Angels high!

I was awoken this afternoon with cup of tea and a parcel from Russia (with some nice stamps on it). Sometimes, night-shifts aren't so bad :).

The parcel was a little squashed but inside, was a fully intact model kit of a Condor for the Robogear game. I haven't really had a good look at it but it looks quite chunky and usable so we'll have to see what I come up with...it will need an undercarriage building for it and it will need to be repeatable so it will have to be fairly simple. I will be putting wheels on it (so that it can taxi without having to hover) so I'll need to source some of those...but there is definitely some potential there.

A bit of an edit here...here is the box:

Click the Pic!

...and here is a scale pic with a 28mm Human and a Grymn:

Click the Pic!

O.K. ...I've kept you in suspense about the 15mm stuff...so I'll put you out of your misery. It is from Critical Mass Games and I will happily say that, for a smaller scaled item, the detail is very crisp and the models themselves will make a perfect addition to a larger scaled army. It is proof that smaller scale doesn't mean less effort in the detail department.

...of course...I'm not saying exactly what I've got until I have decided where they will end up although they may get to be in their own army but will likely fit in with one or two of my other projects. I am quite happy pottering along with them so there will be pix of at least three of them by the weekend.

I am starting to get back to a certain amount of normality. It isn't very often that I get too emotional but over the last couple of weeks I have re-discovered what is important in life so I am awaiting the big sigh that will unwind me. My son is at home and eating like someone possessed! He is still wobbly but his stoic character is returning to him and he is almost back to his former, cheeky self (although he will need to put on a lot more weight to get back to his normal size...as skinny as THAT was!). I am back at work and am on nights for this week so I am a bit done-in and am having to get back into the swing of things.

Life is full of opportunities.

See you over the plains of Mars!

15mm?

You know how it is...you get a bit bored, can't decide what you want to do, can't be bothered with sculpting and are busy rooting through your boxes of miniatures and then something gets in your way and you can't close the door of your cupboard so you take out the offending item...

...and realise that it may be worth getting the offending item finished because it has sat there since Salute this year and has been getting in the way ever since.

I would post a pic but I am just on my way to work BUT I can say that it is something in a size that I don't dally with very often...15mm. Obviously, I'll be using it for my usual 28mm stuff but it is what it is...

There are nine of them, they are all assembled and undercoated and they all look rather spiffy :).

See you when the meds allow!

Normality?

It is with great joy that I can say that my son is now at home again after his spell in hospital. He is still in great need of fattening up (having lost a fifth of his body weight over the last two weeks) but he is home where we can get him back up to his fighting weight again.

...hopefully, things can now get back to normal again :).

See you from the front window!

Levelling off.

Welcome to Spifferson, the newest traveller to join Inso's World. I hope you find something here to whet your appetite!

Well, it seems that things are improving over at the hospital and my son is getting a bit better...so I am staring to think that he will be home at some point this coming week. That will be a weight off every-bodies mind, I can tell you!

There are times when you are made brutally aware of what is really important in life and when something like this happens, it is definitely an eye-opener. I am just glad that we appear to be out of the woods now.

What have I been up to (apart from the daily hospital run and staying over-night)?

I have been doing a small amount of shopping and have bought another 8 Agarix from Hasslefree Miniatures. While ordering those, I bought a couple of Grymn to replace the ones I borrowed for my Enforcer gang. They were taken from my urban army box and were part of sorted squads so it is nice to get things back to the way they were with complete platoons rather than having a couple of troops missing. One day soon, I will start the cleaning/assembly/painting regime on those...but I have been a LOT distracted recently.

Mushrooms have been on my mind a lot lately too. NO, I haven't been smoking them...I have been thinking about putting together more troops for the Mushroom Men From Outer Space army (hence the Agarix purchase). I have also been sculpting another character model. He is a sort of 'heavy weapon' trooper but will be unique in the army. He has a special spore-launcher and is already fleshed out on the wire so he will be finished as soon as I can get the time to have a bit of sculpting action.

I saw THIS and thought what a nice little model it was. I knew that my son has a bunch of Robogear stuff in his room and had a look through...but he didn't have that particular model so I have visited E-Bay and now have one on the way from Russia. I am hoping that it will fit nicely with my plans and that a pair of Grymn will fit snugly in the cockpit. If that is the case...Raven Squadron will finally reach fruition...if not, then I'll have to wait until some other option pops up out there on the WWW.

Well...that is me for now. Updates will still be a bit infrequent for a short while but I can't see things being disrupted for too much longer.

PHEEW!!!

See you under, over, back and through :) !

Things have a habit of changing.

Well, my son is still in the hospital, he is back on a drip and isn't able to keep any food down.

I am still travelling to and from the hospital and spending the odd night there so everything except that, has stopped for now.

As soon as things change, I'll get back to the blog but at the moment, I don't have the time to either get any hobby done or write about it on here.

Sorry about that. I hope normal operations will commence as soon as possible.

See you from the city!

Not the best of weeks...

On Sunday, I travelled up to Newcastle for work. On Sunday night, my son (who is 15) is taken to hospital in an ambulance. Things are pretty steady but he gets no better and I travel back from Newcastle on the train on Tuesday.

I have been going backwards and forwards to the hospital since then...

Fortunately, things are picking up and my lad is starting to eat/drink and is no longer on a drip so he may well be coming home at some point early next week, if things go well.

Tired? Yep!
Worried? Not quite so much, now that he is eating/drinking.
Busy? Very!

Life really does have a habit of throwing a curve-ball just to keep you on your toes.

My son has been an absolute credit to himself and our little family unit. He hasn't complained and has behaved like a perfect gent. I am a very proud father.

...

Mushrooms seem to be the flavour of the moment...there are more to come.

see you through the windscreen :).

Amost...but not quite.

I have been beavering away like a maniac beaver...but I haven't managed to finish this one :( . That said, I finished sculpting it and have got quite a way through painting it. Another highlight here and there, finishing the base and maybe adding a few splodges on the crown and it will be done...

...so here is my WIP Mushroom-man-from-outer-space Shaman:

Click the pic!

I would have waited to post it until it was finished but I am going away for a week with my lovely job so I won't have time to finish it until after I get back.

I hope you like him :).

He is proof that channelling powerful space magic is a dangerous and deforming thing to do.

See you between the shutters!

Zig-Zagging Along....

I am always going on about how the muse plays tricks with us and that it only takes a small distraction to really throw a spanner in the works. Well, I can safely say that it has happened again.

While tidying up over the last few days, I have been inspired to start sculpting again and have dug out a couple of old sculpts to finish. The first one is nearly finished and it is a sculpt that I haven't touched since may last year (over a year ago)...

It's funny how things go :) .

On to other things and I am going away for another week, this time with work...so there will be no update on Sunday because I will be in-transit. As a result, I am planning to put a post up tomorrow to show off my sculpting efforts.

Hope to see you then :) .

See you from the bunker!

Tidy, Tidy, Tidy...

I have no idea what has happened to me...I seem to be having a bit of an impromptu spring clean.

After the 'hiding things in the loft' campaign, I have just been through all my loose items and either bagged, boxed, sorted or binned everything...so I now have a nice tidy hobby area (AKA the living room).

I have also been a good little hobbyist and under-coated the four mechs that remain for the Tunnel Fighter army. Okay, they aren't any where near complete but I had to start somewhere...and at least I don't have to look at a bright blue ST Bacchus any more. Next stop will be the gun-metal coat...should be fun (NOT!).

So it would appear that mob rules are the name of the day in our English cities...rioting, violence, arson, theft, widespread lawlessness...

It seems that most of the time the culprits are our disaffected youth who have been raised in a way that they have no respect for authority and understand no responsibility for their actions. It is a sad state of affairs for a country that is supposed to be civilised.

Hopefully things will get sorted out soon and the justice system swings into action so that all the innocent victims get at least some recompense for the losses they have suffered.

For the record, I have never done riot control training but I have been trained to deal with unwanted intruders...but never say never ;)...

Necrons are cool. I have been clipping them off sprues and putting all the components for individual troops into their own separate bags. I have decided that another ten should suffice for the Beetle-Bot army (making two squads of troops) and that will leave me with two to build a rider for the Heavy Death-Scooter and a Lord on Death-Chariot. The troops will take a long time to build but I'm sure that once I get chopping, time will fly by and I'll have a nice bunch of them ready to paint up :).

Hmmm...how to build a Heavy Death-Scooter?

See you after the assimilation!

Busy, Busy, Busy...

This morning, once I had finished getting up...but before I finished my first cup of tea, I had been into the attic, found a few boxes and emptied a portion of my collected cupboard contents into them. As a result, I now have a bit of space in my cupboards to fill with other things :)!

What it also means is that I now have one of my cupboards set aside for painted miniatures...namely my Tunnel Fighters (for now)...that are waiting for varnish before going into their cases.

In order to maximise the cupboard space, I also knocked together an extra shelf/table thing so that I have three shelves instead of two...nice.

Once I had done that I managed to get some painting done so I finished off the two remaining Death-Scooters for my Beetle-Bots:

Click the Pic!

I know it isn't the best pic in the world but at least I have finished all of the assembled but unpainted Beetle-Bot related stuff that I have.

Next up will be my Mechs for the Tunnel Fighters. Unlike before, the four remaining Mechs are all completely unpainted so they will take a while to finish...but Rome wasn't built in a day!

I have mentioned on one of the forums I visit, that I will put together a better tutorial on how to make my current Beetle-bot soldiers...so I may be mildly distracted whilst painting Mechs...but I am a fickle bloke so who knows what may happen?

Well...that's about it for now.

See you just left of centre :).

After a rest...

...I have returned home. I have been on holiday for a whole week and have not done anything hobby related...apart from read a White Dwarf magazine (or 'GW advertising monthly').

I have spent the last week wandering around, lying on beaches, visiting places (the falconry/owl centre was very cool), shopping, eating in restaurants/pubs and, funnily enough, playing a small amount of knock-about-tennis with my lad.

The diet thing has been on and off but I appear to be losing weight...which is a bad thing because my 32" waist jeans are now hanging off me...so I'll have to go back to my cargo trousers again. I will have to find a way of eating healthily while maintaining the weight...

...didn't stop me having a few healthy glasses of cider though :).

While I am here, welcome to Maelstrom and David Harris! They both joined the ranks of Inso's World followers in my absence so welcome to them both! I hope you find something to whet your hobby appetite while you are here...even though you have arrived on a slow week.

So...I have taken a deep breath in the countryside and have had a bit of time re-charging. I am hoping to get back on the hobby train in the next day or so with the two remaining Death-Scooters being the first priority (basic highlight and details are all that is left for each of them...so shouldn't take too long) with my Mechs taking second and APCs taking third. I really want to get the Tunnel fighters army finished soon so that I can crack on with other things...so I have to throw myself at the mechs or I'll never get them finished.

Well...that about sums things up for now. I will be posting again tomorrow night (as usual) so I'll see you then :).

See you amidst the pigeons that are fleeing from the Peregrine in the stoop!