Photography: Developing Black and White Film

A History of Bad Men (Tmax 100; developed in Ilfosol 3 [1:9]).

For the past year, I have been fascinated by film photography, having been introduced to it from my late grandfather. Shortly after starting to shoot 35mm film, I began to scan my negatives using my Nikon Zf with a 105mm f2.8 MC lens and a Valoi Easy35. This allowed me to pay a lab to develop the film for me, but digitize and edit the negatives myself, rather than paying for the lab to scan them (and often give low quality jpegs unless you pay over $20 per roll). This reduced cost while also affording me more control over the process. Despite this, I could not escape the feeling that I should also be doing the development myself too. My grandfather would often talk about how he used to develop his own black and white film and even had a darkroom for a short while. After doing some research, I discovered that the process is relatively straightforward, only requiring a single developer that can be used at room temperature (20oC/68oF) and a fixer. To my delight, I was given a Paterson Film Processing Starter Kit as an early birthday gift, and wanted to share some of my initial results!

Flames of Orion: Dark Spirit

Violence Dimension.

Over the last few years, we had the opportunity to playtest Flames of Orion, Steve’s (sovthofheaven) mech combat game. The game’s rules were recently finalized, with copies getting sold at Adepticon this year, but also available to download for free! The game is soon going to be launched on Kickstarter too! Each time we played the game, we used one of Steve’s mechs (sculpted by Ana Polanšćak of Gardens of Hecate), Dark Spirit. Over time, they developed quite a legacy and are even featured in a narrative piece in the rulebook. With Under the Dice Fest rapidly approaching this year, we thought it would be fun to create our own version of Dark Spirit so we can use them during the event!

Captured in film: In memory of Donald Wier

In loving memory of Donald Wier (Beep): February 21, 1930- April 28, 2025.

Yesterday, our beloved grandfather Donald Wier, affectionately known as “Beep,” passed away in his bed surrounded by family. Beep often encouraged us to keep up with our art, and was always eager to see our latest creations and offer his unwavering support. While we will miss him greatly, he will live on with us in spirit as we continue to follow our passions. We are so grateful for the gift of last year to connect with him over film photography, as we learned how to shoot 35mm film on his beloved cameras, an Exakta VX and a Minolta SR-T 201. During his 95th birthday, I had the privilege to shoot a roll of Kodak Porta 800 and Tri-X 400 through his Exakta, capturing not only his portrait, but also some photos of miniatures. I wanted to share some of these photos here in memory and celebration of the wonderful person he was and the creativity he will continue to inspire us with.

Mordheim: Chaos Dwarf reinforcements

Desolation Hexx.

I recently started to create a Chaos Dwarf warband for Mordheim. Rather than extensively convert the warband, like I did with my Sister's of Sigmar warband, I wanted to create this one using old miniatures from the 80s, leaning into the Oldhammer theme. Last month I trimmed and assembled the first three models for the warband. This month I continued the process and added three more dwarves to the warband!