40 for 40: July

 Finally, a chance to catch up with the gigs!

Weight

Target weight loss: 210lbs. Current weight: 230lbs. Weight lost this month: 4lbs.

That’s more like it! To be perfectly honest, I’m not entirely sure how this happened, as I haven’t done anything substantially different to what I’ve been doing in previous months, but it seems to be working a little better this time. I’m on course for the year, so let’s hope it continues into August!

Board Games

This month: 2. Total so far: 44

There hasn’t been as much time for board games this month as there was in the last, which is unfortunate but I’m past the 40-game goal now anyway so I’m not going to worry too much about it. We played Forbidden Skies at my brother’s house last week, which is part of the “Forbidden” series of games – enjoyable co-op games about surviving an increasingly hostile environment. Skies comes with having to build an electrical circuit before you either get struck by lighting too many times or blown off the edge of the field, and with all five of us playing, we lost – Mark and Liz beat it later though.

We also played Magic Laybrinth, which is a nice enough game to play, if a little frustrating in places. I used the harder map this time, as we’ve played this a few times before – not this year, but still…

Gigs

This month: 13. Total so far: 22

That was a more productive month than I’ve managed so far! Much of this was through work, and for safeguarding reasons I won’t be posting any details about that here. But I was very pleasantly surprised when someone I knew at school called Steve got in contact with me and asked me to play Halesowen Carnival! I was available on the afternoon and was happy to oblige. I also played an open mic at the Chindit in Wolverhampton the Black Country Music Festival with Sam Draisey and the Revolt, and the usual show at the Assisted Living centre.

Video Games

This month: 1. Total so far: 11

I thought I’d managed more this month, and I did make some progress on one or two long-form games I’ve been playing, but the only one I reached the end of was a game called Gris on the PS5. I’d heard about this indie-platformer from various online sources, and I found it to be quite a languid experience for the most part – but enjoyable in its own way. I reached the end of the game without having to look up the answers to any of the critical puzzles, which is always a plus, and I might go back and get all the collectables later – in which case I will count the game twice. My challenge, my rules, and if I’m sufficiently dedicated to a game to complete it 100%, that deserves recognition too.

Models Painted

This month: 6. Total so far: 44

My first project for this month was the Barbarian from the Heroquest set, as another old friend called Steve got in touch with me and asked if I’d like to join his DnD group – I like to at least have a mini for myself, even if I’ve borrowed it from another game. For this one, I made the deliberate decision to paint this entirely with layering, with a smattering of dry brushing when the raised details were needed. I wanted to see what I could achieve without washes and contrasts, and I think it came out pretty well.

The second one was the Stormcast Eternals from the Age of Sigmar Ultimate Starter Set. I think these ones are called the Liberators; all the Stormcast Units are called something like that with no sense of irony about them at all. This was my first real attempt at what has become known as “slapchop” painting, and I think it worked quite well; when painting white, it works best if it’s an off-white – start white is too much, and as I’ve painted these from blue, it looks a lot better than it might otherwise have done.

This brings my model painting goals to an end – but it feels like I’m just getting started…