Something different.

Hello and welcome to Inso's World on an overcast Sunday morning.

I am nearly there!

Yes, I am nearly at a point where I don't have to spend weeks away sorting out flats. Monday is my last trip (for now) to hand over Dad's flat keys. That means three things:

1. I don't have to travel up there again.
2. I don't have to worry about clearing any more stuff.
3. I will have more time at home to focus on his remaining estate and being at home.

I will be glad to regain a bit of normality after what has been a taxing 3 months.

So... apart from clearing a flat, what have I been up to?

Monday was a day of trying to get things done and failing miserably... however, I did manage to tidy up most of the colours on the Squat unit. Only a couple of colours to go before I add the wash.

The rest of the week was clearing Dad's flat and if it hadn't been for the help of my family, I think I would have lost the plot. Thankfully, everything got sorted and I was able to come home on Friday. Speaking of which, I arrived home, threw dinner down my neck and in the space of 40 minutes, transformed myself into this chap:

Click the Pic!

That pic was taken after the party at my local, The Rodney Inn. It was a great night with good friends and a live band as well. Sadly, very few people turned up in fancy dress... but we made an effort so that was the main thing. Did I say we? Yes I did because my two most important ladies joined me:

Click the Pic!

My daughter was Poison Ivy, I was the Joker and my wife was Dr Harleen Quinzel (before the Joker fuelled transformation into Harlequin). 

I thought I did well to drive home, eat quickly and then manage to turn into the joker in 40 minutes (including dying time for my hair... which is going to be green for the next couple of months...).

To keep the super theme going... me and my wife went to see Thor Ragnarok at the cinema. I won't say much about it but it was a very enjoyable film with some nice little surprises. The Hulk stole the show for me because he had a developed character and wasn't just saying one word at a time... and Korg was brilliant too. Well worth a watch... and keep an eye out for the Easter Egg in the armoury under the Asgardian royal palace... with the upcoming Infinity Wars, it may catch your eye.

That is about it for this week. Monday I will be popping up to Somerset and back but after that I will be home to sort out life and all the other stuff... so hopefully, I will be able to squeeze some hobby time in at some point.

See you from the pinnacle!

A busy few weeks.

Hello again and welcome to Inso's World on a rather overcast Sunday afternoon.

It's been a couple of weeks since the last post but I thought that it would be better not to post if there was nothing to tell you about or show you.

Over the last few weeks, I have been sorting out Dad's flat, making lots of phone calls, writing letters, having meetings and generally being involved with all the things you get involved in, when someone passes away. On Wednesday, this all culminated in my Dad's funeral and he had a good send off.

Over the next week or so, I am clearing the flat and dealing with probate and all of the lovely paperwork that goes along with that... so I will still be pretty caught up in real life.

Now that I have put all that to rest, what the heck have I been doing with my hobby lately? Well... even the staunchest of warriors needs a quiet moment or two and my quiet moments have been put to good use. First of all, I have finished the remaining two Squat Berserkers (Ministorum Priests):

Click the Pix!

Once these two were finished, I looked through the storage boxes and the only primed miniatures for the army, were my three Beastmen Jedi (Primaris Psykers) so I started to paint them but then... BRAKES!!! Let's be sensible for a moment... I don't want to paint all the characters before I paint some basic troops... so I put the Beastmen away and primed a squad of Squats, ready for paint. So far, I have finished a rough base-coat and now need to tidy them up before a wash... but just to prove that I have managed to get that far, here's a WIP pic of the first squad of 2nd platoon:

Click the Pic!

As you can (hopefully) see, they are in the same earthy colours as the Berserkers and I quite like the toned down look to them. I can't say that they will be finished for next Sunday but I hope to get a few more stages finished, even if it is just the tidy up and wash.

In other news... THIS happened:

Click the Pic!

My Kickstarter pledge turned up. It's been a while but it's not the most delayed Kickstarter I have been involved with (Mantic). I will sort out a review at some point but at first glance, they are rather nice... but a little bigger than expected. Now I would be the first to say that I didn't pledge for any other reason than to just see what they were like. With that in mind, I am free to use these in whatever way I see fit (rather than fitting them into any particular army) so they may end up as aliens or dwarfs or even robots... who knows?

Well... that's it for this week.

See you from the stairway!

A pause to reflect.

Hello and welcome to Inso's World again.

As you will be aware, I didn't post an update last week.

The reason behind the lack of a post, is that I was called to the hospital because my Dad took a turn for the worst and sadly, on the evening of the 1st October 2017, he lost his battle with cancer. It was a rapid deterioration and he passed away peacefully.

Safe Travels, Dad.

If I don't post as much as I normally do, it is because I have a lot of stuff to think about and I also have a lot of things to sort out, with regard to arrangements.

I will be travelling back and forth for a week or so.

In other news, I decided to have a couple of days at home so I thought I'd put some paint on one of my Squat berserkers:

Click the Pic!

This is the very first painted Squat for my army.

See you from the garden!

Painty... Painty...

Hello and welcome to Inso's World again.

I know... there was no post last week but I was fed up with having nothing to post so I didn't think it was fair to post an empty update again.

This week, I have hobby stuff to share.

First of all, I decided to just bite the bullet and assemble a few more Squats to try out some more colours... so I did. This led to me thinking that I would be wasting my time if I went too far with them so once I had decided on a few colours, I started painting a few of my Squat troopers... namely my three Berserkers (they count as Astra Militarum Priests). I haven't got too far with them; just the first rough base-coat BUT it is a start and they represent the first painted troops in the army:

Click the Pic!

Now that they have a rough base-coat, I need to tidy them up, wash and highlight them but I will be doing them one at a time now so that I have mini goals to reach and get mini wins for achieving them. The first one that I am working on is the one in the middle so hopefully, he'll be finished fairly soon.

In other news, the Halfling Sniper sales have completely dried up. None sold now for two weeks... so rather than get miserable about it, I dug out a strip of some of the 'not quite perfect casts' to have a play with. I remember someone mentioning that they could almost be 'miniature Wookies' because the leaves could double as fur... and this got me thinking... Maybe not Wookies but something more WH40k... so I thought I'd try my hand at a 'counts-as' Jokaero:

Click the Pic!

I decided not to go for the 'Orangutan with techno gubbins' and instead went for 'Ape-like character with a gun'. Hopefully, it worked OK and also I hope it gives people ideas about how versatile the little snipers are.

Speaking of Halfling Snipers, you can get them from here:

Halfling Snipers.

I think that's about it for today...

...apart from the ever changing face of Inso's World:

Click the Pic!

I just can't seem to get rid of the blues...

See you from a different place!

Peaks and troughs

Hello and welcome to Inso's World again.

This week has been a bit of a strange one due to lots of personal/family stuff going on. As a result, I haven't had too much time on the sculpting work-face.

That said, I have continued with 'the next big thing' for the Emporium and have also got a bit further with the charity sculpt... so I have managed to get a bit of sculpting done, even if I can't show it off.

One thing that the sculpting has shown me this week is that sometimes, you have to rework pose and proportions when you are working on figures... and I have had to do that on two of my little figures. Luckily, the rework has been successful and I am now happy with the direction they are taking.

Sales of my Halflings and Exo Legs have stalled so I haven't had to go to the post office very much this week (just the once)... so I still have a good few left, over at the Emporium.

This coming week, I have builders working on the house, more visits to hospital with my dad and a few other bits and bobs so I doubt that I will get much hobby time; if any.

It's been a bit of a run of boring posts lately... sorry about that.

See you from the bottom of the jam-jar!

Sunday, 'nother Sunday.

Hello again and welcome to Inso's World.

This week has mostly been completely bland. I have done the odd chore here and there, done a bit of sculpting but not really very much more...

However, we did have a call from the bat rescue people and we were lucky to get our rescued bat released again:

Click the Pic!

Click the Video!

On another plus side, I have had a slow trickle of orders for my resin casts and have been busy packing them up and sending them off.

There are still a few sets of Halfling snipers and Exo Armour legs available so if you want to get hold of some, you can get them here:

Exo Armoured Legs

Halfling Snipers

As part of a slow expansion in the Emporium, I have begun sculpting body blanks for the start of a range of infantry troopers. Unfortunately, I have not got very far with them yet but have started five bodies in various poses. I plan to sculpt male and female bodies (just torso on legs) with armour and equipment which can be sent away for casting. When they come back, I will then sculpt arms/heads/weapons on to them. As part of this project, I will also be sculpting a set of weapons/helmet/equipment which will also be cast up and used to equip the bodies so that all of the kit is uniform across the range.

My plan is to tie everything together so that there are standard infantry, infantry with special weapons, heavy weapon crews (for artillery pieces) and leaders. It is early days and I am keeping the designs a bit close to my chest for now but I am hoping to have something to show off by the end of the year.

In other sculpting news, the sculpt for the Frothers charity competition has progressed a little bit and now only needs an arm and head to be sculpted. It is looking pretty good so far and I am now hoping that I can carry on the standard when I sculpt the rest (the head especially). As a result of the competition rules, I am not able to show the sculpt off... but if you are interested in the competition, here's where the finished sculpts will end up:

Frothers Sculpting Competition

That's about it today.

See you from the vice!

Slow and steady wins the race.

Hello and welcome to Inso's World again.

This week has been fairly chilled out, being mostly filled with a few chores and lots of pottering about.

Monday I sorted out my chores and went to get a tattoo:

Click the Pic!

It is the Rune Fehu (Freya's rune) and matches the rune that my wife wears as a pendent. The tattoo is on my left moob...

After the tattoo, I popped round to pick a mate up so that he could go to the beach for the first time in years. He has fallen on tough health over the past six or so years and hasn't really left the town... so we went to Marazion for a bit of sea air and a pint and it was a great way to spend an afternoon.

Tuesday I put my Halfling Snipers and Exo Armour legs up for sale. The Halflings can be found at this link:

HALFLING SNIPER LINK

and look like this:

Click the Pix!

The Exo legs can be found here:

EXO ARMOUR LEGS LINK

and look like this:

Click the Pic!

and when combined with some Tartaros terminator bodies (available from HERE), they look a bit like this:

Click the Pic!

Then, in the afternoon, I went to get my hair cut and let my hairdresser loose with whatever she wanted to throw at me... so this happened:

Click the Pic!

Yes... it is PURPLE with leopard spots around the side... I must admit that, even with my strong character, I had to take a deep breath before walking out into the street.

The rest of the week was taken up with family time, chores and packing up miniatures... with a trip to the post office thrown in.

Another thing happened this week... and that was the realisation that I can't be dictated to by circumstances and I need to start setting myself some sort of routine where I have portions of the day set aside for chores, sculpting, packaging and renovating... so I will be trying to get my head around that over the next few weeks.

This coming week is another one where I travel to see my dad so he can go and get his chemotherapy treatment. Unlike the previous times, this time will be a bit different because I have arranged a visit from a specialist animal collector who will be bringing some tarantulas and reptiles for me and dad to handle. It is something dad wanted to do before he is too ill to do it and the wonderful chap who is popping round has a little education business going on that can be found here:

G.R.A.B Reptiles LINK

I am hoping that it is everything dad wants it to be.

In addition, I will be keeping up with all the other stuff and trying to get some sculpting done as well... I also need to replace the car windscreen... BIG crack in that too...

Lots on...

See you from the top of the very long list!