Miniature Painting! A personal history.

My on-again and off-again hobby appears to be back on again.  Many many years I have been painting minis, of varying quality.  I like to think I can turn out a pretty decent miniature, not pro or Golden Demon quality (though I did once, see below) but pretty nice.  Here is a rundown of my miniature painting through the years.

Does your daughter want a girl superhero action figure? Prepare her for disappointment.

My youngest is 5 years old and really likes superheroes.  Her particular favourites are Supergirl and Batgirl.  So I figured they wouldn't be a bad addition to her heap of Disney Princess dolls.  So I'll just head on over to ToysRUs.ca and see what there is...

Doctor Who review: Death In Heaven

So we've come to the finale of Series 8, and Peter Capaldi's first season as the Doctor. And overall I'd say he's been very good even in the face a of a few weak scripts.

Unfortunately he won't be able to save this incoherent mess of a finale.  There are just so many thinks not to like about Death in Heaven.

Spoilers ahead! You've been warned...

Raspberry Pi A+ released. And it'll only cost you a $20.

That's right, yesterday Raspberry Pi unveiled the new Model A+ and it looks pretty cool, and ridiculously inexpensive.

Resistance is Futile! Borg Halloween Costume

A project that started 3 months ago is finally finished!  After last year's successful Weeping Angel costume, my oldest daughter turned her attention to our other favourite show: Star Trek!  After a viewing of the classic episode Best of Both Worlds she already figured 2014's costume: the fearsome and relentless Borg.

The wheels started turning right away of how to pull it off and make it look great.  I experimented with a few 555 timers and some LEDs and that was pretty cool.  But then I discovered NeoPixels and deeper and deeper I went. The whole thing evolved into something more elaborate that involved Arduino based microcontrollers, namely a Gemma and a Trinket.  We both put a lot of work into it, but great results we had at the end.  Read on for the finished product!

Halloween Costume Sneak Peek

A sneak peek at my daughter's Halloween costume. The 2014 edition is a major production.

Resistance is futile.

Nearly done.  A full look to follow.

Weeping Angel Halloween Costume

Halloween isn't far away so I'm sharing some photos and info about last years' edition of my daughter's costume.

Being the big fans of Doctor Who that we are, my daughter asked last year to be one of the shows' most infamous and terrifying villains: The Weeping Angels.  For uninitiated, they were introduced during the Series 3 episode "Blink", which became an instant classic. When observed they are nothing more than stone statues. But if you look away, or even blink, they become very much alive.

It turned out really nice so I'm sharing some info on how we put it together.