Lee Dixon

 June was the month that the sun finally came out to play, if only for a short time. It feels like we have had 6 months of rain here in the UK, so it was very nice to get the pool out into the garden. The boys loved it, but Kylo our dog still doesn't like water, thought we could get him in the pool as well, but no :)

It was over before it had really begun.. Heading to Angainor II, a world surrounded by dust clouds which could help defenses but would be an isolated planet. Hopefully we can create a great supply line that would help them not feel alone out there while they supply us with what we need to make our civilization great… Improvement in our hyperdrives have made our ship’s faster, we are still pushing for Ion Drives and Interstellar Navigation. We are now at 184 cycles since we as a race, made a decision to push forward for the good of our people. Unfortunately it has now become very clear all too late that we have spread ourselves too thin. Hiring Mirazu Ysen with his ship "The Ysengard" was the right the right thing to do, but only one small fleet can not fight all the Pirates that we keep coming across the further we push forward into the unknown.

 May was a month of many new things. After almost a year of my boys and wife going "can we have a dog, can we have a dog" I finally gave in. After not much of a long search we came across a really nice organization that tries to re-home dogs, cats, rabbits and other smaller animals.  Animal care  were very good and not at all pushy, we could take as many dogs as we wanted for a walk (one at a time of course), but it was our second one that the whole family, and yes me as well fell for. Liam, soon to be re-named Kylo is a cross breed Jack Russell with a lot of energy, but also just loves to chill and sit on you. He is 2 years old and loves to chase cat, also one of our neighbors has just got chickens which is driving him mad. We have only had him a month and he already feels so much part of the family it's like he has always been with us.

Galactic Civilizations 3 - 001 After saying many, many times that I’m such a big fan of strategy games like Civilization and Galactic Civilization and that they are in my favorite all time games list, I thought I’d better start playing some. First up is going to be Galactic Civilizations 3. Now even though it's been out since May 2015 and I picked it up early on I haven’t put much time into it (11hrs as of now on my steam account). I will be playing with Mercenaries Expansion Pack, Ship Designer’s Toolbox, Precursor World's, Mega Events and Revenge Of The Snathi DLC installed, no other mods. We are the Arcean Empire, a noble and old race with a rich history. After centuries of always being the underdog, and being almost brought to the brink of destruction by the Drengin. We were helped by the Terran Alliance to gain our world back and start to rebuild. We will never let our proud race be oppressed by anyone ever again. We will create an army of warriors that will...

Blender Week 004 Wooden Box Already into week 4, thought I would try a couple of different simple builds this time around. Wooden Plant Box and a Glass Bottle of sorts.....  Starting with the box, my strategy was to make it the way I would if I was making it out of wood, so a bottom, four sides and blocks to hold it all together. Really simple, nothing too taxing in this. Using the same perceptual material from last weeks table  helped with the look. Next was just creating a plain and subdividing it about five times and using proportional editing with random setting to make an uneven surface for the soil. And a tile-able texture image applied worked ok, though later I thought it could of done with some depth by using some displacement, but I'm not at that level yet of knowing how to apply this in the right way.. 

Blender Week 003 Continuing on from last week's wooden table, I thought I would pull back a bit from using too many elements like the modifiers, I need to walk or even crawl before I can run.. So a table is still a good start and wood yes, going for just a simple slab of wood, and splitting it in the middle to make it look interesting in some way. Next I added four very simple cylinders for the legs. Again I added my studio sweep (getting good at making these), and then a few lamp light sources around my table. Now this is the part where I cheat, but please bare with me, it’s for a very good reason. As I have said in last post, materials and texture are really going to be the thing for me, and most likely the hardest to get my head around. So…. I got hold of a free material that is procedural called chocofur wood, and as you will see in the images below, a good material makes one hell of a difference. Now I haven't the faintest clue about this material an...

Blender Week 002 A little reading, a little watching of video tutorials and a little playing around with Blender, so let's get building….. Thought I would start with setting my screen up just to what I need to see. As with most software like this you can customize it greatly to fit how you need it to work for you. Main window for working in, small window for render preview and a node window. Pressing (T) key hides the menu tab which gives a little more space, it’s all about the shortcuts… A small rustic like table is what I thought I would have a go at first, so starting with a rectangular block I apply an Array modifier to the count of 4, then a Subdivision Surface modifier, then onto a Displacement modifier with a cloud texture to give the wood a small uneven surface, and then finally a smooth modifier. After that I applied the same to four legs.       Needed something for the table to sit on so created a Plane and curved the backend up to give it a...