I'm an ex-pat Brit, and after being assigned to an engineering project close to the border between The Mainland and Hong Kong back in 1996, I’ve kind of been based in Asia ever since; apart from my company deciding to make us live in Dubai for three years during 2004 to 2007. Whereupon we returned to residing in my wife’s home town up in Bohai Bay, around halfway between Beijing and the coast of Korea.
As a kid I had painted a few figures; however, by the time I was in my late-teens motorcycles and girlfriends had taken over as being much more interesting activities. I got back into the painting hobby in 2008 but soon became bored of just putting the finished miniatures into a display cabinet. So I've built a considerable number of small dioramas and vignettes down the years and found this approach to be pretty rewarding, although there are certain drawbacks.
The solution to our house being overrun with this stuff was to, (supposedly on a temporary and rotating basis), give the wife's “Old Uncle Ho” a few dioramas -- and I’m told he's put them on display behind the reception area of the 2-star hotel he built on his spread around 6 miles outside of town -- to general "Ooh's and Aah's" from his clientele. I also loaned out a few to the Son-in-Law who had been bugging the life out of me for some of the larger examples so he could "show them off" to visitors turning up at his Condo -- who have "never seen anything like it". Apparently.
Realizing I should’ve known better, and the chances of ever getting any of these dioramas back ranged from Zero to No Chance -- I came up with the idea of creating slideshows that were intended to provide a semi-permanent record of the stuff I've done. I then had the further "good idea" of uploading them in MP4 format to YouTube, where I knew they'd be de-monetized due to the embedded audio tracks. But that's okay as I get enough hassle from Customs Officials questioning my motives every single time I try to import kit figures from the UK, without also having to explain why I'm receiving what would likely be pittance payments from YT in any case -- when it's one of the many websites that are blocked nationwide by my ISP. It's an easy enough fix, but probably wise not to go into too much detail here on how to get around it.
Unfortunately, the initial slideshows weren’t great and it gradually dawned that watching painted figures filmed on a turntable is about as interesting as watching a goldfish swimming around and around in its bowl. Although I'll admit there's a certain enjoyment to be derived from putting the MP4's onto a flashdrive and torturing unsuspecting visitors by forcing them to watch my attempts to be the new Tarantino on the TV in our living room...
I’ve recently began addressing the "boring" issue by adding some commentary and stories to the slides, but it’ll take ages to sort them all out, so it’s kind of an ongoing project. Keeps me out of getting into too much trouble though.
Okay, that’s enough waffle about my (very) amateur MP4 slideshow’s for now.
Other Likes/Preferences:-
Music; most genre’s but mainly Blues, Soul, R’n’B and Classic Rock from the Age of the Dinosaurs.
Movies; Film Noir and Historical Drama; Cheesy Hammer Horrors and anything else that’s either deliberately or unintentionally funny.
Reading; Nothing too cerebral, or requiring much effort. Mainly Historical Fiction and Fantasy similar to the likes of R.E. Howard, or David Gemmell’s first two or three books before he started writing-by-numbers.
Figure Painting Preferences; mainly, but not limited to, Samurai-Era Japan, Greek Mythology, and “almost believable” Fantasy with a Dark Age Norse/Germanic/Celtic flavor.
Meanwhile, I'll be spending some time over the next few weeks exploring other areas of the forum instead of just looking around in the Galleries.
Cheers
Moderator
