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Posted on August 28, 2015 by grumpyoldtin

As some of the more observant of you may have noticed I haven’t blogged much recently. My energies have been diverted elsewhere and have been dealing with some minor depression. The reason for all this is that we have moved. Now we have somewhere permanent to live and I can put down some roots and get settled.

There is a bit of time to wait until I can properly get to work on my Man-Cave as a new boiler and radiator systems have to be installed. Then I can lay a new floor and give it a lick of paint.
Once that is done it will be time to bring everything back from the lager and unpack. I can’t wait to see what treasures I do have.
One thing that I have done is to bring back my glass display case and put my painted stuff in. It is very gratifying to see my work in one place rather than wrapped up in boxes.

I have managed to spend some time on the hobby though. Earlier this year I entered my Ork Jet into the bi-monthly Puppets War painting competition.
For those of you who are unaware of Puppets War, they are a Polish company specialising in resin models and extra parts for wargames figures.
http://puppetswar.com/
Can’t recommend them highly enough, some very nice models and a good price!
Anyway, I got a first prize, a voucher to spend in their store. Which I did.
And here is what I got…..

Soaking the parts in washing up liquid solution

After a rough assembly I thought the turret wasn’t imposing enough

What to use?
In the bits box was the lid from a baby food sachet.
Seems to work.

Figuring out where to drill the centre hole for the turret

The roller at the front was too close. So I built it out a bit. More rivets!

Extending the arms as it was otherwise going to look like a Tyranosaurus.

Finished arm with cables

This is the nifty device I used for making the cables. The Tentacle Maker from Greenstuff Industries
http://www.greenstuffindustries.com/

Turret.
Puppets War sent me a few extra bits in the box and I thought it was only fair to incorporate some into this model.

Undercoated

Base colour

A different base colour. I wanted the machine to look cobbled together.

A bit of rust

Starting to paint

Mud and dust

A bit of colour

Putting it together

And the finished result

What happened to May?

Posted on June 13, 2015 by grumpyoldtin

The answer to that is, not a lot. My Death Korps Riders hardly got touched and have been retired to the cupboard. This month I’ve pulled out six pyrate figures and I’ll tackle them one at a time.
First up is Captain John Finch from Musketeer Miniatures.

I made the mistake of using some Tamiya Flat White as an undercoat. I might as well have painted them with chalk, the stuff just flaked off. I’ll do a bit of reading about it. It was purchased along with a few other pots of clear colour at a Flohmarkt for fifty cents a pot. The clear colours are fine and I already use the Clear Red for blood and gore.
The month hasn’t been wasted though, I’ve added a few more items to my shop. Go on click the button, I know you’re curious. And I won a painting competition. Puppets War http://puppetswar.eu, a Polish miniatures company are running a monthly painting competition. I entered my Ork Jet which I’d finished earlier this year and I won sixty six Euros to spend in their store. Which was nice.
At the end of the month we get the keys to our new house which is kind of exciting and kind of scary. It does mean that I will be getting a permanent hobby space, although for the first few months it is going to be used mostly as a storage/unpacking area as we clear the lager.

A bit more detail about the “Fun”

Posted on May 7, 2015 by grumpyoldtin

April saw me not terribly motivated and to try and get out of the rut I decided to paint some single figures that were started or primed but not finished. Just for fun.

First off was this figure: General Sir Eddard Sharp. He was a promo model for the Arcworlde Kickstarter Sculpted by Alex Huntley, basically Mister Arcworlde. Alex’s sculpting is not polished, he is very talented and his style is very characterful and great to paint. Very like the Battleforge Halflings that I painted a while ago. He deserves our support, he’s only twenty and if he is putting stuff out there like this now imagine what amazing stuff he’s going to be producing in ten years time when he’s hit his stride.

Second off was this fellow. Again sculpted by Alex, this is The Big Chief of the Jungle Gremlins of Chaq-Itza.

Then it was my beloved Snotlings.

This guy was a cheap plastic robot that I picked up from a charity shop. He’ll be joining a few others in my “Not” Imperial Guard Army.