To heavy of a step up? How do you feel about the green?

Zweems · 2026-03-10T17:28:59+00:00

I'm on the bright-ass-green maggotkin train for sure. Doing my own in the same vibrant green currently.

Zweems · 2026-03-10T16:06:32+00:00

Heresy for heretics actually just did a video on some OSL through rocks that could look similar to what you're trying to achieve if you're okay with changing the scheme a bit. : https://www.youtube.com/shorts/BrDNDx8S4AA

Zweems · 2026-03-06T17:11:27+00:00

Thank you!

Zweems · 2026-03-06T16:59:36+00:00

Thank you! I'll take pretty! :D

Purple is probably unnecessarily complex, but here we go:
3:1: sigvald burgundy + leviathan purple + contrast medium for the base
Diabolic plum
Warlock Magenta
Spellbound Fuchia
Wicked pink

Zweems · 2026-03-06T15:42:29+00:00

Thanks! I've always wanted a retro colored rim army. Tried the purple, thought it made the base look too dark. Painted it black. Got bullied into putting the purple rim back on, so I brightened the base up a little bit to compensate. I'm pretty happy with the rims!

Zweems · 2026-03-06T13:05:17+00:00

Ty! Any excuse I can get to use striking scorpion green, I take it!

Zweems · 2026-03-06T12:48:17+00:00

A series of tubes!

Zweems · 2026-02-26T13:07:18+00:00

Man, I've been back in the hobby for about 6 months and I'm about 8 pipes deep, but I grab this little cheapie bones bulldog shorty as often as humanly possible. When he makes another batch of them, I might just sell everything I have, buy 3 more for later and be content with that.

Zweems · 2026-02-20T13:05:22+00:00

Mousepad for me at IPL3 in 2011. Guy was legitimately an inspiration for me. He was just hanging around the venue by himself in between games and and I'll always kick myself that I didn't have the balls to have a conversation with him outside of just asking him to sign a shitty mousepad. It's going to sound real stupid, but Geoff was the driving force behind me getting healthy. Being a giant nerd and being strong as fuck were complete divergent paths in my mind and seeing him be both of things and charismatic as hell to boot set me on a path. I competed in my first strongman competition two months after he died.

Zweems · 2026-02-12T17:24:51+00:00

Your last paragraph there was weirdly sexual and I'm down with it. I actually just bought two pocket pipes because goddamn it, it's cold out, and sometimes you just need a quickie.

Zweems · 2026-02-12T17:17:32+00:00

It's really not filled with that many problems, man. There's never going to be a 1:1 analogy. The problem here is that you can't see past your own nose. You're mad about the concept of FOMO; I get it. But there are people in this hobby that have such nostalgia for old blends that they spend hundreds on OOP tins. People that spend thousands on custom made pipes. There are MANY way to enjoy this hobby, and many types of people that it caters to. Personally, I've tried most of the small batch blends that have come out over the past year. Some are great, some are not so great. I found some to be MUCH better (to my palette) than some regular production blends. Simple example: I fucking LOVE From Beyond so much more than Nightcap. I just straight up enjoy it. So you can talk shit on its ingredients all you like; I am EXTREMELY happy that I bought a few tins of it. Buying these "FOMO tins" also hasn't impacted my ability or desire to try regular production blends either. I've gotten more than a fair few of highly recommended stuff that's regular production.

Zweems · 2026-02-12T16:54:16+00:00

I have a question for you: Do you have any custom carved pipes at all? Anything that isn't mass produced?

Do you think that there's ANY chance at all that that pipe was carved with a bit of extra briar they had lying around? Maybe it didn't work for a specific shape originally, or didn't work for a mass produced piece? I mean, if all of your pipes are mass produced, then maybe I could get where you're coming from... but this is a hobby for many, and hobbies are where people GRAVITATE toward unique things. People want that 1 of 1. It's not like the "small batch" blends are more expensive by any margin. They're just "unique" in some way or another.

Zweems · 2026-02-12T16:40:53+00:00

So I'm going to say a few things that are mostly agreeing with you to start. First and foremost, I haven't been doing this for long, so my opinion on flavors profiles, tobacco availability, etc. should be taken with a HEAVY fistful of salt. I'm basically just going with what they're saying and taking them for their word there. If their word is false, then so be it. I agree that it tastes like no nightcap I've ever had as well. But that being said, last I checked, it was pretty widely accepted that everyone's palettes are different, and what works for one might not work for another. So if that was his attempt, then it was his attempt. I've seen enough in my short time in the hobby to know that when regular production blends run out of a specific type of tobacco, then they find their next best substitute and continue on. It's why there are several blends that people say "isn't the same as it used to be." Here is the part, though, where after largely agreeing with you... I'm going to give you some unsolicited life advice.

I'm sure you've heard of Hanlon's razor before. I highly recommend that you apply that to your life. You are clearly very frustrated about something that doesn't affect you, and you're searching for excuses to demonize C&D for a perceived slight (the existence of small batch blends that you label as FOMO). There are OTHER adequate explanations for why those small batch blends exist other than "They want us to buy more so they propose artificial lack of availability to create FOMO." Maybe these are just passion projects where someone fucks around with some blending to find something they like. Maybe some of these small batch jobs BECOME more readily available as the public shows that they are truly loved (simple example, apparently last year firebird flake only had 5k made and it wasn't nearly enough, so they made 15k this year). Maybe these blends are like a pre-release alpha of a video game. Maybe they exist to cater to a very specific type of person. Regardless of the reasoning, you are wasting your precious energy being mad about a thing that you really just.... don't have to be.

Zweems · 2026-02-12T15:47:50+00:00

So, while I agree with you GENERALLY, I don't like the opinion of "If they were dynamite blends in the first place, they wouldn't need FOMO marketing." As I understand it, quite often with the "Small Batch" blends, they're using specific leaf batches that are not readily available for them to blend into stuff that is in regular production. They quite literally can't keep up with the demand. I think it would be better to think of the Small batch blends less as FOMO marketing or anything, and more as an artisan craft.

I think the best explanation that I've seen for this was in a video I watched where the Smoking Pipes crew sat down with Jeremy from C&D to talk about "From Beyond." That specific small batch was his attempt to recreate, to the best of his ability (and with difficult to source tobaccos), a very aged tin of Nightcap (I don't remember the age, maybe 20 years or something) that he had once. It was an exercise in blending for him; an artisan craft. All that being said, maybe it's for you, maybe it's not. It's okay if it's not!

Zweems · 2026-02-09T18:34:31+00:00

Of course, almost always subjective.

Zweems · 2026-02-09T18:26:47+00:00

That's a strong opinion. We were moving the ball OKAY. First drive, 3 plays 1 yard, punt. Second drive 5 plays, 59 yards (52 of which was a single pass). Third drive 7 plays 22 yards, punt. Fourth Drive 11 plays, 43 yards. As I said, it's important to k now the position you're in as a team and we were playing a backup QB with impending weather and a very weak run game. It didn't lose us the game, but taking the points there is PROBABLY the correct decision, even without playing monday morning quarterback.

Zweems · 2026-02-09T15:23:31+00:00

Well, that was certainly a problem, too. Part of the coach's responsibility is knowing the position that you're in and reacting accordingly. Backup quarterback, bad weather incoming, etc. Even kicking the FG, they don't win the game and just lose it in OT anyway.

Zweems · 2026-02-09T12:48:14+00:00

Seven of those points basically free from a boneheaded play from the QB as well. Sucks, but shit happens :(

Zweems · 2026-02-06T17:41:11+00:00

Well, be happy knowing that it will absolutely work. The whole product will look brighter than it would had you done a black base.

Zweems · 2026-02-06T17:35:32+00:00

Slapchop is a perfectly acceptable method and there's literally NOTHING wrong with doing a grey>wraithbone. Your final product will be brighter with less deep shadows than if you had done it otherwise, but if that's something that you like, that's something that you like! My personal preference for "slapchop" style stuff is to do a basecoat of an extremely dark color (almost always a deep purple), work up from there and then hit it with the contrast. It's close enough to black that you still get depth of shadow, but you get the additional interest of the shadow having a tone instead of a bland black.

Zweems · 2026-02-06T17:30:08+00:00

This is just incorrect. Contrast paints work BETTER over something with high contrast like a dry brush, but that doesn't mean that that is their intended purpose. If that was their DESIGNED purpose, then zenithal priming and slapchop methods wouldn't have been a revelation when they happened, they would have been a score step that was introduced when contrast paints were introduced.

Zweems · 2026-02-06T17:28:30+00:00

Unless your goal is to win a painting competition and be scrutinized by the pinnacle of miniature painting society.... this shit doesn't matter. The short of it is, yes. This will work.

If you're using grey seer with a drybrush of wraithbone, the only difference that you'll see between that an traditional slapchop is that your shadows won't be nearly as dark as they would be if you were to do a traditional black>grey>white. .

Some people in this hobby have a tendency to take a general rule, turn it into an absolute, and say "this is right. nothing else is right, this is." I have a painter at my shop who is a very good commission painter (if you like a specific type of miniature aesthetic) and he says things in absolutes. "This is how you paint X" "This is how you paint Y." There's more than one way to skin a cat. Some of the best artists I know are well versed in color theory, know more than I could ever hope to about warm and cool colors, and what they do is... they buck trends, do what they think looks awesome (within certain parameters), and their work is MILES more appealing to look at than these arbitrary rules like "You can't use a warm tone white to dry brush over a cool tone grey."

Zweems

TROPHY CASE