TMM 008: Goals, Notebooks & Free Fings

I’ve got a new video out! Well two videos; my Goals for 2022 video and the notebook tutorial. Although these are seperate videos they tie in together as a good way to kick off the new year and I can’t wait to hear your thoughts.

For the notebook tutorial, you Patrons get a lil something extra which brings me to…

I have organised some Patreon exclusive notebook covers which you can use if you’re following along with the notebook tutorial. This includes some Arcane Ugly art as covers and a cover for a 2022 goals notebook. You can find all the goodies attached to this post.

If you decide to make your own notebooks, I encourage you to get creative and post your creations on the Miscast community feed.

The Studio Kitchenette

We had some heating issues with the kitchen cart due to the fridge, it's from an old caravan and isn't really meant for this sorta thing. Today I installed a brand new PC fan in it to get the airflow going. I bought the quietest fan I could find and added a variable resistor from an old speaker volume dial to try to dial in the noise pollution. So far it's silent and seems to be cooling it fine but we'll see if it's up to the task by morning. Fingers crossed nothing is on fire.

More expensive = better when it comes to camera gear, right? Not always true.

About 12 months ago I upgraded my camera gear to a brand new, very flashy Black Magic Pocket 6k and a fancy cine-lens to go with it. I made this decision after setting a goal to pursue making more documentary-style videos about other hobbyists and artists I love. Buying a big fancy set up like that means reliability, because wasting someone else's time and kindness because of a technical error is my worst nightmare. I invested in this set up even with no interviews in sight (thanks COVID) because learning your tools and being able to trust them in high pressure situations is essential.

But that set up, while great in so many aspects like making videos faster and having back ups and big resolution, comes with just as many new limitations. The more expensive gear you buy, the more expensive accessories you need, the more expensive computer you need to edit, the more digital storage you need, fewer cheap lens options, and the image is only as good as your ability to edit it correctly. Also it's really big and heavy… which is annoying to maneuver to get cool shots and you'll probably need a new tripod to support all that weight.

I really wish I knew all this before investing in this sort of camera, none of the camera review channels talked about any of this stuff. Would it have changed my mind on this purchase? Not sure. But I know for sure I would have been far less envious of my friends showing off their setups while I was pinching pennies for a year saving to get mine.

There is really something to be said about the camera I left behind—my Fujifilm XT-10s. They're a 10th of the price second hand now, you can put any lens in the world on them and they make a beautiful image straight out of the camera. They're also really light and less painful to replace if something bad happens so you can get shots confidently. Sometimes I will also shoot footage on my phone and while the quality isn't great on my cheap phone, it's an especially powerful tool for miniature work because its tiny lens allows you to get very close to the subject and image stabilisation makes one handed awkward handheld shots possible. You can get some cool angles that are not possible with a big lens as well.

In the spirit of trying to get some of this mobility and confidence back I'm experimenting with a new accessory—the gorillapod, a flexible, bendable tripod that will allow me hopefully to get some weird shots from all around my studio much easier. I'm putting a lot of trust in these bendy legs so fingers crossed there won't be any accidents.

I bought the CA glue activator from my local hobby shop, you can buy it online though. I use Zap brand. This stuff is amazing and you do some really crazy effects with it like freezing superglue puddles in place and creating strange textures with it by making the super glue bubble with heat. This stuff can be really dangerous though if you get even a tiny bit of superglue on your skin and it goes anywhere near a mist or residue of activator it will heat up with the strength of a 1,000 suns and cook and blister your skin. It sucks and it's terrifying because there is nothing you can do but wait the chemical reaction out. I now wear gloves if I'm doing a lot of gluing or doing something that might not be recommended like making puddles of glue for texture.

The electronics shelves featured in the monkey skit of my cursed kitbash video is the storage space of the old TV station. There are amazing knick-knacks in there I steal all the time to repurpose. The gear is not for sale even though we want it all to go to a good home. It's already been picked through by various people with different hobbies already and what's left is the stuff that isn't particularly useful without a lot of effort or to many people or isn't worth much. I hope to use some of it myself personally eventually for art pieces.

I've only used the enamels but I love them, I also love that they're Australian and made in Australia. It's not an easy thing to do, so I'm proud to use them and excited to support local (relatively). I heard their customer service is great as well, they're pretty active on Facebook answering questions. I like using enamels through the airbrush. Because they're solvent based, the clean up is a dream and that's the worst bit about airbrushing.

Chicken salt is the mother of all salts, and makes everything and anything delicious. The secret to good chicken salt is MSG, so you need to source it wholesale from a fish and chip shop directly to get the good stuff. Supermarket versions are MSG-free and also just don't quite hit the same as the stuff from the chip shop.

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