Aaaand relax...

hello again and welcome to the last post of 2015.

I hope you all had an excellent Christmas/holiday period and enjoyed it just the way you chose to.

Here at home has been great. I have had a very nice time and it has been based on family and food/drink. Much better than last year where I was due to be flying to the Falklands on the 28th... it all felt so surreal.

As you may well have guessed, I have shelved the hobby for the festivities and have only just unpacked one or two things to be getting on with today... namely this:

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It may not look like much at the moment... but it will end up being a vehicle for my Sharclon to travel around in. It has been languishing in a box for ages and I have only recently dug it out for some TLC. As a side note, it has been made so robustly that I reckon I could probably stand on it without it breaking (but I don't want to chance it, just in case). It will look a bit 'old school' when it is finished so it will match the Sharclon very well... I just need to find the right bits for the unconventional turret. It should also tie in nicely with the air support I have planned (there is a pun there but you'll have to wait to see it).

So... Christmas gifts. I received a small amount of extremely well targeted gifts and they were, as follows:

• A pair of dinosaur hand puppets (self assembly - card).
• An etched port glass and miniature bottle of vintage port.
• A Grumpy Cat Christmas jumper.
• A Lego Starwars kit (Shadow troopers)
• A 1/35th scale Cromwell tank kit.
• A Ladybird book of Hangovers.
• A donation made on my behalf to Shelterbox.

All things that were spot on and 'in tune' with me... something that rarely happens.

Needless to say that Christmas has been very good to me... and Boxing Day was mostly having an excellent meal in the pub where my daughter works.

Onwards an upwards... and although I have had a lovely Christmas, I won't be looking back on 2015 too favourably when we get to 2016. 2016 is going to be a massive year for me and my family as we plan our journey to a new life in a different area... and doing so as civilians rather than a Service family.

So in a few days we will all be seeing out the old year and seeing in the new one. 

I wish everyone a happy New Year and hope that you spend it doing what you wish.

Roll on 2016!

See you from the height of indecision!

The calm before the chaos.

Hello again and welcome to Inso's World.

This last week has all been about getting through the working week in order to start my two week holiday for the Christmas period.

Work parties, lots of bacon rolls and poorly days (I may have consumed one too many cocktails along the way).

From a hobby perspective, I have slapped a little paint on a few Sharclon (very early stages... no where near enough progress to show off), dug out a few bits and bobs for a hover tank and have bought a small model kit that will hopefully turn into something interesting.

In other news... I have been to see the new Star Wars film and enjoyed it quite a lot... but have a few negative views as well... but I will save my review for a couple of weeks so that I don't spoil things. I reckon that after two weeks, I have given enough time for the fans to have seen it and not get upset. If they haven't seen it by then, they can't be too bothered.

Unfortunately, one of our goldfish died. He was a little battler but was always a bit odd so I am surprised he lasted as long as he did to be honest. Poor old Alfie.

So that's it for now.

By next Sunday, Christmas will have been and gone and we can all get back to normal again... but in the meantime... this is what happens when you believe what is shown on a hair dye box and dye your hair for Christmas:

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At least it is nice and in the spirit of Christmas!

See you from a very cold place!

With a BUMP!

Hello and welcome to Inso's World.

This week has been a fairly dour affair so I have had to take a deep breath and come to terms with a whole bunch of 'stuff' that has been building up for a long time.

This weekend is the first one for a good while where I have been able to just be me and not have any external forces acting on my mojo. It has been a welcome change and I feel all the better for it.

So... with a bump, eh? It had to happen eventually. Last year, in August, I started my Squat project. Ever since I have worked exclusively on it apart from three items; a RC model driver, an Age of Sigmar miniature (unfinished) and a single plastic Ork. That is around sixteen months of working on the same thing. Well, I have had enough of the project for now and am shelving it. I haven't given up on it... I just need a proper break from it so I am putting them away and will go back to them at a later date. I have made a note of my plans, painting schemes and additions so that when I get back to the project, I can continue where I left off... but to be brutally honest, I am burnt out on Squats.

So where does this leave the hobby?

Still in a good place, really.

Recently, I bought more Sharclon from Heresy Miniatures and guess what is currently occupying my work space?:

Click the Pic!

This is the second squad that I have worked on and both of the squads will get a couple of additions at a later date (heavies? Specialists? Who knows?). They will be painted the same as my previous ones and I am planning to add some decals to both squads (on their shoulders) for rank and squad markings. I reckon I am likely to use Tau decals but it isn't set in stone yet.

In addition to the Sharclon, I have another little project on the go... and it all starts with a little pot that normally contains a chewable tooth brush:

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I'm not letting on exactly what this will be but needless to say, it is a very early WIP at the moment.

In other news, I was lucky enough to get my hands on a rather special bottle of wine this week... and thoroughly enjoyed sharing it with my lovely wife:

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The clue is on the label.

Well... this is the last week of work before I start my Christmas holidays so it's almost time to batten down the hatches and power through! The light is at the end of the tunnel!

See you from the end of the world!

The start of the next phase.

Hello and welcome to Inso's World... especially new traveller; supervike. I hope you enjoy your journey through Inso's World and share your thoughts along the way.

This week has been one of getting the paints out and making some colour choices for the Squat army.

I am using paints that I haven't tried before so some of the colours were not what I was expecting and some of them were not properly mixed so were a bit more gloss than they should have been (that's why it is good to try out the paints on spare miniatures prior to the job at hand). That said, I think I have covered the bases that I needed to so I will show you what I have come up with:

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As you can see from the picture, I have got a range of colours and have more or less decided what I like, however, I am interested to hear your thoughts. 

The things that are set are the colours for the boots/gloves, the belts/straps and the layout of the colours. I am open to changing the flak armour/fatigue colours between the choices. The blue dot is where the army markings will go so isn't part of the scheme and was just put there as a 'random' colour.

You may notice that there are no weapons on these. The weapons and helmets will be the same colour and are likely to be a dark green.

On the subject of helmets, I am planning to paint the 'visors' the same colour as the helmets (a bit like pilot's helmets) and use them for unit markings and rank. I view them as covers for a drop down visor, rather than the actual visor. The reason I haven't practiced on a helmet is that they are precious and I don't have any spare.

So... there you have it. The painting has started (even though I haven't finished sculpting the command squad yet). I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

See you from the paint station!

We have a commander.

Hello and welcome to Inso's World again.

This week has been another relatively quiet one so I have been able to get a small amount of focused hobby time in.

As I have mentioned, I need to get the Squat army command squad finished and have not been particularly motivated to do it lately so in a bid to get things moving, I have changed my tactics and have been focusing my sculpting on individual miniatures... and where better to start than on the army commander himself?:

Click the Pic!

You may well notice that his power fist has grown somewhat. Well, that was as a direct response to feedback from someone on one of the forums I visit. He mentioned that it looked more like a robot hand than a power fist... and now that I have finished the commander, I am glad that I took his suggestion forward.

I have yet to decide which member of the squad will get the focus this week but in the meantime, I have been using up the left-over green stuff on the second primaris psyker/Jedi Beastman:

Click the Pic!

I have been concentrating on getting the face right and I am now happy that he looks suitably grumpy. I have put a base layer for his dreadlocks to be built up and I have decided that he has had his horns trimmed down (like Hellboy). He is likely to get a small goatee beard, some dreads dangling where his side-burns would be and some more 'wayward' dreads on his head (his hair looks a bit too groomed at the moment). The pole he is carrying will turn into a double light-sabre (like Darth Maul has) and his other hand will probably be a clenched fist. Obviously, I still have a long way to go... but now that I am happy with the face, the rest should be straight forward.

In other hobby news, I have bought a model kit to try and get the amphibious transport moving again. Hopefully, having the wheels from this, will stimulate some progress on the track units:

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I specifically chose this kit due to the relatively small road wheels.

... and finally... there may be painting very soon:

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These three Squats are ones that were spare so I glued some plastic arms on them and have undercoated them with Halfords primer; ready to be used for selecting an army colour scheme. That's where I'll leave that for now.

Well, I hope you have enjoyed today's little update.

See you from the armoury!

I have a cunning plan...

With all armies, you eventually come up with a plan. In my case, I start with a bunch of miniatures and then decide on what I might do with them. My Squat army is no exception... I started out with a bunch of miniatures decided roughly what I was going to do with them and then came up with a bit of a plan that allowed expansion. I tend to use Excel to put together little army organisation plots because it not only allows you to put your choices in boxes but you can also colour-code things. In fact, the charts that I have come up with, need no explanation... so here they are:

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Looking at the above organisation charts, you will quickly see that the main part of the army is Astra Militarum. I plan to fill the Enginseer boxes in the future but the main goal is to turn all those pink boxes green... then all the boxes blue.

But first... the command squad and psyker.

See you from the edge of the shingle beach, next to the dragon skull!

It's just a case of getting there...

Hello again and welcome to Inso's World.

It hasn't been a bad week and things have been ticking along OK. Little and often has been the main idea about hobby time this week and it has started to pay off a little.

I have one priority at the moment and that is to finish the command squad for my Squat army. Anything else is secondary. With that said, I have managed to get a bit further than the very WIP picture I last showed and have at least given them all their beards, equipment and weapons:

Click the Pic!

So, from left to right, we have:

• Commander with bolt pistol, power fist and refractor field.
• Veteran with sniper rifle.
• Veteran with comms set, laspistol and close combat weapon.
• Veteran with medi-pack, laspistol and close combat weapon.
• Veteran with company standard, laspistol and close combat weapon.

Obviously, they have a long way to go but it is progress. The commander will have a bionic eye and I am still working out how to blend the power fist into the shoulder. The standard will count as the close combat weapon for the veteran carrying it because I am going to give it a spear head. I am hopeful that my sleep patterns will allow me the dexterity to get more work done on these during the week but I guess that is just something to wait and see about.

While I have been working on this squad, I have also been ticking along very slowly with the second primaris beastman. He is starting to get a face that looks presentable but I am not going to show him off just yet bacause I'd like him to be a bit more finished.

In other news, I needed to order some more green stuff so I bought some from Heresy Miniatures. While I was at it, I couldn't help myself and bought a few more Sharclon to go with my collection. When my sculpting mojo has died, I will be painting Squats and the Sharclon will make an excellent change of pace during the process. My last ones had a simple paint scheme and I will be continuing that with the rest of them. Here is what I have already painted:

Click the Pic!

I need to swap things around a bit (I have plans for some heavy weapon conversions) but the paint scheme will stay the same apart from squad identifiers... I'm thinking some sort of symbol on the red part of the shoulders. I really love these little miniatures and it shows because these are the only miniatures (apart from those involved with my Squat army or VOTOMs) that I have purchased in a long while.

Turning my gaze towards 'life' now and my dad's condition has improved greatly so there is likely to be a shorter stay in hospital than expected... that said, I thought I'd share this image of him so that you can understand why my mind hasn't been as focused on things as would normally be expected:

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The short version is that he fell and broke his neck and it has now been bolted together; hence the head-gear. He has made huge progress over the last four weeks and his rehabilitation is going well. 

Aside from dad, my son has been getting on with his basic training well and it was ironic this week that I was getting gas-mask training for the last time, when he was getting it for the first time! I am sure that he probably enjoyed the process just as little as I did.

That's it for another week.

See you from the bus stop!