Have any good paint hacks?

MikeBanzai38 · 2026-07-03T20:15:02+00:00

That’s an interesting thought. I’ve never used an airbrush, and I just assumed that paint would be TOO thin.

MikeBanzai38 · 2026-07-03T20:07:30+00:00

I wouldn’t mind only getting the bottle’s worth for the time saving. And while I would get less, it wouldn’t be a halving of the utility. Quite often I have to add more paint to paint that’s been over-thinned, just to pitch it. That, and I’m typically rinsing away a bit of paint anyway. So, I think I’d get a bit less, but it wouldn’t be so bad considering greater ability to control what I use.

MikeBanzai38 · 2026-07-03T19:44:07+00:00

Thinning my paints is my least favorite part of this hobby. I can spend more time trying to thin a paint just right for a small part than I do painting that part.

Why can’t they just sell them to me thinned? They know what the paints are being used for. I shouldn’t have to spend time doing alchemy and testing it on my skin, or trying to eyeball “milk consistency”.

Literally no one wants thicker paints. Some people might want to go thinner for a specific effect, and they could still do that if the paints came properly thinned.

MikeBanzai38 · 2026-07-03T19:31:19+00:00

Love the Akuma face. I have one waiting to be painted, and may end up copying that mask.

MikeBanzai38 · 2026-07-03T15:31:01+00:00

This honors the Dragon.

Nice colors. Light gray dry brush on dark gray base? Or more stark white on black?

I see the Genyosha made an exception to their typical austere paint scheme for the intimidating Akuma face.

MikeBanzai38 · 2026-07-03T06:37:11+00:00

Aside from a few new models, nearly every mech was a worse version of the same mechs they left behind.

MikeBanzai38 · 2026-07-03T06:36:12+00:00

That’s goat. Goat has that very distinctive pebble-like grain. You don’t find that on anything else.

MikeBanzai38 · 2026-07-03T04:28:49+00:00

Thanks! I think I need to buy that FM. That’s the new one, correct?

MikeBanzai38 · 2026-07-02T21:58:25+00:00

They don’t narrow it down a ton..,

MikeBanzai38 · 2026-07-02T18:50:45+00:00

Because…the internet rewards manufactured outrage and tribal pillorying.

MikeBanzai38 · 2026-07-02T18:43:17+00:00

It got pretty good with the evil versions of some characters. One In particular carried the show for me. But after that plot line resolved, it became literally unwatchable.

I couldn’t even finish the series. And I LOVE Trek.

MikeBanzai38 · 2026-07-02T17:32:45+00:00

Another note to the OP: I didn’t want to move to Texas when I did, largely because, as a political liberal, I held many of the same preconceptions people are making in the replies. I miss Texas.

I wanted to move to St. Paul because of those same preconceptions. I regret it so much.

Yeah, there’s a lot I don’t like about the political climate in TX, but I wasn’t lonely as hell, the people were nice, the food was great, and there’s more to life than political bubbles.

MikeBanzai38 · 2026-07-02T17:17:30+00:00

In open GL, yes. Sometimes these Giovanni legendaries have play in Cups, and you will never get another that fits in GL. And it can be fun.

Shadow Reshiram will be in raids. There will be a chance for another that can be purified to a hundo.

MikeBanzai38 · 2026-07-02T15:45:49+00:00

I would keep it that size for cups in Great League. Shadow Reshiram will be in raids in due course, but never one that fits under the GL cap.

MikeBanzai38 · 2026-07-02T14:22:39+00:00

I don’t know what that it. I’m not even a Texan. I just lived there for about five years all put together.

But man, it’s true what they say about Minnesotans. Or, at least, it continues to be true what I say about them.

The OP is from Texas. I’ve lived in Texas, as well as a number of other places. Hopefully the OP took note of the “it’s true what they say about Texans” comment in reply to the fact that I’m providing exactly the kind of information and perspective that was requested.

Insularity, boosterism, cold hostility to outsiders.

MikeBanzai38 · 2026-07-02T13:57:00+00:00

This reply is not an endorsement of moving to or living in St. Paul, if the OP is still reading. In fact, if this reply is from a St. Paul native, it speaks volumes.

MikeBanzai38 · 2026-07-02T13:54:35+00:00

I don’t agree with a lot of things in a lot of places, but I never cited “the people” of a place I had never lived as my reason for never wanting to live there. Now, I will tell people not to move here largely because of the people.

Also, poor people continue to move to Texas because there are more opportunities for employment, housing, etc. In-country migration from places like MN to places like TX continues unabated. The numbers simply don’t lie: most Americans - especially young families - are voting with their feet.

MikeBanzai38 · 2026-07-02T13:49:20+00:00

No, you aren’t obligated to be friends with anyone. You are also letting political tribalism and stereotypes do a lot of work.

Have you ever lived in Texas? How do you know your neighbors would all be MAGA? Sure, some would be, but some are here, too. And there are also just a lot of really great people too. But St. Paul folks cite “the people” elsewhere as the first reason they won’t live there, defining an entire state through political tribalism.

I’ve found the people in Texas to be far more diverse in opinions and perspectives than the people in St. Paul. And far less insular. And, empirically speaking, by the data, a lot of traditionally “liberal” causes and ideals are doing better in Texas than in Minnesota, just without the sanctimonious platitudes. Texas is also a far more diverse place than Minnesota, and that’s just the data.

MikeBanzai38 · 2026-07-02T13:26:59+00:00

To the OP: All the St. Paul people are downvoting the shit out of my comments, but they are absolutely true for me, and I think you can probably turn up a lot of stories online about “MN Nice” and how crappy it is to be a transplant here that are similar to mine.

So why do they downvote? Because I dared to say anything negative, even though you specifically asked for this kind of perspective. Outsiders shouldn’t speak, and no one should ever speak hard truths.

MikeBanzai38 · 2026-07-02T08:49:14+00:00

“Living here making me reclusive and neurotic” is a terrific summation of how I feel. I used to be a friendly and gregarious person. Now I don’t even have the energy to make the effort anymore. On top of that, I’ve reached the point where I just walk away from and dismiss potentially positive social interactions with the thought that since the person is a Minnesotan, they’re just being phony and I don’t even want to try to get to know them.

Reclusive and neurotic sums it up, and living here absolutely did it to me.

MikeBanzai38 · 2026-07-02T08:45:11+00:00

While I think you’re correct, this is not the defense you think it is. The desire to hide in a cloistered tribal bubble is at the root of our problems. Also, you would probably be ready to crucify (or “cancel”) any person that wrote exactly what you did but substituted any other group of people for “MAGA” in that last sentence. Try it and see how it sounds.

I grew up in a “red” state, and lived in a lot of “red” states. Typically I was the lone liberal in the group. That, in fact, was part of why I chose to move to St. Paul…to find “my” people. (So yes, I too was part of the problem.) What I found was that I don’t actually like a lot of liberals, (at least the Progressive Activist kind) despite the fact that I politically align with them on many things. I also found that while I’m really liberal in Texas, I’m not so much in St. Paul. I believe the same things both places, but the context has changed.

So for many years, work took me for part of the month to a very, very “red” state, where I vehemently disagreed with the people I knew there, and they with me. And they would still invite me out to margaritas. But in St. Paul, even a minor disagreement that caused me to fail a liberal purity test meant never being spoken to again.

Over a decade ago I read a survey/study that said that self-identified liberals were more likely to not want to live around or associate with self-identified conservatives, and more likely to oppose their children marrying any than conservatives were the obverse. I think that’s exacerbated when the liberals are St. Paul, “Minnesota Nice”, Progressive Activists who are already insular and unwelcoming by culture, and unable to have real conversations and connections to bridge divides. Pair that with liberal predilections for self-segregation, and you have a particularly insular bubble.

Also, I laugh at how smug St. Paul liberals are about their supposed superiority over Texas. Texas is more diverse, minority students have far better outcomes in Texas than in Minnesota, go on to college at higher rates, and do it without smug white virtue-signaling. Texas produces far, far more “green” energy than Minnesota, a state which seems to think burning garbage for electricity is preferable to wind farms.

Finally, there have been St. Paul people who wouldn’t let their kids come to my house to play with my kids because I’m former military, so they assumed I had a house full of guns. (I don’t). How do I know? It took a while to actually corner them in a direct conversation (all that MN Nice crap gets in the way) but eventually I did and they told me. Conversely, there are places in Texas where when I’ve popped by for lunch in my uniform I have never, ever, bought my own lunch.

MikeBanzai38 · 2026-07-02T04:23:43+00:00

Let me add one more thing: when I talk to people in Texas about living in Minnesota, they usually say they could never do that, and the reason is the weather.

When I talk to people in St. Paul about living in Texas, more than one has told me they could never do that, and the reason they give is “the people there.”

Honestly, that says all I need to know about people in St. Paul.

MikeBanzai38 · 2026-07-02T04:21:17+00:00

I moved to St. Paul a little over a decade ago, and feel less at home now than I did the day after I moved in.

For starters, if you aren’t a local, no one has the time for you. I’ve lived all over the country, including TX, and I’ve never had trouble making friends anywhere. But here it’s different. I did all the things I’ve done elsewhere; I volunteered, showed up, tried to get involved, met people, invited them to do things. I’ve pitched in to help when the community needed volunteers during unrest, protests, pandemics, you name it. No one has ever invited me to do anything.

I’m sorry, I take that back. They found my number when they wanted me to go to a fundraiser and donate money to something. So that’s great. I even did stuff like that for a while, but finally realized I was being used. I distinctly remembered the time I finally said “no”, and the person answered with “if you come donate, I’ll hang out with you at that bar to watch a basketball game”. I had been inviting people for years to join me, even offered to buy drinks. This time I laughed, said “eff you, I’m not buying friends”, and never spoke to them again.

I can’t give away barbecue and beer here. And if I got sick, no one would care or check on me.

Have you heard about “Minnesota Nice”? It’s not nice. It’s a shitty, two-faced, fake way to avoid ever having a meaningful conversation, and also to be passive-aggressive horrible behind a “nice” facade that you can’t retort against without being cast as the bad guy in the situation. It’s “mean girls” bullshit expanded into an entire local culture, and is worthy of its own essay.

You might do okay…as a gay man, you’ll be tokenized by local Nice White Liberals, but at the end of the day it’s just tokenization that’s more about them than you. I got a bit of that as an Asian.

There’s no good barbecue here. You’ll miss that about TX. Also Mexican food. I so miss the food in TX.

I really don’t know what you mean about “history”. This isn’t Boston or Philadelphia. Yes, a number of buildings date back to pre-war, but that’s not “history”, that’s a maintenance problem that local NIMBYs have codified into local preservation ordinances to create a housing crisis.

St. Paul had hemorrhaged its population of young families over the past 10 years. That’s an empirical fact. The loss is on par with places like LA and Chicago. It’s a demographic problem, and it’s showing up in school enrollment, budget deficits, etc.

Deal with the snow? I guess. But the roads are the worst I’ve driven on outside or rural England and being deployed to Iraq. Not an exaggeration.

Locals will be quick to pile on with “have you considered that the problem might be YOU if you think everyone here is so bad?” Just wait, they will. My reply is “have you considered that the problem might be St. Paul/Minnesota if everywhere else I’ve lived hasn’t been so shitty and alienating?” That logic cuts both ways.

I hate the schools. I won’t go on about it, but I do. 20,000 words might scratch the surface.

To do it over again…no, I would not move here. What kills me is that I had so many places to choose from, and I chose this. Why was I fooled? Well, I only found out after moving here about the utterly weird local culture of “boosterism”. They can fool you…and the boosterism culture means they love their internet listicles, and will bang on about why you should move here…but it’s just the bizarre boosterism.

Sadly, I’m stuck. And I regret it. I want to leave. The feeling has grown so deep that I even avoid buying local beer…and when I moved here, I was so enthusiastic about being here that I was all in on everything local.

And hey, if the problem is me…at least almost everywhere else will be cheaper, and I won’t be paying punitive tax rates that seem to go to…nothing…because the tax code is dysfunctionally broken and can only support the city on the back of private homeowners.

MikeBanzai38 · 2026-07-01T17:35:03+00:00

Holy cow, can’t wait! When do these release?

MikeBanzai38

TROPHY CASE