Category Archives: Games

Fun, Games, Photography, Pirate Party, When Imagination Fails

What was done last year. 2023 Edition.

January 7, 2024 James O'Keefe

This year’s non-work accomplishments in statistics. FWIW:

Pirates

Organized one, two, ? surveillance camera mapping events.

Attended the Boston Anarchist Bookfair and organized the Pirate Party table. Worked the table for both days with Steve, Micky and Alex.

Organized the pirate contingent of and marched in the Trans Resistance March. Marched in the XR Boston contingent at Honk! Took too many photos/videos. Still haven’t finished editing or posting them.

28 Pirate News recordings. That count was fewer than the forty we recorded in 2022. Ran 24 meetings and four quarterly conferences. Didn’t send enough email updates. Probably sent too many social media posts.

Photography

Created 4016+ photos. Shared 106 on my two Flickr accounts and more in text messages to family and friends. Particularly happy with this one:

Took my son’s high school yearbook photograph. He was pleased. Photographed 20+ co-workers for id photos. Learned a bit about NX Tether.

Attended Victoria Sambunaris‘ talk at the Photographic Resource Center‘s Speaker Series. Attended PHSNE‘s Photographica for the second year.

Attended at least two school drama performances. Photographed one of them. Haven’t posted the photographs. Really should.

Attended two art exhibits (Hokusai and Sargent). Wanted to attend two more, but didn’t. Took too many photographs. Haven’t posted a single one. 🙁

I reviewed the Ulanzi foldable half cage.

Reading

Bought or received twenty nine “books”. Read six “books” fully, but didn’t keep to my 1/month. I use books in quotations since I am padding my numbers by including two Framelines Magazines, which I did read cover to cover, but that isn’t a big accomplishment.

Games

Played in one miniature game (at Havoc), which is the same number I played in 2022.

Finished painting 64 1/285th scale microarmor miniatures. They have been in a state of not yet done for years. Still need to Dullcoat them. Haven’t taken photos of them and posted them. Got part way through another 56. May finish those this month. They are wheeled vehicles, so may is the operative word.

Must have cleaned, glued and primed 500+ microarmor/nauts. Also, cleaned, based and primed 54 modern soviet airborne infantry stands. The basing was frustrating, but yielded the most satisfaction. Maybe I will write up my process.

The degree I increased my “pile of potential” when I should be finishing figures is depressing, so I will ignore it.

Office

Most of my office was done last year (?), but one wall remained that needed patching and painting as I have previous mounted electronics to it. I patched and primed it.

Realizing I was in over my head (decade old color matching, paint that finally dried in the cans, ugh), hired someone to paint it (and another room I patched and primed). They did a great job and dealt with my primer color misadventure. During the break, my friend David and I put up the wall shelves I have sat on for … 6 months?

Considering that the walls are not at aligned to gravity, I am pleased how it came out.

Now I just need to move books on to the shelves.

I’ll leave it at that and post about 2024 goals hopefully in January.

By Will Alone, Miniatures, When Imagination Fails

Naval politics by other means

December 11, 2023 James O'Keefe

This year, Chinese coast guard ships escalated their harassment of Philippine vessels in Philippine waters that China claims as its own. Their tactics include cutting vessels off, flooding vessels with water cannons and the occasional bout of bumper boats.

Time to paint the Chinese and Philippine coast guard ships I have had for over a year, get out the fishing boats I have and a copy of David Manley’s Cod War and play a game.

Viking Forge WW1 Generic Fishing Trawlers

Miniatures, Photography, When Imagination Fails

A Selection of Viking Forge 1/2400 Ship Miniatures

December 4, 2023 James O'Keefe

Here are a selection of photos of Viking Forge 1/2400 ship miniatures I picked up in the last year (or longer). All are Cold War/Modern. Unfortunately, Viking Forge doesn’t yet have photos of a number of them.

The photos with multiple miniatures were focus stacked. I tried to get the white balance correct, but they may be off.

German

American

Miniatures, When Imagination Fails

Belated goodbye to gak8346

January 15, 2023 James O'Keefe

Last year, I learned that gak8346, the painter of most of my modern warship miniatures, died.

His name was Garry Allan Kinsey. We only chatted via eBay messages or blog comments, but he was always personable and dedicated to his craft and his fans/customers. Reading his obituary, he sounds like a modeler I and many others wished we could meet in person.

You can find more about him in his obituary. I sent my condolences the old fashioned way. He was a good man and his death will be difficult for his family. I hope the fond memories they have of him will carry them forward for years to come. If you wish, please post on his memorial wall.

He later found out about my archive of 1/2400 scale post-World War 2 ship photographs and I appreciate that he approved of my inclusion of his photographs. Here are a selection of posts that include his photographs. Just look for the ones photographed on a blue surface with white caps:

You can find more perusing the blog or my archive of 1/2400 scale post-World War 2 ship photographs. Just look for the ones with gak8346 in the file name.

Sorry it has taken me this long to post a remembrance, Garry. You shared your art with the world and will be sorely missed.

Miniatures, When Imagination Fails

Latest Fleet Additions

August 14, 2020 James O'Keefe Leave a comment

Finally got around to photographing and uploading my latest set of 1/2400 ship miniatures. I cannot claim that I painted the ships. That honor goes to gak8346 who has a far better eye for painting small modern ships than I do. I’ll stick to other miniatures.

I played with focus stacking and using HeliconFocus got a number of photos of ships at oblique angles. Some post-Cold War GHQ ships:

GHQ Arleigh Burke Destroyer 1/2400 miniature

I based the Arleigh Burke IIA destroyer as the USS Hudner, which I photographed when it was being commissioned in Boston.

And one from Dutch Fleet Naval Miniatures on Shapeways:

Spearhead EPF post-Cold War 1/2400 miniature

As well as some Cold War era ships:

PFC C-in-C Spruance VLS Destroyer 1/2400 miniature

PFC C-in-C Spruance Destroyer 1/2400 miniature

PFC C-in-C Garcia Frigate 1/2400 miniature

Some of the mini-carriers nice and based:

GHQ JMSDF Izumo Helicopter Destroyer 1/2400 miniature - based

GHQ USS Wasp LHD 1/2400 miniature - based

Finally finished the Tarawa-class LHA:

PFC-CinC USS Peleliu LHA 1/2400 miniature - based

Bill’s Models was nice enough to create some ships at my request, so I had to get them, including some USNS RO-ROs:

USNS Bobo maritime prepositioning ship 1/2400 miniature - based

USNS Bob Hope prepositioning RO-RO 1/2400 miniature - based

USNS Gordon RO-RO 1/2400 miniature - based

USNS Shughart RO-RO 1/2400 miniature - based

USNS Watson RO-RO 1/2400 miniature - based

And some merchant ships:

LNG Square Tanker 1/2400 miniature - based

Dry Stores Cargo Ship 1/2400 miniature - based

They are all decent ships, but if you are starting out with adding merchant or RO-ROs to your collection, I recommend getting some of the US ships from Viking Forge such as the Sealift Pacific, Cape Isabel and Algol.

There are more pictures from this upload in my 1/2400 Naval Miniatures photo album as well as pictures I shared in the past. You can just cycle through them below:

Miniatures, When Imagination Fails

Latest 1/2400 Viking Forge Ships

June 17, 2019 James O'Keefe Leave a comment

Every week I plan to post the best pictures from a manufacturer of the latest crop of 1/2400 modern warship miniatures pictures I have gathered. There are about eight months more of pictures.

This week the miniatures are from Viking Forge. Painters are included in the description. You can find the whole archive at When Imagination Fails.

Miniatures, When Imagination Fails

Latest 1/2400 Superior Ships

June 10, 2019 James O'Keefe Leave a comment

Every week I plan to post the best pictures from a manufacturer of the latest crop of 1/2400 modern warship miniatures pictures I have gathered. There are about eight months more of pictures.

This week the miniatures are from Superior. Painters are included in the description. You can find the whole archive at When Imagination Fails.

Spanish FFG Baleares (Knox-class) by gak8346

Soviet Assorted Ships by bootsbootscollectables44

MS Atlantic Causeway (SD14MS) by Bill Wright

Miniatures, When Imagination Fails

Latest 1/2400 Modern Ships

June 3, 2019 James O'Keefe 2 Comments

Every week I plan to post the best pictures from a manufacturer of the latest crop of 1/2400 modern warship miniatures pictures I have gathered. There are about eight months more of pictures.

This week the miniatures are from PFC C-in-C, Sea Battle and Sea Wulf. Painters are included in the description. You can find the whole archive at When Imagination Fails.

PFC C-in-C

Sea Battle

Sea Wulf

UK DDG County (Exocet version) by gak8346

Miniatures, When Imagination Fails

Latest 1/2400 GHQ Ships

May 27, 2019 James O'Keefe Leave a comment

I haven’t posted the 1/2400 modern warship miniatures pictures I have accumulated in a while. Since it has been over half a year and the number of pictures is so large, I plan to post the best pictures from a manufacturer each week.

This week the miniatures are from GHQ. Painters are included in the description. You can find the whole archive at When Imagination Fails.

PRC FFG JiangkaiII (Type054A) by gak8346

Miniatures, When Imagination Fails

2018’s Painted Microarmor

January 6, 2019 James O'Keefe Leave a comment

2018 was a marginally better year for painting miniatures. Many of them were ones I bought from av8rmongo. I completed:

6 GHQ M1A2
6 GHQ M2A2
6 GHQ M60A3
6 GHQ M106
10 PFC C-in-C Leopard 2A5
4 PFC C-in-C Lynx C&R
1 M1A2 with Mine Plow
1 M9 ACE
4 M105 Deuce
3 PFC C-in-C UH-60s
3 Heroics and Ross UH-60s
2 Heroics and Ross CH-47s
9 Merkava 4
6 Magach 7C

Vehicles in NATO tri-color camouflage were done with Floquil’s NATO Green as the base, overlayed with NATO Brown and NATO Black. Tracks and windows were then dry brushed with Floquil railway dark gray. I painted the tracks in Floquil Mud and splashed the sides, front and back with the same.

The helicopters’ base was Floquil NATO Green. Windows and wheels were done with Floquil railway dark gray with exhausts in NATO Black.

The Israeli vehicles are done in an unknown Floquil color.

I got out my new macro lens and with a light box, photographed some of the miniatures. I photographed in aperture priority mode at f/16 so I could get most of each miniature in focus. I tried different exposure values to get them bright enough. With the camera settings I used and the light box, I didn’t feel the need to edit them.

GHQ M1A2