Another bank holiday weekend.

Hello and welcome to Inso's World again.

There has been quite a bit going on this week so let's get started.

First up, to repeat my previous announcement, I am doing a charity hair and beard shaving event this coming Friday so please, if you can spare a donation, I would appreciate it. All you need to do is click on the link below and follow the instructions to make a donation... every little counts and the charity is one that helps everyone who is touched by the spectre of terminal illness of all kinds:

Inso's Charity Page LINK

In appreciation, here's a big smile:

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So... I have had quite a hobby week... starting with a bit of painting! Yes... PAINTING! I have finally dug my paints out and, although I don't have a proper painting area, have managed to put a very basic layer of paint on one of my Hasslefree Miniature gifts... so work has started and although I really want to show things off... you won't see it until I have finished it because I am very mean (and it is an amazing little miniature that is too cool to show WIP shots of).

In addition to the painting, I have been continuing with my Halfling sniper sculpts and have got this far... two finished and one WIP:

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I'll not say anything about anything else in the picture apart from, 'tiny distractions'.

Speaking of distractions, I finally buckled and bought some of the new Kharadron Overlord miniatures from Games Workshop. I decided that I needed to see what they were like, for myself so that I could come to the right decision about them. I bought the most basic troops of the lot; the Arkanauts. Here's the link to the box I bought:

Arkanaut Link

It is the first time I have visited a Warhammer store for a very long time and I was treated very well. The guy who took my payment was in the process of painting some of the Arkanauts and was doing a very nice job of it. 

Anyway, I have taken a lot of comparison pictures so here they are:

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From what I can see, the Kharadron kit doesn't match well with my old plastic Squats so will not be included in my army at all. That said, I think the Kharadrons are nicely made and with a few minor modifications, would make a great alternative faction. I think that changing the weapons to sci-fi ones, putting larger heads on them and removing the steampunk bits is all it would take... but that is just my opinion and I know that there are many people out there who will be using them as Squats; straight from the box.

In other news... I got my veteran badge this week. Truly, it is the end of an era for me:

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Tonight may well be a karaoke night... and why not?

See you from the stage!

Another beautiful Sunday.

Hello again.

It has been a beautiful day and it was decided that after the necessary food-shopping trip, we would go to the beach... which was stunning:

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This week has been a pretty good one... apart from the exhaust falling off the car... but I'm not talking about that!

I have been busy sculpting, digging up weeds, cutting up tree stumps and doing chores with the occasional trip out-and-about.

I have been talking to the landlord of my local pub (the Rodney Inn, in Helston) and he is happy for me to carry out my charity hair and beard shaving event in his pub. As I have mentioned it is on 5th May and a link to my just giving page can be found here:

LINK TO JUST GIVING SITE!

Donations are slowly starting to arrive but every penny counts so, if you can afford to, please donate to a very worthy cause; Marie Curie - providing support during terminal illness.

Speaking of the Rodney Inn... Friday night they had a live band on:

Click the Video!

Yes... I am loving life in Cornwall!

So... sculpting.

I have been busy sculpting my little Ratling snipers this week and have finished one, with the second one almost complete. Here is one of the last pictures I took of the 'finished' sniper, with the second one still very WIP:

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In order to see the scale pic at roughly the right size, you will have to right click on the image and 'open in a new tab'.

Now... I mentioned 'finished', rather than finished (without the quotation marks). That is because I thought it was finished so I put the images on the forums I frequent. That was when I got some feedback, which in all fairness was spot on, however, it could have been a bit less blunt and my 'arty-farty' head had a proper strop about it. Fortunately my 'military engineer' head stopped me from destroying the sculpt and abandoning this project and, since the picture has been taken, I have adjusted it somewhat so it shouldn't look like a 'feathery Minion with bananas hanging from his fart gun' any more.

The actual finished images haven't been taken yet and will be put up next week, hopefully with a second, finished sniper... and possibly a third one WIP.

Don't get me wrong, constructive feedback is an excellent way of helping you to get better and I welcome it but sometimes, when you have spent a good amount of time creating something you think looks good, blunt criticism sort of kicks you a bit. Sometimes 'being an artist' kind of takes over and you throw your teddies out of the pram... and that happened a bit this week.

Anyway... as blunt as the critique was, I have taken it on board and have changed the 'Minion goggles' and removed the 'bananas' from the end of the rifle. I think it looks better and hopefully, when the pix are shown next week, so will you.

I have no idea what will be going on this coming week... so I guess that next week you'll find out.

See you from the naughty chair!

Midweek Post.

Hello everyone.

I am posting today to alert you to a charity event that I will be embarking on very soon.

I will be 'Baldly Going' on May 5th:

Click the Pic!

Please click the link below and donate if you can:

BALDLY GOING LINK!

Thank you for looking!

See you from the barber's chair!

Easter greetings.

Hello again and welcome to Inso's World.

Happy Easter to all of you who celebrate it... and for the more heathen amongst you...

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This week has been a fairly productive one; with a few twists and turns along the way. I have been unsettled at night but have also managed to do lots of work in the garden and still have the dexterity for a little hobby stuff on the side. 

First up, I have got a little further with my Squat platoon:

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As you can see, all of the arms have had the first coat of green stuff applied, ready for further sculpting work. Since the picture was taken, I have also filled in the gaps on the specialist trooper arms, added straps to comms packs and also blended in the gap between the medic's pack and his back. Obviously, I have a long way to go on these... but unfortunately, someone decided to put an idea in my head and I have been distracted. What by? This:

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In case it isn't obvious, it is the start of a Ratling sniper in full ghillie suit. Unfortunately, it is a slow process because I have to let the previous layer of leaves dry before I start the next one... but it is ticking along nicely. One of the good things about a sculpt like this is that details aren't hugely important because everything will be covered by leaves so that makes it a slow... but simple sculpt. If it goes well, I will make a few more and get them cast up. The good thing is that Ratlings will fit in perfectly with my army (I have already included Beastmen and Ogryn in my list... so a few more abhumans are definitely in the theme of things) and will also mean that I don't have to have a veteran unit with snipers if I don't want to (I really wanted a sniper unit in full ghillie suits and the Ratlings will fill that void).

In another drastic change to the usual process of things... I saw these and couldn't resist:

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It has been a long time since I have bought any human 28mm miniatures but these ones just have 'Agents of Shield' written all over them and they will look great as part of my existing superhero project. The big dog (Chip) will be joining the Pug squad:

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...but that's not all!

Enclosed within the little parcel I received was some popping candy AND a rather interesting little bag with 'Happy Retirement' written on it. Inside the bag were some wonderful little surprises... that I will be sharing with you at a later date because... well... they are AWESOME!

I was extremely happy and it was a wonderful surprise so I would like to say a big thank you to everyone at Hasslefree Miniatures for such a generous gift.

Well... that's it for today.

See you from the world of illusion!

Platoon progress.

Hello and welcome to Inso's World again.

This week I am going to keep things short and sweet, not mention all the great places I've been to and just stick to the hobby stuff.

My hobby activity this week has been reserved for getting a whole platoon of troops up to the same standard. That means:

1. Initial assembly.
2. Adding neckerchiefs.
3. Adding beards.
4. Adding moustaches.
5. Shortening lasguns.
6. Gluing in wire for the arm sculpting.
7. Attaching any backpacks/comms packs.
8. Attaching weapons and any plastic arms that are required.

As a result of my efforts, the third platoon of my Squat army now looks like this:

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So, looking at the image above, you will see the command squad at the front (from the left: Lieutenant, Comms, Medic, Meltagunner, Grenadier), The first squad behind (with Sgt, Comms and Meltagunner) and at the back, the second squad (also with Sgt, Comms and Meltagunner).

This platoon is an assault platoon so I thought it wise to leave heavy weapons out of the equation. In order to counter this, I will be adding 3 special weapon squads and a unit of Rough Riders for support. I have not decided how to arm the special units yet but I will be keeping the rough riders as standard (lances, pistols and close combat weapons). I think that this platoon will be the one that gets the Berserkers for a bit of extra punch (as a result, I may end up adding a third infantry squad later on... but it all depends).

The next step is to bend and trim the wire into shape and start sculpting arms. There are other little details that need work but I will tackle them as I go along.

Now the sculpting begins in earnest!

See you from the workbench!

Veterans assembled...

Hello again and welcome to Inso's World on a chilly but bright Sunday Morning.

This week has been one of... not very much, really. I have done the usual chores and have pottered around a bit but I haven't embroiled myself in any shelf building or renovation work so I have had lots of time to focus on getting some hobby stuff done.

Obviously, I have been able to visit the beach... this was Praa Sands yesterday:

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It was a cool, slightly overcast day but the waves were just right for the many surfers who were there. To make the trip perfect, I started the visit with a coffee and a Cornish pasty at the cafe there. What better way to start the day?

So what hobby have I been getting up to? Well, to start, I have finished off my Maiden Guard; a female veteran Squat unit:

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These have been languishing in a box, in an almost complete state, for ages but the bit that needed finishing was the arms... so that is what I did. A couple of days of on-off sculpting and they were finished. Just for information, the grenade launcher is from the Cadian plastic sprue, the meltas are from the Space Marine Centurian kit (they are shorter weapons than standard ones), the comms pack is from Mad Robot Miniatures, the hammer is from a Mantic Forge Father - Forge Guard model, the bolt pistol is a Space Marine one and the heads are all from Statuesque Miniatures. These are counts-as Veterans with no additional specialisation.

With the Maiden Guard finished, I could have got on with my Exos or one of my other, already started, units but I decided to start a standard infantry squad that will be part of the third infantry platoon. That meant starting from scratch and this photo shows the process and where I have got to so far:

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Looking at the numbers, it has gone like this:

1. Choose the bodies, clean them up, clean the bases up and glue the bodies to the bases. The heads were selected and once the bodies were glued down, they were cleaned up and the beards were trimmed as required.
2. The trimmed heads were glued to the bodies with poly cement and 0.8mm holes were drilled in the bodies so that 0.8mm brass wire (I get mine from Hobby Craft) could be glued in place using super glue. These will form the armatures for the arms.
3. The neckerchiefs were sculpted into place using Green Stuff (GS). This fills in any unsightly gaps between the head and body and also provides an option for colour coding later on.
4. The beards were sculpted on, where required, using GS. I have also chosen which models would be the 'special ones' and have added the comms pack and space marine arms, after shortening them. (for the special weapon trooper - I have also cleaned up a melta) The comms pack was pinned in place with wire and a small sequin pin replaces the flimsy little resin aerial, and was slotted into a 0.8mm hole that I drilled.
5. The moustaches were sculpted on using GS.
6. All the weapons were added. Each lasgun was cleaned up, shortened and pinned together with wire. they then had a small hole drilled at the rear of the lasgun body for a wire pin. the Squat body was then drilled, pinned with wire and the lasguns glued in place. I have also drilled a Squat hand and glued a laspistol to it prior to attaching it to the wire arm of the sgt. An Ork knife was then drilled and glued to the other arm. The melta was pinned and glued to the special trooper's arms.

As you can see, I don't skimp on the assembly of these troops and, in the long run, it makes them very sturdy. Once I have bent the wire into shape and shortened it as required, the sculpting will commence in earnest... but I'll put together another picture for that, as I go.

And there you have it. I've managed to get anothe unit done, start the next platoon and still have time to go and feed the ducks!

Over the next month I will be going through the job hunting process so things will slow down a little but I think I will manage to keep ticking along with things.

Well that's about it for this week.

See you from the queue!