Tagging complete (for now)

It has taken me hours of reading through all 718 posts and picking labels... but I have finally finished tagging all of them.

I still need to go back and sort out the 'Musing' tag but that will be for another time because, to be brutally honest, I am fed up with tagging.

So... if you want to find Mushrooms... you can find all of them now.

Now I can get back to proper hobby stuff again.

#EDIT# ...And I have been busy painting something different too... something very... PURPLE!

See you from the work bench!

Tagging continues...

I am about half way through adding labels to my posts but there will need to be some refining once I have been through them all. I have a label called 'Musings' that will need to be narrowed down a bit so don't be surprised at the fact it is near the top... it is what I use for all the general stuff at the moment.

Unfortunately, this takes a lot more time than I thought so it has killed my hobby time... but I guess it is something that needed doing and once it is done, I shouldn't have to do it again.

On the plus side, I have been reading things from a long time ago and I have been fondly (and not so fondly) reminiscing...

...Ahhhh... those were the days!

See you though SQUARE EYES!!!

Adding labels.

You will notice that I now have a labels box on the right hand side of the page. You will also notice that there are not very many labels there... that is because I have 700+ posts to go through to add labels to. This will take some time so please have patience... then you will be able to find all of those things you forgot you wanted to look at.

See you from the other side of insanity!

Sunday's diversion.

I can sum up my weekend with one word... frustration.

I have been keen to get on with something but couldn't decide what so I just wound myself up and didn't achieve much at all. I sometimes have times like that; when I have a number of projects I want to get on with but my mind is not on it at all. When it happens, it is really aggravating but I just have to calm myself down and choose something different to do... so that is what I did.

Saturday, I went shopping (as usual) and spent some of my Christmas/birthday vouchers on a pair of graphic novels (Marvel: Civil War and Inhumans). I haven't read them yet but they look entertaining. During my trip around the town, I could really feel myself getting wound up so we had to cut the trip short, lest I did something daft and when I got home I decided to dig something out of the cupboard that was completely different to all of my current projects... and I managed to finish the items off. Here are some pix:

Click the Pic!

Click the Pic!

As you can see, they are a pair of mutated Mushroom Men from Outer Space! The top one is a poison spore launcher and the lower one is a mystic with deformed arm. Both of these have been sat in the cupboard for ages so it is about time they were finished. I still need to varnish them (they are still a bit shiny) but they can now join their big brother in the Mushroom army:

Click the Pic!

In other news, I decided to put together some trophies for the winners of the Unofficial Diorama of Doom and thought that some of my own sculpts/casts would be appropriate so I dug out three of my Dwarf divers and added some bases... here are the finished trophies:

Click the Pic!

There are very few of the divers out there now and there were only fifty cast in the first place so these are quite a limited edition... and worthy to be presented as a prize (I still have two more but one will always be mine and the other will have to be either a freebie or sold for charity).

Even though I have changed tack this weekend, I did manage to work on the Clankers during the week and have got a good way through base-coating the last unit. I expect them to get finished this week and then I can tick another box.

Phew! It's all going on here!

See you from the massage chair!

Tachi-time...

Before I start today's short post, I'd like to welcome Da Masta Cheef to Inso's World. Welcome aboard and I hope you enjoy your visits here.

I have traded a bit this week and have managed to get hold of something I've wanted for a very long time... my very own Tachikoma:

Click the Pic!

I would be the first to say that it is a very small Tachikoma but it is definitely well formed and full of details. It has ball joints at the hips and feet and the the arms can rotate to the left or right. Unfortunately the picture shows that the little beast is about 1cm too small for the Grymn to be able to fit in the rear pod comfortably but it doesn't really matter because I will assemble and paint this one as a Ghost in the Shell Tachikoma, rather than a mech for an army. Another good thing is that I now know how it goes together... so I have the reference to build my own if I want to... which may be a future project.

Now all I have to do is get to a post office to post the items I am trading for it... bleeping snow and work.

See you from a stand alone place!

And the winner is...

As you should already know, I put together a small diorama building contest over at the Forum of Doom and you can see all of the entries and the voting here:

LINK

Well, the voting has finished and the winner is... 'Dragon' with 'Day27':

For the full build, see this LINK.

In second place is 'Wings' with 'What's a girl got to do? or Jack and the giant':

For the full build, see this LINK.

And in third place we have 'beefcake' with 'The last goodbye':

For the full build, see this LINK.

Congratulations to the winners and well done to all those who took part and showed off their work.

Each of the three winners will receive a small prize which will be shown here, once I have finished them and know that the winners have received them (I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise).

See you from the high-chair while I suck my wooden spoon!

Sunday already?

This week hasn't been the best one on record for me. Everything was going well until I got a big dose of D&V... which effectively tied me to the toilet with an extra bucket for company. I can safely say that Friday and Saturday were complete write-offs with minimal energy and no concentration span.

But apart from that, everything was okay... so I guess it wasn't too bad after all (and as bad as things were, there were no embarrassing accidents).

So, let's get it out of the way... it snowed. Fortunately, I haven't wanted to go anywhere and I am about half a mile from work so I don't need to use the car tomorrow. All in all, I have been able to sit in the warm and watch the snow fall. It was quite funny watching people putting salt on a small patch of road yesterday. I watched them, they saw me and you could see that they were saying 'why isn't he helping?' but I was not brave enough to leave the safety of being close to a toilet. I did, however, go and salt the entire road today so I am now a knight in shiny armour and they can feel inadequate at the limited effort they made. Mind you, it is my responsibility to clear the road I live on (it's an RAF thing) but I can call upon others to help.

Well... I got my walkers this week but have kept them in their box so that I do not get distracted from my Clankers...

... did I mention Clankers? Well, here is the latest finished unit:

Click the Pic!

As you can see, I have used the time in between illness to finish the unit; especially today. I will now tidy these away and get the last unit ready to go. I have decided that they are likely to be purple or brown... but I don't have to decide just yet because I haven't even base coated them. At least they are primed. When the next unit is finished, I will only need to convert, assemble and paint two vehicles and the Tunnel Fighter army will be complete (except for varnishing the vehicles, Clankers and the special unit). That will mean that the army has taken over two years to complete. 

Hmmm... I will definitely need something to keep me ticking over from then onwards... so my Urban Army will step into the breach and get some much needed attention (yes, the walkers are part of the Urban Army).

Well... that is it for today. Enjoy the snow and stay safe!

See you from atop the tallest fir tree in the village!

Another year under my belt.

Today is my birthday. I have had a busy day at work, was late home and had to cook the tea as usual... but I have had a good day so it isn't as bad as it may seem. What has made today special is that a parcel arrived and the contractor who is fitting the bathroom lino was able to sign for the parcel in my absence... so I didn't have to go to the depot for it.

What was in the parcel?

This:

Click the Pic!

That is a box of 14 Grymn Walkers. Isn't that sweet?!

In other news, the second squad of Clankers is ticking along nicely:

Click the Pic!

...and I have started to add putty to the Daemon Prince:

Click the Pic!

Not very far along... but it's a start!

See you from the top of the swirly-whirly pony!

Waking up, on a Sunday Morning...

Before I start today's post, I would like to welcome Mr.J to Inso's World. Welcome aboard, Mr.J; I hope you find something of interest to take away with you and be sure to comment on things... it makes the days pass brighter.

I have had a bit of a slow start to my day... a mix of a late night and some Ruby Port but I am starting to get my head around things and perk up a bit now.

In a few days time, I am going to be right for the whole following year. Why? Well, I'll be 42 and that means I will be the answer to the question of the meaning of life, the universe and everything. I am sure there will be bumps in the road with this but I am sure I will flatten them out.

In the hobby field, I have been busy (even though there are builders in and out - we're getting a new bathroom from HM - whether we like it or not) and have been frantically painting Clankers. Here is the first unit finished:

Click the Pic!

In addition to that, I have primed and base-coated another unit in gun-metal ready for the next stage so I am quite happy with the way things are going. I have also started work on the Hellbrute but have only fitted wire and started to put a frame to sculpt over... so nothing worth showing off yet.

In other news, I have finally succumbed to the inevitable. It has cost me a few months hobby money too... 

... at Salute last year, Hasslefree Miniatures released the Grymn Walker (available HERE and HERE). It is a beautiful piece of equipment:

Click the Pic!

Click the Pic!

When I saw it I immediately began thinking how I would use such a beast for my Grymn forces and my first thought was "I now have a walker for my Urban Army". My second thought was "I hope they aren't too expensive because I'll need a lot". Well, for what they are, they aren't expensive but at £20-00 a go, I needed to think seriously about how many I needed. I looked at various formations and thought about how the walkers would interact and decided that they would use the modern British armoured squadron formation. That means 14 vehicles (four sections of three, an I/C and a 2I/C).

Well this week, I bit the bullet and ordered 14 of the Walkers. 

I figured that it would help to get them all painted uniformly if I did them all together. I also figured that it may kick start the Urban Army again. I know that a finished squadron of walkers will look the dog's danglies.

Well, that's about it for today. I doubt that I will achieve any post worthy stuff today so I doubt there will be further updates today.

See you from the Walker shed!

Whoops!

I know... a second post in one day but I thought I'd share something with you... and first a bit of background.

My Dark Forgefathers are made up of a selection of Warpath, Dreadball and Kings of War minis and as a result, I needed to get some extra round bases to make them all unified. That meant a small order to Mantic so in order to pad it out a bit I ordered some extra Dragarim weapons and an Enforcer Champion.

I bought the Enforcer because I thought that, with a bit of chopping, he would make a great exo-armoured Dark Forgefather general. With that in mind, the order went in and I patiently waited but imagine my surprise when the order turned up and I checked the size of the Enforcer Champion:

Click the Pic!

Quite frankly... he's MASSIVE!

That means two things:

• He is too big for the Forgefather conversion that I planned
• He will make a good super-sized, superhero to go with my existing collection

I have often said that a plan never survives contact with the enemy and this little example proves it... but if you adapt your plans, you can end up with a good outcome, even if it wasn't what you were originally hoping for.

It's funny, this life.

See you from the back of the auditorium!

It's Chaos here!

Well... not entirely BUT after 45 days, a lost parcel and a replacement... the Hellbrute has arrived. I have partially assembled it; ready for the conversion work to start and here is a 'start' pic to prove that he is finally with me:

Click the pic!

He will end up as a Khorne Daemon Prince with axe of something or other, powered armour and a means of flight (probably a jump pack). The head in the picture is only there to plug the hole and will be completely covered by the time I have finished. The plan is to bulk his legs out a bit, give him a Daemonic head, replace his right arm with one holding an axe, replace his other hand, add a jump-pack and armour him up suitably to reduce the amount of dreadnought that can be seen (although he will still be part dreadnought when he is finished, I want to tone it down a bit). 

This will be a slow time project that will have to fit ion with other things so expect updates as and when they appear.

He will definitely be fun to convert.

See you from the eye of the storm!

Alas... everything ends.

Today is the last day of my Christmas holiday. It has been a fairly productive time but it has also been far too long a time in my own company and I am looking forward to getting back to a bit of normality. That said, I did enjoy the times when my family were with me and I enjoyed the festivities with them.

So... the Christmas break helped me to:

• Paint a ten man unit of Forgefathers
• Paint an Iron Ancestor
• Paint 3 Berserkers
• Assemble the last ten Clankers
• Sort out my hobby stuff
• Create a fantasy diorama in seven days

Not a bad little list but I have other stuff that I achieved including deciding how to deal with the six partially painted Clankers so I now have this:

Click the Pic!

The six painted Clankers have had all of the dodgy areas re-touched and have had their shoulder colours re-painted. The shoulders and the blue dots on the chests will be highlighted along with the four remaining unit members when they are finished. The four others have been primed and base-coated with gun metal ready for the next stage. I only decided to paint these yesterday so I am quite pleased to be as far forward on them as I am. Fortunately, the paint-scheme on these is really straight forward so they shouldn't take too long to finish... then I can get on with the rest of them!

Tomorrow I will be working and over the next week or so, there will be a certain amount of disruption due to work being done in the house (new bathroom) so I can't promise anything for the next post... which will be back to just Sundays... but let's hope, eh?

See you from the distant island!

Job, jobbed.

After a bit of a 'self kick in the pants', I managed to finish off the third unit of Clankers so without further ado, here are three units of Clankers:

Click the Pic!

They represent the last of the troop units for the army and now all I have to do is decide what I need to do to the partially painted ones and then paint everything. That will leave two vehicles to sort out in order to finish the army.

The end is truly in sight!

See you from the chequered flag! 

Friday's production line.

After the clean-up and groundwork for the Clanker unit was done... and the legs pinned/glued to the bodies... and the legs/body pinned to the bases... the work has started on the heads now. This is the bit where I fill in the area that would normally have a little human head in it with green stuff and put a lid on it. Progress is good and I just have to fill in the slot on the top of the lid and fill the gaps around the sides of the head-turret:

Click the Pic!

I have also put all the necessary blobs on the bases to add a little texture when the sand is glued on the tops. Once the heads are filled, it is simply a case of gluing the arms in place because I have already drilled all the necessary holes and fitted all the necessary pins so it really will be a simple job to finish these off.

In other news, my daughter and I went over to the vets today to drop off some of The Pog's paperwork and then went for a nice cuppa in a tea-shop over the road. I think it is a very good way to start the day. Speaking of The Pog, he is full of catten-wiggles today and has been driving everyone mad so he is back to his old self after his little op yesterday. He has been out (all though not far... he shouldn't really have gone out yet but there are only so many times you can fish him off the curtains before you have to relent!) and has caught up on his food and is now one chilled out little Pog:

Click the Pic!

I'm not sure who is happier to see him home safely... me or The Pog!

See you from the cab of a gutter cleaning lorry!

Oh the worry...

The Pog is at the vets. He is being neutered today and while he's at it he's getting a chip put in and his nails clipped if they need it.

I am obviously supremely calm about it all... not. He's only a little Pog :( .

Good luck Pog and I hope that:

• You get back to fitness very soon
• You are still the same temperament (apart from trying to mount the other cats)
• You forgive me for ruining your masculinity

To take my mind off things I have started to assemble Clankers and have so far put the legs on four bodies and stuck them securely to their base with pins and putty. This bit is the most awkward, boring and time consuming bit so I will be glad when it is all over; then I can start converting the heads and adding the arms/packs. As I have mentioned before, the unit consists of eight standard Clankers, a leader version and a comms robot. The Standard ones are all the same (except I have converted two to have special weapons already) but the leader and comms robot are different. The difficult ones are the standard ones because they have quite fragile leg joints until they are firmly secured to their base but I only have four more to get to that stage before I move on to the not so fragile ones.

In other news, the pictures of powered armour Grymn will be appearing HERE later (it's a Facebook link, so don't click if you don't do Facebook). According to Sally, there is quite a variety of bits and bobs so it will be worth taking a peek at.

##EDIT## Here are some examples of what has been put up on the facebook page:

Click the Pix!

I'll give a Pog update later.

##EDIT## The Pog is fine and is going to be collected imminently.

See you from the desk of the Clanker production manager!

2013

It would appear that the year has changed... it is now 2013.

Happy New Year to all who are reading this... and to those who aren't; BUMS!!! ;)

With a lot of purpose, I began to prep my Vulkan Battlesuits ready for the transformation into Clankers to begin and I have managed to do all of the cleaning with just the hatches to sand down before the next stage can begin. The next stage is converting the heads to have an enclosed helmet and that will be tomorrow's task (I'll finish cleaning up the hatches tonight). One thing I noticed was that the Vulkans are made of different types of metal (some have more lead in than others) so some were harder to clean up than others... but they are all nearly finished so it can't be bad.

I have also been plodding along with my Dark Forgefathers and have finished a third CE-AT:

Click the Pic!

I have started on the next one so although progress is slow... there is progress.

Here's a scale pic for those who are interested:

Click the Pic!

In other news I have started the ball rolling on my 'expensive purchase of the year'... I have asked Sally at Hasslefree Miniatures about purchasing 14 Grymn Walkers. This is something that has been on the boil since the Grymn Walker was first released (early last year) and I have been milling over how I was going to deal with the process of painting an armoured squadron. I finally decided that I would prefer to get a production line going so having them all together would be the first step which means getting Hasslefree to cast me a batch (it is doubtful that 14 walkers would be 'off the shelf'). Now I am awaiting a date for them to be cast... more news on the project will surface nearer the time but it is something that will hopefully get my Grymn Urban Army back into production.

2013 will be an interesting ride.

See you from the branch of a tall oak tree!