Another tick on the list of life.

Welcome to Inso's World on a rather autumnal Sunday. Before I kick things off, I'd like to welcome our newest traveller, Bob Kinnear. Welcome Bob! I hope you enjoy your time here.

WOW! What a week.

I have had a few days at home and have done a few cool things this week. First off... I travelled over water on this very beast:

Click the Pic!

When I was a nipper, I was able to look inside a static display of a hovercraft at a theme park but this week, I travelled from Portsmouth to the Isle of White on a hovercraft. What was it like? Well... it was very much like travelling in a helicopter rather than a boat and it was great fun. It has further fuelled my desire to have one of my armies transported by a fleet of sci-fi hovercraft.

One thing in life that always humbles me is how completely wild animals react to humans. Yes, we've all been close to wild birds and animals but for them to actually interact with you is just wonderful. This week, me and my better half went to a nature/wildlife park and while we were there, some migratory geese made friends. One in particular even let me stroke it! It's a proper privilege to have a wild bird eating from your hand and choosing you for a bit of company... here's my new friend helping himself to some pellets from my hand:

Click the Pic!

The clocks went back today so I have gained an hour... but that said, I actually slept through the whole night (8+ hours!) for the first time this week and feel up to the challenge of using the extra hour to do STUFF!

On my travels this week, I spotted this:

Click the Pic!

I don't need it... but I bought it just to show everyone how perfect it would be for a Spacemarine bike or even a Rough Rider bike for the Imperial Guard. It only cost me £2.00 and I think it has great potential for converting for your 28mm heroic scale miniatures.

In other news, I have been informed by Gangfight Games that my Mechadrome Kickstarter pledge is on its way! I am REALLY happy about this and can't wait to get my hands on some mecha goodness... like THIS.

With so much happening, you would have thought that my hobby may have taken a back seat... but you would be wrong. I have taken the opportunity to focus my attention on my little Engineseer and have finished his body. He just needs his head and backpack sorting out and he will be finished. Here he is with his charges:

Click the Pic!

Because the main focus has been the Engineseer, I have only managed a very small amount of work on 'Big Robot'... but at least he has arms now :).

Ebay has been lucky for me this week as I managed to win a Grymn walker for a very reasonable price (Half RRP)... so I now have a character model to add to the walker platoon (when I eventually put it all together).

Well... I think that about sums everything up for now.

See you from the line of scrimmage!

Sunday sculpting and converting.

Hello again. It is Sunday so it is time for me to round up the week with a post about the things I have been getting up to.

First of all, I have been running a bit. That has meant a number of things...

Firstly, I have run around 13.5 miles this week. That was in 3 runs but still amounts to a half-marathon. This has led to the conclusion that...

Secondly, I need new trainers because my shins are not at all happy. I expect this to be as a result of the old trainers I have been running in so I went into town today and bought some shiny new running trainers and they are WAY better than the old ones.

Thirdly, I have signed up for a half marathon. That will be the furthest I have run in a single go (currently, it is 10 miles) and I will have to decide on a charity to get donations for... although it is likely to be the Royal British Legion.

The trip to town was eventful too... I managed to kill a pheasant. It ran all over the place and then ran at the car with fatal results. It was not a good start.

So... that is running done, now let's talk about the movie 'The Edge of Tomorrow' (I finally got to see it on DVD after missing it in the cinema).

The film is all about a bloke who ends up being labelled a deserter and put in a small unit of troops who are chosen as the first wave in a massive assault against alien invaders. The attack goes wrong and when the bloke is killed, he wakes up back where he started and has to re-live the day's events again and again. This leads him to meet a hero in the army who helps him on his journey.

There are aliens aplenty, some excellent powered suits and really cool looking aircraft. There is also the scene with an RAF Puma helicopter landing in Trafalgar Square (the very same aircraft that I have fixed in the past) so that was great.

What did I think of the film? I thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it to any sci-fi film buff.

On to the hobby now... and here is a picture:

Click the Pic!

As you can see, the hovercraft conversion is coming along quite nicely. It is in the process of getting the add-ons shaped to fit the hull. There is still a way to go and the front and rear sections will change a bit before I am finished. The Squat Engineseer is starting to get his armour and is also taking shape nicely. I have learned that my sculpting finesse has taken a hit because the surfaces aren't as smooth as usual but I guess that I am just a little out of practice. As a result of only being able to do tiny bits at a time on the Squat, I have been bulking up the 'thing' in the middle with the leftover putty. The 'thing' will be revealed at some point... it should be worth the wait. Finally, at the bottom of the page we have the five eights. These are five sci-fi troopers from Hasslefree Miniatures that are going to be purple to go with these guys:

Click the Pic!

As a result, 'Meg and the Purple Pugs' will soon become 'Meg and the Purple Pirates'. When new stuff turns up, it is always a case of 'adapt and overcome'!

This week also saw the arrival of my sculpt for the Hasslefree sculpting competition 2012:

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As you can see, the sculpt survived the casting process completely intact... and you will also notice the metal version next to her. I am very happy to have another of my sculpts in the metal. Hopefully, she will be deemed worthy to go into the Hasslefree Miniatures store... but we will have to wait and see. As well as my two sculpts, I also received a bunch of the winning casts and some others that were chosen, like mine, as HF choice miniatures. All in all... Hasslefree Miniatures have done me proud.

That is it for today. I hope to have some very exciting things to go in the next update so I hope you pop in and visit Ins's World again next week.

See you at a thousand miles an hour!

A very Autumnal post.

It's another Sunday and, as is usually the case, it's time for another post but before I start, I'd like to welcome the newest follower of Inso's World; Roebeast. Welcome aboard and I hope you get involved, share your comments and enjoy your stay.

This week has been a little bit interesting. First of all, I have decided to start uploading all of my short stories to the WWW and the ones I have started with are those that involve Grymn. Seeing as they are about Grymn, I thought it was appropriate to upload them to the Forum of Doom and here is a link to the section where they live:

Grymn Link

The stories in question will all start with the term 'Grymn Fluff' and be posted by 'Inso' so they should be easy enough to find. If you are interested enough to read the trilogy, it goes in this order:

The Duplicate Adventures

Rebirth and Realisation

Eastward Endeavours

I hope you enjoy my random musings.

Unfortunately, I may be forced to don a spandex costume and fight nefarious super-villains at some point soon. Why? Because I have been bitten by something that has caused me such discomfort that I can only assume it was this:

Click the Pic!

It has caused my immune system to make all of the glands in my neck to expand greatly. Fortunately, it just itches a lot... but the moment I get the urge to start running up buildings, I'll let everyone know!

Oh... go on then... how about some hobby stuff? This week has mostly been about waiting for little gun turrets to arrive... and that's what happened. I have also been shaping hover skirts and adding bulk to the Squat Engineseer:

Click the Pic!

The top pics show the Smoothed out skirt on the buggy conversion, the next pics show the awesome little gun turrets (of which I now have 5) and the bottom pics show the padded out Engineseer body. 

Obviously, there is a lot to do... but the lines on the skirt will be scored out to represent different panels. Once that is done, I will tidy things up and start on the other two components that will make up the hover buggy's intake and propulsion systems. 

The little gun turrets are from Anvil Industry and they were absolutely perfect. The casting quality is exceptional and they only needed snipping from the sprue, cleaning up where it was clipped off and a bit of a brush with a tooth brush to remove the fine flash. I am extremely impressed with the quality of these and will be ordering more to go with the other squads. In addition to this... the sprue is actually cast up to look like rubble for adding to bases; which is a nice touch.

The Engineseer is still at a very early stage and will be getting armour and details from now on. You can see that he has a peg leg at the moment but that will slowly transform into a bionic leg. I am happy with the way he is going... so it is likely that he will get finished.

Well... that's it for today.

See you from the bridge of The Obituary!

It's the little things in life...

Welcome to this week's update and especially to Flo, the newest traveller to join our merry ranks. I hope you enjoy the trip and remember to share your thoughts.

So another week has gone by and it has been another week of sleepless nights but it hasn't all been bad.

I was presented with a certificate for 'Loyalty' and my nomination for last weeks special award evening... so at least I now have a momento of the event (which is nice). I have been making headway in the 'going away' administration so that has helped a bit. I've been very busy at work and have also managed to get a short run in as well... so it has been quite productive, even without too much sleep.

On the hobby side, I have finally given in to the dark side and ordered some of the little gun tractors from Anvil Industries. These are the ones I have gone for:

Click the Pic!

I have ordered a pack of five with howitzers and hopefully, they will stir me back into life with the Squat squads because these will need some firers/loaders to go with them. I plan on these being the heavy weapon in a weapon team in a similar way to the Imperial Guard weapon teams (except I will have the miniatures on separate bases).

In other hobby related news, the sculpting competition that finished in 2012 is nearing fruition... and my submission, Ther'ule, is in the winners pack. Here is a link to the Forum of Doom for more information:

FoD LINK

And here is the winners pack:

Click the Pic!

Ther'ule is the one to the left of 'WINNERS MOULD'. I am happy, as I have said before, that she is in metal now but also happy that she was a 'Hasslefree Choice' even if she wasn't an actual winner.

As a biproduct of the competition, I was given a voucher to spend at Hasslefree Miniatures and have gone for the five eight and Roddy... which will no doubt be making an appearance at some point on here.

The Unofficial Diorama of Doom 2014 is picking up pace now; with five entries so far. If you fancy a go at the competition, pop along and give it a go. Here is a link to the WIP topic:

WIP Topic

And here is a link to the rules (if you fancy giving it a go:

Rules Topic

It's only a bit of fun after all.

Finally... there has been a loss to the Squat community. The Engineseer that I started was 'all wrong' so I clipped him off the base and sent him to the funeral halls... OK... I put him in the bin... but I did start again and am happier with the bulk/pose/proportions now. I have also been tinkering a little bit with the hover bike and have started another hover type thing that may prove to be helpful to other factions, depending how things go. Here is a WIP shot of 'STUFF':

Click the Pic!

On the top left we have an Ainsty Castings buggy with a WIP hover skirt. To the right of that is the start of an intake turbine for the hover buggy. Next is the bike with added side pods (round-mover components from a VOTOMs kit) and finally, there is a padded out armature for the Engineseer. The buggy will be gitting three add-ons: a skirt, an intake pod and a propulsion pod. Each will be separate components. I hope that they will be cast up as well as the bike so I have more hover options... but we'll just have to see.

Well, I think that is about it for now. I hope you have a great week and I hope to see you here next week.

See you from the pinnacle of light!