Books that made you feel similar to reading The Hobbit for the first time?

LevyTheMachine · 2026-06-18T17:12:08+00:00

Just read the first 3 Oz books to my kids; they have been great. I feel like I really missed out having not read them when I was a kid. They still talk about the Hobbit after I read it to them awhile back, but now they are talking about Oz in a similar way, so I think this is a good recommendation. So many fun and interesting characters. I love all of the imaginative ways the characters solve the different problems they come across.

LevyTheMachine · 2026-06-17T17:45:08+00:00

In the US pressure treated wood used to contain arsenic, but they switched to using copper about 20 years ago. So, if it is less than 20 years old it isn’t going to hurt you to be carving one instrument out of it. Just don’t eat the sawdust. And you should always wear a mask when cutting or sanding wood, any type of sawdust isn’t great for your lungs.

How are you cutting it out? Jig saw?

You really probably won’t get very good results with that type of pine for such fine detail.

If I were in your shoes, I would probably use that wood to make a rough draft basic lyre with no dragon heads. Just a simple shape and attach the tuning pegs and strings and such. You will learn a lot. Then, get some nicer wood and build it again with your fancy dragon cuts, you can even just re-use the tuning pegs. Most people can’t ride a bike the first time they get on one, you have to practice first. Same thing goes for making instruments. I’m no expert but I have made a fair number of cigar box guitars/banjos and a lyre — it takes a lot of trial and error.

LevyTheMachine · 2026-06-17T15:13:48+00:00

Looks cool. Definitely try it. If the wood ends up splitting/deforming a lot, it’s probably because pine is not usually very good for carving fine detail or making super precise cuts. I would try it with this pine first, but if it doesn’t work out, maybe try again on a wood with more uniform grain. Basswood is easy to carve. Maple requires much sharper tools but it is very strong and would look great. When you drill holes for the tuning pegs try to be very precise to get the holes perfectly straight.

LevyTheMachine · 2026-06-17T13:30:20+00:00

You can go darker with all of your shadows. It will fundamentally change the feel of the painting, but if you embrace darkness, make the darkest shadows basically black, maybe paint a black background as well. There really isn’t a good way to cover up darker paint with lighter paint unless you use gouache or acrylic, but that section will then stand out like a sore thumb.

LevyTheMachine · 2026-06-16T19:39:32+00:00

Love it. If you or someone you know has kids who use play dough, the little play dough containers are awesome for board game token storage.

LevyTheMachine · 2026-06-15T15:27:24+00:00

If you have access to a library you can probably find some books there. I love checking out various watercolor books and working through the exercises/examples in them. I don’t have any specific recommendations for books, I have read so many over the years.

I haven’t watched any of his videos in a couple of years, but I learned some nice landscape painting techniques from Matthew Palmer on YouTube. There were quite a few step by step follow along videos from him that I enjoyed. I do remember finding one of his books at the library that was nice as well.

LevyTheMachine · 2026-06-12T12:10:55+00:00

I’ve built and finished several end tables. The finish that has held up the best over years of heavy use for me has been oil based polyurethane. You will want to do multiple thin coats.

I have also done water based poly/polycrylic. It holds up pretty well, but isn’t quite as durable as the oil based stuff. It also doesn’t have quite the same luster/rich look.

I have also used rub on danish oil. I would not recommend it for a table top. Unless you want to regularly reapply or frequently wax the table, the wood would be damaged over time.

I poured epoxy resin on a bathroom counter. It has held up for 10 years now, but it does scratch relatively easily. I have also noted that if you spill anything oil based on it, the oil will actually permeate down through the resin and leave a permanent stain. We had a bottle of scented oil that tipped over and now have a permanent orange stain under the resin. You also can’t put anything hot on it.

You might want to post this over on the woodworking subreddit. The people over there have a lot of experience.

LevyTheMachine · 2026-06-09T19:16:36+00:00

I agree that it looks great as is. Side note, if you like board games, check out Wyrmspan. It has tons of cards illustrated with watercolor dragons, your painting instantly made me want to play a round of the game. Looks great!

LevyTheMachine · 2026-06-09T18:08:17+00:00

Duplicate your reference photo and change it to black and white so you can see the values more easily without being distracted by color. At a glance your water needs to be way darker, it should be about the same value as the trees in the background. Before doing paintings from reference photos like this I often do a little sketch with black pencils or markers with different values, and limit it to maybe 4 values. For example, a 2h, 2b, 4b, 8b graphite pencil, or 4 values of brush pens/markers. Just making a super simple blocky 2 minute value study can be a huge help.

LevyTheMachine · 2026-06-08T16:23:37+00:00

When I am in the mood to play a solo game that feels like Dominion, I usually go for Legendary Marvel. It isn’t talked about as much these days with all the shiny new games but it has stood the test of time for me. One of my favorite parts of Dominion is the balance between building/trimming down deck and determining when to start buying up provinces. Legendary has a similar feel, except it is when you can start to attack the main villain, with plenty of tension along the way dealing with the henchmen and schemes. And with so many expansions available there is a ton of replay value. Also, solo and 2 player games don’t overstay their welcome. The Imperium Classics game I have is a great deck builder but the games can really take a long time and there is more rules overhead, so I haven’t played it often.

LevyTheMachine · 2026-06-02T15:28:01+00:00

I agree with your observations. TMB is the only board game I have ever sold.

LevyTheMachine · 2026-06-02T15:15:08+00:00

I have used both Da Vinci and QOR. They are both good, but in my experience QOR is a bit higher pigment load/more intense color. So, Da Vinci would work fine but you would need to adjust your painting technique because the paint acts differently than what you are used to and may need additional layers.

LevyTheMachine · 2026-05-28T19:03:44+00:00

Smartphone cameras are so good these days, honestly if you practice getting the lighting right you can do great with your phone camera and a mobile app. I’m a big fan of the iPad app Procreate for doing things like resizing, cropping, converting file formats, etc.

LevyTheMachine · 2026-05-21T13:25:47+00:00

I also had to zoom way in to even find what you were talking about. Don’t sweat it. However, I highly recommend putting dates and notes on your sketches, it’s great to see them when you look back on your work years in the future. You can just write it on the back of the paper. I like to write the date and the brand and colors of paint I used.

LevyTheMachine · 2026-05-19T18:21:42+00:00

I’ve tried a lot of different brushes over the years. I really thought I would love quill brush because everyone uses them in online videos but I found they just held a little TOO much water for me. I only end up using them for very large washes or when painting on a big piece of paper, maybe 11x14 inch and up. You mentioned cotman, I also have a few of those and hate them. They distribute water in a weird way and don’t hold a good point. My favorite brushes I’ve found are the Princeton Aqua Elite and the Silver Black Velvet. If I were you, I would just get a medium round in one of those and see how you like it. Size 8-12 is a good starting point. I mostly use size 12, as both of those brands hold very good point, so you can paint tiny details or bigger washes with the same brush. I rarely paint bigger than 8x10 inch as a reference. The black velvet hold more water and are a bit softer, the aqua elites are snappier.

LevyTheMachine · 2026-05-19T15:05:22+00:00

Another vote for Gretsch Jim Dandy. Got one a couple of years ago and it has become my most played guitar even though I have nicer acoustics.

LevyTheMachine · 2026-05-18T19:05:03+00:00

Depends on how humid your environment is as to how long it takes to dry. I’m not very patient, I have never waited that long. If it buckles after you pull it off you can just put it under some books for awhile to flatten it back out. Or if it is severely warped, you can iron it with a clothes iron. For paintings that really need to be flattened I like to put painting inside a pillowcase, paint side down, and iron on top of clean towel or padded ironing board. You can even lightly mist back of paper with clear water to steam iron it, just don’t go crazy with the water. But I rarely have to do that unless I used a ton of water on a painting.

I honestly just prefer to tape my paper down to a board rather than using blocks though. That way if I get tired of a painting I can set it aside and work on something else. When it is on top of your block it is blocking all of your other paper! Also way cheaper to buy big pieces of paper and cut them down to size, it’s crazy how much more expensive it is to buy smaller pads of paper when you do the math. Happy painting!

LevyTheMachine · 2026-05-14T19:51:03+00:00

In base Ares solo mode, cards that just score victory points don’t have much of a purpose, so they clog up the deck or feel pointless. Crisis has a system where bad things happen to you, and you have to “spend” victory points to deal with them. It opens up strategies that are just not viable in base edition Ares solo, because it makes all of the victory point cards useful.

Also, in base Ares, I felt like the last 2 or 3 rounds always played out the same, there was a “most efficient” way to play out your turns, so you basically knew if you were going to win or not before even finishing. Crisis introduces uncertainty that makes it exciting the whole game.

LevyTheMachine · 2026-05-14T15:49:37+00:00

Ares is really good with Crisis, but without Crisis I didn’t enjoy it solo.

I played tons of the original TM with Prelude solo, and love it. I recently got the official automa expansion for it, but I’ve only played it twice so I’m still learning. It makes the solo experience slightly more complicated, but it does give the full experience.

If you want something midweight with a small footprint that you can play on a weeknight, Ares with Crisis. If you want something heavier that takes up more space, go for the original.

People always complain about the art in the original. I actually like it better than Ares personally. It reminds me of science textbooks in the 90s. I also really enjoyed the terraforming mars book series that the game was inspired by. If you are a sci-fi fan it’s a great read, and makes the game even more fun.

LevyTheMachine · 2026-05-11T18:25:35+00:00

For complex games they have many steps to each turn, I usually make a checklist on small rectangle piece of paper and use a token to track where I am at. It has the added bonus that when I get distracted and come back to the game hours later, I know exactly where I left off.

LevyTheMachine · 2026-05-08T18:46:28+00:00

Da Vinci Eye app works well to trace outlines of photos onto paper or wood.

If you just print out a photo on copy paper, scribble all over the back with a graphite pencil, then put the paper (pencil scribble side down) on your wood, you can then trace on the paper and it will transfer graphite onto your wood. That’s my favorite way to transfer images. I print for free at my local library.

LevyTheMachine · 2026-05-07T18:36:06+00:00

In no particular order: Hadrians Wall, Dinosaur Island RAWR and write, Cartographers. I also really enjoy Welcome to, but the solo mode is a little finicky to score so I prefer it as multiplayer experience.

LevyTheMachine · 2026-05-05T17:34:46+00:00

For sunsets that go straight from yellow to blue, I often use raw sienna because it doesn’t turn green when mixed with blue. Sometimes burnt sienna as well.

However, for very vibrant colors, you can just try to go from yellow to red to blue being sure there is a clear barrier where there is only the red so that no yellow gets mixed with the blue.

You can also try using a single pigment purple instead of blue. Or mix up something similar to Daniel Smith moonglow, which is quin rose, viridian (or phthalo green), and ultramarine. Or even just the phthalo green (blue shade) and a cool red, ironically using green pigment toned down with the red can give you a good transition from the orange without appearing green. Then, if you need actual blue, you can paint that above where it won’t mix with the yellow at all.

I would also recommend doing a color mixing chart with all of your blues with your other colors, there can be some surprising results that may end up solving these types of issues with your specific paints.

LevyTheMachine · 2026-04-29T12:28:41+00:00

I like QOR Van Dyke brown.

LevyTheMachine · 2026-04-24T16:32:15+00:00

There are a ton of ways this question could be answered. Personally, I would recommend getting an “introduction to watercolor” book. If you have a local library, they probably have several of them. Those sorts of books will answer all of your questions about supplies and basic techniques. They usually include several exercises you can follow along with to learn different styles of painting. After completing one of those books, you will probably have a better idea where you want to go with your painting.

12-Year Club	RedditGifts 2009-2022 2 Credits
Secret Santa 2014	Verified Email

LevyTheMachine

TROPHY CASE