The machinations of war.

Hello and welcome to Inso's World again.

Unlike the last few weeks, there has been a little bit of a surge in hobby related progress this week and without further ado, I'll start with a small amount of progress on the Hanomag pattern Chimera:

Click the Pic!

As you can see, I have tidied up the heavy-flamer point, added some vision slits and started work on the fenders. I need to tie the front and rear fenders together so I will no doubt be filling in the trim on the front ones to match the plain edges of the rear ones. I plan on adding some track guards that will hide the untidy join in the tracks but they will need to be left off until the vehicle is painted... so it may be necessary to make some form of clip so that they can be removed/fitted. There is still quite a way to go but I think the addition of the fenders has really given the vehicle a solid feel.

Next up, I have had an arrival this week. Yes, my leg casts arrived from the caster. I will be making a separate post all about the whys and wherefores of the leg casts but in the meantime, here is a picture of my nice little box of legs:

Click the Pic!

There are fifty in that little box; five for me and the rest will be put up for sale (the separate post about the legs will cover everything about sales). Obviously, I couldn't get a box of legs without cracking on with my Exo project so here is a WIP of my squad of Wolverines:

Click the Pic!

I still need to properly attach them to their bases, clean up the legs (if they need it) and then add some details to make them each a little more individual. The Wolverines are a squad of female veterans who accompany their female charge into battle. They have an ancient form of armour that the armourers have always kept maintained for the maiden veterans to wear. They are a simpler, sturdier design than the male suits and are soley used for close quarter battle.

There will be more information to follow soon. I will keep everyone updated about the leg situation on here but I will flag it in all the usual places so that everyone gets a chance to get their hands on them. I very much doubt if I will do this for the next couple of days because I need to put together a decent review and work out costs etc.

In other news, I fixed the car on Wednesday (replaced the radiator); saving a lot of money in garage expenses and I have also been over to Mousehole to have a look around... there are some excellent rockpools there and we also think we saw seals... but it was difficult to tell. 

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

See you from the depths of the armoury!

Wagons roll!

Hello again and welcome to Inso's World.

This week has been one of mixed fortunes. We are getting along with life and coming to terms with the move and everything. Part of that is getting stuff done around the house so I have started building shelf units for the space under the stairs... a space that will eventually allow me to unpack some of my hobby stuff again. Well, I started chopping up wood and realised that I needed some dowelling in order to secure some of the beams so off we went to town in the car. Unfortunately we had to stop and limp home because the radiator decided to burst and spill all of the coolant all over the road. After double checking to make sure it was definitely the radiator, I ordered a new one from a UK parts supplier and it was in-stock.

Everything was going well until I got the invoice. It was in German.... and the part was in stock in Germany and won't be here until Tuesday. If I'd have known that, I would have gone to an alternative dealer and had the car fixed by now.

DAMN IT!

So... we have had a bit of a one step forward, two steps back week... but that doesn't mean it has been all stop on the hobby front. I have been ticking along with my Hanomag pattern Chimera and have got this far:

Click the Pic!

As you can see from the green line down the side and the white strip down the length of the vehicle, I have shortened the length of the vehicle (by about 2cm) and widenend it (by 1cm). It wasn't done in a particularly tidy way but I am not too concerned because this conversion is just to see how the proportions look. It will probably end up as the army commander's transport (so it can be a bit different to the stock ones that will be built in a batch a bit later on). As I am going along I am learning things about how future Hanomag Chimeras will go together so it is worth messing about with.

Just for information, the little balls for the gun positions are just acrylic beads. I still have a long way to go but it is a nice shape and I quite like the way it looks and although the conversion is quite involved, it is pretty simple and will be simplified further on future ones.

This coming week will be much of the same... bit of house fixing... bit of car fixing... bit of assembling Squat Exo Armour (if my leg casts arrive).

In other news... I've booked a tattoo session with my son in March. We're off to get inked together. Should be fun!

See you from the babbling brook!

A Birthday Post.

Before I start, I'd like to offer a belated welcome aboard to Paul McWhirter and William Lancaster. They joined a week or so ago but in my fervour to post, I never got around to welcoming them. Welcome aboard, guys.

So welcome everyone, to Inso's World.

Today is a momentous one because, not only is it my birthday but it is also my very last day in the Royal Air Force. Tomorrow, I am unemployed for the first time in my adult life. I won't be rushing out to get a job tomorrow but will start looking in a week or so.

This week, I travelled up to RAF Benson and attended my leaving do. It couldn't have been better with a great turn out, some excellent banter and a chance to catch up with people I haven't seen for many years. I stayed an extra day to make sure that I was safe to drive and when it came to signing out of the mess for the very last time as an airman, it certainly had a poignancy I wasn't expecting.

So... That's it. I'm a veteran from tomorrow after 28 years and 3 months service. It was certainly an experience but it is definitely time to move on.

In other news, I have been in contact with my caster and it is likely that my 50 pairs of LEGS will be finished around the end of the week and I am very pleased about that because I had expected it to take much longer. Once they arrive, I will clean them up as much as they need and then assemble my little squad of Tartaros styled Exo Squats before being in a position to provide a review and also prepare to get some ready for selling. Once I am happy that everything is ready, I will think about pricing etc and THEN, I will accept orders (if anyone wants them).

My German half track arrived and I have been in contact with the guy who converted/scratchbuilt the model that caught my eye enough to want to try and copy it. He has been kind enough to provide me with some dimensions so I can try to get the proportions right. It will not be an exact copy but with what he has provided, I am confident that I can create something that fits my purposes. SDKFZ is the guy who inspired me to give the conversion a go and one of his awesome projects can be found HERE.

Here's a couple of pictures of SDKFZ's scratch built vehicle:

Click the Pix!

I think it will fit my vision for my Squat army perfectly (assuming I can get the proportions right).

Well that's about it for now. 

See you from the other part of the table!

A new venture.

Hello and welcome to Inso's World again.

This week has been all about family because both our children came to visit us for a few days and my in-laws have visited as well. That means that I have been enjoying going out, socialising and doing family things.

That said, I have also been carrying a bit of a cold and also not sleeping very well at all so when I haven't been with family, I have been proper lazy.

Here's a nice picture of my family visitors (my wife is there as well... she sort of visits all the time... because she lives with me...):

Click the Pic!

That has mostly been my week. However, things are stirring in the aether...

... I have sent the newly sculpted Terminator legs for casting:

Click the Pic!

The legs were sent off on Saturday and I will be getting 50 copies at some point in the future. Once they arrive I will share more information but restassured, if they are as good as I expect them to be, there will be some up for sale to those of you who would like the opportunity to convert some of your terminators into Squats in exo armour.

I have been torturing myself over Squat transports again. I even bought a tank kit to convert but it turned out to be too big. Grrrrr... I know what I want to achieve but I am having a nightmare finding the right path to getting there. I think that it will be something that will bother me for a while yet.

With thoughts on my Squat army, I have been sorting through the plastic bits I have and it looks like I have plenty for all of my army needs... in fact MORE than enough for my army needs so I may be putting some stuff up for sale at some point (but not until I have completed my infantry).

Finally, I have started to get the wood together to begin work on my storage area. That means that soon I will be focusing on getting that done so I can unpack some of my hobby boxes again. I still need to build a work station... but it will be nice to clear some more cardboard boxes from the spare room.

This coming week, I am travelling up to my old RAF unit for a leaving function so I have speeches to prepare and journeys to take. On Sunday next week, I will not only have my birthday but it marks the very last day of my RAF career. I may well become very drunk on that day... I have been saving a vintage bottle of port for the occasion and plan to throw away the cork. Next week's blog post may be interesting for all the wrong reasons.

I reckon that about does it for this week.

See you from the motorway!

It's 2017... Happy New Year.

Hello again. Welcome to Inso's World on the first day of 2017... so without further ado, I'd like to wish you all a happy new year.

So...2016 has definitely been a year of extremes, hasn't it? Brexit, Trump, terrorist attacks, war in Syria, earthquakes and other natural disasters, Olympic drug cheating and of course a long list of celebrities who passed away have all played a part in adding a dark shadow to the year. In fact, it is difficult to remember anything that wasn't gloomy in the world, during the year.

I can safely say that I drunk my way through New Year's Eve and am still suffering this evening but I felt that it was only right and proper to welcome in the new year and put 2016 in the bin.

From a personal perspective, the year has been one of change. Both our children have now left home, I have now left the RAF (I am on terminal leave at the moment with my actual leaving date being mid January), me and my wife have bought a house together and we have moved from Oxford area down to sunny Cornwall. I bought a cat called Sam (or sometimes Floof because he is so fluffy) who has grown massively in the seven and a half months he has been with us:

Click the Pic!

We definitely have some hurdles to overcome... getting jobs is top of the list there... but we have started on another great adventure together.

During 2016, my hobby time has mostly been dedicated to my Squat army project and that is set to continue into this new year because I have not been unable to unpack very much of my hobby stuff at the moment; due to lack of storage space and the only stuff I have handy is my Squat army. However, the work continues and I am looking to start getting some of my work cast up to see whether there is any mileage in selling some of it... and with that in mind, I am in the process of getting these legs cast up so that I can have a little squad of new-style Exo armour and then offer any spares up for sale:

Click the Pic!

So 2017 is going to be interesting... hopefully it won't be too horrendous!

Good luck travellers and stay safe in 2017.

See you from the tightrope!