Hobbies, Interests, Workshops, and Growth

[Isgrimnur]

Womp womp.

I'm going to take that as supportive, although ever since Lewandowski used it, it makes my skin crawl.

I'm taking it back.

[Madmarcus]

Just catching up on this thread.

Have you thought about brewing NA beer? It would seem that there's the same amount of craft involved, maybe even more.

NA hops drinks and IPNAs seem to be gaining some steam too.

Late replies are ok. Afterall I am newly returned from an almost two week pause from OO due to a trip to see family.

I probably wouldn't go the NA route although that sounds interesting as a homebrewer. I used to have a couple of recopies for fairly low alcohol dark beers with high starting specific gravity. Lots of crystal malt, biscuit malt, and roasted barley. Session porters before session beers were around. Or the old 3.2 beer but actually tasty. If I get back into the hobby that is likely to be my focus.

[Blackhawk]

Progress report!

So, my hobby, for now, is learning and collecting skills.

It's been four months. Let me touch on where I've been. I finished the 'Learning How to Learn' class on Coursera several months ago, and it was worth the effort. It gives a basic understanding of how the brain works in regards to learning, understanding, and memory, and where the research stands on how to best take advantage of that. I recommend it to anyone with an interest in learning.

I started with something simple - I built a few metal models (Metal Earth type stuff.) They're not especially complicated, but they're fun, and I've always been a little intimidate by the idea of working with metal, so I thought it might help (and it did, to a degree.) Besides, I'd seen them and thought they were cool looking. The process is more like putting together a puzzle than really being creative, but they're relaxing to work on, and I like them enough to revisit them from time to time.

I spent a couple of months working with epoxy resins, enough to work most of the bugs out of the system and feel confident about - if not getting professional results, at least not destroying projects. I have a few ideas I still want to explore with that, but a lot of it is implementations with other crafts.

Right now I'm the middle three things, which is enough to work on at once:

I'm returning to plastic modeling. It's an obvious choice, as I have 75% of the needed tools and materials already - there's a lot of overlap with miniatures, both in resources and skills. I've spent that last few weeks reading books, watching videos, and collecting the last few resources I need. I'm really focusing on the airbrushing angle right now, something that I invested in for miniatures, but never really took advantage of. I'm already realizing how little I really knew about it when I was just using for priming.

At the same time, I'm digging myself back into flight simulators. Virtual reality completely changes the experience, and the online resources are incredible compared to the last time I tried breaking into the hobby. Right now I'm working my way through a free online ground school for pilots, and I'm learning a ton.

Finally, I decided it was finally time to pick up one of the languages I've always wanted to learn, so I started the German course on Duolingo. I'm only about a week into the process, but I'm really enjoying myself, and finding myself looking for other resources online. I started with German only because I've always enjoyed the sound of the language, and a lot of my interests have intersected the language over the years. I've also wanted to learn Russian, and would like just enough French instruction to be able to pronounce the words I encounter in the wild (if I see a French word, there's a 9/10 chance I'm going to mispronounce it.) I do have some language background - a semester or a year (I don't remember which) of Spanish in junior high, a year of Latin in high school, and a semester of 5th century Attic Greek in college, but this is the first time I've learned a language on my own, with modern resources.

The last thing I'm trying to do is not get inspired to start anything else until I get a couple of these tamed!

[YellowKing]

German's awesome. I took 2 years in high school and 2 semesters in college. And while I've heard Spanish is easier, it's on the lower end of difficulty due to the numerous roots of English it has. Aside from the frustration of assigning genders to nouns, it's a pretty logical language.

I really should try to get back into it at some point. I tried Duolingo for a bit awhile back and really liked it.

[Carpet_pissr]

TL;DR version: Skip down to below the ***** if you don't want to read rambling personal narrative, and skip right to the project talk.

I've always been a creative, and while I put a crap ton of time and effort into creative hobbies, interests and pursuits (as well as formal education) before I graduated college, it's like I turned that part off of me (sadly), in the pursuit of a "real job" and one that paid me well. It wasn't such a black and white conscious decision...I just kind of drifted away from the arts, and into the business world.

Anyway, something I read this past year kind of stuck with me: for hints at finding what many people would call your "true calling", your passion, your meaning if you will...look no further than activities where you are completely in the zone. When you are doing that thing, you forget about time, you could do it for hours, it refreshes you, etc. Not necessarily all of those things, but I think you get the idea.

Creating does that for me, whether it's making absurdly detailed sand scupltures every time we go to the beach, absurdly detailed snow sculptures (though it hasn't snowed enough for that in a while, here), drawing, painting, playing piano, clay modeling, whatever. Things of that ilk really get me going, and I have denied them (except in very rare instances) for too long.

One very small example, but I have tons like this: my sister like to have our kids at her house for Easter, and it's kind of a tradition that I haul them up to her house the night before to spend the night. This year, I made some "candy delivery devices" to help her out since she has typically always done all the "Easter Bunny" work. So at the prompting of my wife, I "designed" three plain, brown bags, each one with a drawing (mixed media color pencils, cray-pa, pens) that kind of reflected each of my kids' personality, but Easter-based. I kind of surprised myself at how much I enjoyed it, how quickly I knocked them out (but while actually working, completely oblivious to the time), and how well they turned out. Quite a few peeps that came to visit that day (no, not all family thankyouverymuch!! ) seemed genuinely shocked, and I got more than a few "you HAVE to sell those!" It seems every time I take the time to do these KINDS of things (whether it's video editing/creation, drawing, sculpting, etc) I get overwhelmingly positive reactions from The World. Important: that's not to brag (trust me, I'm not THAT good, just better than the average bear), but to say I may have missed my calling completely, and hope to one day incorporate that into some kind of money making "career"?

***************
The Project: a wearable helmet based on the 'Ragnarok' skin from Fortnite (helmet only, currently, but planning on doing some armor as well):

My current project is getting a bit stale: it started about 2 years ago when my 9YO (at the time) son asked me to help him with his Halloween costume (side note - my kids very rarely ask me to do anything, but help with their Halloween costumes is a perennial ask, based on some things I have done in the past that they (and other kids) loved. Mostly face painting, but some costume design as well).

I don't remember how it even came about, but somehow he picked the Ragnarok skin from Fortnite. He didn't even play at the time (still doesn't), so I think he just happened to see a pic and thought it looked cool. So of course, off I go researching "Ragnarok helmet design" on Youtube. Came across this video of a guy who apparently teaches during the day, and does Cosplay design outside of teaching. He had done dozens if not more, different (amazing) costumes or just headwear based on viewer requests, and at the start of this particular design video, said "I've been creating Cosplay stuff for years, and am very familiar with the materials. I'm telling you now, this is by far the most difficult build I've ever done. Prepare youself." Of COURSE it is!!! LOL And me having never done anything like 3D design (at least not for wearing, and certainly not to the detail that Cosplay gets).

But I agreed with my son that it looked amazing, and made the decision that we would tackle it, torpedoes be damned.

Having never worked in that particular medium, I had to pretty much buy everything, from the specific kind of contact cement, to EVA foam, to a heat gun (initially I used a hair dryer), dremel, exacto knives and specific bits, etc. It also took me down the whole PlastiDip rabbit hole which I won't go into here (but let me just state that that stuff is COOL).

So we started with vigor on the project, and I spent countless hours just trying to LEARN about the process from a macro view, not necessarily to be able to make this helmet. The whole niche is just so very cool, and I LOVE working with EVA foam, as it's extremely workable and flexible, but also quite stiff and durable at the same time.

Right now I am in the final phase of the helmet itself, but I think I will also make some armor to go with it. A battle axe is probably too much, and might just end up buying one at Spirit or something.

I have cut and glued almost all the pieces (still missing: the teeth, and some various bits of helmet detail that you probably wouldn't notice unless you were looking closely. Still need to polish the whole thing, as it's very rough (I have NO idea how the guy on Youtube made his so smooth - I suspect he's using a higher quality EVA foam than what I bought, because mine is pilling like crazy when I sand it with the Dremel). Then plasti dip (2x). THEN the hard part (HA! The foam cutting and forming was absurdly difficult, and I still didn't get it as "right" as I would like) is the painting. That's more my forte, but for this particular item, if I want to make it look like the actual Fortnite skin, it's going to be super difficult (it's mostly (all?) bone, and that is super difficult to get to look right when painting/drawing).

I will post some pics with the current stage (now i wish I had been posting them all along to show the progress, because it's come a LONG way, after way too many hours) in a bit. I'm guessing another week until I finish it completely (hopefully).



Should I make a specific thread for this maybe? Or maybe a "COSPLAY DESIGN/CREATION" thread if we don't already have one?

[Blackhawk]

Should I make a specific thread for this maybe? Or maybe a "COSPLAY DESIGN/CREATION" thread if we don't already have one?

If you think it's worth a thread, it's worth a thread!

What you're doing sounds really cool. I've looked at some cosplay out there (and watched enough Tested) to know that it is something I'd really, really enjoy. It is also something that I don't have the space or resources to do the way I'd want to, so I'm happy to live vicariously through you!

[gbasden]

I will post some pics with the current stage (now i wish I had been posting them all along to show the progress, because it's come a LONG way, after way too many hours) in a bit. I'm guessing another week until I finish it completely (hopefully).

That's super cool!

[Jeff V]

My wife is only interested in me having a hobby or interest that generates income.

A few years ago, when her shopping videos were making $1000 per month on YouTube, a neighbor and I discussed the possibility of doing a vlog reviewing microbreweries, a "Two Fat Guys" sort of thing. My proposed partner in this was a lot younger (20-25 years), and my commentary would be along the lines of comments in the "Whatcha Drinking?" thread. It was the only time ever that my wife endorsed something that involved drinking.

Sadly, he moved to Ohio a year and a half ago and the idea died at that point. Maybe ILB would be interested in stepping in?

[Zarathud]

ILB does have an impressive knowledge of Chicago bars.

[Blackhawk]

This isn't mine, but something I found on a scale modeling group I follow. I thought it was interesting and might appeal to some here. It has to do with a way to transform a broken mouse. Click to embiggen.

Spoiler:

With all due credit to Mix_secret on Reddit.

[Carpet_pissr]

SO cool...I love seeing stuff like that (and doing them, too rarely unfortunately).

[Carpet_pissr]

I haven't made much progress on my *COUGH* my SON'S Ragnarok helmet, but here are some pics from today:


I've made so many mistakes on this, that if it weren't so close to Halloween, I would totally start over from scratch, and I'm pretty sure it would be epic. Of course that is part of (and a welcome part) the process, so yay I guess.

Mistakes I've made that are easily corrected:
1. Don't use air drying clay unless you KNOW you want something hard (and I am struggling to think of a situation where EVA would not work here). Or at least, don't use it until the final step before rubber coating/priming/painting.
2. I tried to initially use a type of caulk (for its flexibility after curing) to fill in gaps, and smooth out places, but this was probably the biggest mistake of the whole project. I failed to REALLY smooth it out (with water and finger), and if you let that stuff cure, there is no going back really. You can't sand it...so you have to remove it. And that makes a HUGE mess, and can really tear stuff up.
3. Make use of EVA foam in its raw form (goop in a bucket) whenever possible, instead of 1 and 2 above. Stuff is GLORIOUS, and spreads and fills very nicely when you add water and smooth with a finger (also like 1 and 2 above).
4. When making a helmet (or any wearable I guess), make sure to consider the size of the head that will wear said helmet, before making it. DOH!!!
5. Do NOT rubberize (in my case, PlastiDip) before you are SURE that you have FINISHED with the item you made. All cutting, all sanding, all add-ons, should be finished. Trying to sand plastidipped foam did not turn out well. I will just leave it at that.
6. Don't get married to a specific image of what you are trying to create (some big exceptions here, highly dependent on WHAT you are making of course). In this case, my son picked this "character" ONLY based on the fact that he liked the way it looked. He doesn't care a whit about it as "the Ragnarok skin from Fortnite". But initially, I tried hard (and spent hours as a result) to make it as accurate to the skin as possible. At some point, it hit me that he didn't care at all about fidelity (hell, he asked if we could paint it black and put blood on ends of horns!), so I pivoted from that. Was planning to do the blue beard and all that, but we both agreed that that was weak, aesthetically (along with the blue tipped horns), so we agreed to drop it. Is it the Ragnarok skin without the signature blue beard and blue horns? Nope! Do I care? Nope!! (And thank Jeebus, too, because I am not sure how I would pull that beard off, well)


I am spending too much time piddling on sanding and dinky things. WAY past time to just go ahead and start with the Plasti-dipping and based spray coats.

Also, if this intrudes too much on the spirit of this thread, lmk and I will just do a separate one.

[Unagi]

That is looking great. How do you go about Plasti-dipping something like that?

[Carpet_pissr]

Thanks.

Spray cans. Two coats. Then a white acrylic spray primer or paint on top of those.

After I took these pics, I decided the teeth were too small, son concurred, so I yanked the two largest teeth out, made two new larger ones, and put the old teeth back in new spots (replacing existing, smaller ones).

Looks quite a bit better. Unfortunately I had already plastidipped the whole helmet earlier, twice, (also after these photos were taken) and used both the cans I had. That means the new teeth won’t get dipped, but I suspect it will not be that noticeable.

[Paingod]

So now I can continue these hobbies with video games. And they don't take up any physical space.

That's a part of why I like computer games. Everything about it is cleaner and easier to manage than other hobbies. Some people see it as "video games" being just one thing but I see it as an array of activities that happen to take place in one spot. There's a substantial difference in how a game engages me if it's a FPS, turn-based tactical, RPG, city-builder, space epic, etc. I get in different "moods" to play different kinds of games. I've been playing video games since I was 6 and we had an Atarii 2600. 37 years of video games.

Outside of gaming, I've recently taken up plastic models again and am enjoying the process a whole lot more than before. I'm really getting into painting tiny details inside things and trying to make it all look as good as I can. I'm fairly sure I'll just end up tossing the finished products, though. I have nowhere to store them, nowhere to display them, and don't really love WWII combat vehicles as much as I like the process of making them.

I love board games but have no one to play with, so I play solo on things like Eldritch Horror. It takes time to set up and hours to play - and I lose more than I win.

I have a drone that I don't fly anywhere near often enough. It was a substantial investment - both time and money - and it's been boxed up for months now. I took a course on it years ago and wanted to really get into it. It turned out that after I flew around my neighborhood and a few other places, I wasn't really sure what my objective was. While cool to fly, just flying in circles gets repetitive.

I have a lathe that I wanted to like but couldn't get into. That may be because all of my practice work was with shitty wood that just explodes on the lathe. I wasn't sure if I wanted to invest in kiln-dried blocks of wood or other things. Along with this I acquired a vacuum chamber for working with resin and haven't made anything with that at all. The intent was to create cool resin blocks I could turn on the lathe but all I made was a big, toxic mess in the first few attempts - and resin is expensive.

I'm also going back to college to complete a Bachelor's in Business Leadership to help augment my career path away from front-lines tech support/hands-on IT management to full-time management roles where I may never have to personally pull apart another desktop printer or configure a firewall. IT really tends to be a young person's game - late nights, off hours, rapid response, etc. I think I'm still keeping up at 43 as well as I did 16 years ago, but I hear too many stories about older IT people having difficulty getting into new roles as they age.

[Blackhawk]

I love PC gaming for a lot of the same reasons. Still, I found that I missed handling physical objects and having full control of them (as opposed to being limited by what the program allowed you to do.)

FWIW, in regards to DBT's original comment, I also have a lot of money spent on hobbies that I'll never indulge in again, but I don't consider it money wasted, anymore than money spent on a game that is played and then uninstalled is wasted, or a movie paid for, watched, and returned is wasted. I spent the money to have an experience, and I had that experience. I got what I wanted, and I got what I paid for. Spending money purely on the stuff for the sake of having the stuff can be a hobby too - investing, or collecting based on value (which is really just another form of investing.) But I never had much interest in that, partially because that kind of collecting requires a fair amount of resources to begin with, resources that are locked away once spent.

Outside of gaming, I've recently taken up plastic models again and am enjoying the process a whole lot more than before. I'm really getting into painting tiny details inside things and trying to make it all look as good as I can. I'm fairly sure I'll just end up tossing the finished products, though. I have nowhere to store them, nowhere to display them, and don't really love WWII combat vehicles as much as I like the process of making them.

I gave myself two shelves for all of my craft projects combined. I will put new pieces and favorites on those two shelves. When they're full, they're full. If I add something new, something else comes off and gets stored. It allows me to look at my stuff and show it off for a while, but still keep building without eating up too much space.

[Carpet_pissr]

Update on the Fortnite Ragnarok helmet…which turned into pauldrons as well as the pickaxe. :p

Didn’t get pickaxe finished in time for Halloween and barely got there on painting the helmet (cut a lot of corners I normally would not have).

For a first try, I’m pretty pleased with outcome. Learned a lot. Could probably make this helmet in less than half the time it took for this one, and would look lots better. Note that I only did the helmet and pauldrons. Rest of costume was done by my wife. Had I been more ambitious I would have done the whole thing (greaves, etc)



Next up: Star Wars blaster

If I find out I can crank these out, I might try to sell some.