, and she's like "You know, if an American firm gave you enough money to work there, I would be for it". She's in love with the quilt books and fabric stores. A Japanese bookstores is like US bookstores in their heyday. They're stocked and wonderful. The craft stores have everything you could need. Our only concern would be navigating the possibly brutal Japanese education system, or finding a expensive foreign school for our kids. So here I am making good money as a software dev. But I'm kinda of tired, doing basically glorious rest apis to backend datastores. I tried my hand at a Japanese joint for carpentry and didn't 100% flub it up. And it was enjoyable. I helped my parents prune some trees, chop up wood, and the immediacy of the feedback was refreshing. I told them "Man, I hate mowing but I could do this all day". And when I learned of temple carpentry and saw what they did, it stirred something deep inside. Like maybe I missed my calling, but it just could be my late midlife crisis. My parents are loving, and good. But sometimes I feel I am needled more for my interests than my sister. I don't need to have jokes, no matter how good natured, made about every project I want to do. Like yes, I am weird, and odd, and I have been for 40 years, I don't need to hear it again. You all enjoy my cooking, so kinda cut me some slack when I want to build a hibachi or irori, and try my hand at some really old school robotayaki/yakitori. No one looks at you too weird if you're a fan of french cuisine and buy french wine and cheese, and maybe visited Paris. But start talking about buying your own block of dried aged smoked bonito, and a proper plane to shave it with, and they look at you funny. It's been ten months since the trip. I still have dreams about it. I think the covid isolation is making it worse. Because of the commute, and now covid, I really don't have anyone to talk to. There is a Japanese Culture center just up the road, with the local university, and a Japanese Language group. But basically, its entire focus is around their yearly anime convention. So I don't have any cooking/culture outlet there. Why not call it an anime club? Don't be misleading. The Culture center doesn't seem to have many programs beyond being festooned with a garden and supporting the Japanese language program. Oh well, they do offer language classes, and since we will be working from home for the foreseeable future, maybe I should sign up. I don't know what I am looking for. Just venting more than anything. I keep saying I don't want to feel bad for enjoying the things I like, but I still do. Why does everything need a comment? "Oh, you could go into special FX" said during the last dot bomb by my mom. "Well, I had an interest in that kind of stuff, but you didn't like me drawing monsters, or telling me what I liked wasn't true art." I know some of it she probably got from her dad about her interests, but sheesh.

Last couple of weeks have kept me busy, but I'm back! (Briefly.) 60191 is a gorgeous, gracile sculpt by Derek Schubert. A Pathfinder mini, but much more "clean" and less "busy" than many others. Crisp and elegant detail. I love making coral colors from oranges and whites, so her kimono is an orange-to-white-peach gradient. A passerby suggested the contrasting green of the bow and hair wrap (ArmyPainter Kraken Skin). The cherry blossom motifs on the kimono are Rhinox Hide and matte white; on the fans, they are Rich Espresso metallic dark bronze and Runefang Steel silver. This isn't my best work, but it easily cracks the top ten IMO. Took two sessions so far. I'll probably fiddle more with the details of shading and tassels/beads later, but I'm eager to post something. More pics with very slight variations below. Sorry for the poor lighting; sun went down while I was making the Shinto arch.

From the Kensei Undead KS. A Kubikajiri Demoness enjoying her dinner.. She is part of my Nippon, Land of the Rising Moon project. WIP http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/79416-nippon-land-of-the-rising-moon-by-glitterwolf/&page=2

This is Hasslefree's HFC002 "Mineko". I am not satisfied with how she came out. I was trying to do something way too ambitious with her clothes and they got kind of out of control. She is a part of my clearing out of my Shelf of Shame, "Pingo's Conga Line of Half-Finished Minis". Sometimes you just need to get things finished and on the gaming table.

This is the last one in my current D&D NPC model stack and closing my week of daily posts. The figure is "Ayako Ito" by GTC. Her role in our D&D plot is the evil mastermind, weaving a web of intrigues all over the known world. She appears on the grid every now and then, vengefully unleashing magic upon the party after they gain their small victories or maybe uttering an occasional mysterious prediction.

So, I looked at this sculpt and thought to myself, "My, that's a lot of flat, undetailed space on this sculpt. I should do something fun with it." I need to get something better than my cell phone for these shots. There's metallic gold patterning as well, but it doesn't show up D: Now to work more on my patterned-fabric Yephima...

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/diamondsutra/ryuutama-natural-fantasy-role-playing-game Ryuutama is a fantasy RPG originally published in Japanese and now translated into English! It is meant to be a game that takes the "NPCs" of a fantasy world (farmers, merchants, etc) and has them go on journeys. As they go on their journey and encounter strange new lands and exciting new things, a dragon (played by the GM) watches over them and records their journey... and can assist them. The type of dragon the GM chooses influences the "flavor" of the story. I've been looking forward to seeing this game translated for years now! The company doing so has already successfully Kickstarted another project, Tenra Bansho Zero (and fulfilled beautifully). They also were a part of the Maid: The RPG translation project. So they have experience and are working very closely with both the original creator of the game and also one of the original artists for the game. I wish I could tell you more about the game than is available on the Kickstarter page or the webpage, but it's honestly all I know about the game as I'm very, super slowly learning Japanese and haven't read or played it before.