The doldrums.

I knew it had to happen at some point because I have had such a good run of hobby creativity... I have hit the doldrums and am having an immense amount of trouble picking up a brush or sculpting tool. It isn't all bad though. I have been writing again and have written the third instalment in the Duplicate story...feel free to click this link: STORY and scroll down to find the third part (or read the whole thing if you like).

Things in the mix are varied. I have my Void bikes on the table and they are slowly getting painted. I also have five resin space Dwarfs in the process of paint and they are sitting next to the bikes. Beside those is a Grymn in powered armour that is waiting for a claw to be sculpted. Everything else is in the cupboard. I had hoped that clearing the decks would help to get me painting but it doesn't seem to have worked...

...so I have been doing a lot of thinking. The Dropship idea has changed from day to day and I am even going to the effort of asking serious model makers about internal measurements of modern aircraft kits in various scales. One of many ideas is to strap a couple of modern transport aircraft together and work from there...other ideas include wooden frames with thick foil walls held on with pins and even a length of waste-pipe. The problem is that I know what I want to do but have yet to work out how I will do it. It is no biggy though...it's not as if I haven't got a lot to get on with while I think about it.

On top of that, I have been thinking about the vehicles for my Urban Grymn and am getting close to thinking about assembling them (I have ten to assemble). The trouble is that my working storage area is currently filled with 150+ Grymn, mechs and vehicles that all need varnishing...so I have to be careful about what I build because I will have nowhere to put it. I also have no colour scheme sorted so that will slow things down as well.

I have stalled on the Mantic space Dwarfs...I will make further comment about those at some point when I can be bothered (oh dear).

I have been checking out my VASA minis and have decided on a few colour changes for some existing minis as well as some minor recovery jobs on some of the Black Legion minis I have. It is important for me to keep up the momentum with the Void stuff because I have joined the challenge of '£10-00 a month PLUS' and want to achieve that.

My writing has stimulated a need for a few character sculpts...but until the doldrums finish, there is no chance of that.

Roll on the weekend! Hopefully, I can shake off the lack of motivation and get back to the hobby again.

See you whilst I'm standing by the lamp-post, on the corner of the street!

What? More?

Shhh...don't tell anyone...but I've written a bit more STORY (you'll need to scroll down a bit when you get there).

See you from inside the cupboard...

Zig-zagging along.

I had one of those days today.

Work was a little quiet so I had a bit of time to think (bloody dropship won't go away!!!).

I had a nice run at lunchtime...until I slipped over...not immediately a problem but DAMN my knee is sore tonight.

I started painting bits on my Void bikes this evening but got bored so I dug out some resin Space Dwarfs to clean and prep instead.

I have been looking through my miniatures boxes and seeing what I had for VASA apart from the jump troops and marines and found a Void Knight of Balance and a Void Knight of Silence and whilst looking through my segmented boxes of minis I had a huge surge of guilt...

...so many Grymn (100+) with so many plans and yet they still sit there waiting for the start.  My last Urban Grymn troops have so put me off the camouflage that I may end up scrapping the urban theme and returning to more familiar ground...

SO tonight, I have been mostly annoying everybody :).

A cup of de-caf and bed I think.

See you from the end of a bungee rope!

Another day older...

Well, it would appear that today, I mark another notch on the life-post...it's my birthday.  So far, I have had a mellow day and have had a 'picnic' lunch in the country...for that read McDonalds, in the car whilst parked in a lay-by overlooking fields.

I have received a couple of gift vouchers that will mean another visit to GW at some point (batons and riot shields at the ready!) and some well wishes so I am quite happy with my lot today.

On to the grander scale of things, I have been busy tinkering and have managed to change direction yet again!  Instead of painting the Void bikes like I planned, I have returned to the converting table and have finished a few of my Beetle-bot conversions.  First of all, the five finished Immortals:

Click the pic!

These were sitting there goading me to get them finished so I had no choice...and while I was at it I thought I may as well finish the five sniper-bots as well:

Click the Pic!

Now I don't have any conversions sitting on my table, waiting to be finished.  That means that I can get on with other things...and it was at this point, I realised just how little needed to be done to the Tunnel Fighter, drone-squad vehicle to finish it...so I finished it:

Click the Pic!

It is a converted Marauder APC from Fenris Games and is the perfect vehicle to carry the drones and their controllers.

What else has been going on?  Well, as usual, I can't stop buying things so I have ordered 4 Dwarfs from Silent Spectre Games (sci-fi), 5 Russian Power-Armour suits from Micro Panzer, a sheet of decals from another on-line shop, a Junkers force-book for Void1.1 and I also have another Marauder coming from Fenris Games.

I have been sent some Necron Scarabs (as a kind gift), have a couple of resin vehicles being sent as a gift as well (more on that in a future post) and have traded DALEKS for Necrons.  In a bid to help out a little (it is the least I can do with all the gifts I am getting at the moment!), I have sent a bunch of Necron bits to someone building a 15mm drone army.

WOW!  

On to Void and I have been pottering along, slowly, with the bike squad and will most likely get that finished for next Sunday.  I am thinking that once the bikes are finished (including the leading biker), I will start on some Shuriken Guards...I have a small squad of five that are bare metal, straight from the box that need a bit of cleaning up and painting.

The draw of drop-ships has not been far from my mind and I have broached the subject of building a 2 foot long aircraft with a 2 foot wingspan on the living room table...I got a long silence and a disapproving look but my lovely wife understands that if I HAVE to do it then she will just have to stand by and watch otherwise I'll drive her mad.

So, add to that the lack of sleep I'm getting (bleeping drop-ship!), the running I have been doing and the work that I have going on...not to mention some WRITING ...and you'll see that Inso's World is on complete overdrive at the moment.

See you from the stress councillor's office!

Angles are just so yesterday...

What does a metre long piece of 150mm, plastic ducting have in common with a platoon of Grymn troops?

What makes the space shuttle and a C17 Globemaster the same...but different?

How many 'D' rings does it take to allow enough points to tie something down without affecting the integrity of a floor?

I guess that I have been re-visiting my original theories on drop-ship design and I have been taking a close look at various big lift aircraft and the good old Space Shuttle for ideas.  It seems that all the angles that I had planned have lost their appeal and in a fit of insanity, I have decided that a tube will make a good base for my design.

I will have to adapt a few things (like adding panels to widen the tube...yes...WIDEN it!) but I reckon when I'm done, the drop-ship will be about 2 foot long with a similar wingspan.

It will have two decks with the bottom one being for cargo/APC transport and the upper one for troop transportation.

I haven't started buying anything YET...but the itch is really getting annoying lately...

AND on a different note, I have written a short story!  Here is the link:  LINK

...oh...and I couldn't resist buying the decal set that has my 'Splat' artwork in it...I'll share when it gets here.

See you from the drawing board!

A bit of a surprise.

I was at work today and happened to find a picture on the web that surprised me...

...a few years ago I was deployed in a sunny country and working on Merlin helicopters.  One of them returned in a poorly condition after having a head on collision with a bird and the nose cone was badly damaged.  Fortunately, the nice Americans had a workshop that could cope with composite repairs and we got it patched up... they did an excellent job... but they didn't have the right colour paint.  Seeing as the paint was the wrong colour, the repair was non standard and the nose cone would be replaced when we could get the spares, I got the opportunity to paint something nice:

Click the BIG pic!

Well...today I noticed that the picture on line had been taken back in England and I also found out that my artwork adorned the Merlin for a good couple of months before the nose cone was replaced.  I then noticed that a model making company was producing special decals and one of them was the 'Splat!' design that I painted!

How cool is that!?

...so I'm painting Viper Wing bikes tonight :)

See you from the front of the queue!

I haven't forgotten...

I would like to welcome porkandbeans to Inso's World.  I hope you find something to your liking as you wander through the mazes and topiary of my blog.  Feel free to use ideas and share comments!

So...what haven't I forgotten?  The Void1.1 project.  Last month, I finished a couple of bike squads for my VASA army (in fact, the two bike squads ARE my VASA army!) so in order to keep things plodding along, I put aside my drive for 'robotic domination of the world' and prepared another bike squad.

It is a bike squad that is exactly the same as the last two.

It is all cleaned and assembled but the putty needs to dry so I can't really start painting the bikes yet.

I decided that tonight I needed a bit of a rest.  Yesterday, I went for the first run of the year and today it feels like I have been run over by a truck.  Add to that a run of limited sleep and the last thing I could face was drilling and pinning tiny bits and pieces together...so cleaning and assembling a few bikes was a good breather from that and it meant that I got something productive done by getting the bikes ready for paint.

Super!

Oh how the twists and turns of my mind play tricks on me!

Meow!

See you from the edge of reason!