Trooper Mk III

I was just gifted a Colt Trooper Mk III from a friend. These were made from the late 60's to the early 80's. This particular weapon was purchased in 1969. It's been a bit neglected, but only has superficial rust. It currently has a date with the ultrasonic cleaner, so that should pretty well clean off without any trouble. The next step would be to re-blue it to restore the finish where rust ate through.

Cleaning firearms always reminds me of spending weekends with my father. His place always smelled like Hoppes and filtered Camels. I usually spent a good portion of the weekend stripping and cleaning something that went bang. That was always part of the deal - "You shoot them, you clean them."

Getting up close and personal with something is a great way to visualize the 3d model. Building an atmosphere around them can help you give your models more character and life. Try spending a lot of time around the things you model and focus that energy into your work. You'll be surprised what you can do with a deeper understanding of the content.

The Servers are Busy at This TIme

So, I got my hands on the Diablo 3 beta and decided to spend a little time with it. I won't go into my thoughts here, as this is the wrong medium for it. However, for those of you eager to play Diablo 3, expect to spend a lot of time staring at this screen:

And no, there is no play offline option. If you can't connect, you can't play. In more related news, I'll be posting my very first 3d tank tomorrow. It has multiple problems that prevent it from 3d printing properly. I'll give you a day to see if you can identify them all before I pull it apart and show you how to avoid the mistakes.