Anton's Rich and Spicy Tofu Pumpkin Pie

Thanksgiving is soon upon us, and Pumpkin Pie is my favorite Thanksgiving tradition.  It's my favorite pie.  It's easy to make (even easier with pre-made store-bought crusts), and it's a simple task to make it vegan.  Experienced vegetarians are familiar with the silken tofu pumpkin pie, but I found the base recipe too light; I added almond butter to give the custard a richer taste and sensation, and the pie was a hit.  I like spices, so this recipe is heavy on the spices; if it's too spicy for you, you can probably cut the spices in half and have a reasonably flavorful pumpkin pie.

Ingredients:

1 9-inch pie shell
1 16 oz. can of pumpkin
1 10 oz. package of silken tofu
1/2 c. almond butter
1 1/4 c. unrefined (vegan-friendly) sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
3 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/2 tsp. allspice

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 425°F.
Set aside the pie shell.
Whip all the other ingredients together until the tofu is broken into a creamy consistency.
Pour into the pie shell.
Bake at 425°F for 15 minutes.
Then, bake at 350°F for 40 minutes.
Serve cool.

Painting Miniatures 3: Priming

Primer provides an interface between your miniature and your paint.  The primer should adhere to your miniature, be thin enough to reveal the model's detail, and allow the water-based paint to cover the surface without "beading" into droplets and rolling off the miniature like water off a car windshield.

Supposedly Reaper's vinyl miniatures can be painted without primer, if you use Reaper's special paint line.  I counter that "can be painted" is not the same as "can be painted easily and well."  Please don't skip the primer, even if you only use Reaper's vinyl miniatures and their special line of paints.

a. What color primer

Primer color is a matter of strong debate among miniature painters.  Lots of colors are available from lots of spray paint manufacturers, but the most popular are white, black, and clear.

I originally used black primer.  I reasoned that I would be painting the surface of the model, and if the tight corners were still black, then they would resemble shadows.  However, I discovered that my paint did not lend itself to just brushing the surface; quite the opposite, the paint wanted to pool into the tight corners via capillary action.  The liquid paint tended to pull away from high pointy areas due to gravity and surface tension, and went thin there; the dark primer showed through, making my miniature heroes look like they just rolled around a greasy auto garage floor (or maybe a blacksmith's shop, in a fantasy setting).  The only way to combat this was to apply multiple coats of the same color to the same area, and that's inefficient and frustrating.

An actual apple, demonstrating real-world lighting effects on natural objects.

I then switched to white primer.  Suddenly, the paint allowing the pale primer to show through at pointy areas near the top of the model mimicked the effects of specular highlighting (tops of things generally appear paler because they are usually lit from above).  The paint pooling in dark areas suddenly made a lot more visual sense.  The white primer also made it easier to see fine details on the slightly translucent vinyl models.  I've been using white primer ever since.

Clear primer is appropriate where you want the color or translucency of the model to show through.  Clear primer is a special case, and I plan to cover this in a future article.

b. Brands

I recommend "Skull White" spray primer from Games Workshop; their website might list it as "White Spray," and the "Skull White" name must be just to make it sound spooky and cool, because it certainly is not the off-white dark ivory color of actual bones.  Compared to hardware store spray paint, "Skull White" is very expensive, but (unlike off-the-shelf flat white) it is specially formulated to accept water-based paint.

c. Applying

Apply spray primer in a well-ventilated area.  I'm not kidding about this; there are very toxic solvents and other poisonous chemicals in quality spray primer.  At the same time, don't do it outside, where wind will blow your spray all over.  Your garage is a good place, but don't let the spray cloud come anywhere near your car; the particles of spray will slowly accumulate on the surface of your car, like dust you can't wash off.

You can help limit the spray cloud and reduce wind hazards by setting up an old cardboard box as an inexpensive "spray chamber."

Make sure you get the undersides and interiors of the model and all angles you want to paint.  The working pedestal I described previously can help with this, by allowing you to tilt the miniature by its pedestal.

Metal and vinyl miniatures after priming

The white vinyl miniatures present a challenge when applying white primer, because the white vinyl and white primer are so similar in color that it's hard to know whether you've covered all the angles.

Decent lighting can help you inspect your priming job.  You can probably find 100W clamp lights with reflectors for about $20 each at your local hardware store, including the cost of bulbs.  I recommend slightly bluish "daylight" bulbs for the sharpest color distinction.

Give your primer plenty of time to dry off before you paint it, or the solvents in the primer may interfere with your paint.

Note that detail is still visible in the models

As we move into winter, I have noticed that below-freezing temperatures can have an effect on the the quality of your sprays; if you must spray in your cold, cold garage, consider keeping your miniatures and sprays in the house, arranging your miniatures inside before spraying (I move my minis around on a rusty cookie sheet I pulled out of recycling), carrying the minis and paints to your garage, spraying in the garage quickly, then bringing everything back in the house.  Keep in mind that your wet minis are still giving off harmful vapors, so bring them to a part of the house far from living quarters, like the basement.

Painting Miniatures 2: Assembling

Because of the casting process, your mini may come in pieces: a dragon may need wings attached, a warrior may need a shield arm attached.  These pieces should be glued together before priming.

Before you play with glue on your nice dinner table (or any table you aren't prepared to toss in the trash), set up something to protect your work surface: I recommend a cheap polyethylene drop cloth, which you can cut to a perfect table-covering size, use several layers, fold it up when you're done, and re-use it almost indefinitely.  Be careful when you use tools, because the drop cloth won't protect your table from sharp objects.

a. Adhesives

There are 2 adhesives I recommend for assembling miniatures: "Hot Stuff" cyanoacrylate glue, and "Green Stuff" epoxy putty.  Both of these materials have very different purposes and are challenging to work with, and I'll go over them separately.

If the miniature parts fit together tightly, use Hot Stuff.  "Hot Stuff" is so named because it can handle high temperatures.  It's a clear cyanoacrylate glue with additives to make it viscous, almost like honey.  Cyanoacrylate is the active ingredient in "Krazy Glue."  It bonds quickly (in about a minute) and it is quite strong, but it can get all over your fingers and STAY all over your fingers for about a week (yes, I've tried nail polish remover).  It claims to fill gaps, but it's not that good at it.  It sticks to metal miniatures eventually, but it takes its sweet time doing it (that's a LONG minute you're holding those tiny parts together), and your parts will likely fall off a couple times before the glue actually sets.  You buy Hot Stuff in tiny 2-ounce bottles, but don't worry; you won't use it all up before it turns solid in the bottle.  Also, the glue tends to turn solid in the nozzle and clog.  Needle nose pliers may help to crush obstructions in the nozzle.  You may be tempted to use actual Krazy Glue or Zap-A-Gap, but Hot Stuff's higher viscosity makes it much easier to work with.  I should also warn you that Hot Stuff (and any cyanoacrylate glue) will give off suspicious and probably toxic fumes as it's curing, so I should recommend you do this in a well-ventilated area, but to be honest I don't do this and right now I'm considering setting up some kind of fan.  Another relevant feature of these cyanoacrylate glues is that they are very penetrating, so wood and cardboard tends to soak it up like concrete soaks up engine oil: leaving a ugly dark stain; you may need to apply glue to the absorbent surface, then wait for that glue to cure before adding more to bond to your miniature.

If the miniature parts don't fit together so well, use Green Stuff epoxy putty.  Epoxy typically consists of a resin and an oxidizer; you mix these compounds together to start a chemical reaction which slowly thickens to form a very solid body.  Accordingly, "Green Stuff" comes in 2 separate blue and yellow putties (usually in side-by-side ribbons), which you squish together to make one green putty.  I say you squish it together, but this squishing process takes several minutes of effort, and you must keep your hands wet constantly when handling this extremely sticky putty.  It is very much like sculpting with chewing gum from Planet Krypton, and when it sets, it is extremely hard and strong.  It has a longer shelf life than Hot Stuff, and it takes longer to set (about an hour), but it has a substantial body to it.  Most miniature scupltors create their works out of Green Stuff, and these initial sculpts are referred to as "Greens" accordingly.  You don't want to use Green Stuff for tight adhesive jobs, because it is the body of the Green Stuff putty that holds the parts together; if the gap is hairline tight, there is very little putty to hold the parts together.  You can find cheap epoxy putty at hardware stores with a colored resin and a whitish paste oxidizer; this may give you good practice for working with Green Stuff, but the hardware store epoxy putty is intended for big jobs and typically has a somewhat granular consistency which does not lend itself to miniature work.  There are other epoxy putties popular with miniatures sculptors, such as "Brown Stuff," but I have not tried it and I therefore cannot advise you regarding its use.

b. Pinning

Sometimes an adhesive is not enough; if the parts are particularly heavy or expected to get rougher treatment, you should consider "pinning" them.  Pinning is an unpleasant chore, but it really works.  It involves slowly and painstakingly drilling a hole through both parts and sliding a metal rod (typically brass or copper) through them, and then using glue to hold everything tight.  The drill is typically a bit with a holder, which you turn manually with your fingertips.  With metal minis, this is painstaking.  With vinyl minis, it's worse: the rubbery vinyl "grabs" the drill bit, so you need to pull the bit out, drill it back in, over and over again.

c. Reshaping

Your miniature may also be bent out of shape.  If your miniature is metal, you can bend it back into shape with your fingers; and if the miniature has a long sword or narrow ankles, you will likely need to bend it back into shape lots and lots of times.  That's just the nature of tin miniatures.  If you want these bendy parts to be less bendy, consider pinning them or (with a spear or a rapier) replacing them entirely with sturdier metal pins (see above).

If your miniature is vinyl and bent out of shape, you have a trickier problem: you must heat the miniature, and hold the miniature in the desired shape until it cools.  Sometimes heating the miniature will cause it to bend into its original shape all on its own; using boiling water when cleaning may help with this.  Many people dip their vinyl miniature into boiling water in order to heat them, then pull the miniature out and bend it into shape.  I tried using a candle to just heat small areas, but I couldn't avoid the burnt-marshmallow effect; the miniature would get soft, then toast and catch fire.  My favorite method is to use a Wagner Heat Tool; this is basically a hair dryer that can get hot enough to melt the paint off your walls.  First (before it gets hot!) I attach the concentrator nozzle, I set the heat tool to about 450 F (which is one of the low settings) , then I only heat up the part I want to adjust, and I pull the heat away when the vinyl gets soft, hold the part into place, and blow on it until it cools.  You can also use a heat-and-adjust technique to slightly realign your miniatures to be easier to paint, or to arrange limbs so that each member of a squad of identical miniatures looks slightly different and thus more naturalistic.

d. Pedestal

Miniatures on working pedestals; a little extra effort saves a lot of frustration

Before you prime your miniature, I really recommend some kind of working pedestal.  This is something which will allow you to move, rotate, pick up, and otherwise "handle" your miniature without actually touching it or its (wet) painted surfaces.  The pedestal should change the center of gravity such that you can tip the miniature at an angle so that you can prime underside and other hard-to-reach areas.

I used to use a loop of packing tape to stick the bottom of my mini to an old CD, but paint and primer tends to pool near the bottom where the mini sits on the tape, and the wide CD makes it difficult to access underside areas.

Close-up of miniatures on pedestals

Many people use poster tack to hold their mini to a pedestal, but I stopped when I discovered my poster tack got loosened by the solvents in the primers and varnishes I use.

Some painters use Krazy Glue to stick their miniature to the head of a nail, and carefully snap the miniature off the nail when they're done.

I have modified this technique; I now use Duco Cement and a drywall screw driven into an old block of scrap wood for stability.  Duco Cement is a toluene-based clear glue (available at most hardware stores) which only barely holds onto my vinyl miniatures, so it is easy to pop the miniature off the top of the screw.  In fact, it's almost too easy to pop off the miniature; I sometimes need to re-glue my vinyl mini to its working pedestal.

Painting Miniatures 1: Cleaning

This is the first in a series of posts about how I paint miniature game pieces for tabletop fantasy roleplaying games.  I expect it will have application to other miniature projects, like airplane models, or scale model train sets.  You probably won't win awards for painting as per my directions, but if you ever wanted to paint a miniature game piece, or if you were ever disappointed by an attempt to paint a scale model, or even if you just wanted to customize a My Little Pony figurine, you may find some of my advice helpful in getting you started, improving your results, or reducing your time requirements.  I invite you to come learn with me.

These are the stages I use in painting miniatures:
1. Cleaning
2. Assembling
3. Priming
4. Painting
5. Washing and Dipping
6. Lacquering

Wow!  That's a lot of stages!  Seems like a lot of tedium just for a little statue.  The trick is to do this in batches, so you aren't cleaning 1 miniature at a time, priming 1 miniature at a time, etc.  I usually do these miniatures a dozen at a time in order to reduce overhead and minimize effort per miniature.

1. Cleaning

a. How was the miniature made?

You have no doubt heard old folks refer to tin soldiers or lead soldiers.  Most toys today are made of plastic, but tin and tin alloys are still used today to cast tiny combatants for fantasy games (ad copy may refer to "white metal alloy," which we can assume is either a tin alloy or something similar).  You may have heard a metal soda can or a steel soup can referred to as a tin can, but tin is actually a genuine element on the periodic table.  It is the main ingredient in pewter, and a major component of bronze and solder.  Tin is heavy with a relatively low melting point, and reasonable corrosion resistance.  Gravity naturally pulls molten tin into the corners and details of a mold, providing highly detailed casted miniatures with low-tech equipment.  Tin is flexible enough to be bent out of molds somewhat without snapping.

Lead and lead alloys have been used for miniatures in the past (no doubt since antiquity) for similar reasons (low melting point, heavy, flexible, cheap), but today most manufacturers have abandoned lead because of the risks of lead exposure, costs of disposal, and because many governmental bodies ban the sale of lead toys.  And good riddance to lead, I say!  I can (literally) breathe easier with less lead in my air.

Miniatures manufacturers are starting to move to cast plastic.  The costs of all metals have increased tremendously over the past decade; it was first noticeable with gold, but tin and copper rapidly tripled.  This was devastating to miniatures hobbyists, as the miniatures industry had to respond by raising prices proportionally or by closing their doors.  Reaper Miniatures has started to modify their sculpts to work with plastic casting techniques and equipment; presently they cast in a white rubbery vinyl material that looks a bit like Ivory Soap, and (because it is lighter than tin) must be forced into molds rather than simply poured.  The flexible vinyl has advantages that more complex regions can be cast and stretched out of molds than can stiffer tin alloys.  The vinyl also melts at even lower temperatures than tin.  Purists may complain, but Reaper's vinyl miniatures retail at a fraction of what comparable metal miniatures cost.

The newest miniature materials on the block come from 3D printers.  I have never worked with 3D printed miniatures, but I plan to soon, and I have researched 3D printing technology.  3D printers exist for numerous materials; typically miniatures are printed in plastics such as acrylic and nylon, because of the detail these materials provide.  The advantage of 3D printing is that your miniature can be completely customized for your needs and theoretically unique.  There is no casting in a traditional sense.  The disadvantage is that 3D printing is expensive and takes a long time, and you must first generate a 3D model data file to feed into the printer.  3D printing continues to evolve, so future 3D printers may provide cheaper, faster, and/or more detailed output.  Also, projects are afoot to create 3D model data files with something of a "paper doll" user interface, such that a user might choose body A with armor B and weapon C in pose D.  As a result, 3D printing may have a more prominent role in the future of miniatures.

b. Manufacture can affect cleaning

If the miniature was cast from a mold, the mold probably had a mold release.  'Mold release' is a general term for whatever you use to keep the liquid casting material from sticking to the mold.

A century ago, this mold release might have been soot on a metal mold.  Modern tin casters might use talcum powder on a silicone mold, which isn't too difficult to remove.  But plastic casters can use a sprayed-on film of oil, which can be a challenge to get off your miniature.

3D printers may leave a powdered form of the model's material on the surface, depending on the technology of that particular 3D printer.  Again, I have not worked with these, personally.

Whatever the case, anything which can affect paint adhesion should be removed, even your own greasy fingerprints.

c. The process

At one time, you might have needed to use a toothbrush to scrub off your metal mini (remember what I said about soot?), but those days are (I hope) gone.

Today, I put my miniatures in a plastic bucket (remember, I do a batch of 12 at a time).  I boil some water.   I pour the boiling water on the miniatures.  I squirt in some grease-cutting dish soap.  I swish it around real well.  I let it sit for a little while, to let the soap do its work.  And then I rinse.  Make sure you rinse ALL the soap off.  Use lots of water, until the suds disappear.  Now strain out the miniatures and dry them.

Pizza Sauce Recipe

Halloween is almost upon us, and that means that it's time to invite over your cool young friends and have a party.  And what young person doesn't like pizza?  It's great party food, because you can carry a slice around (on a plate) as you circulate, and nibble it while you converse.  Even vegans like pizza, if you don't put animal products on it, and you can make sure your pizza is vegan-safe by making it yourself--or even make it interactive, by inviting your guests to pick out their favorite toppings, let the guests arrange the toppings on a sauced pizza crust, and bake the pizza in your oven.

However you decide to throw your pizza party, you need a kick-ass pizza sauce to set a flavor foundation for whatever toppings you (or your guests) arrange.  Sure, you could just buy a sauce out of a jar, but you'll totally miss out if you don't try out this recipe, which you can prepare the day before the party:

Anton's Pizza Sauce

Makes enough sauce for several pizzas.  Requires about an hour of work.

2 T or more olive oil

Vegetables:
1 28-oz. can of tomatoes
2 medium onions (chopped)
7 or more cloves of garlic
1 6-oz can of black olives

Herbs and Spices:
2 T oregano
2 T basil
1 T fennel seeds
1 T mixed Italian-style herbs
1 T paprika
1 tsp ground chipotle

Get a sauce pan with a lid (DO NOT SKIP THE LID).  Put the oil in the sauce pan.  Set it aside, 'cause we're going to do all the hard work with the blender.

Run the vegetables through the blender.  If your blender is like mine, you will need to use the watery tomatoes to help the onions, garlic, and olives flow in the blending chamber.  Otherwise, you will need to stir a lot in the blender to get the unblended vegetables to circulate to where the blades are.  Also, unless you have a 2-quart blender, you will need to blend the vegetables in batches.

Anyway, put the blended vegetables in the sauce pan.  Stir it up gently, to mix the vegetable puree with the olive oil.  The olive oil helps the sauce taste "richer" and serves as a vehicle for the essential oils in the spices.  Maybe it helps keep the sauce from burning on the bottom of the sauce pan.

Put the lid on the sauce pan and turn on the heat.  Bring the sauce to a boil, then let it simmer until the onions no longer taste "sharp."  You will really appreciate that lid, because the thick bubbling sauce will spatter red all over your kitchen if you don't use the lid.  In fact, the bubbling sauce can be so messy, that I recommend you remove the sauce pan from the heat and wait for the bubbling to subside before you check to make sure the onions are cooked.

The cooking process should take enough time for you to set up the herbs and spices.

Anyway, once the onions are cooked, remove from heat, wait for the bubbling to quiet down, and stir in the herbs and spices.  Let the herbs and spices reconstitute and mingle in the sauce pan; I usually let this happen overnight.

Mazes

Ever since I was a kid, playing on my 16KB TI-99/4A, I've loved creating randomly-generated mazes on the computer.  I started with square rooms, then I worked up to triangular rooms, then hexagonal rooms.  It was only recently that I realized a very simple algorithm for solving mazes without recursion.

I present here simple algorithms for creating and solving mazes, with illustrations.  Although presented for square mazes, the algorithms can be adapted to any regularly or even irregularly tiled regions, and 3-D mazes.

Generation Algorithm

We generate this maze using a "random walk" through the maze space, skipping visited locations (rooms).  If/when we get stuck, we look from left-to-right, top-to-bottom (and back) for visited locations with unvisited adjacent locations.

Set up a 2-dimensional array with the dimensions of the desired maze.  Initialize each array element as a cell with no doors.

Here we have visualized an example 5-by-5 array of cells; each cell has no doors.

Pick a random element in the array.

Step A. Examine each adjacent location; if the adjacent location has no doors, add it to a list of potential new locations.

Choose a random new location from the list.

Add a door from the current location to the new location, and vice versa.

Move to the new location.

Return to Step A.

If the list of potential new locations is empty, we are in a "dead end."

Choose a new location, moving left to right, top to bottom, and repeating at the top.  Skip any unvisited locations.  Return to Step A.

When all the locations in the array are visited, we are done.

Solution algorithm

The resulting maze has a dendrite topology.  If we set the start and end locations of the maze to have doors leading outside the array, we can solve the maze by repeatedly eliminating all "dead ends" (locations with only one door) from the array.

First, set the start and end locations to have doors leading outside the array.

Step B.  Moving from left-to-right, top-to-bottom, find a dead end.

Step C.  Seal the one door from the dead end.  The dead end leads to only one location; seal the corresponding door in that location, and move to that location.

Repeat Step C until we are no longer in a dead end.

Return to Step B.  If we cannot find a dead end, we are done, and the entire maze is reduced to a single path from the start to end locations.

Microsoft Buys MineCraft; Long Live Voxelands!

In other Microsoft news, Microsoft has purchased MineCraft.  Technically, they bought the company that makes MineCraft, including MineCraft as part of the deal.

I can't run MineCraft on my computer; I discovered this when I tried to run the free MineCraft Classic application.  Unfortunately, MineCraft is written in Java, an interpreted bytecode language which brings my 2GHz 64-bit computer to its knees.

What is MineCraft?

MineCraft is basically "blocks" on the computer.  Remember when you were a kid, and you would get your wooden blocks (or plastic bricks) out and build structures out of them, like little houses and buildings, with little roads for your toy cars?  Maybe you would integrate other toys, like plastic army men or farm animals or dinosaurs to knock the buildings over.  And then your mom made you put your blocks away, because it was time for dinner.

MineCraft is like that, except you don't need to put the blocks away.  You shut down your computer, but all of your blocks and structures are where you left them when you come back.  Also, you don't just build little houses you view from above, you build full-scale houses you can inhabit, because the blocks are all 1-yard cubes.

Of course, your house can be as big as you want it to be.  You are not constrained by how many blocks you can fit in your toybox, or even how many you can purchase, because they are all virtual.  If you want more blocks, you can dig them out of the (virtual) ground.

The variety of blocks is wider, too.  In the desert or beach, you find blocks of sand.  In the plains, blocks of dirt.  In the forest, blocks of wood.  Underground, blocks of stone.  Take blocks of sand, heat them in a furnace, and you have blocks of glass for windows.  And there are metals, minerals, fluids, animals, and even monsters; creating an interactive environment.

For architects, the ability to walk through a building without actually constructing the thing out of wood and concrete is new; 40 years ago it couldn't be done.  30 years ago it was very, very expensive and time-consuming.  Today, little children are doing this for fun, on Mom's smartphone while killing time at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

MineCraft Stems from Infiniminer

The game MineCraft actually was inspired by an earlier game called Infiniminer, which had explicit objectives along the lines of competing teams of miners.  But the creator of MineCraft had plenty of fun just mining and building, as we all did when we played with blocks as kids, and MineCraft is the result.

The touchstone of InfiniMiner has inspired numerous other games very much like MineCraft, such as MineTest.

MineTest

MineTest is written in C++ and compiled into machine code.  As a result, it runs more efficiently than MineCraft, and can be played on older, slower computers than MineCraft can.  Play is very much like MineCraft, except that MineTest caters to the Do It Yourself hobbyist crowd and allows casual programmers to add fundamental features to the game world via "mods" (software patches which "modify" the game world).  As such, the basic MineTest game is much simpler than the feature-rich MineCraft experience.

Voxelands

Voxelands stems from an early branch of MineTest.  It is also compiled from C++ source code, and is similarly efficient.  Unlike MineTest, Voxelands is intended as a more monolithic game, instead of a framework for modification.

The name may be confusing to some.  A "voxel" is a 3-D "volume pixel:" whereas a pixel is a "picture element," or a single irreducible dot from an image; a voxel is a single irreducible unit of volume, typically a cube.  Thus, "Voxelands" refers to lands made of voxels.  This name is accurate, as these virtual worlds are all largely composed of voxels.

As of this writing, the latest release of Voxelands is version 1409, and it is entirely playable.  Version 1410 has not yet released, but promises to include various animals such as deer, wolves, and sharks.

It's Free

Unlike MineCraft, both MineTest and Voxelands are free and open source.  If you are curious about the amazingly popular and largely nonviolent gameplay of MineCraft, or you want to find out what this thing is your kids are spending their time on, but you don't want to risk your hard-earned money on it, I encourage you to give Voxelands a try.  You have nothing to lose but your nostalgia for playing with blocks, and you have entire (virtual) worlds to gain.