Life with eleven cats and other madness

As promised, third day in a row!

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 Squigbot
A little mechanical helper
Weirdboy Tower
Some ecumenical advisors to accompany the Baron Figure from earlier this year
Who 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 Pearl
This 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.

The Heroquest update

I have finished painting the board.

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.

Ooops!

Now to paint the doors.

Why Heroquest is so great

Before you read any further please watch this instructional video.

https://youtu.be/Cx8sl2uC46A

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.