Stouffville, Ontario Canada (647) 962-1997 gwstudios@rogers.com M-F 8:30am - 2:30pm & 8:00pm - 11:00pm

Author: greatwallstudios

Married, Graphic Designer, enjoy playing the electric guitar, model building, wood working and sculpting.

A grand ole time doing a year end clear out of unfinished business.

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Striking projects from my list, left, right and centre. It’s been a busy and productive year, and I have used my quiet days to finish all my bust sculpt painting.

The old gang back together again.

I managed to do about three hundred water slide decals on the Double Zeta Gundam I got for Christmas several years ago, and gloss coated it, and did the final assembly.

Double Zeta looking crisp and shiny.

And most recently I finally got around to painting, adding the water slide decals, and then practice weathering my VF-1 Macross Gerwalk 1/72 scale model which has been built and left untouched for ages. I will readily admit I wanted a pristine, off the factory floor paint job, but I mucked it up, so a rusted beat up version is how I salvaged my work, and got a chance to practice some new weathering techniques and grime washes.

Last pass with grime, chipping, and rust effects.
First pass with grime and muck.

** I’ve just realized I cheated a bit with the far away photo. So here is a closer view, top down, of some of that grime, chipping, rust, and dirt weathering i did. You can see just how askew some of my decals are. The gritty paint application made them far less easy to manoeuvre when placed incorrectly. Or not at all in some cases due to the friction from a lumpy/textured surface finish..

Top down view of weather attempt.

I have to come to terms with the fact that my one size fits all airbrush is great for broad surfaces, and gradients (think body of sculptures I make) and not so keen for panel lines and fine detail. The unit , or gun more specifically, isn’t built for fine detail and finesse work. Also my taping and masking could use some more practice. I also need to leave my mechanical models in pieces so that I can add all the details in without fighting the model physically to do so. I’ll have to keep all of that in mind when I finally tackle my massive resin chonker that currently resides, in pieces in my office closet. It’ll stand nearly 16 inches tall when done. I don’t want to rush, nor fuck it up. I bought it the year my eldest was born, and wanted to get good at the technical side of model building before I got into it. Not entirely there yet, but if i don’t start it, i never will. It’s going to be slow moving, because i have to wash all the mould release off of the resin. Sand it all, pull the pour spouts off the larger chunks, fill holes, straighten out warped bits, and then do more sanding, and panel line clean up. Could be 200 to 300 hours of work. Including masking, painting, ink washes, and decals. Magnets and pins. Oh my. This thing is a real under taking. Makes me nervous just to think about!

Tomorrow is supposed to be a massive storm day. So I am wrestling with whether or not to walk the kids to & from school tomorrow, or have them stay home. I don’t think I’ll have any new work tomorrow, so it’s just a matter of if they fight all morning, or look as though they can sit and watch a movie in peace. We can play in the snow too, but not if they are fighting and whiney. We gotta clean up if they want Santa to have any room to put gifts on the floor by the Christmas tree. I also need to buy them some Excedrin PM, to get them into bed at a reasonable hour come Christmas Eve! They’re too pumped up! So amped it! So. Much. Energy. All the time with them, it’s just go, go , go, and what have you done for me lately! Ha. My fault, I suppose. Too nice.

All the best to you and yours. Stay well out there. Be safe in the coming storm. Ciao Bella!

***Additional note: I meant to add that I also painted up the Aliens from my Nemesis board game from Awaken Realms. That was a fairly quick job, as I used the air brush for that. It involved priming the pieces black. Then using a grey primer to add a zenithal high light from the top down. Then one quick blast of a blue grey paint, with some blood red splotches for the carnage those aliens cause. Took me about an hour to paint up sixteen or so 75mm items on 50mm bases. I could always go back to pick out some finer details, but I think it’s great as is. I could do the Void Seeders next, but we will see. My kids are still too little to play a competitive board game like this. I have boxes of monsters from Tainted Grail, Fall of Avalon to give a once over too. I think I want to give them more than just a one colour splash with a sepia wash though. That could take weeks with how many there are. No matter. That’s a 2023 issue, or later. Cheers!

Up before 5:00 am…

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Too scared she’ll miss the bus for the Royal Ontario Museum trip today. Not that the bus isn’t going to leave until around 9:00am or anything. No, had to be up and dressed, waiting at the door before I even woke up this morning. Lord knows what the kids will do come Christmas morning!

We did hit a small snag, in that our usual vehicle is in the shop for repairs so we have a borrowed vehicle for a few days. One that does not contain an ice scraper, so I had I sit in it while it warmed up enough to clear the windshield. Then I used the blade of my hands to clear tactical spots on the side windows so that I could see out, and use the mirrors. The spare scraper from inside the house has gone missing, which I wasn’t aware it had even been used yet, by anyone. So that reserve item needs to be found and/or replaced sharpish. Crisis was averted and we made it to school without too many tears or outbursts from either kid. The youngest has had her nose out of joint for a few days due to all the build up concerning the bus rides and ROM trip into downtown. She is a jealous little beastie. Not good with expressing joy for others if she isn’t getting anything out of the situation either. We will need to work on that. But, in the end I got them to school, dressed, and without tears being shed. A win for me, a slight one at that, but I’ll take it.

My lone nostril issue seems to fade in, fade out as the days go by. I have noticed that when I take my temperature it can range from anywhere between 35.6° to 37.1° Celcius. Which seems weird to me. But no positivity on a RAT, and no other issues I can think of. Fatigue has subsided, almost as quickly as it came on, but that’s pretty standard for me. Nasty guts is no barometer to go by for me for new or worsening illness, so all things being equal, that’s par for the course in my life currently. I can breathe out of both nostrils no new head aches. No sore throat. No cough or lung/rib pain. Sense of smell and taste are very much alive & well. Possibly just a cold? Hard to know at this point. It wasn’t all that bad. Just felt kinda off. Not wretchedly ill, as with other nasty bugs we’ve caught before.

Funny story, I developed Crohn’s Disease about six months after having the worst flu of my life, one Christmas when I was twelve. My grand parents were visiting from England that year, and I was in my pj’s, lying on the floor of the family room watching tv with my family, when I burped out of no where. And I remember turning away from the tv to tell my mum, “I can taste rotten eggs”. She gave me a puzzled look, and by the following morning I was feverish, and vomiting and having all sorts of gastric distress.

Do you remember that old Tom Petty music video about Alice in wonderland where her body becomes cake and the mad hatter and the rabbit eat her as she watches and screams, while lying on a table? That happened in my dream. And a dark black room, with white and black checker board floors began to get longer, as if the rear wall was falling away, and the floors curled, and buckled, and bulged, as my bed became all topsy turvy like a Tim Burton film set. I had days of a high fever, and had the same fifteen seconds of dream a thousand times over on repeat, until it just cleared up and went away. – Then one late May afternoon when at Canada’s Wonderland on a school trip Crohn’s Disease decided to make itself known to me, and that has been my life ever since. That was 2013. Fun times. Weird memory to recall so vividly. Huh. I am not entirely sure if that was when I developed the grey forelock of hair that I’ve had since forever, but is not in any childhood photos before my early teens. Could be. Or maybe not.

As of 4:48pm today we are officially into winter! A new season is upon us. And the shortest day will happen, and then the evenings will ever so slowly begin to get lighter later. Just a handful of seconds per day. I hope you have a wonderful winter break. And have restful holidays whatever you celebrate. Take care out there. Ciao Bella!

It is on mornings like this that I am thankful for…

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Not only mechanically inclined family whom live near by, and can come to my aid in only a few minutes! But that I spent so much of my mental energy and focus working on my last big report for the year, and cleared forty of the forty seven pages yesterday. As today, well just this very morning, my vehicle battery drained down to absolute zero – again. But while I was out grocery shopping after doing school drop off, and not while the vehicle was sat idle in our own driveway. No warning lights, no prompts, no buzzers, sounds alarms or fading dashboard symbols to tell me it was going to go dead. So off I strode confidently into Walmart for essentials, without having eaten mind you. Just a quick trip. There and back in thirty minutes! But no. Finally after some much needed running about we got the car to the shop, the newest battery onto a charger, retrieved the old battery, got gas and some tools, dropped off and stowed the perishable groceries, and I am now comfortably seated on my couch eating a sandwich.

Aforementioned sandwich.

So I came home, completed my final seven pages, did some soft proofing for any major errors, and got the file off for review. Man am I glad I stuck with it and did so much of it yesterday. This pickle would have left me fuming had I still had twenty five pages left to go. I realize I taxed myself quite hard yesterday, but you never do know what’s going to happen next. I have a spare vehicle on loan to get the kids to & from school for the next few days, which is a big help. Sheesh. I thought the whole new battery just a mere four days ago was the answer, but it’s either the alternator or an even bigger electrical issue which could be a nightmare to discover & fix. Oh well. C’est la vie! That is life.

I might just pick up on the Domestic Duties from Monday, or I will chill out, eat more of this lovely toasted sandwich, and think warm, happy, non stressed thoughts for a spell. Next time I make this sandwich I’ll add some bacon, tomato, lettuce and a dash of salt & pepper, plus a smear of butter. It’s not a bad sandwich mind you. It has smoked ham, turkey, salami, swiss cheese and provolone cheese, mustard and miracle whip, on thinly sliced toasted white bread. But I think I could take it up a notch on the flavour scale with those minor edits. Bam! Now we’re talking taste bud city. Stay frosty out there. Be as prepared as you are able! Ciao Bella

Into the thick of it.

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Good morning Vietnam! Back, once again to Monday morning, the air is fresh and crisp with a distinct bite to it today. I have a new project on the docket today. Managed to start it last night, so I had a few early wins associated with it. Feeling good moving into the morning. Coming off of my NyQuil stupor, so let us hope everything looks as good as it felt when I was working on it last night.

Domestic Duties will be bumped to Wednesday this week, to allow me some time to work through this year’s last big report. Have a great day to you all. Ciao Bella!

The Fridge War that never ends.

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So last we met it was battle number four or five. We are on to seven, eight or nine by now. This damn fridge. The very last time, last week, I shut off all water to/from the fridge, and emptied out the lines as best I could, and today we had to thaw it again, to let another 2L of water out the bottom. I only just cleaned off all the exterior intakes from the underneath portion I could reach with a long brush and a vacuum extension hose. But to no avail. At this point I have to wonder if we have a sleep Walker who is dumping pint glasses of water into the fucking thing. I don’t understand how a mostly empty freezer, with no water feed can accumulate nearly 3 Liters of water in its vents every week or so. Where is it all coming from? Is there a holding tank inside the machine I’m not aware off that is leaking, or slowly expressing vapour into the freezer chamber? I don’t get it. I just can’t figure out where all this excess water is coming from, or how a freezer set to 6° is kicking off and freezing over constantly. I will get to the bottom of this at some point. But God Damn. What a son of a bitch! I hate this machine so much right now. All the seals have been cleaned. The latch catches, the vents are never blocked off, the inlets are clean, the air flow path inside the fridge is not blocked. Next step is the $100.00 diagnostic call to the repairman. Or buying a whole new fridge in 2023. Bah! Humbug.

The lone nostril sniffle.

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More of an annoyance than anything else. Still has me sneezing and blowing my nose multiple times hourly though. Feel a little more tired than usual, but seeing as I live with chronic fatigue that doesn’t tell me much. But, what I believe will be the last major project I’ll get this year, has just come in, so at least I know what I am going to work on this week.

I could, if need be, push it off until the new year, but I find it hard to sleep when I know I have paid work left laying around untouched. Why put off until tomorrow what I can do today. I may not put eight hours into it today, but I’d be surprised if I go to bed tonight without doing at least an hours worth of work on it. Will make me feel better, and I’ll be able to sleep knowing I don’t have the whole thing still out in front of me.

Hard to believe we are already up to the 18th of December. This whole month is whizzing by just as fast as November. If you haven’t had the chance yet, heed my warning, and go do some Holiday gift retrieval for your loved ones. The longer you leave it the worse the traffic, parking, line ups and crowds will get. Not only that but the shelves will look most decidedly picked over. On the positive side, perhaps your made them something from the heart in which case you don’t need to brave the cold and the masses. In that case, a tip of the hat to you! Otherwise, get cracking, times a wasting! All the best. Ciao Bella!

Murphy oil soap follow-up.

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After the first 24 hours I’d say that at least two thirds of the brushes were back to within working order tolerances. The bulk of the grime had come off, and the bristles themselves were pliable and soft. Score! The other third had a more tenacious level of grunge penetrating their bristles. So those had a cleaning and a once over along with those I deemed suitable to be returned back into my tool kit. After a thorough inspection these last five brushes will sit in the concentrated soap until Monday. I figure an additional 72 hour soak should be about as much as anything could ever need, on top of the first 24 hour soak. At which point I will wash and examine them all – again. My hope was to salvage every single last expensive brush, but if I end up with one straggler that can’t be fixed, I’ll be mostly ok with that one getting tossed, or repurposed to smoothing clay/sculpey instead. So for the low low cost of $7.00 CND, I am most definitely happy with the Murphy Oil Soap as brush cleaner. Can reccomend it. Worth a try. I do wonder if the old formula was more tenacious? But seeing as I don’t have any of the old stuff I can not say one way or the other.

Today is Saturday Dec 17th, 2022. Christmas is looming large on the horizon. Luckily there is a school field trip to occupy the kids attention, and a rescheduled winter fair for children set for Wednesday that should also act as an attention buffer to block the Christmas Present Jitters in both kids. I still have not put a single item under the tree. And thus far – knock on wood – no fist fights regarding gifts. Not exactly a hack. More an effect of out of sight out of mind. Just means I need to lug a fair amount of gear up & down the stairs on Christmas Eve after the kids skip off to bed. Might have to slip some excedrin pm into their night time drinks to make sure all my banging & swearing doesn’t wake them up. I kid – of course. No amount of pharmaceuticals could ever keep my kids asleep on the biggest night of the year for children. I’m sure they’ll be up with nightmares about sleeping through Christmas,  or having their gifts get opened by someone else. Or that Santa forgot about them, orca million other reasons for them to be do wired that they can’t fall asleep, or stay asleep the whole night through.

I feel a runny nose coming on myself. So let us hope that clears up without testing positive on a RAT, or leading to a hacking cough that lasts for eight or nine weeks, and continues to travel from nose, to sinuses, to throat to lungs and then back again. Time will tell I suppose. Ciao Bella

That was some terribly wet snow huh?

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Goodness, I’ve had to shovel snow four times in little more than 30 hours due to this freezing rain, wet snow combo. Perfect packing snow though. Great for snowmen and forts, and snowballs. Not so good for an old ticker, or an injured back! That wet stuff weighs a tonne. Luckily at one point I had both kids to help me shovel the walk ways, deck and back patio. They were too interested in talking to their grandma to help me out much with the driveway, but at this point, any help is welcome! That’s additional kilograms of snow that I don’t have to move myself. And what’s more, it’s still coming down! Mind you not at the rate it was last evening, but enough to dust over the entirety of what has been cleared. It’s so heavy it bent my cedar hedges nearly 90°. I’ve shaken them off, but they still harbour a good lean. Snapped two over large Lilac branches as well. Old growth limbs that have just given out.

Mushed over Cedar hedge.
One of two old growth limbs that snapped off our Lilacs.

I best get back to answering e-mails and see if the charger fixed the van battery at all. Best of luck on your commutes out there today! Ciao Bella!

Testing out a new way to revitalize some 20 plus year old paint brushes.

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I have had in my possession a very nice set of acrylic and water colour brushes that I bought in 2001 when I went to Sheridan College for Art School for a year. I used and abused those expensive brushes every single day for a year, and didn’t put much effort into cleaning them very thoroughly afterward. Now here I am in my forties, with a treasure grove of good brushes, if I can only find a way to remove all the accumulated gunk. Oh I’ve done boiled soapy water, paint thinner, mineral spirits and brush cleaner (all well after the fact mind you), but have never managed to clear more than just the very outer most surface. But, last night I came across a YouTube video of someone using Murphy Oil Soap concentrated floor cleaner on an old acrylic crusty dried up brush, and after 3 to 4 days it revitalized that brushes bristles. For the low low cost of $7.00 CDN, I too hope to breathe new life into my collection of Windsor & Newton brushes. My old clam pack brush cleaner is a lost cause, being about 21 years old now. But I’d love to salvage as many as I can of my five hundred dollars worth of brushes. At $20-$45 a pop (iirc), back in 2001, I can only imagine what a whole new set of Windsor & Newton brushes would cost me today to replace them all. I don’t want to think about it. I see the package says new formula, so I hope it works as well as the older stuff I saw that YouTuber use. Time will tell.

The first batch of offending brushes caked full of old grungy acrylic paint.

So today we begin with a warm temperature wind storm, and will finish the day with a snow squall slash blizzard. Sounds about right for a Thursday, ten days from Christmas. I can only imagine what my kids will do next week at school. Movies, crafts and lots of bouncing off the walls. Good for me at home away from it all, not so much fun for the teachers who will take the brunt of all that restless excitement.  Although snow means, snowball fights, king of the hill bouts, forts, raids, and rolling heavy snowman parts. All great ways to tire out school aged children. Which reminds me, I need to put a second reserve pair of gloves in my kids back packs. I sorted out the youngest on Monday, but my older one is still going the whole day with one set of soggy gloves. Seems I am playing catch up! I have the second pair up here all ready. I never put them in the back pack though. So I’ll do that when the kids come home later today.

I think I need to get the last of my invoices out this week, or run the risk of not getting them processed in 2022. So I’ll sign off for now. Ciao Bella!

The “BIG” Day – 365.

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That’s it, game over, today is the last day of my 365 day writing challenge. Obstacles met and over come. Bam! Something about apples….

But seriously, it’s a big day for what amounted to a difficult task. We had power outages, illnesses, trips, travels, and heavy work days that made this a real barn burner of a challenge. But I got through it all. Wow!

But now what? Maybe I go the whole Calendar year? that adds what, an additional seventeen days? Not bad. Maybe I can break the 200,000 word mark? I thought i just might do it, but I got to around 185,000. So close enough, I think.

So what’s on the docket today. I think I’ll do a double header and will begin my year in review of the wood working projects I built this year. There are several, so settle in. I made furniture, jigs, objects, and some pretty random items to be certain. I did at one point have the list in chronological order, but that list has gone into the ether, so now i’ll just have to randomly talk about the things as I recall them. No don’t worry, it’s not off of the top of my head, I did spend some time the other night writing them all down – again. Just not in any order beyond what i could remember first.

For my sister in-laws baby shower I made two new Cedar newel posts for my in-laws house. As I recall those were about 8.25″ square, and about 2″ high. I painted them white, and they are still affixed to the front exterior stairs. For the new rabbit Butter Scotch, I made two rabbit houses, one was a 13″ square, the other was smaller to fit into the reserve cage at the cottage. In September I used dowel construction to build a Pine display unit for my kids toys, and for them to play dolls on. My youngest has since etched her name into the top with a black ball point pen. I made a rather tall end table to display things in, that was Walnut & Ash. I made a tapering jig for the legs, so that counts as another build item too. I made a Hickory & Ash end Table / coffee table with slatted shelves. That currently sits in our basement and has not been attacked by either child as of this time. After several long years I completed the last 80% of the Ash screen door, that went up prior to my wife’s birthday party in early June. Has not collapsed or fallen off it’s hinges as of this time of reporting. Ha. I used a bunch of scrap wood to build a cubby system for all of my drills, drivers, heat gun, and staple guns, pin nailers etc… It was more shop infrastructure, than anything else. Much like the wheelie cart for my planer & jointer. It isn’t much to look at, style wise, but it’s sturdy and easy to move around in the confined space of my shop. I took some time to try to see if I could build a proper floating shelf drawer out of Walnut. It has a blue felt pad on the interior, and has remained fairly square since I built it. That also taught me not to use Wax on Walnut, as it clouded over almost immediately, so now I use the wax only on non visible portions to lubricate drawer slides and moving parts under jigs etc etc… For the farm orchard I built a scrap wood bench, that was four feet long, and a foot wide, and about fourteen inches tall. My wife, and my mother in law wanted some place to sit when watching the kids down at the farm when they go tree climbing, or apple picking. It weathered the Dericho wind storm and stayed put, also remained upright, when trees fell, and the silos were mostly ruptured. Go me! At the cottage I refinished an old iron & wood bench. Sanded it down, and put two or three coats of tan stain on it. That was done in about a day, less than that, late one afternoon in August. On the lathe I turned down some Walnut bases for some sculptures, namely my Hellboy bust and the cruddy looking great ape I made where I botched the nose terribly. I also turned down a handle for the screen door out of Maple from our tree out front. In the shop I built two peg boards, a Dado jib, the aforementioned tapering jig, and a 45 Degree cutting jig, plus a smaller tenoning jig that I used on my Pine Display Unit. In the way of metal work, I built a router sled flattening jig out of angle iron and nuts and bolts, doing the cutting with my angle grinder and a cut off wheel. That was pretty loud, and thrilling. Didn’t set fire to anything, so that was a major plus. I built a whole slew of Ash chisel caddy’s that hang on the wall. I built two toy boxes, one large one out of Pine, soon to get caster wheels, and a smaller one out of Cedar for my little ones bedroom. And last on the list is the Air brush caddy I made for all my paints, mask and the air brush compressor unit. That feels like just about everything that I made this year. If I remember anything else, I’ll be sure to mention it. I have posted photos for many of these items in previous posts throughout the year, so i won’t bore you with more at this point. Just kidding. Here they are in no discernable order. Also, just realized I made a massive Ash charcuterie board this year too. Duh!?! Can’t believe I forgot about that, I only see it 8n the kitchen every single day.

That wraps up the build portion. On to THE BOOKS! This year my goal was to read twelve of them. Sometimes I waste precious hours scrolling twitter when I could just as easily read a book, so try as I might to resist the sirens song of doom scrolling, I often did, rather than read. So I’m a bit short. I gave up on the Grapes of Wrath about half way through. But I do know I will go back to it. It was just starting to lag a bit back in August. Also the last book, Carl Sagan’s about the Demon Haunted World, is good, but I’m not sure if I’ll actually complete it before 12:01am on December 31st, or a few days into January.  Here is the list of what I read this year.

The twelve books of 2022.

This year I found Adrian Tchaikovsky and read four of his novels. I have a fifth ready to go as a Christmas present. I also have a Mary Robinette Kowal book to open aswell. I am anxiously awaiting any new Lady Astronuat books she might put out. Also if Martha Wells could pump out two Murderbot books per year I’d be very happy about that as well. I will also pursue more of Don Winslow’s books in the coming years, as Man on fire was really good. I don’t typically do crime drama, but it was compelling and easy to read. More of that please. I was more than happy to find a Robert J Sawyer book I hadn’t yet read in the Oppenheimer faux history. That was really great too. I, like many others, have been waiting for George R.R. Martin to finish the last damnable book of the Fire and Ice Series, so I’ll drop fifty sixty bucks on that hard cover whenever it comes out. Not to forget the fun romp that was John Scalzi’s The Kaiju Preservation Society. That was a pleasant read last spring. I’ll have my eye out for any of his new releases aswell. I see that Fart Quest has book four out. I’ll order that for my birthday come Spring time. That’s a really beautifully illustrated series that turns on D&D charm, and general fantasy tropes. Meant for kids and pre-teens but I get a kick out of it just the same.

Not much else to say. Had an email from a client whom I did work for late last year, looking to pick up where we left off, and that’s about as great a recco as I would like to get. Repeat happy customers that come back year after year. If you could only see my grin.

So this is it. The big Kahuna. Once I press send the challenge is complete! Wishing you all well. Those who followed along playing the home game. I don’t think I’ll stop just yet. I’ll aim for New Year’s Eve. Put another 17vseconds on the clock ref, I have a few plays left in me to go. Ciao Bella! Love you all.