Celiacs’ Delights: The Sweet Lowdown

(For some reason WordPress didn’t publish this when I wrote it last October)

Summer and the Farmer’s Market is over so Celiacs’ Delights is going on a hiatus while I figure out what the next steps for this business will be. One fun thing is that my wife and I are headed to the GF Expo in Portland which happens the first weekend of November. I’m hoping to see some good workshops, sample lots of interesting products, and check out some GF bakery food-trucks. A GF baked foods and pastries truck is one of the possible futures that I’m working towards so I’d love to see how some other people have done this.

These things I learned;

It’s okay to sell out…The booth turned a profit every week, which was very gratifying. It was difficult get data on what was popular and what wasn’t as we sold out of products every week. So the next week we’d make more products, more variety and more in quantity. And we’d sell out. So we’d make even more, and sell out again. Sometimes people would be trying to buy food from us before the market had opened and before we’d even set up our booth. The one time that I didn’t sell out on French Bread, which was a weekly staple, was the weekend after we had skipped a week because we had to go visit our prize ribbons at the State Fair. I was actually very pleased to not sell out for a change as it gave me a differing data-point to reference and showed me the importance of momentum.

Our business is good enough…The first few weeks that we worked at the Market the Anchorage Midtown Rotary was kind enough to give us three feet of table space to test sell our foods for the small price of 50% of our gross sales. We still turned a profit. We worked out of their booth for two weeks before approaching the Market about getting our own little 5′ wide booth, and our profit margins jumped considerably. We outgrew the small booth though and I expanded the operation to a full-sized 10’x10′ booth with a big table, that would start the day crowded and full and be empty at the end. When I told the Rotary, “Thanks for letting us try this experiment, but we’ll be getting our own space from here on out.” The Rotarian looked at me and said very seriously, “We’re going to lose a lot of money.” After that I donated the first $20 of profits each week to the Rotary booth as a thank you.

Free samples sell products…I know it seems obvious, but it was fun to put it in practice and see items sell better when customers were able to sample them. Free samples also served as a tasty introduction to our treats and one of the most oft heard phrases of the summer was, “That’s gluten-free?!?!” (incredulously) The GF French bread sold faster when I would chop up a mini-baguette. It was also truly enjoyable to see the expressions on people’s faces when they would sample the jams, jellies, breads, or cookies that we had that week. So much delight! One woman reluctantly bought a triple-berry hand-pie, then came back an hour later in a greatly agitated state demanding more pies because the one she had purchased was so good! Sadly, for her, we had already sold out.

Square beats Paypal Here…Our first few weeks we didn’t take credit cards, then I got my Paypal Here card reader working and customers were able to make CC purchases of GF foods from “Mayhem in Paper”…which confused a few of them… Mayhem in Paper is my online paper-model business and it’s connected to my Paypal account. I created a Square account for Celiacs’ Delights

The tooth shall set you free

I had an infected molar removed that’s been chewing away at my jawbone for years. It was feeling like a pair of child safety scissors was inside my skull trying to get out by way of my eye socket. I suspect that tooth has been the source of a lot of my headaches and stress over the years. It’s only been a day since the operation but my head feels so much better than before, despite the aches of recovering from an extraction.

I am hoping that without this nagging ache in my skull to drag me down I can be more productive with all of my creative endeavors.

Bagels! (GF)

I’ve really wanted decent bagels for quite some time and I experimented with a few this week and finally came up with my own hybrid recipe. The dough is a little plain, but I always saw bagels as more of a textural experience that you add flavors to. The recipe is in the files section if you’d like to play with it.

Wraithguard – Final

Five (metal) Eldar Wraithguards with BFG’s and the Warlock that I painted previously to keep them shooting in the right direction;

The Eldrazi Scions are also done, although my son tells me that the paint scheme I used for the Scions would be fine for the Endless One, but Scions as depicted in the game art have a lot more color variety. Ah well, at least they all match.

I’m still working on the Eldar Howling Banshee troops and an old gaming friend of mine said I was wrong and that the one time he used them they performed great….then he thought about it and remembered they had gone up against a unit of Gretchin, and had emerged triumphant! Of course they did, they were fighting Gretchin. After they’re painted up I’ll have to try fielding them and see if they can do anything other than sing off-key.

Wraithguards, Banshees, and a tank.

The Wraithguard have their basic paint jobs completed; simple colors of red, black and gold that I think will look good when shaded.

After they receive their dip-n-spray treatments I’ll come back and paint infinity symbols on their helmets. I also finished up the Falcon grav-tank, it just needed the black-lining between armor panels, gold highlights, and a canopy. Didn’t take long, not sure what brain-fart on my part 16 years ago caused me to stow this without finishing it.

Eldar Howling Banshee Aspect Warriors, easily the most hyped and worst unit in the Eldar army. I bought these ladies probably eighteen years ago, used them in two games with disastrous consequences, then put them in storage and forgot about them. I looked them up in the new version of the 40K rules, still stinkers with limited potential. I’ll paint them anyways as the purpose of all this is finishing off old projects. They’ve got a start for a color scheme and I plan to keep their color palette small like I did for the Wraithguards.

War Walkers Final

I once worked with a scenic designer who told me, You know what your problem is? You like to work.” I answered, “No, I just like getting things done.”

Sixteen years ago I bought two Eldar War Walkers, they were metal and cheap then, now they are expensive and plastic. One was built and painted….and the other bounced around in a box waiting for paint. I like having these all finished now, it closes a small task loop that has been sitting open in my head all this time.

Next up is an Eldar Vyper, that has also been sitting in storage, built and primed, waiting for paint for far too long. Here’s the Vyper art;

Mine won’t be as cool as this, but I think it’ll still be pretty nifty.

Walkin’ Machines 1

In the distant future an ancient race of Space Elves has perfected anti-grav flight and dimensional travel, but they still have to walk to work for some reason. This is an early drawing of a Games Workshop Eldar War Walker, and I thought they were pretty cool. Some people said, “Isn’t the pilot too exposed?” Nah, there’s a force-field thingy protecting him. The newer versions of these do have canopies, but I prefer the more exposed look of the older version. I built and painted one 20 years ago, and built another that sat in a box for two decades. I also recently picked up one of the newer models, with no canopy so it was marked way down, which is fine because I didn’t want the canopy.

The one in the center is the first one from 20 years ago, the left is also from twenty years ago, the right is more recent. I approach vehicle painting much the same way I do figures, but I get to use a bigger brush most of the time. The areas on the models that have had white dry-brushed over them will be painted red, the black areas are a reminder to me to paint them in metals. The one on the left has had a leg test-painted in “Khorne Red”, which I guess is supposed to look like blood? It looks to me like Rose colored lipstick, but I’m color blind so who knows? The tone seems okay though and the paint is thick enough that it only needs one coat for good coverage.

The next step is to paint things that are farthest away; with figures it’s usually skin, unless they have exposed bones or organs, in the case of the walkers it is the pilot’s chairs.

Since my brush has to reach past the pilot to get those areas it’s best to do them now so I don’t screw up the paint job on the pilot. Next I went through and hit all of the brass areas; joints, engines, guns, controls, etc. I really like the dirty gold look of the P3 brand “Dirty Brass”, it’s perfect for a lot of details.

Next up is to see how well the brass and red look next to each other.

Warbikes – finale!

I was finally able to finish off the ork warbikes with base flocking and final matte spraying, only seventeen years later. I’m pretty sure I purchased all of these two house moves ago and they’ve just been bouncing along in storage all this time. The good thing, sort of good, is that my rule (more of a temptational guideline) of not purchasing new models until I finish old models means I can finally purchase some new toys. 🙂 If I want to, I have to confer with my son as to future projects that would be mutually enjoyable. I still have tons of old projects that I’d like to complete or, in the case of the Tyranids, sell off. I believe I’ll knock out some of my old Eldar (space elves) projects next. Here’s the full mob;

Half a dozen were all the same hunched-over bald guy.

Here are the Nobz two-seater bikes with a Gretchin and a Mekaniak as passengers.

And here is a scale comparison between first and second edition warbikes. I know I will be working on third edition warbikes in the near future.

‘Nids Mr. Rico! Jillions of ’em!

Pay no attention to this post unless you are interested in looking at old, giant space bugs. I have a crate of Tyranids on my shelf that I know it is very unlikely I will ever paint them, so I’m prepping them for sale; inventory, photograph and bag. Here’s the lot, it’ll head for ebay soon unless one of my son’s friends purchases them.

For starters here is a first edition Biovore. Metal, unfortunately missing it’s left leg.

Next up is three second edition metal Biovore’s, all intact.

A first edition Carnifex; metal, painted nicely, and intact.

A second edition Carnifex with a metal body and plastic arms.

Another first edition Carnifex with a metal body but it’s original limbs are missing and I’ve had to substitute plastic ones.Gargoyles (4); metal, but not in the best of shape. The two on the ground have their flight poles broken off inside their bodies and will have to be drilled out. One is missing it’s wings and I only have the one flight pole.

Genestealers (24); First edition plastics, most have a washer weight under their bases for stability, all with all four limbs.

More Genestealers (34); Unfortunately only enough arms for sixteen of them, and only fifteen bases. Farther down I also have a ton of Termagant spare parts which could be used to finish and mod these bodies.

Version 1 Hive Tyant; Metal, intact, even an extra set of gun arms.

Hive Tyrant version 2; Metal, no arms to be found.

Homagaunts(9); Metal, intact, eight have bases, there is one more body (not pictured) that has no arms or base.

Hormagaunts (17); Plastic, eight with bases and washers for weights.

Lictor; 1st edition, metal and intact.

Armorcast Malefactor 28mm scale; One big chunk of resin, intact. Back when GW was making the game Space Marine and Titan Legions they were producing unique units in 6mm scale. Armorcast had the license to produce the units in 28mm scale, not many of them around anymore. I’m not sure but I believe the Malefactor was supposed to be a troop transport for bugs.

Ripper Swarms (5); Plastic, kinda cute.

Spore Mines (10); Metal.

Termagant parts; Many on sprues, some loose, the next three pictures show them all.

Termagants (17); Version 1 plastics.

Termagants (22); Version 2 multi-part plastics armed with pistol things.

Tyranid Warrior #1; 1st edition metal, painted and intact.

Tyranid warrior #2; 1st edition, metal, painted, and intact.

Tyranid Warrior parts; 2nd edition plastic, there is enough on the sprues to make two complete 2nd edition Warriors and quite a few extra bits for whatever, including a metal rifle arm. The extra bits could be very handy for the next entry.

Tyranid Warriors (6-ish); Plastic, 1st edition, all missing arms, only two bases, one missing leg and one missing head. Could easily be finished up using the 2nd edition Warrior parts above.

Tyranid Warriors (3); 2nd edition plastics, complete, washers under the bases for weight.

Tyrant Guards (2); Metal, one with an extra washer under it’s base for weight.

Zoanthrope; 2nd edition, metal, extra washer under base for weight.

Zoanthrope; 1st edition, metal, intact.

That’s everybody! I wish I hadn’t misplaced a few limbs over the years that I’ve had these and I’m certain it will make a good army core for somebody else.

Warbikes 4

Finally finished all of the bike rider, and a few extra passengers. They used a really small palette as they are intended to be a unit and I decided not to diversify their color schemes. I realize that uniformity is not a very Orky aesthetic, but I like the look of all the yellow.

Since they are bikers I used Abaddon Black for their gloves and boots as it is a semi-gloss and I liked the shine in this instance. Waagh flesh for the green skin, Flaming orange for the occasional decoration (hair, wristbands), Pig iron metallic dry-brushed onto weapons, goggles and gear, Big Top red for scarves and eye sockets, white for teeth, Mournfang brown (nice reddy brown) for belts and suspenders, and nice bright Flash Gitz yellow for their pajamas. Odd names I know, each company makes their own designer paints and unfortunately Games Workshop did a big makeover of their paint line a few years ago and changed all of the names. I have a mix of old and new paint names in my paint box and I’ve found this conversion guide very helpful to find the new names of the colors that I used to work with. Citadel Paint Conversion

This was very handy when I needed to replace my old Bleached Bone, an off-white color that I use for a canvas base, which is now called Ushabti Bone. At least it still has ‘bone’ in the title. Here are the riders being glued onto their vehicles;

This is pre-dip, and there are several Imperial Assault characters that are also almost done. Two of the bikes were actually two-seater Nobz bikes, that’s why that mek with a big gun is looking over that fella on the left’s shoulder. The guy in the lower right is a version two plastic rider, the other riders are all lead, I’ll glue his arms on after I have him seated. Those rolled up tarps on the front of the bikes were all done with bleached bone, the dip should darken and shade them nicely. Here’s everybody post-dip drying;

My son also finished four more of his boyz and they were able to join the queue in time for tonight’s dip. The Imperial troops will get a little white highlight work after they get their first coat of matte spray, can’t really paint directly on top of the dried polyurethane; too slippery. These should all be done by tomorrow night.