Weekly Waffle #326 – That’s a Wrap for another year.
30th March 2024
Well that has been a very full on few days. I’m going to start with a bit of an apology for not doing more updates whilst I was away. But I’m my defence I was enjoying myself and just didn’t sit down to write up an update each day. Then once I had missed a few days it was just too much of a job to catch up.
So with that out of the way what do I have for you today. Well for a starter I have a lot of pictures. I have done something of a photo dump into a new Adepticon gallery but there are also lots of pictures that I have in the post covering some of the things I saw did with my time away.
I didn’t do as many classes this time round as I normally do but I do feel that I got more out of the once I have done. By that I think what I’m trying to say is that I haven’t overloaded myself and that I will actually be able to put some of the things into practice.
But before I get into all the detail I have to bring up the subject of pizza. On each of our previous trips we have had a proper Chicago deep dish pizza from Giordano’s and it has become something of a tradition. But this time we had been told to try Pequod’s. Because it was a bit of a way from our hotel we had a normal pizza from Palor on the first night and it was very good and I would highly recommend it if you are ever in Chicago. On the Tuesday we visited Wrigley Field and then took in a few sights in the loop before having a few beers. It turned out the bar we were in, The Berghoff Bar, was the first one to be granted a liquor licence after prohibition.
The main event however was our trip to Pequod’s to try their deep dish pizza. I have to say the visit was well worth the time and could not recommend it highly enough. This was by a long way the best deep dish pizza I have ever eaten. If you ever visit Chicago then you have to book a table and visit Pequod’s.
As for Adepticon itself we spent a large part of our first evening there queuing up for different things. First to get our actual ticket or pass which for me is always the worst part of the event. You have put all that effort in to be there and then you have to spend even more time queuing to get your ticket. I know it’s needed but I just don’t like it. If they are ever able to post you pass out to international attendees like they can for those in the US then I would take that option in a heart beat.
After queuing for the pass it was then into the queue for the Games Workshop preview event. They had a massive audience for this with every seat taken and a lot of people standing. Now at the risk of sounding like I’m a GW hater I was very disappointed with this. There was a packed auditorium and they played a video. They billed it as a movie, but it was just what has been available on line a few days later. Don’t get me wrong it was well produced and informative. But they had a live audience and there was just nothing special about what they did. If you hung around later you could try and have a chat with some of the staff who were there but it just felt lacking. They had a chance to really engage with a passionate audience and they just didn’t.
On the first full day I had a few classes today and I really enjoyed them. In past years I’ve tried to cram in as much as I can and there hasn’t really been any thread to the classes I’ve taken. This time round I’ve tried to hone in a couple of specific things. Today was all about getting things finished. I’m terrible at starting something and then moving on to the next thing before I’ve finished. So today was all about painting armies in such a way that you can get a unit table top ready quickly. But in such a way that you can come back to it and improve it when you get time. You are always leaving yourself a way to improve. It centres around getting the basics or in this case the base coat right and moving on from there. I’m not sure how many armies I’m going to paint but getting the base coat right first time is something I’m really going to focus on.
In the evening we went to Trapped Under Plastic Live with Jon and Scott featuring the legend that is Vince. The format was a bit different to the normal show with the audience asking them questions. It was really good although there were a couple of really cringe worthy questions that really dragged on. But they handled these really well and there were some really fun and bizarre questions. This was one of the highlights for me. It wasn’t available on YouTube at the time of writing but I’m sure it will be there soon. There is a link at the bottom of the page to their channel which I would highly recommend checking out.
I had a couple more classes on the Friday with the brush skills one with El Kaye being the one I had really been looking forward to. For me this was all about going back to basics and trying to get my foundations right. I know I have picked up lots of bad habits over the years and this was all about trying to understand what they are and how to correct them. A lot to try and get out of a two hour class but I think it really worked for me. The instructor was really calm and spent a great deal of time with each of us looking at and correcting what we were doing. There was no rocket science or magic techniques just how to do the basics right. And I will be trying to implement these in everything I do going forward. For me this class was the real highlight of the event and I really do feel that with practice I can improve my painting as a result.
I also did a wet blending class which didn’t go as well but I do feel I rally have the principles of what I need to do. It’s now all about practice, and practice and then more practice. I might even do a separate set of posts on how that practice goes which could be a real laugh to see how bad I am at it. We did get a really cool mini to practice on though. I’ll be cleaning it up and painting it again in the next few weeks because it is really fun.
I also did a class on understanding highlights and shadows. The brush skills from the other day started to pay off in this class but again I think this is one that needs a lot more practice. The instructor was really good and my main issue was not pushing the highlights enough. He said as a rule of thumb if you think you have done enough go a bit further. If you think you have gone too far you are probably where you need to be. Again I got a lot out of this class and it’s something I’m going to concentrate on going forward.
As well as all the classes there were loads of games taking place and the whole feel of the event this year was much more upbeat than in 2022. It really did feel like it had its mojo back with people mingling much more and the just being much more of a buzz about the place. There were lots of really nicely painted armies, which to my chagrin I didn’t get pictures of. But on the X-Wing tables was one of the coolest minis I’ve ever seen. It might not mean much to those outside the UK but when the RAC turn up someone is having a bad day.
The other small thing that I think is worth covering is of course Golden Demon. I made daily trips to the cabinets to see what was in there. It’s interesting to see how people hold on to there entries until later in the week. I don’t know if that is because they are working on them, they don’t arrive until later in the week or there is tactical reason. The standard of everything I saw was high. Although there was a very noticeable difference between those that did well and the rest. It was also very inspiring to see what people have been working on and getting ideas for things to try in the future.
Having stopped until the end and watch the awards ceremony I still have no idea how the winners are chosen. Everything was very, very good I just personally thought I would have put some things in a different order. I have never even entered the competition and even if I did I wouldn’t have been able to do anything as good as these entries.
Here are a few of the entries that I took pictures of and you can see some high quality pictures of the winners here.
You can see more images here on the Golden Demon pages
That just about wraps up my summary of Adepticon 2024. I had a really good time this year and would definitely be looking to go back again in 2026. It’s also an event I would recommend to anyone. One of my takeaways is to put some extra effort into my painting and to develop some new skills.
Pete has also suggested that we have a go at golden demon in the UK next year. We have come up with the plan to both paint up a Grot for the single miniature class. Now just to manage expectations up front it doesn’t mean we will actually enter but we have to have something ready to enter. I’m up for this and think it will be a good challenge regardless of whether it gets entered or not. I’m not sure which Grot to paint but I do have a couple of ideas floating around in my head. So I will be painting a lot of Grots this year as practice.
That’s it for this week’s weekly waffle and things will be back to normal next week. Until then I hope you all keep up with your hobby projects and have a good week.
