An even BIGGER week...

First up today, I'd like to welcom Buffer to the blog. Welcome aboard and I hope you enjoy your travels along the winding paths of Inso's World. Feel free to share with us and if you feel the need, please comment.

So...

... I got news that I am going away for at least four months (most probably six). I found out when someone phoned me up to say that I needed to go on a course so that I could deploy. I have not had official notification yet (rather disappointing) but know it will be a Quality Assurance job, somewhere in the middle east. It could be as early as November but hopefully, not until March (I'll get a bit more time to prepare then).

As a result of the untimely notification, my mind hasn't been straight this week (especially when you consider that I had to tell my family the wonderful news)... so I went and volunteered to run a seven mile road race a week this Thursday! Add to that Friday's tequila and beer night... and a host of other personal upheavals... you would have thought that I wouldn't get any hobby stuff done...

...but you'd be wrong! I'll admit that I haven't done very much but I have done something. The Squat command squad all have their weapons sorted and have had the first layer of green-stuff added to their wire arms, ready for the proper sculpting later:

Click the Pic!

You will also notice the start of a hover bike. I am saying nothing about it apart from the fact that it is very WIP and I want it to be castable so I only need to make one. I'd like to mention that no Lego was harmed in the making of the WIP because the building bricks are from an inferior brand. As soon as I have more to show, I'll be more inclined to add some explanations.

Well... that's about it for now. Hopefully, next week I'll be saying how cool my new motorcycle is and be able to show off all manner of Squat stuff.

We live in hope.

See you from the dust bowl!

The BIG week.

Hi, Mouse! Welcome to Inso's World. I hope you have a great time walking through the gardens and finding stuff to share. Make sure you comment if you feel the need... and idea shared is a wonderful thing.

So this week has been BIG!

First up... BT Infinity, Fibre Optic, Braodband arrived. I have just one thing to say about it...

WOW!

It is absolutely brilliant to be able to watch videos and have other family members using the web, while I do, without slowing everything down to a crawl. If you don't have it, think about getting it because it really does make a massive difference to your web-based life.

Secondly... I have bought a 125cc motorcycle for me and my daughter to ride. The insurance was half the price of the bike but fortunately, the loan covered it so as of the beginning of September, I'll be a biker again and I'll be making sure that my daughter is safe enough to ride on the roads and then she'll be a biker too.

Next... a bit slower... here's a video of me feeding the ducks and swans (it is my new thing to share with my wife... peace, quiet, reflection, a pic-nic and feeding the waterbirds... lovely):

Finally... some hobby stuff. Here is where I am at with the Squat project:

Click the Pic!

From the pic, you will see that I have a whole TWO miniatures finished (so far) with a lot of WIP stuff going on. You'll notice that I have given the specialists armoured arms. I thought that flamers and plasma guns get very hot so I gave the firers a bit of protection.You'll also notice the start of the command squad. It will have the lieutenant, a medic, a flamer and a couple of close combat troops. The lieutenant has a power weapon (made from a flamer head, some sprue and a Mantic hammer). The squad members (Squad 1 and 2) with no weapons are the controllers for the heavy weapon platforms.

So the Squat project is ticking along nicely and I obviously have a long way to go yet.

That's it for today.

See you from the back of a flying unicorn!

There's a change in the weather coming...

Welcome to another Sunday update and I'll start this one of with a pause...

... No matter what life throws at you, if you take time out to look around at what there is in the world, you may get a better perspective from it. I found that sitting by a river for an hour or so, with some coffee, a sandwich and some company was just such a moment. Add to that, two loaves of bread and a flotilla of ducks and swans to feed, and it was an hour spent recharging. It is soul food and we all need to keep our inner spirit charged up...

...So, this week has been one of progress. To start with, I have sorted through a bunch of Squats, based the bodies, added the heads, sculpted on beards, added wire for the arms to be built on and shortened a bunch of lasguns to go with them. I have added a little green stuff to some of the wire arms to act as a base for the arm sculpting to start proper and have decided that the Sgt's with berets will be used in a beret wearing platoon rather than a helmet wearing one. I have also built up a special character, armed with a pistol and close combat dog... but that is all just so much talk... so here are a couple of images of what I have done so far:

 Click the Pic!

Click the Pic!

Click the Pic!

The middle pic shows my little Squat production mat and on it are a few weapons in the process of being changed (lasguns have been shortened, plasma pitols lengthened to be used as plasma guns). The Character has Catachan Jungle Fighter arms and a throwing mastiff from Mantic's Kings of War Dwarf range.

I'd like to mention at this point that all of the Squat miniatures pictured, were bought painted and have been stripped with Dettol. It does a tremendous job of cleaning them up and smells fairly nice too. There are a couple of Squats that didn't get dipped because they only had tiny areas of paint (so any paint you see  hasn't been left behind after stripping, it just hasn't been stripped).

As is normally the case, I am overthinking everything and it seems that I may be opting for hovercraft for these guys to travel in. After last week's post showing the bikes, I have been looking at various hover vehicles and it seems that the Hammer's Slammers ranges that are about may be brought into play. Here's a way-back link to OLD CROW and here's a current link to AINSTY CASTINGS. Both have a range of Hammer's Slammers vehicles that could prove useful to me, even if it turns out to be just inspiration for my own stuff.

Last weekend, my daughter passed her basic training on motorcycles (125cc) so this week I have been looking at small bikes. I have got myself a small loan (good for the credit rating) and will be going to choose one next week... so it looks like me and my daughter will have a new toy quite soon! I am looking forward to it.

Well... that about sums it up for now so I'll go and get on with stuff.

See you from the middle lane!

Hurry up and... stop...

This week has been one of minimal hobby time. All I have done is finish off a bunch of preliminary work on my ten Squat miniatures. That means that the sgts have their weapons, the troops have their weapons and all of them have a coating of green stuff over the wire that will soon become arms. As a result, there are no photographs yet.

In other news, I have started running again so much of my evening is now concerned with sport, showering after sport and recovering from sport... and for all those people who think that exercise helps you sleep, I can safely say, no it doesn't. What it does do, is fire up the imagination so when you can't sleep you get more ideas (something to do with more oxygen in the brain, I expect).

So, I've been thinking about a few things and throwing the odd Google search out into the WWW and I found this:

 

I found photographs of it first and that led to the video. What I have found is the birth of an idea for a Grymn ground attack aircraft. I'll leave that one there for a moment.

Other things I have been thinking about is Squat bikes. Squats have tiny legs and as a result, any motorcycle that they ride would have to be so low to the ground that there would be no ground clearance... so, really, standard motorcycle design is off the cards... then I thought about how they would sit and it would either be in a proper chair (which would make hand-to-hand fighting impossible), on a bench seat or they could stand up and lean back on something. That got me thinking... I've seen this MONSTROCITY... but there is a way of making a chariot without having stuff pulling it... but the actual chariot shape would work nicely... so I'll leave that one there for a moment too because... I've also been thinking about one-man (Squat) hovercraft. They would be easy to make and would look pretty cool... so maybe I could use them instead of bikes (a bit like these ones that I built ages ago for a different project (but a slightly better design)):

Click the Pic!

I have all sorts of ideas about making them look better so... I'll leave that here for a moment as well.

Finally... here's something that I threw together ages ago (it's not for the faint-hearted).  I've posted it up before but it's fun so I thought I'd post it again:

See you from the bowels of the deepest dungeon!

It has started... again!

It seems to me that there are times when I can do stuff and there are times where I can't. This week seems to be one where I have been able to put some stuff together for a project.

Over the last few months, I have been watching Ebay and buying up plastic Squat miniatures from GW. They are long out of production and usually covered in a variety of paint schemes but once they are broken down into components and paint stripped, they look quite presentable. I have obviously been quite good at this Ebay thing because I have managed to amass 120+ of the plastic Squats... so now I think I've got enough and need to start putting them together.

Well... that is what I started to do and I quickly came up against a stumbling block. I really didn't like the way the plastic arms look on them. The posing was rigid, unnatural and generally made them look wrong. The heavy bolter that sits on a specially raised shoulder pad looked ridiculous as well so there was need to think about how I was going to deal with these issues.

I came to the conclusion that sculpting the arms onto the miniatures was the way to go... I also thought that I would use tracked vehicles for the heavy weapons... a bit like these (WIP):

Click the Pic!

You've seen them before but for a different project, however, I may still take a different route and use the Taurus Gun Tractors from Anvil Industries instead. In the meantime, I have a lot of troopers to convert and here is a WIP of the first ten:

Click the Pic!

You will notice a number of things about the photo:

1. All of the plastic heads have been altered a little for individuality.
2. The non helmeted Squats have been given berets.
3. All of the troopers have neckerchiefs to hide the gap and enable squad identification.
4. One of the troopers is holding a shortened lasgun (they will all get these).
5. I have added the wire to each of them for sculpting the arms onto.

It is obviously early days yet... but it is a start and hopefully, once I get into a rhythm with the sculpting, I should be able to get the arms done quicker as I go along.

In other news, I have been Tango'd!

If you aren't aware, there is a forum member on The Miniatures Pages who scouts out all sorts of stuff and fills the forum with it. Well, it seems that my Imperial Guard to Squat guide was picked up on his radar and he posted it on the forum HERE. I really don't know what to say about it :).

See you from the queue for the salt and vinegar crisps!