Welcome to my blog 365 Days of Paint. I am a 39 year old man-child and father of a 3 year old boy, I work in the IT industry and love digital and analog gaming. In September 2016 I suffered a stroke and it changed my life forever. After two ambulance rides; let me tell you not as cool from the inside, and 7 days in the hospital I was being discharged. I went from lost complete control of my left arm in Triage to hey I can kinda twitch my thumb on the left hand. How is this all going to work? I can barely dress myself let alone change a diaper, cook, or help out at the moment.
What kind of life did I have left?
As someone who doubts everything it felt like I was standing on the bottom of the Mariana's trench looking up at the top of Mt. Everest.
I spent the next year working on myself again. Physio, Doctors, weekly Bloodtests, Gym, Pool, Gym, Pool, Gym, Pool, Gym, Pool.
Oh and did I mention the:
I am happy to report that I am down to 6 per day now from 12 and a blood thinner injection.
Anyways, I had three goals I set for myself when I was at the start, work on my Body, Mind, and Soul.
The Body part was being taken care of with very low sodium diet and exercise + a lot of physio.
The Mind part was the most fun for me. Playing board games, working my way up from fillers to medium euros has helped me in returning some logic and memory to my rattled brain. I hope to try some cool heavies some day. Recommend me a splotter!
The Soul part is under development, discovering a spiritual side I never knew I had and also working into my life some added creativity. Who knew that would be painting minis?
My short term memory was really bad after the stroke; my wife would remind me it's still bad now, but I think it's improved a lot.
I felt like I was in a haze all the time
and instead of grasping the sword of the king my sword happened to be a Windsor Series 7 Miniature Brush.
After 3 Months of not having a driving license; after a stroke you are legally supposed to give up your license until you are cleared medically, I cleared the tests. My hand was coming along nicely I had worked my way from picking up objects the size of tennis balls then down to poker chips and dried beans. It was a daily competition between my toddler son and I as to who had developed the best motor skills. At this point I was told by my physiotherapists to start working down to those super tiny beads.
How boring! Why not meeples and tokens instead?
Golden Age of Boardgames
Since the stroke I have rediscovered a passion for analog gaming. Probably due the fact at the time that I could not control the analog stick very well anymore on a game pad. In my youth I had Heroquest, Stratego, Risk, Pictionary, UNO, Dungeons and Dragons 2nd ed., and Settlers of Catan. But once Post Secondary hit I never really played many board games anymore because..well outside!
Growing up I used to go to the Sentry Box when it was located in the funky area of Marda Loop here in Calgary, it was the place I would get all my D&D supplies. I'd seen it in it's current location in Sunalta all the time driving down Bow Trail but never stopped in.
Determined this time, I went in and grabbed some gateway games and then I walked past the section with all the wonderful Fantasy Flight Games goodness and I knew that I wassunk home. Star Wars: Armada, X-Wing, and Imperial Assault so pretty on the shelf. What is a man to do after just watching the fleet battle at Scarif in Rogue One?...buy Armada of course!
I need to pause here and thank some folks, Matt, Paul and the rest of the Armada meta here in Calgary Area for taking me under their wing and showing me the ropes. I still lose all the time but at least I can take some things out before I do and still have a lot of fun. Group Buy anyone?
I cannot of course forget the other two legs of Team Tripod, for being up to play any crazy game I bring to the table! I have been missing our Meeting of the Minds these past few weeks.
So what is the purpose of this blog?
Well what is one thing that board games; especially the Ameritrash that I love so much, come with? Miniatures! Hunks of pale white or grey and any color in between plastic that sit on the board. Which are functional but could do with a fresh coat of paint. As many Miniature painters have discovered your queue is never ending.
So I have created this blog to serve as a journal in my journey as a painter of miniatures. I want to record what I am doing for an entire year in the hobby of analog gaming. Primarily modelling, painting, some battle reports, cool board games and experiences playing them. Just to give you a litmus of where I am in terms of experience. I first picked up a brush to paint Star Wars Armada Squadrons on January 3rd, 2017. I am very interested to see how much I can improve in my second year.
In my queue I will be tackling a lot of Star Wars, War of the Ring, Zombicide, Flash Point, Infinity, Aristeia!, Gloomhaven, Kingdom Death: Monster, Dark Souls, and more!
I invite you to follow along with me when I start on January 1st, 2018. For now I will be posting some write ups on games to get my brain into blogging mode and provide some context to what you will be seeing throughout the painting process.
What kind of life did I have left?
As someone who doubts everything it felt like I was standing on the bottom of the Mariana's trench looking up at the top of Mt. Everest.
I spent the next year working on myself again. Physio, Doctors, weekly Bloodtests, Gym, Pool, Gym, Pool, Gym, Pool, Gym, Pool.
Oh and did I mention the:
I am happy to report that I am down to 6 per day now from 12 and a blood thinner injection.
Anyways, I had three goals I set for myself when I was at the start, work on my Body, Mind, and Soul.
The Body part was being taken care of with very low sodium diet and exercise + a lot of physio.
The Mind part was the most fun for me. Playing board games, working my way up from fillers to medium euros has helped me in returning some logic and memory to my rattled brain. I hope to try some cool heavies some day. Recommend me a splotter!
The Soul part is under development, discovering a spiritual side I never knew I had and also working into my life some added creativity. Who knew that would be painting minis?
My short term memory was really bad after the stroke; my wife would remind me it's still bad now, but I think it's improved a lot.
I felt like I was in a haze all the time
and instead of grasping the sword of the king my sword happened to be a Windsor Series 7 Miniature Brush.
After 3 Months of not having a driving license; after a stroke you are legally supposed to give up your license until you are cleared medically, I cleared the tests. My hand was coming along nicely I had worked my way from picking up objects the size of tennis balls then down to poker chips and dried beans. It was a daily competition between my toddler son and I as to who had developed the best motor skills. At this point I was told by my physiotherapists to start working down to those super tiny beads.
How boring! Why not meeples and tokens instead?
Golden Age of Boardgames
Since the stroke I have rediscovered a passion for analog gaming. Probably due the fact at the time that I could not control the analog stick very well anymore on a game pad. In my youth I had Heroquest, Stratego, Risk, Pictionary, UNO, Dungeons and Dragons 2nd ed., and Settlers of Catan. But once Post Secondary hit I never really played many board games anymore because..well outside!
Growing up I used to go to the Sentry Box when it was located in the funky area of Marda Loop here in Calgary, it was the place I would get all my D&D supplies. I'd seen it in it's current location in Sunalta all the time driving down Bow Trail but never stopped in.
Determined this time, I went in and grabbed some gateway games and then I walked past the section with all the wonderful Fantasy Flight Games goodness and I knew that I was
I need to pause here and thank some folks, Matt, Paul and the rest of the Armada meta here in Calgary Area for taking me under their wing and showing me the ropes. I still lose all the time but at least I can take some things out before I do and still have a lot of fun. Group Buy anyone?
I cannot of course forget the other two legs of Team Tripod, for being up to play any crazy game I bring to the table! I have been missing our Meeting of the Minds these past few weeks.
So what is the purpose of this blog?
Well what is one thing that board games; especially the Ameritrash that I love so much, come with? Miniatures! Hunks of pale white or grey and any color in between plastic that sit on the board. Which are functional but could do with a fresh coat of paint. As many Miniature painters have discovered your queue is never ending.
So I have created this blog to serve as a journal in my journey as a painter of miniatures. I want to record what I am doing for an entire year in the hobby of analog gaming. Primarily modelling, painting, some battle reports, cool board games and experiences playing them. Just to give you a litmus of where I am in terms of experience. I first picked up a brush to paint Star Wars Armada Squadrons on January 3rd, 2017. I am very interested to see how much I can improve in my second year.
In my queue I will be tackling a lot of Star Wars, War of the Ring, Zombicide, Flash Point, Infinity, Aristeia!, Gloomhaven, Kingdom Death: Monster, Dark Souls, and more!
I invite you to follow along with me when I start on January 1st, 2018. For now I will be posting some write ups on games to get my brain into blogging mode and provide some context to what you will be seeing throughout the painting process.
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