I made something new. Don’t worry this time it is hobby related.
Years ago when I was taking the Boys to the playground I spotted something buried in the mud by the swings. I couldn’t tell what it was and being bored I dug it out with the help of stick. It was a mini tripod. I cleaned it up, stuck it in a corner and forgot about it.
I have started to use my “Handy” for taking photographs but I have a little trouble with camera shake. During my recent tidying I came across it. And now that I can laser cut again I had an idea.
I was browsing through various woodworking tools online, as you do, and came across a centre line marker. It is probably not something I would use frequently, if ever, but I looked at it and thought, “I can do that!”
This was the first iteration using bolts that I had in abundance from Electric Love waste.Here it is in operation but the bolts wobbled and didn’t give a satisfactory result. And the bolt used to secure the pencil was awkward to tighten.Iteration three.
I replaced the side guide bolts with dowling to reduce the wobble following the adage, “Keep It Simple Stupid!” I wish I had discovered woodworking forty years ago rather than recently.
Don’t worry dear Reader I will be returning to the Hobby. This Blog needs a bit of a refresh and I plan to make some changes. My catalogue of lasercut bits needs a lot of trimming. I would like to start photographing my figures properly and make the gallery images standardised. And as the Mancave has stumbled to a halt I want to delete it and start a page focussing on the tools and equipment I use.
I am trying to reverse engineer my way to happiness despite the best efforts of my lovely Wife. This is the philosophy I am attempting to use.
“Retrophrenology: It works like this. Phrenology, as everyone knows, is a way of reading someone’s character, aptitude and abilities by examining the bumps and hollows on their head. Therefore – according to the kind of logical thinking that characterizes the Ankh-Morpork mind – it should be possible to mould someone’s character by giving them carefully graded bumps in all the right places. You can go into a shop and order an artistic temperament with a tendency to introspection and a side order of hysteria. What you actually get is hit on the head with a selection of different size mallets, but it creates employment and keeps the money in circulation, and that’s the main thing.”
I can gauge my mental state by my surroundings. The tidier and more ordered it is then the better mental state I am in. So I am attempting to reverse engineer a better mental state by organising my environment. Having a now fully functioning laser cutter has been a huge mind saver.
The third time is the charm. There are boxes of tools that I have inherited from my Father and Grandfather, and from my Wife’s Father and Grandfather. I have been sorting through everything, getting rid of any broken bits and setting up tool boxes for my Boys with any duplicates. What I have left has been slowly organised.
As you can see it is rather poorly madeSome gouged out sections to allow for bitsMeasure twice cut once anyone?Second attemptIn situ in a rather gloomy corner
Had I enough wood I would have attempted a third go to correct those mistakes.
Tool cabinet slowly getting organised. I inherited it from my late Father in Law. It originally was well equipped with tools, but when I got it there were a lot of mysterious gaps which I am now trying to fill.
The corner is gloomy no more.
I have started painting a bit but the joy has been stolen and I am finding it hard to get my mojo.
Some Night Goblin Netters that I got as a present
Wot i am workin on now
This guy is going to be part of an Empire Mercenary band. Based for Dragon Rampant.
I have been designing some bunker facades for my trench terrain
I must mention the competition being run by Old School Miniatures to design an Orc War Machine
I can’t honestly say that 2023 was amazing. Firstly dealing with the side effects of medication and the my Wife’s life changing announcement.
2024 looks like more of the same, a hostile uncommunicative environment.
The last half of 2023 wasn’t very productive. Any little pleasures that I used to have were stripped away. I barely picked up a paintbrush.
What I did manage to do was to get a new laser tube and have started cutting and designing again.
There are four big projects that I would like to bring to completion if only to get boxes of odds and sods out of the way.
Bloodbowl – everything is printed. It just needs assembly, painting and most importantly storage.
Heroquest – this need the characters and furniture painting. This one is almost there.
Then I have two big modular terrain projects.
The ruined city, all made apart from a few pieces which need laser cut tiles. And obviously painting.
Modular trenches. This has been made with pink insulation foam. It is about three quarters done. I have been laser cutting walkways and wall retainers. There are still some more tiles to make but before I do I need storage. A trip to Ikea beckons.
There has, understandably, been no product of the year for me.
I’ll sign off and wish all three of you a Happier, Healthier and more Productive 2024.
The saying goes, “Bad news always comes in threes”. I am currently at six.
Separation
Malignant Melanomas
Cataracts
Jasper
Pulmonary Embolisms
Gout
The separation is hard and has sapped any will to live. I love my Wife dearly, she has been the kindest most patient person I have ever met and she has enriched my life immeasurably. Not being able to understand people I didn’t see any signs. Only a week beforehand we had been watching “Death in Paradise” and she turned to me and said that she thought we were doing ok as a couple. What is hard for me is that she just blanks me now. We are not in a financial situation to move apart and the loneliness and the isolation of where we live is difficult. Just some basic civility would help me a lot.
As you hit a certain age, for me sixty, your Doctor will encourage you to have health checks. One of them was a check up of my skin. The Specialist told me that I had two areas of concern and he used the words “Malignant Melanomas”. I have an operation booked to remove them and there will be a biopsy performed to see if there is any reason for concern.
The next test was on my eyes and it was revealed that I am developing cataracts. That would explain why I need more light for painting. The whole process will take maybe ten years to fully develop. I will be going for a further examination in a year so that the speed of development can be more accurately predicted. What I am not looking forwards to is the period when the cataracts are not quite ready to be removed but the visual quality is impaired. My Wife made no comment when I told her about them which is a bit harsh as I am very visually active.
Some of you may have read past posts about the kitten, Jasper, who adopted me last year. He has been a constant companion and a great source of comfort to me recently. About three weeks ago I found him dead. There was no sign of physical injury. This has been very hard to deal with.
At the same time as finding Jasper dead I started experiencing pains in my left calf. After a couple of days and some ibuprofen the pains diminished. I didn’t really think anything about it but I went to see a neighbour who is a Sports Therapist. I was told, firmly, to go to the Doctors first thing. I did this and was promptly rushed off to Hospital in an Ambulance where I went through a series of ultrasounds and CT scans. The main concern was of Thrombosis. I didn’t have one but the CT Scan revealed that I had Pulmonary Embolisms in both lungs. Cue a couple of days stay in Hospital. I woke up crying after the first night that I hadn’t died in my sleep. Life is that low at moments.
The final of the six is Gout in my left foot. I usually have a small glass of brandy as a night cap. But since the separation I have been knocking back five or six in order to be able to get to sleep and I still wake up at about half past four with my mind whirring. Cue the Gout. The Doctor has prescribed me some Passiflora (Passion Flower) drops to help with sleep. So far I am finding them making me more depressed and I have been waking up earlier.
I have had a scan of my pelvis done last week to see if a cancer I had eight years ago is in remission. I get the results later this week. To be honest I would not care if it was a bad result.
I don’t know if this a “Cheat” or not, but this is the way I make my banners. Using my Gnome Army as an example, I go to Google images. As I wanted a sort of Celtic look I typed in “Celtic Knotwork Animals” and got a result like this.
Then I download the images I like and resize them in Illustrator and print them out. I have a small sheet of plywood which I then tape them to.
Then I carefully paint between the lines. Once dry I cut them out and fold them around the banner pole. Et voila!
I have something to “Top off” my life
My Wife and partner of twenty two years, who I love dearly, announced two weeks ago that she no longer loves me and wants to separate.
She does not want to talk about it as it it is all over as far as she is concerned.
I am devastated.
I gave up EVERYTHING to move here to Austria with her and the Boys. I am feeling pretty lost.
I have started writing down how I feel. But I am not sure if this blog is the right place to put my feelings out there.
I’ll start with the “down” part then we can progress towards more positive things.
As part of getting old I had a health check up at the local doctors, blood samples galore. One little thing he picked up on was a slight under production from my thyroid gland. Euthyrox was prescribed and the doctor would review the results after a couple of months after a blood sample was taken at the hospital. I try not to read side effect notes until after a couple of months because I don’t want to project them onto myself, just observe and reflect. I waited until after the check up before I looked and oh boy, tick, tick, tick etc. I then stopped the medication and will look at alternative thyroid medication with the doctor. Life is much better without, crushing fatigue, depression, an inability to really concentrate, shortness of breath, insomnia and eating a small amount of cheese resulted in stomach cramps accompanied by by a trip to the throne room. I’m still fatigued, which might be a complication of covid, but it is not like a huge weight of tiredness. I feel a lot better for stopping that particular medication. Yeah getting old sucks.
And just to top things off it’s pollen season. I have two or three weeks in June where my nose is just pouring. Not even antihistamines help.
Anyway, onwards and upwards!
I have managed to paint and I have been finishing parts for my big projects. Bar some little props Heroquest is ready to paint. Bloodbowl parts are printed and ready for paint and assembly. Spacehulk corridors are ready for priming, this is going to be an outside summer job. Escorts and cruisers have been printed for Battlefleet Gothic. I spot a retro theme going on here.
Some Old School Bob Olley goodness
This little man is not worried?Or maybe he is? A little SquigbotA little mechanical helperWeirdboy Tower
Some ecumenical advisors to accompany the Baron Figure from earlier this yearWho doesn’t like Snotlings?And more. I have to produce fifty five bases of Snotlings for my 2000pt army.
And finally the high note! Eleven, yes eleven, cats. My cat Queenie snuck out before we could get her neutered. This has resulted in the birth of some more kittens. They are going to a nice family in a couple of weeks. The family has been visiting to see the kitten’s progress and we have been observing the family. They are kind and gentle with the kittens so we have no worries. It always is a difficult parting when cats leave us.
This is Black PearlThis is Squeeky. I called her this because you can’t keep a cat called Squeeky. Can you?We don’t have a name for her, but the family are thinking of Kitty.This is Meowchael
My boy Jasper has been a bit freaked out by the kittens so he hasn’t been such a constant companion of late. We do seem to have bred racing kittens there is always a blur of fur. And last thing at night we have to check there is nothing loose on the floor otherwise we have a sleepless night.
Work on Weasel Town has been plodding along slowly and now that the nice weather has started I can work outside. Originally the floor ducking (correct word?) was laser cut card but since I no longer have access to a good laser machine I have started 3D printing them. Work had stalled because of a lack of them. The home laser I have lack power because it is a cheap Chinese tube and it’s life has expired. My Blender skills and confidence have improved a tiny bit so I used it to created the ducking which I then printed out on my Ender 3.
One regret is that I didn’t look at my original card tiles as they are slightly more elegant. Mind you once they are coated in mud and grime and observed from three feet away I don’t thing anyone will be criticising the design aesthetic.
I had started designing modular tiles as way to to have a flexible tabletop. One lesson I have learnt, is to to be consistent. That way I could have integrated my ruined desert city tiles with the trench system. Possibly the way to go is to make a series of risers so the tile heights match up.
The reason I had started going modular was because of this Kickstarter.
However by the time I actually get the book I probably will have moved on to something else, rendering it redundant.
Anyway, grumbling aside, The author Michael Martin has a Youtube channel. TWS Tabletop Workshop. One of the videos was about making a diy crackle paste.
The ingredients were diatomaceous earth. This looked interesting as I want parched earth for my terrain tiles. Amazon had some but it was a touch out of my budget. Which let’s politely say is near zero.
Owning pets sometimes has an upside. We needed cat litter for our seventeen year old cat. She spends her days curled up on our bed and doesn’t venture out much. We had got a new brand which looked soil like. After she had used it, she is a prolific pisser, the litter started to crackle when dried. Interesting. Are you pondering what I’m pondering? I took some clean litter mixed a bit with PVA and stuck it on a piece of MDF. The result was really good. I then mixed up some more and applied it to one of my terrain tiles.
Rookie mistake! Make sure you put an under colour down first.
I have to experiment now and work out proportions so that consistency is maintained.
This is a link to the product and for eight litres I think that is a pretty good price. The only ingredient is Bentonite which is an absorbent swelling clay consisting mostly of montmorillonite (a type of smectite).
It has been a bit like writing a thank you letter as a child. I have been putting it off for ages, then I looked and my last post was in February.
There is loads to post and I will start tomorrow (honest).
BUT I do have to make a quick post about a Kickstarter.
Full disclosure, I am not paid by Keta Minies however we are Facebook friends and we do chat a lot about random topics and occasionally he sends me the odd file to play with.
This project is tempting me, I have never felt the need for a Daemonette army. Until now. Have a look at at the project, as always Keta has produced some superb sculpts.
I’ve been hankering after making some modular trenches for a while. I started but when I laid them out earlier this week it seems that I do not have nearly enough. Plus I did not have any “kinks” (not sure of the correct terminology) to stop a gunner standing at one end of a trench and taking aim down the entire length.
One of the rule-sets I was reading, “The Last War” talks about a settlement in the wastelands. For some reason it caught my fancy. A tidying up job at the beginning of the year was sorting out my movement trays and I had a whole lot of crude plasticard ones that I had made about twenty years ago. This has left me with a big bag of plasticard. I also have some big sheets of pink insulation foam recovered from some building work nearby.
I wonder…….
Weasel Town surrounded by trenches
The finished group
I added detailing with resin parts from Ramshackle Games and 3D printed parts from Knucklebones Miniatures. The tin roofs were made from Red Bull cans run through a corrugator from Green Stuff World. I found out later that this is just a toothpaste squeezer rebranded for twice the price. Painted with household emulsion paint. The rust was done with Green Stuff World Rust paint, which is frankly rubbish and I wanted to use it up.
I thought I had documented the making process, but when I stuck the memory card into the computer there was nothing to be seen.
It has only taken five years to get to this stage. I have painted it, mostly, with household emulsion paint. I am still deciding on the finish. High gloss for toughness or semi matt for realism?
Here is an original board to give an indication of of scale. Each square on the new board is 40mm. Something I didn’t notice is that the central left/right corridor should only be one tile wide.
Well he is in a spot of bother. His words about it.
“Hi! My name is Andy Foster, I’m a miniatures sculptor who has run a tiny indie wargames miniatures maker for the last 21 years. Unfortunately, this means I can’t afford to buy a home in the UK because our housing market is nuts, and the average starter home costs over 12 times what I make in a good year, so I am only able to rent.
And because the housing market IS so insane, rental property prices are also incredibly high, and I’ve just been told that the house we have lived in for the last 8 years is having its rent increased by the landlord from £800 a month to £1175, which I absolutely can’t afford to cover.
The problem is, because I am living hand to mouth, as a lot of indie miniatures manufacturers do, I don’t have the funds in my bank account to pay for a deposit on a new rental home, or the fees involved, which amount to around £1500 for a tiny 2 bed terraced house in the UK, so I must turn to you, dear friends and customers, to help me out. Any amount is gratefully received! Any extra may need to go towards a new bed, wardrobe, etc if the house ends up with a bedroom that is too small for our current one to fit in (and I suspect my existing wardrobes won’t survive another move, they’re decades old self assembly things that are already a bit fragile!)”
There is a Go Fund Me set up and it would be really nice if everyone reading this was able to donate a little something. Even a quid would be amazing.
I mentioned the “Not Nog Ball” medball Kickstarter a few days ago. There has been a new addition to the campaign.
We’ve just got permission to add the Noggin character pack to the Medball Kickstarter which is great news! It consists of 3 miniatures; Noggin as a referee, Nogbad as a fan (with separate rattle) and Knut waving his scarf.
And finally some trivial news.
Last summer we were looking after two kittens that were dumped on a friend’s farm and were going to get them re homed.
Two kittens and that shirt
One of them decided that he adored me and decided to stay. I now have a constant companion wherever I am.
Part of this year’s aim is to finish off any half done projects. There are quite a few. One I had started about four (or more) years ago was to make a Heroquest board. I had acquired the components eight years ago from EBay. Four years I laser etched the board double size. That took about seven hours. Then over the years I made doors and 3D printed the player characters.
Here is a progress report.
Base paints applied with a little sponge work. It was a bit dispiriting in this stage because it looked a bit crap.But I persevered. This is with black between the tiles and edge highlighting. Much better. After this I will airbrush shadows around the room edges.I have printed two versions of the player characters, classic for the purists. These came from Thingiverse complete with mold lines. The second is from StoneKing. Chibi stylee. Behind them you can see the various enemies our brave questers will have to face. They are wooden flats with some Oldhammer illustrations.The doors ready for some paint.
I will keep you updated with further progress reports.
There will be updates on my: SpaceHulk, Bloodbowl and Battlefleet Gothic. One day.
For many of you I expect you are unfamiliar with the works of Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin. Their work was a staple, along with Thunderbirds, of my youthful viewing schedule. Charming animations made by moving pieces of painted paper around.
Nogin the Nog was one of them. You can read a little about it here.
Why am I bringing this up? Well a friend of mine, David Wood, had a Kickstarter a few years back to produce a set of figures based on the series. And rather nice they are too. They are on my to do list for this year. As a plug you can buy them and many more lovely things here…
As promised here are some photos of this years painting progress. One plan for this year is to have a dedicated space for photography. At the moment I am taking them in a variety of places with different light sources. No consistency in quality or standardisation. One I have everything set up I can work on fine tuning white balance and depth of field. Ideally I want to revamp my gallery, maybe trying to look a little more professional….. just an idea.
The first few were half-done figures that had been sat on my desk for over a year and just after Christmas I emptied my desk and finished them off.
A mad scientist. From Crooked Dice3D printed dice cup for my Orc Bloodbowl teamA Grot tank, cobbled together from stuff from the bits box. My first attempt with the Dirty Down Rust.From Crooked Dice Colony 87 range. I started this on New Year’s Eve and almost finished it that day.This comes from EM4 Miniatures (I think) I really enjoyed painting this one.Might be another EM4Again from Crooked Dice Colony 87Again from Crooked Dice Colony 87Again from Crooked Dice Colony 87The Duke, his Wife and his Daughters
I am building up a collection of scifi NPCs which I rather enjoy painting.
genuine grumpy old tin 