With 2021 being a near-complete write off hobby-wise, here's hoping 2022 will be a fresh new start

This year, of which there is a single day remaining, has been a near-total write off in terms of what I have achieved hobby-wise. Most of very little work done this year has comprised assembling, priming, and some basecoating. Personally, it was a miserable year for content creation.

 Will 2022 signal a fresh start for my hobby exploits? I hope so. I really do. And with the new year soon to be upon us, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you a Happy New Year. More importantly, may you and yours be blessed with good health in the year to come. Cheers!

Reorganizing my Vallejo paint collection, and deciding which colors to use for the Girl's Rider figurine

As the holiday mood slowly sinks its talons into my already snail-paced hobby schedule, it's safe to things are basically at a standstill. With things in the real world similarly in a perpetual pandemic induced semi-lockdown, I guess it's fitting this whole year has been a write off hobby-wise. But a bit of good news on the vaccination front for the missus and me. We finally got our Pfizer-BioNTech booster shots to complement the rapidly ineffectual Sinovac-Coronavac shots we were given earlier. With the Omicron variant already at our shores, it's a timely booster (pun unintended) for the family to grasp at a semblance of 'normal' life or should I say a new normal. But I digress ... this post is about colors.   

Reorganizing my Vallejo paint collection was a task that was a long time coming 

 Previously my entire collection of Vallejo acrylic paints was placed in plastic boxes of varying sizes and located in different sections of the house. So every time I wanted to paint something, a lot of time was needlessly expended on locating the specific colors I needed for a scheme. And at the missus's behest amidst one of her Marie Kondo-like spring cleaning sessions, I had to finally organize my paints. It helped that she took the time to source an appropriately-sized shelf to store my Vallejo paints. The image below shows how the paint bottles are now so much more easily accessible.      

Seeing all the colors organized in one place is a truly heart warming experience 

Finally my paint bottles are readily accessible within the hobby area 

 As for the colors I'll need for the 1/12 scale Girl's Rider figurine, I've so far narrowed it down to about 22 colors with a view to add or subtract from this total as I progress along the project timeline. Having selected acrylic colors for the next stage of the painting process, it means that I have chosen painting-by-hand as opposed to air brushing as my primary technique going forward for the Girl's Rider figurine. Apart from some mild application of oil paints it won't be practical to use more 'aggressive' paint types such lacquer, which is largely applied via air brushing, atop the acrylic paint layers.  

Colors that have been selected for the Girl's Rider figurine project

 After nearly five years of faithful service, it was time to retire my old iPhone 7 Plus. Replacing it, hopefully for the next five years, is the new iPhone 13 Pro Max from Apple. Among the criteria for my new mobile phone was that it has to be future-proofed (the lighting port technology notwithstanding) and it had to have an excellent camera system. With my 10-year-old DSLR camera not being particularly suited for video recording, the new iPhone will function as the de facto video recorder, as well as an occasional go-to photography tool to complement the DSLR camera.     

Macro shots with the iPhone 13 Pro Max is pretty good for a non-DSLR camera system

 How can this new macro function in the 13 Phone Pro Max help in the painting process, you might wonder. Well now I can easily and quickly take macro shots without fumbling with a bulky DSLR and tripod. While the quality might not reach the levels of a DSLR camera with a dedicated macro lens, the images are good enough that I can quickly spot mistakes I had made during the painting process itself and fix the errors without too much disruption to my workflow. What do I mean by this?

Extreme closeup of the Vallejo Model Color paint bottles using the latest iPhone camera system

 Well, the workflow might go something like: paint > notice possible error > take a quick hand-held macro shot > visually isolate and clarify specifics of the error > clean up said error > take another quick macro shot to see result > so on and so forth. This is essential for me because I find it difficult to paint in real-time with the help of any form of artificial magnification such as lenses. In future posts, I'll try to explain why the macro shots taken by the iPhone 13 Pro camera system still cannot rival those taken by a DSLR camera with a dedicated macro lens. But it's good enough as a painting tool and for a mobile phone, the iPhone 13 Pro Max takes a pretty decent macro shot. On that note I'm off to explore the video and photography possibilities of the 13 Pro Max. Cheers, stay safe, and be well.