That was a long week. I was ready for it to be done much earlier than it was. I had planned, Friday, after I got off from the day job that I’d pick up paint to start on the walls of the play room. Normally the end of the day on Friday comes early in the afternoon. Not last week. My normally 5 hour or so day was 12. I did not make it to get paint on Friday.
I had it set in my head that I was starting to paint this room this weekend. So after Taekwondo class on Saturday I headed to the store for paint. I’m covering these tan
colored walls and I found out last summer that it doesn’t cover easily. Now, that color
is nearly the bane of my existence. At least in the play room it is. I got 2 gallons of primer and then for the top coat I got the paint that is supposed to be both. It took 2 coats of the primer to kill the tan enough that it wouldn’t seep through the top coat. It’s awful.
I painted two walls on Saturday and probably should have stopped there but I really wanted to get one more wall done so I could move the desk into place and start working on the room arrangement, which is changing from what I started with. So instead of resting up and recovering from Saturday’s painting, Sunday, I painted one more wall. I’m glad I did. It feels a lot better in here even if I do still have the one tan wall. But the whole process is such a strain on my body that I will live with it until the weekend. By then
I should have the rest of the furniture shifted around so I can get to the wall.
I’m sharing some pictures. There’s one where you can see the newly painted blue wall, some primer and then the tan wall. That gives a good idea of this color I’m covering. The one with the green tape is a more up close picture with a brighter light. It’s still pretty unpleasant. And the last one is after I got the third wall painted. You can see the blue behind the door and the sort of tropical blue in the hall. They both look really good with that purple.
I could go on about the evils of the tan and what I realized and all that but really, it’s just a matter of taste and preference. I know people who love white walls. I do not. I know people who would love the tan. I don’t anymore. I never loved it but my feeling when I bought the place was that at least the walls weren’t white. I feel very different about that now. (White is a bit easier to cover.)
Most of the week was spent moving things out of the play room to get ready to paint so for most of the week, I didn’t get anything fun done on the computer. I was mostly too tired to even think about it. However, even with the really long day, or possibly because of it, Friday night I got a little play time in.
I worked on the Funky Bird character. I started out refining some of the body shape and
trying to get that a little more the way I want. At some point when I saved out a work in progress render I got distracted and started playing with the Arnold Render Viewport and all the settings there. I was right about it needing lights. The Arnold renderer doesn’t seem to like to work with the default lights. So I spent a lot of time fussing with getting some lights that are bright enough and show things off nicely. I also played with the smoothing at render time option. That I like. As far as any other work on the bird, I started adding a leg. The way the leg comes down off the lower torso is going to be pretty defining for the look of the character so I think I want to get it in pretty quick. It will also help with placing the arms when I get to that point. Here are a few renders of it so far.
I’m not planning on getting the last wall painted until the weekend. I think it may take all week to recover. I am hoping to start getting things shifted around and some items in their new locations. That will be some work. I also have a meeting or two for the day job that are going to run a bit into my after hours time. I’m going to try to work some play time in there though it might be tricky. There’s a big data center thing happening at the day job this weekend and I will have to participate and this is also the first week of black belt prep class so I’ll have an extra Taekwondo session as well. Still I might make some progress on the Funky Bird. I think the Worm and Penguin are going to have to sit just a little longer.