Phase one is complete...

 Hello and welcome to Inso's World. This post will be all about my Space Dwarf Army because I have reached the first major milestone... it has all been sculpted, it has all been cast up and converted and it has all been painted. What started as a brief conversation over six years ago, has finally reached this milestone and I reckon that it is worthy of a recap so please feel free to pull up a sandbag because it's a bit of a story...

Around nine years ago, I retired from the Royal Air Force and moved to sunny Cornwall. I hadn't been there long before I thought I'd sculpt something and when I showed it off, people wanted me to share so I decided to get it cast up and would see how it went. The sculpt in question was a pair of legs that shortened a standard Terminator into a Dwarf version. The image shows the legs fitted to GW Terminator bodies. This little foray into the world of selling casts of my own work didn't go brilliantly; selling a dozen sets of five legs and not really making back my costs:

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Undeterred, I decided to make a small unit of Halfling Snipers to get cast up to both use in my armies and sell some copies. This fared slightly better but I didn't sell all of them and I ended up selling the greens to Checkpoint Miniatures:

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After this, I continued to build my GW plastic Squat army until there was a competition to sculpt a sci-fi character... so I sculpted my Space Dwarf Berserker:

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The sculpt didn't win and I felt it would probably be better selling it off... so I did. After this, there was a further competition and I sculpted a pair of Space Dwarfs:

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Again, these didn't win but I didn't sell them and kept them in my collection... THEN, I got a message from Chris Nicholls (owner of Macrocosm Miniatures), saying that he had bought the Berserker sculpt from the guy I sold it to. I said that I had a couple of greens sitting idle if he wanted them so he bought the two competition sculpts from me. THEN we had a chat and I suggested that it would be cool for me to sculpt a range for him, at my own pace and all I'd need in return would be casts of the sculpts... and the deal was struck! That was about six years ago and led to me sculpting a range:

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It was a bumpy ride... I had a mental breakdown and was in therapy for three years, caught Long Covid which lasted about 13 months, got side-tracked a few times and lost my mojo a bit but the range kept growing, the sculpts kept getting done and eventually, all of the items on my army list were ticked off. During the process, I was arranging my casts in to units and getting paint on them as I went along... culminating in an army of painted miniatures that is 125 miniatures strong:

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As well as the army, I painted a few other bits along the way... like Thor, an Adventurer, a Berserker, a Grief Diorama and a few other bits... but they are for another post (maybe)... and the focus is on the army and having all those miniatures painted is the end of Phase One.

Phase Two will be adding tufts to all the bases and varnishing the army... THEN, the army will be finished and ready for Phase Three; the creation of a scenic display base.

However... I am currently basking in the successful completion of Phase One and will get around to starting the next phase when I have cleared some of the sculpting backlog I have managed to build up.

This has been a journey! 

I have received a lot of encouragement along the way, from the hobby community and a few people who are almost as Dwarf obsessed as I am. I certainly couldn't have done it without my friend Chris at Macrocosm Miniatures, who has left me to it and been very patient with my progress!

Six years...

Worth it!

See you from the top of the pedestal!

The random world of sculpting.

 Hello again and welcome to Inso's World.

Today is all about remembering some of the random conversions and sculpts that I have either completed as commissions or have created and then sold/passed them on.

Let's start with a few gizzits. Gizzits are leaving gifts for people who are moving away from the section/squadron. Unfortunately, I don't have images of all of them but here are a few:

Click the Pix!

The top one was an old boss of mine, the one below it was a friend of mine and the bottom two are "pengies" sculpted for a couple of friends who were due to return home, from the Flaklands. I have sculpted others but like I said, I don't have images of them. 

Next up, we'll have some conversions that I have done for people:

Click the Pix!

From the top, we have a converted GW Giant, a "true-scale" chaos space marine lord, a converted Squat piper, a converted squad of Squats and a set of shields I converted for a charity drive. 

Now we'll have a few random commissions and sculpts that were finished and then sold/given away:

Click the Pix!

This batch starts out with a "three-eyed, mustachioed, hairy-groper" that was originally sculpted for a competition but got sold on, when the competition ended. Next is a sculpt that attended "Salute 2022" as part of a participation game. Next is a converted Genestealer assassin... make of that, what you will. The Cowboy was sculpted for one of the game designers of the video game that the character is part of. I am sure many of you will know the game. Finally, I have a Dwarf deep-sea, diver. This was a charity sculpt that was sculpted on a whim and raised money for the British Legion.

There have been others... many others... some tiny conversions and others major conversions and full sculpts but I thought I'd share a few of the more diverse sculpts and conversions to essentially reinforce that "I don't just sculpt space dwarfs".

One of the great things about sculpting for other people is that you get to see what they make of them... here are a couple of examples:

Click the Pix!

Pretty awesome, eh?

See you from the desk!

Echo...

Hello and welcome to Inso's World again.

I checked the dates and it's been nearly a month so I guess we have a bit to catch up on.

To start with, I've had my two weeks holiday (at home) and have spent a lot of the time drunk or under the influence... so I could have probably made more use of my holiday time but I think it was a case of having a decent blow out after a long period of no breaks so I am not bitter. The second week was with my wife so we spent some quality time, out and about but sadly, my lad couldn't make it so there was a bit of disappoinment there.

In the first week, I had my Trengrouse Trim and went from this:

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To a rather more shiny:

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As a result of the evening's takings, the sponsor money from work and the Go Fund Me page, I raised over £500. With a bit more wheeling and dealing (sale of sculpts and some reproduction rights), I have added a further £400 to the total and will top off the rest so that, together, we will provide a new Flexi-Porter chair for the care home I work in. All in all, a pretty successful little venture.

On the same day as the Trengrouse Trim, I bought a VFR750 that had been involved in a bit of a scrape:

Click the Pic!

Since the photo was taken, I have removed all of the fairings and seat cowl and have replaced the clutch/brake levers. I am in the process of replacing the right foot-brake but bolts are siezed and I need to drill things so it is waiting for a bit of enthusiasm. The aim of this little project is to build a streetfighter... so no fairing and a few modifications. All I need is some garage time... and I have some more holiday booked at the end of November so I should have some time for a bit of tinkering.

To change the subject, our visiting cat has been reunited with his owner so he won't be visiting any more... and our kitten (Alfie) has now been neutered so he is free to go out into the big world and get upto whatever shenanigans he wants to.

On to hobby stuff... to start with, I have been busy building the four proxy Taurox vehicles and they are just waiting for some plastic mesh (ordered) and they will be ready for paint. All the wheels have been base coated separately but here is where the vehicles are, at the moment:

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As you can see, they aren't a copy of the original design but more of a Stug with transport space. As soon as the mesh is attached to the rooves of these, they'll get sprayed up.

I mentioned earlier that I had sold some bits and bobs. The first thing to go was reproduction rights for these (already sold for personal use without rights to sell them): 

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I may have some interesting news about what happened to these, in a later blog post. In addition to that, I have sold my two competition sculpts:

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They were sent off today and I should also have some interesting information about these at a later date.

Well... I'm back at work again and life is returning to normal, after a small bout of illness so I reckon we can leave things here.

See you from the garage!

A whole month?!

Hello and welcome to Inso's World again.

I know... it's been a month but I have not really been getting up to much that is worthy of comment... so I thought I'd wait until something came up.

A date has been set for my head/beard shaving, charity event... the first of October. Here's the link:

LINK

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I have booked some holiday time so at the end of this month, I have two weeks off. That means I will have time to do some things... like get new glasses, see the doctor about my anaemia, get my bike serviced, see my son and maybe even chill out for a few minutes!

Life has been pretty regular... still working and enjoying it, still loving Cornwall and still enjoying time with my wife and all the cats that seem to be arriving.

On to hobby stuff and I did okay in the sculpting competition. I got 4th for the trooper and 7th for the Sgt:

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There were 13 entries and some were by professional sculptors so I don't thing I did badly. It spurred me on to think about sculpting a few more BUT...

... I started to sculpt and my muse disappeared...

So I have been converting up another Meng, King Tiger, "World War Toons tank"... and have just finished painting it... so here is my version of a Hydra, anti-aircraft tank:

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It just needs decals to be applied but I will do that when I do the rest of the tank company. With that in mind, I have finished the building/painting of the tank company now and that means that I don't have to add anything else to it. That said, I still need to build transport vehicles for 13 units of troops so I came to the conclusion that converting 13 Chimeras would drive me insane. That meant that I needed to have alternative options so I have chosen to convert 4 Taurox transports for my command units and 9 Chimeras for my troop units. As a result of this decision, I have ordered the remaining King Tiger that I need to convert into Chimeras and 4 Tiger 1 tanks, to convert into Tauroxes. I am awaiting their arrival and will attack the Taurox IFVs first, followed by 3 batches of 3 Chimeras.

Phew! I'm getting there...

Due to me being tired and a bit down in the dumps, I have taken to spending money on toys again... so on top of the afore mentioned tanks, I have also bought a box of THESE. They have since arrived and the cockpits seem to be the perfect size to fit Squat pilots into them... that means I have to think about how far I convert these... but all in good time.

In addition to that, I found a cool little shop that has snuck into my town, below my radar and it happens to sell wargame stuff. As a result, I have bought some 'space dinosaurs' (Reaper miniatures) and some GW enforcers (LINK). I have no idea why... but I am sure I will find a use for them.

In other hobby news, the Kickstarter pledge that I mentioned in my last post, has arrived and I have had time to mock up a couple of troopers. I haven't done any filling on them yet so I will wait until I have done that before posting any images. I am tempted to try out some Contrast paints on these troops... but I am not quite sure yet.

Well... I think that's about it for today. Hopefully, I'll have something to talk about next week as well.

See you from the top of the tree!

More Sculpting.

Hello and welcome to Inso's World again.

This week has been a good one. Work has been great, sometimes challenging, but definitely a case of when the going gets tough, the team pulls together... and team-work, makes the dream work!

Speaking of team-work, last night a large clump of my work mates gathered in my local last night and we all had a blast together. I got to introduce my wife to my friends and even threw a few shapes on the dance floor... a cracking night was had by all!

I have had my son and his girlfriend visiting this week as well and we have been enjoying a few quality days together. He is in good spirits and it is always nice to see him.

I have had notification that a Kickstarter pledge is in the delivery pipeline so it looks like I'll be getting some troops to chop up pretty soon. Which ones? These ones:

Kickstarter Link

I have pledged for the Northmen and will have about 42 infantry to turn into men-at-arms for my Primaris Knights:

Click the Pic!

There will be lots more information, once I have recieved the pledge and started conversion work. 

Speaking of conversion work, The Beastman Jedi has had a small amount of work done... but not enough for me to show off. He now has a right arm and the start of a lightsaber so things are moving forward.

Sculpting has been my main priority, this week and as a result, I have finished the second of my competition sculpts:

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I think he turned out quite well and scales up with the Sgt quite nicely:

Click the Pic!

I have started to bulk out another armature, in a bid to get another basic trooper sculpted. I am thinking of sculpting a few basic troopers, a comms specialist and maybe a few special weapons troopers (Melta, Plasma and Grenade Launcher). That way, there will be enough to build a veteran unit. It's early days but while I am enjoying sculpting, I may as well take advantage of it.

Speaking of sculpting, I have got embroiled in another competition which is all about alien creatures. I need to convert an alien creature, paint it up and put together a bit of fluff to go with it. I knew what I wanted to do so I have been sculpting a successor to this one (that I sold off a long time ago):

Click the Pic!

The one pictured was a "three-eyed, moustachioed, hairy, groper" but the one I am working on is going to be called "the Catachan, moustachioed, hairy, groper". It's another full sculpt that will be a one-off (I have to paint it) and it will be markedly different to the one pictured above... so watch this space for an image or two, next time I post.

Well... that's about it for now. 

See you from the sculpting bench!

Ogryn

Hello and welcome to Inso's World again.

After last week's post, I have stuck to my guns and have not added anything new to my army list. In fact, after receiving my Ogryn miniatures from Mad Robot Miniatures (in the USA), I decided to just have three Ogryn for now because it would take quite a lot of conversion work to change the second set of three into individuals, rather than a repetition of the first three.

With the Ogryn in mind, I unpacked them and quickly decided that they needed widening and their heads being lower down. As they are, they look like large scale humans and I wanted them to be a bit more Ogre like... not too much... but a bit... so I added a small disk of plastic in between the arm/shoulder and filled in the area to make a tidy join. I also trimmed the neck away from the heads and then pinned them in place before filling in the gaps again. This resulted in a nice little unit of three Ogryn:

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I am really happy with the way two of them turned out but the third one (on the right) will do a trip for now. Since this image has been taken, I have primed them and put them in the painting box, ready for when I get the brushes out again. In the meantime, I have been adding to my second competition sculpt and have added the pouches to his belt and have started to build up his infantry weapon and arms. I am hopeful that I will be able to finish him fairly soon.

As for the army, I have got the Beastman sat in exactly the same state as his last picture and have the command squad and commander for the final platoon, sat on my desk. While looking at this little unit, I noticed that two of the command squad troopers are finished so I only need to add the arms to three miniatures... winner!

As a side note, it is nice to be able to tick things off a list as you complete them... I have a lot more green and a lot less amber on my list now... not long before the troops are done, I reckon.

See you from the happy chair!

A bit up and down, this week.

Hello and welcome to Inso's World.

This week has been a bit all over the place.

I have been going to work as usual and have had a really good bunch of shifts; as a result of some good team work. When I have not been at work I have been clearing the garden and on one occasion, while ripping out some rotten wood, I found a very cool toad (which I evacuated to a safe area). I still have a bit of a way to go but the garden is certainly getting there.

Tuesday was a sad day. We had our lovely old cat, Fred (AKA Bouff and the Bear) put to sleep. He was fourteen years old and had been living with arthritis for a good few years (he was on medication for it) but over the last year, had developed some nasty growths in his neck and throat. We kept him going for as long as we could but he had just had enough so he was peacefully put to sleep on Tuesday.

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Rest in peace, Fred.

On Thursday, I went to give blood but have been told I can't donate for a year because I am anaemic. That came as a bit of a shock but it could explain some of my tiredness issues. I'll be going to see my doctor at some point, to see what they have to say about things. On the one hand, I am really disappointed that I have to wait a year to give blood again... but on the other, it means that I have six months in order to get another tattoo... so it isn't all bad. I just need to design my tattoo now.

On the hobby front, I have been sculpting a bit but have also been shopping... First of all, I decided that, after seeing the photo below, I needed some Loors:

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I can't take any credit for the image but the paint scheme really works on these miniatures so I put an order in to CP Models and am now in posession of ten, rather excellent, Loors. When I have some paints out again, these will be top of my list.

While on the subject of shopping, I needed to scratch an itch. I have an idea that has been scratching around in my head and I thought that a box of Dwarf Berserkers would help me to realise things... so I bought a box of "Avatars of War - Dwarf Seekers":

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I chose these because they mostly have boots on so I wouldn't need to spend all of my time converting feet. Anyway, without saying what I am converting them into, I have been busy converting a test miniature to check out the concept. I have also putt in a small order to Anvil Industry for some bits to add to these troops... all will become clear, when the test mini is complete.

With sculpting in mind, I have been continuing with the second competition sculpt but have slowed down bue to the above distractions. That said, it is coming along nicely:

Click the Pic!

What this coming week will churn up, who knows... but I hope it will be productive and bit more level on the luck side.

See you from the apex!

Sculpting and stuff.

Hello and welcome to Inso's World.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been working, clearing the garden and getting a bit of hobby stuff done... and I've also had to put up with a cold and a continuing lack of sleep.

Work has been good. I am now officially part of the furniture and this has been proven by bumping into workmates when I am not at work and socialising with them... so there's that.

When not at work, and when the weather has let me, I have been clearing the old fence from the garden. I have a way to go but this sort of thing takes time.

The cats are on our minds at the moment. Charmmy is fine, Alfie has had his two lots of jabs and is waiting until it is time for his neutering operation. Sam is still not right. He will be going back to the vets at some point soon and they'll need to look at his tail/lower back... when he's on anti-inflamatories, he is less stiff but you can see he is still not happy. Fred is very much on his last legs and we have been in touch with the vets to discus his humane departure... so we are spoiling him rotten at the moment. I fear that next weekend's post will be a sad one.

... to cheer things up, here's a picture of me and Alfie:

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Hobby has stopped apart from the competition sculpting. The Squat Sergeant has been finished:

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As a result of the Sergeant, I felt that I'd sculpt a bit more while I was on a roll so I have started a second sculpt for the competition:

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This one will be a standard trooper with some sort of rifle. He'll have a beret as well but will be pretty basic. I have six weeks (approximately) to finish this one so I may end up sculpting others (depending on how I feel).

In other news, I have a good friend who has decided to join a charity boxing event in order to raise some money for Cancer Research. He isn't a boxer and has some good reasons to support the charity so please feel free to click the link and throw lots of money at this one:

CHARITY BOXING LINK

That's about it for this post.

See you from reception!

More of the same.

Hello and welcome to Inso's World again.

It has been a quiet few weeks.

The garden is still filled with rubbish from the fence replacement and that is something that is beginning to annoy me.

I haven't been sleeping very much so I haven't been getting much hobby done... in fact, apart from going to work, I haven't been getting very much at all done.

Sam (my cat) has been very strange over the last week and I think his tail injury is the problem. He will need to go back to the vets again but I think he just needs a bit more time to get well...

... we have managed to coax him into the house after he has been avoiding us for a few days so at least he has a full belly, even though he is currently hiding behind the washing machine. I fear that we have some difficult times ahead, with him.

The kitten is being a kitten. Alfie is either tearing up the house or asleep... so he's a typical kitten. He needs to tone it down with the other cats because he is looking to get beaten up by one of them... you never know, it may do him some good and teach him some 'cat manners'.

Work has been good. I'm still enjoying it but am looking forward to sleeping more because I am in a heavy working environment at the moment and I need to keep my wits about me.

Hobby wise, I have received some brass wire and hole punches from EBay (for sculpting and cutting holes in plasticard for my Epic Squat army bases), I received my Kickstarter pledge from Diehard Miniatures (more on that in a later post), I have pledged for another Kickstarter and also started a sculpt for a Facebook Sculpting competition.

This is the sculpt I am working on and the title for the competition is "the humble infantryman". I have decided to go for a Squat Sergeant 'at rest':

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As you can see, he is very WIP at the moment but he's only been on the go for a couple of days so he's getting there.

As for the Kickstarter I have pledged for, it's this one:

Kickstarter Link

I've just pledged for the Dwarves. Time is running out so if you fancy adding some of these to your hoard, get pledging.

That's it for now.

See you from the trough!

A week of Dread!

Hello again and welcome to Inso's World.

This week has been pretty sleepless... apart from one tablet night... so I have been restricted in what I could get on with. That said... I have been pottering on with things... but first...

The Halfling snipers are available to buy, in metal from here:

CP Models

I have also sold my competition sculpt and it has been cast up in metal and may become available at some point. Here's the Original miniature and the metal version (photo is from the purchaser):

Click the Pix!

What I have been doing is putting the proceeds of the various miniature sales to good use, donating to various charities. One such charity is Cancer Research and I have helped my wife's work-place to enter a team of runners into the Race for Life, through the sale of my Squat Exo-Armour legs and the Competition Sculpt. If you wish to help further, here is a link to the donation page:

Race for Life Donation Page

I guess it's time to start talking about hobby progress. This week, as I have mentioned, wasn't the best for maintaining hobby focus so I have kept away from commissions because, quite frankly, I don't want to ruin what I have already got so far with. When I work on my own stuff, I only have myself to worry about so that is what I have been doing this week. I have been slowly pottering along with my Dreadnoughts and have finished them. Here's what I ended up with:

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... and when there was a break in the weather, I managed to get a coat of primer on them both:

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With those two as finished as they can be at the moment (I don't have the paint I need to start painting them with), I tried a bit of sculpting but failed miserably... so I decided to brave the attic and see what I could find. As it happened, I found some T'au Fire Warriors and Stealth Suits, some Dark Elf lizard riders and some Mantic Orks that I started converting into Bullgryn a while ago. Recently, I was looking on EBay and I found a lot that contained a host of Bullgryn/Ogryn weapons so I bought it. Knowing that I had these weapons on hand, I quickly got to work on the only converted Ork and added some of the weapons, ending up with this:

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At the moment, he is not finished; he still needs a bit of filling and a few details to be added. In the meantime, I have started on the second one but he is at a very early stage so I don't have any pics. The sad thing is that I have three identical miniatures and they are made of Restic (which is a bugger to work with) so I will need to put a lot of work/thought in to making them suitably different to one another. One thing I am thinking of doing, is making a couple of female Bullgryn... that will certainly make them different. In the end, I should have a functional squad of five Bullgryn to add to my Squat army.

So... T'au and big lizards... You wouldn't think they would be compatible at all, would you? Well, I have recently become interested in Pinterest and during my travels, I came across this little beauty:

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I think it is an excellent idea and although I would do things a little differently, it is something that I am keen to have a go at.

I think that is about everything. 

See you from the spawning ground!