Tigers!

I know I sound like a bit of a stuck record but I have had another slow hobby week this week. I have put a bunch of plastic space Dwarfs into the Dettol and cleaned them off. I then separated them down into their components and quickly discovered that I have got enough heads/bodies/weapons for about 35 troops... but not enough arms. It isn't a problem because I'll just sculpt them on but it does add to the length of time it will take to put them all together... and it is something that will be on the back burner for now anyway.

I've been throwing bids on Ebay this week and failing in glorious fashion... so I don't have any news about that.

I am looking forward to the end of this Kickstarter project (Mechadrome):

Mechadrome Kickstarter Link!

I have pledged for a small gathering of these awesome little mechs and I hope that they are as awesome in hand as they appear on the site.

Speaking of mechs, Prodos Games has been updating a lot of their Warzone Resurrection miniatures and they have been doing a great job. The one that really caught my eye was the new version of the Bauhaus Vulkan... a proper stocky little chap:

Click the Pic!

I think that this will make an excellent addition to any Squat/Space Dwarf force... oh... and Warzone Bauhaus force (of course).

In other news, the Forum of Doom is having an Unofficial Diorama of Doom competition again this year. At the moment, the final poll is up to vote for a theme. If you want to pop along, have a look and vote it would be very cool of you. Here's the link:

UNDoD 2014 LINK!

You never know; you may be inspired enough to join in with your own offering.

From a personal hobby perspective, I managed to throw a basecoat on my Torge's Tigers dropship. It is still very WIP but, I think I have the patterns roughly in place:

Click the Pix!

So... tomorrow I am travelling down to Somerset for the funeral of my friend who recently passed away after her fight with cancer. It's not one I am looking forward to but I wouldn't miss it for the world...

See you from the pit!

An interesting week...

Hello again. Welcome to Inso's World and you find me sat at my PC on a glorious sunny day. I can hear the sounds of lawn-mowers, smell the smoky air of BBQs and listen to the wonderful sound of bird-song. Today is a flip-flop day... so, what has been going on this week? To start with, work has been mental. Every time I clear a job, three come in so I have been run ragged. As a result, my hobby time has been restricted to what I can be bothered with... and that seems to be cheap, plastic dinosars. I have managed to paint another two:

Click the Pic!

As you can see, I have now got three finished and the beauty of these is... no matter how badly I paint them, they will still look much better than how they started. That means I can practically switch off while I paint and still end up with an OK finished product... and that works for me when I am tired out.

In other news, I have had a proper 'couple' weekend. Friday me and my better half went to the pub and had such a good evening that we booked a room and stayed over night. After a smashing cooked breakfast, we walked the three miles home in glorious sunshine, through the Oxfordshire countryside. We've been shopping, dining out and enjoying life all weekend while our two teenagers go off and do their own thing. After all this time being attentive parents, we are starting to enjoy being a couple again... and it is great. In fact, this morning we went into town and had brunch together... no children in tow. But enough of all that... here is a picture:

Click the Pic!

The other day, I noticed a strange noise coming from the ventilation fan in the kitchen so I investigated and discovered that the outside vent had a hole in it and there appeared to be nest material sticking out. I disabled the fan switch (so it couldn't be switched on), kept an eye on things and soon found out that Robins were busy flitting backwards and forwards with beaks full of food. I decided I'd wait until things were properly settled and take a peek... and the best way I could think of doing it was with a camera... and as you can see, we have at least five Robin chicks in our fan duct. How cool is that?

Ebay has been a friend to me again... and this time Torge's Tigers get the benefit of my luck:

Click the Pic!

They get a nice Devilfish to travel about in. As you can see, it is still WIP and still needs clean-up but the basic assembly is finished (apart from the front guns).

Well, that appears to be the end of another mixed bag of stuff.

See you from the hide!

Easter Sunday

Welcome to this week's blog update. I'll start by saying hi to my two newest followers; Darcy Perry and Fred Jackson. Welcome to you both, feel free to get involved and share your thoughts.

Where do I start?

Let's start with this:

Yes, it's 'The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Me and my better half went to see it and I won't share any spoilers but here are a few observations:

• It is a couple's movie (one to take your significant other to).
• There is a lot of romantic angst.
• Spider-man is pretty cool (he is so much better than Toby Maguire ever was or could be).
• Gwen is a cool character.
• Electro is very cool... he gets better and better during the film.
• Green Goblin is very sinister... the best representation of the villain yet.
• The Rhino is a big mechanical suit (rather than a cybernitc body suit)... so it was different.
• The Rhino is only in the film for less than 2 minutes! 

It was an OK film but I was pretty disappointed to see so little of the Rhino. The door is very much open for a sequel. I'd say that it was a chick-flick with some decent action and nowhere near as good as the Avengers films.  

Do you like art? Sometimes I view life as art and part of life is making altered egos. One of my altered egos is a Velociraptor and when I saw a dinosaur picture on Facebook I asked the painter to paint me a picture of a Velociraptor. It will be arriving soon... here's a preview:

Click the Pic!

It's by a very talented artist called Jacob who is just five and a half years old and I think the picture is brilliant. I can't wait to hang it on my wall (I did, however, insist that he signs it first). 

OK... let's talk about Miniatures. First of all, I have been busy adding decals and varnishing lately. My Powered armour platoon is finished and if you would like to see it, and the rest of the NMA (what has been finished so far), then check out this link:

LINK.

You will soon see why I have put it on the Grymn blog... but that is not all. I have been ticking along with the Squat program and have managed to get a bit more sculpted... and the Dreadnought painted:

Click the Pic!

The Squat on the left is the first spotter for my sniper unit. The other two are troopers for the first squad (currently up to five models now... the Squat with the bolter is going to be part of the command squad). I think I am likely to add some decals to the dreadnought at some point but he will do for now.

In other news... my resolve is weakening for this:

Click the Pic!

It is available from Puppet's War and has been on my radar for a long time but a reduction in price has made things worse. I am likely to get one soon to see how big it is and if it is suitable, it could be used for all sorts... watch this space.

Well, that is that!

See you from the edge of the dam!

From little acorns...

... Giant oak trees grow.

What do I mean by that?

I have completed all of my Grymn powered armour troopers for my NMA (including Torge's Tigers).

They are all decalled up and matt varnished ready to have some photos taken tomorrow evening.

My painting table will look quite bare without them but they will be leaving soon and joining the rest of the NMA.

I am very happy about this... I just thought I'd share that!

See you from the edge of darkness!

Decals and varnish... amongst other distractions.

Hello again, it's Sunday and that means another blog update.

But before I start, I'd like to welcome Shaun McTague as the newest follower of Inso's World. Welcome aboard and I hope you find something to inspire you... and feel free to comment on things.

In a week of ups and downs, I have manged to continue with my current project and throw a few distractions into the mix as well. Hmmm what first? I guess I should start with the latest IG to Squat conversion...

Click the Pic!

As you can see, he is armed with a las-carbine like the last one but apart from that, he's just a bit more of the same. Unfortunately, I haven't painted number three or four yet... but I did manage to find a random distraction in the form of this:

Click the Pic!

The mech on the left is going to be a dreadnought for this little Squat force and the guy on the right is a Squat made from Tau and Catachan parts. The rifle is a pulse carbine without the grenade launcher. He's a little bit taller than the otherSquats I have been making but not so tall he doesn't fit.

This week, my decals arrived from Dom's Decals and they were screaming at me to be adhered to my Powered Armoured Grymn... so that's what I spent four hours of today doing! Yes... 4 hours! 84 tiny little decals are now attached to my Powered Armour platoon and have been varnished over. I haven't taken any pix yet because the troops are still gloss but once I have matt varnished them all, I will show them off. I am glad that the little task is done... I don't have a lot of patience for decals.

...and finally...

Do you remember these?:

Click the Pic!

Well, they are now available to buy as a part of a pack of Leets from HERE. It is always nice when your own work gets put into a shop.

That's it for now.

See you from the end of the space-time shift!

Spring is in the air.

This week has seen the first day of Spring... and the temperature has taken a dip! However, nature has decided to make a stand and there is blossom on the trees, there are daffodils and snowdrops in the hedgerows and the birds are being decidedly frisky and vocal about things. Spring is great because it is like an awakening after the pause of winter.

Why all the gushing about Spring? The seasons of 'more light during the day' are here and that gives me a bit more enthusiasm to do things.

I could make lots of excuses this week about being tired out (which I was), distracted with work (which I was) and generally not being in a very motivated place (which I was) but I'm not going to. Instead I'll talk about my Grymn powered armour platoon...

Click the Pic!

The above picture shows two images of the same painted squad. You will notice (if you look very hard) that they are all painted; including rank markings. Well, since this picture was taken, I have gloss varnished them ready for adding the decals. Yesterday, I sat down and trimmed all of the number decals ready for them to be applied... but I haven't put them on yet. It may be because I have some regiment decals coming from Dom's Decals and I want to get all of the decals out of the way at once or it may be because I have had another small distraction to keep me busy. Needless to say, I expect that they will have the decals added at some point and then I will matt varnish them and lose sleep over what vehicles to use for them (I have ideas but am not sure if I want to pay the price for them...Hmmm).

Did I mention a distraction? Well... here is a very purple distraction:

Click the Pic!

He is a powered armoured Kieran from Hasslefree Miniatures and is a resin master. I bought the miniature for four main reasons:

1. It is a very cool miniature.
2. I wanted to see how it measured up against the Grymn.
3. I already have powered armoured Meg (his sister).
4. I was ordering a few other things so it made sense to order him at the same time.

When I got him in hand, I quickly realised that he fits in perfectly with the Grymn (as you can see from the Grymn in the image) and also that a little bit of chopping would mean that the Grymn powered armour arms could be added for more variety. When I first saw the miniature I saw the potential to have a small command squad for my Grymn NMA but needed to check before I bought a batch. Seeing as this was a resin master and, as a result, was more expensive than a metal miniature, I decided that I wouldn't chop him up but would add him to a small unit instead. It was an obvious choice to add him to the Pug Squad:

Click the Pic!

... And that is why he is purple. The trouble is, all I can see is an empty space on that movement tray and as a result, I have quickly assembled a miniature to fill the gap... but you'll have to wait for that!

In other news, I have bought into another Kickstarter. I shouldn't have... but then there are a lot of things in life that I shouldn't have done but I can live with it! The Kickstarter in question is Mechadrome. It is a game aimed at 15mm and involves a number of rather neat mechs. As a result of my questions (and other people's too), the creator has decided to put together some 28mm mechs as a side-line (at the moment, they aren't catered for in the game, they are just 28mm 'show-off' miniatures for people to paint up and use for whatever they want) so I jumped on board. Here is a teaser showing examples of a 15mm and 28mm version of a Terran mech:

Click the Pic!

They are cool, aren't they? Jump on board and pledge here: MECHADROME KS LINK.

Have you ever seen the film called 'Pay it Forward' or heard about the idea behind it? Pay it forward is where you help five people or give them a gift and they agree to do the same to another five people... and so on. I am involved with a Pay it Forward project on Facebook and have already gathere things together for three of my list of six people (there is always that one person who you want to add... you know, the person who is awesome, selfless and never asks for anything). One is complete, so I just have five left. It is a good feeling to be spreading a bit of hapiness about... maybe you should give something similar a go? It may completely change your outlook on life... who knows?

That's your lot for today.

See you from the edge!

A quiet week.

I'd like to say that I have made loads of progress on hobby stuff but, unfortunately, I have been kept busy with work this week and as a result, I have only managed to paint three of the Grymn in powered armour. I don't have pix because the bases aren't finished yet. I'm a bit disappointed but that's just the way the cookie crumbles.

In other news, I have become obsessed with my 'retirement' project and have been investigating 1/60 scale Votoms kits. I now have six of them in various forms and am still looking to get another couple (namely a Fatty and possibly a Berserga). The idea is that I use the various kits, trim down various components and make them more Grymn-like... also, make it so that the various limbs etc are cross compatible. Once I have improved the joints, shortened the various limbs etc, they will be cast and used to build a 'glorious army' (for personal use only of course).

Part of the obsession has seen me watching various Votoms films and it is great watching hordes of skating mechs flitting about while blowing the crap out of each other... here's an example:

 

I reckon that this week will also be a bit busy but hopefully, I'll manage to produce something by next Sunday... who knows?

See you from the cockpit of a Scopedog, Turbo Custom, ATM-09-STTC!

Will the rain ever stop?!

It has been a week of further heavy rain, gale force winds and flooding all over the country. As a result of the atrocious weather and flooding, my fellow servicemen have been called forward to help with flood defences and rescue operations and as part of the effort, I have been busy in the background with my team; helping with the modification process to enable the Puma Mk2 helicopter to carry underslung loads (namely, sandbags). As a result, the helicopter is now cleared to fit a 'load-pole' which can carry loads underneath the helicopter... and all done in just two days! Now that the gales have lessened, the helicopters should be 'humping and dumping' from now on.

As you can guess... it has been quite a week at work.

From a hobby perspective, I have been plodding along with my powered armour and have finally sorted out the first three sections. They have now got a heavy trooper in each section and the place holder miniatures have been removed to join their own sections:

Click the Pix!

The painting programme will now switch to 3 miniatures at a time so that I can space out the painting of all those angles. 

Obviously, this week has not been a sculpting week but I should hopefully manage to get some sculpting done to my commissions in this coming week. 

That is all I have today.

See you from the edge of the dam!

The Grymn march continues.

Well... that was a week.

I have been working hard, I went to a mess function on Wednesday, suffered on Thursday, fell in the shower on Thursday, suffered on Friday, didn't sleep at all on Friday night, had an extremely productive Saturday (considering I was so tired) and today, I woke up late and have been struggling to stay awake!

So... what have I managed to do? Well, to start with, I spent a very frustrating hour or so on Saturday afternoon putting decals on my Tigers. They are now all finished but I have no pix because there is gloss varnish on them at the moment and that doesn't photograph well. When the gales have passed and I am able to spray them matt in the garden, I'll show them off.

Sculpting wise, I have started the next commission sculpt. It is an unusual beast and is really quite large. All I have done so far is make a basic body shape from a mix of milliput and green stuff and I've also sculpted a basic face (which will be mostly covered by a hood:

Click the Pic!

He is about 42mm tall but will be around 50mm once I have finished (not including his long staff). I have a very long way to go on him but I am happy with the general shape at the moment.

In other news... MY SPOONS ARRIVED! Yay! I contacted the seller and they resent my spoons so I have 20 double ended medicine spoons to mess about with now. That means that I was able to start my little 'spoon related' project and I am quite pleased with it so far. It's a secret at the moment as I am debating whether I will turn it into a greater project or stick with just the one. Once it is finished, I will be able to decide but at the moment, it is progressing nicely.

The progress on my Grymn is still pretty good. After finishing the five Tigers, I continued with the NMA Urban Powered Armour and have finished another four... so where there were eight, now there are twelve:

Click the Pic!

I have started on the next four which will comprice of 3 wearing the heavy back-packs and one with a pulse carbine/power sword combination. Once they are finished, the 3 units above will replace one of their number with a heavy back-pack trooper and that will make them complete. So... twelve down, sixteen to go!

Hopefully, I can keep the momentum up... we will just have to see.

See you from the gates of the harbour!

Of Tigers and sculpting.

This has been a very interesting week.

I mentioned in my last post that I was stepping up and becoming acting Flight Sergeant for a couple of months. Well, it seems that during the same period, I am going to have to cover for my boss as well. This essentially means that I will have to work a bit of overtime in order to cover my own work and the that of my newly assumed duties. That may sound a bit rubbish but just recently, I have been struggling with motivation and it seems that the added responsibility has fired a bit of enthusiasm... so it may well end up being a very positive thing. As long as I don't screw things up, it will also look good on my staff appraisal.

With that metaphorical 'kick up the arse' cam a little bit of positive news on the hobby front. I have been busy painting this week and have managed to finish off the small unit of Torge's Tigers that I have so far collected. I still need to add a few decals but I will need to put some gloss varnish on and mess about with decal choices for that... and that doesn't generally photograph well so here is the 'finished' squad:

Click the Pic!

As you can see, there is a tan coloured tiger and a white one as well. The tanned one is a Sgt and the white one is Torge himself. I thought that in order to identify leaders in the heat of jump-pack mellee, it would be a good idea to have them a completely different colour to the troops. I am debating whether I will add rank markings to their helmets (like my other NMA troops) but I will have to think on it for now. As it stands, I am just glad to have a temporary respite from painting stripes!

Now that the small squad is complete, I am in the process of deciding how I am going to build an OGrymn in powered armour with a jump-pack. It may take a while but I hope I can achieve something that works.

As I have mentioned, I managed to complete a couple of commission sculpts last week. Well, I have been given permission to show them off and here they are:

Click the Pic!

The sculpts are for a project over at Matakishi's Tea House and he was happy enough with the sculpts to offer me the task of sculpting a few other bits and bobs... so watch this space for more updates. I have already started on one of the larger pieces.

Well... I am a bit annoyed that my spoons haven't arrived yet so I am now waiting on a response from the E-bay seller. I hope it stirs things up and I get some spoons dished out soon (Stirs? Dished out? Can you see what I did there?). That way I can try out my idea that has been patiently waiting for spoons to arrive.

I think that about sums everything up at the moment.

See you from the old workshop!

A reawakening?

To start today's post, I'd like to welcome David Dale to Inso's World. There is all sorts of stuff to be found here so make sure you dig around and if you find stuff you like, be sure to post comments.

I'd like to say that I have slept well this week and that I have achieved huge amounts of hobby stuff... but I haven't. My main focus has been to get some sculpting finished and up until yesterday, I couldn't get on with anything because my focus was shot... however, it seems that I have managed to get a small amount of kip this weekend (YAY!) and I am left with putting a single integral base on the last of the three sculpts I am doing for a commission. So it isn't all bad. I would put pix up but I don't think it is a good idea until I have talked with the 'owner' of them.

So... I ordered a few spoons a week or so ago and they haven't arrived yet. This has been a disappointment because I have stuff set aside for a conversion that is waiting for the spoons to arrive. Without a pair of spoons, I can't do a thing... so hopefully they will turn up very soon. What am I working on? I'm not telling you (I need to see if it works before I share anything... hence my annoyance at the spoons not arriving).

A long time ago, I put together a squad of Grymn that wore jump packs and had tiger stripes:

Click the Pic!

This led to a little story which died on the old Forum of Doom but I have resurrected it HERE. With the advent of Grymn Powered Armour and some jump-packs that I saw over at Puppetswar, I thought that it maybe time to upgrade Torge's Tigers with some new kit. Here is the first of a small squad of newly equipped, Torge's Tigers:

Click the Pic!

He's a basic trooper with a flamer and power claw. I have four more troops to go but that may not be the end of it. In the first pic above, there is a rather large reason for me to continue the little project to include just one more trooper (at least)... can you spot it? Obviously, it will have to be scratch-built but the idea factory is working on it already.

Work is going to be interesting for a few months. I am not only dealing with my work BUT I am also deputising for my manager. It isn't something I can't handle but it may further erode my hobby time so a little patience may be required for those who like to see lots of pix on here.

That, as they say, is about that.

See you from the bottom of the deep blue sea!

Grymn Power!

Before I start, I'd like to welcome Maj. Dysst Rakkshun to Inso's World. I hope you enjoy the trip along the pathways here and gain something from your visit.

This week has been a continuation of my sleepless woes and I have really struggled to motivate myself to do anything... let alone hobby stuff. Insomnia is a real pain sometimes. That said, I have been setting myself little goals that have not required too much intricate detail and have been ticking along (assembling, filling and slapping on rough basecoats).

First up, I have been beginning the basecoating process on my Grymn Powered Armour platoon and have got this far:

Click the Pic!

I am actually quite enjoying the process at the moment. I haven't sorted them into units yet but there 7 units of 4 troops (one being the command unit, the rest being identically assembled fireteams). There is obviously a very long way to travel... but slow progress is better than no progress.

Continuing along the Grymn theme, I ordered five more Grymn in powered armour for a special little distraction. A while ago, I ordered some Air Strikers from Puppetswar Miniatures; mostly to see what the jump packs looked like 'in hand'. I decided that they would be perfect to lift a Grymn in powered armour off the ground so with a little bit of trimming and filling, I assembled the first five of a very special unit:

Click the Pic!

I think they look great and they will be perfect for newly equipped Torge's Tigers. If I get these painted the way I like, I expect that I will expand the unit in a rather random way... they are a single fighting entity and don't necessarily behave like a standard platoon might. Sometimes it is a healthy thing to be completely random.

Dare I say it? Speaking of random, I ordered 20 plastic spoons the other day. They are double ended and have a different size at each end. They will come in very handy for the other Grymn project that started this week. It all began with a very small delivery from E-Bay... but it wouldn't be fair to tell you everything all at once, now would it?

See you from the armoury!

Grinding forward.

Before I start, I'd like to welcome Tarkiss Broode and Joe Kushner to Inso's World. I hope you both enjoy your stay and gain a small amount of inspiration from within the grounds.

I am sorry to say it has been another slow week. I have been quite tired; what with going back to work and still not being able to sleep so my concentration hasn't been great. That said, I have powered through and set myself tiny goals which I have been meeting... so I am hoping that slow and steady wins the race. Unfortunately, the one thing I really want to be doing is sculpting but I am not able to at the moment... so I have been painting when I can  and assembling when I can't paint. As a demonstration, here are some WIP pix:

Click the Pic!

As you can see, the top row has three Grymn in Powered Armour with the new back-pack heavy weapons attached. They are freshly primed ready for base-coating. The lower row has the next four troopers all washed and ready for the highlight stage and basing. Looking at the fire team on the bottom row, one of the troopers with carbine and sword will be replaced by one with the back-pack. 

That means that all of the standard fire teams will have the following:

1 x Leader - Pulse Carbine and Power Glove.

1 x Trooper - Minigun and Power Glove.

1 x Trooper - Pulse Carbine, Power Sword and weapon Back-Pack.

1 x Trooper - Pulse Carbine and Power Sword.

The command squad will have the following:

1 x Leader - Pulse Carbine and Power Glove.

1 x Trooper - Pair of Power Claws.

1 x Trooper - Pair of Power Claws.

1 x Trooper - Pulse Carbine, Power Sword and weapon Back-Pack.

The Platoon will consist of:

1 x Command Squad.

3 x Infantry Squad (each having a pair of standard fire teams)

As I have always maintained, a plan never survives contact with the enemy and we should always be prepared to adapt and be flexible. The release of these new back-packs is a good demonstration of this.

So... hopefully, I'll get a bit more sleep this week and finish my sculpting, otherise I may start to panic!

Am I the only one who has noticed that Grymn have crept into my mindset again? It's funny because I may have ordered something to distract me further and put me firmly in the Grymn world again.

More about that when the said item arrives.

In other news, I came third in the Unofficial Diorama of Doom and received a lovely little Goblin as a prize. Thanks to No Hed Ned for that. I'll be kicking off the next Unofficial Diorama of Doom soon.

See you from the pilot's seat!

It's still green.

Now that my camera battery has charged up I can show the final, final pic of the Goblin sculpt:

He now has a shiny new basing tab and the tiny holes in his groin and under his nose have been filled in. He just needs to dry before I send him off for casting. I will need to get the address first though!

Seeing as I have been sculpting the Goblin, I have been ending up with small amounts of putty leftover so I have been putting it to good use on my Thor commission:

Click the Pic!

I am just fleshing him out at the moment but he is progressing in the direction I want him to... so all is good. In other sculpting news, I have been adding to the Daemon Prince and will soon have some progress to show off. At the moment the face is being worked on and he currently looks like some sort of a fat-lipped fish so I don't want to post pix because people will get the wrong idea of what I want to achieve.

So... sculpting has taken over things at the moment but I have still been able to get a small amount of painting done. It seems that the new powered armour Grymn have stimulated an urban painting drive and I have dug some of the urban platoon out of the cupboard for some work. At the moment, I am getting the first base coat on the platoon so it really isn't that interesting to see... but it is a huge boost to the army painting drive because I actually get to see them as a painted unit (even if there is still a long way to go).

AND finally... I have bought a drop-ship toy to chop up and convert. It is one of these:

Click the Pic!

As you can see, it is an action figure toy and is the Quinjet from the Avengers movie. It should be a fun project but I will have to wait until it arrives to properly assess what I want to do with it. There are two options... I can use it as transport for the Powered Armour platoon or I can convert it to use as a  transport option for a mechanised platoon (including vehicles). Until I know dimensions, I can't make any decisions so I wait with baited breath.

Well... that appears to be it for today. I hope you all had a nice Easter and celebrated (or not) how you chose to; whether that meant chocolate eggs or a visit to church.

See you from the room of opportunities!

Sunday

It is Sunday again. I am in the house-hold driving seat because my better half is a bit poorly so I have been to the shops and prepared dinner.

I had one of my late nights again last night...02-30hrs due to not being sleepy. I had the opportunity to surf a bit and get a bit more varnishing done. Speaking of varnishing... here is a pic:

Click the Pic!

Varnishing has been a bit of a pain really. I have been gloss varnishing by hand, followed by a brush matt-coat and the matt hasn't been very good at all. That has led me to get a few cans of spray varnish (which is REALLY matt) to give them a final coat. Three coats of varnish seems a bit excessive but it keeps me busy. As you can see from the pic, I have got my Void stuff and Beetle-bot stuff on the the table and will be starting on the Beetle-bot brush-matt coat this afternoon. 

Yesterday's trip to Hobby-Craft also produced a couple of packets of Milliput so that I can bulk out armatures for a couple of sculpts I have to do. They will be caricatures of friends at work and will be about 4-6 inches tall. You never know, it may stimulate the artistic juices! I also have two other sculpts that I have promised to do so I really need to find my mojo fast!

In other news, I have spent far too much money on another little passion... Megaro Zamac kits. Looking at the following pic:

Click the Pic!

I have already got five with 'Va-Gal' on his way from Germany (too much money but it was one of those things) and only 'Run-Valam' to find. There are two others that aren't in the picture (a Harrier gerwalk and Phantom gerwalk) but I am not really bothered about them. I really don't know why I am collecting them... it is probably nostalgia but they are fairly nice kits... even if they look a bit 'Power Rangers'.

Well... that's about it for now. I'm off to find some Paracetamol and a nice glass of water.

See you from the bottom of the deep, blue, sea!

Now the pix are out of the way...

This week has been one of those where I have just gone with the flow and have used tired spells for mundane things that didn't need much thought and more awake spells for the more intricate stuff. Mostly, I have been sorting out all of those little jobs that needed doing but I hadn't got around to.

I was very glad to end up with the 6th Platoon fully complete. That means that they are ready to be fitted to a KR multicase at some point. Finishing the Walker and pilot off with a Matt varnish also tidied things up nicely.

At the beginning of the week, I decided to sort out the airborne assault platoon. This was something that has been an anchor around my neck for quite some time. I was never happy with the bases they were on. That is in NO WAY a dig at Fenris because the bases themselves are superb. It is just that I knew I would never base a huge army on them so at some point I was destined to change them. Now that I have done so, I am happy with the outcome... especially because I have also added decals and brought the rank into line with the rest of the urban troops... so they now have a place (something that resonates with me). In concert with the airborne troops, I also decided to try and sort out their drop-ship transports...

...I had bought three Tau Hammerhead tanks from GW because I wanted to get hold of the missile pods for the front. I was lucky to get a box of three as a squadron, for a knock-down price so it made sense to take the plunge. Then... it all went wrong. I converted the three of them but hadn't done a very good job of getting the rocket pods square. I also didn't like the way I had done the top hatches. After staring at them and getting fed up, they ended up in the loft and were an irritation that wouldn't go away. This week gave me the opportunity to sort things out  so it has allowed me to move on.

On the Forum of Doom, I have been talking about art and of a particular artist; Mondrian. He was famous for using grids of lines with primary colours filling certain geometric shapes. The conversation came about as a remark about the camouflage on my Grymn Walker and eventually led to me starting work on the multi-coloured tank I showed off. It has really made me think about how we view art and also how we can sometimes use art in practical terms as well as food for thought. Although I have decided to go for a straight homage to the artist, using black, white and the primary colours, it would be simple to change the colours to create a wide range of geometric camouflage schemes; not just for urban areas but for all manners of terrain.

Finally, there were the Mawes. These have been in pieces for ages and I have always put off building them because they need pinning and I am not brilliant at lining up pin joints where the centres aren't really obvious. The other night I just decided to bite the bullet and now they are ready for paint.

As you can see, from a hobby point of view, this week has mostly been about finishing things off and tidying up.

John Carter was one of those things that I promised myself but was continually distracted from so I ended up seeing the film today. I have only heard about the books and have a very basic knowledge of what things look like and no knowledge of the stories that seem to be the bread and butter of so many people's Sci-fi sandwich. With that in mind, I saw the film and thought it was really very good. The aliens were well crafted, the story was simple and could be explained with 'magic-science' and the characters were also quite strong (if a little simplified). My favourite creatures in the film were the rhino-sized beasts of burden that the Tharks rode around on...definitely food for thought there. I enjoyed the film very much and would recommend it to anyone who wanted to kill a couple of hours with a simple fairy story with the addition of lots of fighting and a few wars thrown in for good measure...not to mention a super-hero leaping about all over the place!

Well... time has a way of catching up to you and that means it is back to work tomorrow so things will be deathly quiet for the week... I bet you'll be glad of the peace!

See you from the treadmill!

A week well spent?

I had no plans for my week away from work and as a result, have managed to achieve quite a lot. First of all, I have managed to matt-varnish all of the first platoon of Urban Grymn:

(Command Section) Click the Pic!

(First Section) Click the Pic!

(Second Section) Click the Pic!

(Third Section) Click the Pic!

Add to that The matt varnishing of the walker:

Click the Pic!

Not to mention, re-basing, adding decals and re-ranking these Airborne Assault troops:

Click the Pic!

...and converting/tidying up their drop-ships:

Click the Pic!

...and you'll see that I have been busy! BUT it doesn't stop there. Oh no! I have also started painting something that Mondrian himself would be interested in:

Click the Pic!

I have also managed to assemble and base these Mawes, ready for paint (even though their demonic aura has blurred the fabric of space between my camera and their bodies):

Click the Pic!

I also managed to have a great night out at a beer-call and see the film John Carter (Very good film).

That...

is all.

See you from the clinic!

WOOOSSSHHHH!

The airborne Regiment has arrived in all of it's re-marked glory. Have a look HERE for pix and more details!

Please...carry on... go about your business...

See you from behind the wire!

What an eventful day.

As the title says, I have had an interesting day.

On Saturday, I completely failed to find any spray, Matt varnish so today I went over to a Hobby Craft store and managed to find some...so I can start varnishing my armoured vehicles when I fancy it.

Switching back to Saturday again...while I was looking for Matt varnish I went into Games Workshop to replenish my stock of grey paint and while I was paying I made an impulse buy of some Liquid Green Stuff. I have been playing about with it today and it is very easy to work with and is perfect for filling the little gaps you get at the edges of plasticard constructions. I reckon it is a similar product to Squadron Green but it is a little more runny and easier to use because it is in a pot rather than a tube. At the moment, I have some drying on some scratch built rocket pods and will be sanding them down when they are dry. When they are finished, I will let you know the results.

So, after last nights MARATHON Green-Stuff work on the Airborne Assault Platoon's bases, I have painted them and have applied the sand. Again, I am waiting for things to dry before painting the bases.

Finally, I went into the attic and found the Airborne transports...the 3 Pilum Drop-ships. Here is what one looks like:

Click the Pic!

As most of you will notice, it is a Tau Devilfish with the drone wings clipped, the burst-cannon replaced with a Grymn mini-gun, rocket tubes added and an alternative cupola fitted. Unfortunately, the picture shows the Pilum Drop-ship before I got to work on it. Since this pic was taken, I have removed the rocket tubes to straighten them up, I have taken the top hatch off and improved the area and have cleaned up most of the joints/mould lines. I have been using the Liquid Green Stuff on the rocket tubes from three of these Pilums. 

Click the Pic!

The above pic shows the three Pilums before I decided to remove the drones. You will notice that the bottom-most one has a saddle over the front, just behind the cockpit. That designates it as the leader (it has some improved doo-dads!).

So...I have been a busy chap today and even managed to get an 'almost' Mc Donalds breakfast. I arrived at 10:31am and ended up with the last sausage and egg McMuffin because breakfast had finished.

Enough said.

See you from Toys 'R' Us!

A chilled out Sunday post.

Today has been a lazy day. I have only base-coated a few pairs of boots and some fatigues...nothing to write home about.

Over the last week I have been tinkering and preparing miniatures for paint and if you want to see how far I got, look HERE. Apart from that, I haven't really accomplished much.

Today, My family left me to my own devices as they all went off to my Mother-in-law's for the afternoon and that gave me a lot of time for thinking and surfing the WWW... yes, I could have got a lot of painting done...but I didn't.

I have had a few things on my mind. One of them was to sort out the drones in the Tunnel Fighter army...they were on long wire stands that meant the drones kept falling over so I shortened all the stems and they are now much more stable.

I have also dug out my Airborne Assault platoon and am in the process of filling in their bases so that they match the rest of the Urban Army...they used to have the Fenris 'Sulaco' bases which were very nice:

Click the Pic!

...but they just don't fit in with the rest of the crowd so I am filling them in with Green Stuff and will be giving them the standard sand texture that I have on all the rest of the troops. 

While I'm messing about with these, I may well be adding a few decals and rank badges...that way, they will become integrated into the support network for the infantry platoons. The walker and flier are not part of my plans so they will be staying as they are.

So...this week's holiday will mean I have a chance to un-wind, relax, get some chores done and sort a few little bits and bobs out that have been bothering me for a while.

I may even get the opportunity to have a swift pint or two... it should be a blast.

See you from the plans room!