As, somewhat belatedly, promised here is a photo dump of painting from 2024.
As you can see a bit of a mish mash. I am trying to get get various projects into a state of completion. My focus is Bloodbowl and HeroQuest. I do want to get my Mighty Fortress parts assembled and painted. The problem I have is that I get easily distracted and move on to another project.
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.
And technically it is the third iteration!
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!”
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.
― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms
Quote and image used without permission
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.
Had I enough wood I would have attempted a third go to correct those mistakes.
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.
This guy is going to be part of an Empire Mercenary band. Based for Dragon Rampant.
I must mention the competition being run by Old School Miniatures to design an Orc War Machine
https://www.oldschoolminiatures.co.uk/blog/design-a-war-machine-for-the-osm-mean-green-challenge
Here is a picture heavy painting round up. Still struggling with fatigue and concentration. This is why I made this the first job of the day so it would get done.
These are walking troop transports for my Traitor Guard. There are 3D printed parts from Knucklebones patreon, resin parts from Ramshackle Games and laser cut parts.
I am not quite sure what these are. 3D printed, laser cut, resin parts and physical modelling.
This is from Redgozfasta Patreon. The guy doing this wants to work his way through the Epic Orks collection, scaling them up to 40k size. This month (May) is the Battlewagon. One of the variations is the Weirdboy Tower which I am very much looking forwards to. Entirely printed on my Ender 3 FDM printer. My genius neighbour took my printer apart and rebuilt it totally square. The results are amazing, not resin quality but pretty damn good.
This is a gun crew for my Traitor Guard. This is all from Knucklebones patreon.
https://www.patreon.com/knucklebonesminis/posts
This was from the paintpotchallenge (my elderly computer doesn’t have a hashtag) that was running on Instagram.
https://www.instagram.com/grumpyoldtin/?hl=en
Did I mention that I occasionally lurk on Instagram?
Finally on the painting is Khonshu imprisoned. Printed and painted in 24 hours for my youngest.
There is something big on the horizon. It has finished printing, now to assembly and painting.
Just a slight change of topic. It is my wonderful Wife’s birthday and I made a little something for her.
I have been under the weather for a couple of weeks now but have been testing negative. Earlier this week Number One Son tested positive and I was still negative. Upto this point I had been the only family member to be free from the Rona.
Thursday night I had a bad night with breathing difficulties and a savage sore throat. Not to mention sweats and chills. Friday morning I tested again.
Arse
Got booked that afternoon for a drive thru which has confirmed that I am a positive person. Just waiting on the variant.
About two weeks ago, before this all kicked off, one of the Patreons I sub to posted this picture.
I saw this and had to have a variant of it. Knucklebones had made some scuttling bug-like legs for a previous model. I chopped them up in Meshmixer and cut’n’pasted the bits to extend them. With this I lasercut some bits to make two open troop carriers. I’ll show them in a later post.
That idea lead on to me thinking about about an armoured variant. More parts were lasercut then Papa Nurgle visited. Not really having the strength or motivation I pottered a bit each day making it.
This is the result
The main body is lasercut mdf and card. Bolts are lasercut card. There are resin greebles from Ramshackle Games and 3d printed ones from Knucklebones. The legs are 3d printed and are derived from Knucklebones.
My customer, Nick Wilker, sent me some photos of his Polystyrene Castle adorned with parts from me.
I am very pleased to see this but also sad because it reminds me to remove my digit and make a set for myself. AND paint it!
You may remember a couple of posts back where I was getting excited about a Kickstarter from Grenzer Games. Some rather nice looking 15mm Romans. Not that I needed them. This project has been postponed. Here is why in their own words.
After a long discussion this week at Grenzer HQ we have sadly decided to cancel the project at this time, BUT, we will be back with an updated, new and shiny campaign, in 30 days. This time frame is an approximation due to the Corona virus situation in China, which has had an impact on the country’s industrial efficiency.
We have listened to what everyone has said in the comments, here and in forums and blogs, and are readdressing the campaign with your suggestions in mind. We are taking this time to address the overall production costs, which are quite honestly, killing us, and are the reason that the campaign funding goal and stretch goals were so high. So we’re gathering a new set of quotations that will help us achieve a product cost and funding goal that is a more manageable amount.
We are also coming back with some updated box content, and providing you guys with our fully fledged rule set At Lances Point, alongside the miniatures, which is what they are designed for. These will be available in a PNP (print and play) format from the Grenzer Games website – http://www.grenzergames.co.uk and look for the ALP page for more info.
The campaign page will stay open during this redevelopment time, so that we can still talk to you all, provide you with updates on what’s happening and listen to your feedback. We will also post a link to the print and play rule set so that you can download them, give them a try and tell us what you think.
I had started preparations for the Romans by making some casualty makers and some order tokens.
Further updates can be found at http://www.grenzergames.co.uk
This last couple of months has seen me busy, but not, sadly, painting. First point of atta ck was my workshop. I am due to inherit some tools and workshop furniture from my departed father-in-law and I want to get everything ready so that the bits can slot into place with the minimum bother.
The cabinet in the middle, with the blue drawers, has been made to house various small bits and bobs that had been floating around without a place to live. The carcass was made from 12mm plywood generously supplied by Electric Love. I even had a couple of young lads who were at a loose end cut the timber for me.
I’ve made some more screw boxes as I have a large collection of unsorted screws. The screws were collected from Electric Love, at the end of the festival the tool cases were emptied and all the loose screws were binned.
Having to get up at a rediculously early hour to get the Boys ready for school is that there have been some quite amazing sunrises. Here are a couple, unfiltered or tampered with.
The next job which has taken the most time was making a painting area for Number Two Son. This necessitated moving book cases and vitrines around the Hobby Room.
He will be getting my old paint shelves and I shall make some expanded ones for me seeing that my paint collection has grown. I will take more photos of the Hobby Room once it has been cleared. My Daughter, Boyfriend and my Granddaughter stayed for ten days, so all the excess furniture we had been storing in the Guest Flat got decanted down into the Hobby Room.
Finally I would like to wish you all Season’s Greetings.
A disclaimer: this is totally ripped off from Wargames Illustrated 382 and David Bickley who built the original. You can read his blog here:
http://www.talesfromghq.blogspot.co.uk
I kept coming back to this article and mulling over it. I really don’t have time to get distracted by another project but it was sooo tempting. Late one night I pulled out a piece of paper and started doodling. The next day some graph paper was procured. Too late! Project started!
As Mr. Bickley had produced his model from individual parts I decided to follow along and make mine in modules starting with the front gate.
Me being me, there have been a few upcocks in the design, but nothing that a hammer wouldn’t sort out.
The original suppliers who inspired this build are:
This model was loosely inspired by a model I saw in the Trash Bash Bits group on Facebook. The original was made from a fly-swatter. It wasn’t quite what I had imagined but it sparked an idea.
The first iteration looked like this.
There were some issues, some of which I addressed in the next iteration.
The next iteration was like this.
Correction required.
Comparison shot of the two. You can see I have added some extra detailing to the cabin roof.
Iteration two with cargo and kitten for scale.
Iteration three will elimate these issues and hopefully be the final model.
Tired of taping bits of paper to books in order to photograph figures I made a thing.
It is big enough to hold a piece of A4 paper and the paper is held in place with magnets. There is not much more I can say about this. Once I’ve painted more things you will be able to see how useful it is.
I really should have written this much sooner, as always laziness overtook me.
For a far more eloquent account of this event I will direct you to
https://www.battlebrushstudios.com/2019/04/show-report-tabletop-knights-games-day.html
I decided to forgo Walter’s Austrian Salute this year. Walter has no intention of expanding and with last years event with a lack of sales and culinary disaster I wasn’t keen to attend.
Christoph’s event, Tabletop Knights, was a bigger event and he is keen to expand.
Preparing for this event has taken a couple of months making two display boards, Nessus and Gone?
Two days beforehand i was struck down with the lurgy, cold, tired runny nose. Great!
First day of the school holidays, which would normally be spent sleeping in, we got up extra early so we could drive to Germany and set up for nine.
There were a couple of traders there.
Obviously Christoph with his lasercut Roostermodels products. Which reminds me to get a banner made up.
Roll The Dice. I had made some little give-aways for them and Martin appreciated them. I had hoped that he would bring some paint along as I have a few gaps with need filling. Sadly no.
Spiele Cafe had a tombola, which my Son’s happily indulged in, and some demo games.
Spellebrette (can’t read my writing) had discount GW.
My table set up
View of the hall
There was a 40K tournament running downstairs
GW Night Vault.
Unpainted figures.
Summoners
Interesting models.
But not another rule set?
A Song of Ice and Fire
Gates of Antares
Interesting cardboard scenery
Last Days
Yet another zombie apocalypse!
Test of Honour
Frostgrave
With Christoph’s scenery
Dead Man’s Hand
Something that potentially of interest to me.
Christoph’s scenery
Freebooter’s Fate
Nice scenery from 4Ground
Guildball
Bloodbowl anybody?
Age of Sigmar
‘Nuff said
WH30K
Nice scenery from Deathray
WH40K
With added Tyrannids, a lot of them!
Walter playing Saga
The usual Star Wars
Legion and Armada
Painting competition
This is the second board that I made for the Tabletop Knights gaming day. My kind Daughter gave me a copy of Destiny 2 when she gifted me her old PS4. One of the worlds you visit is Nessus.
I fell in love with the visuals and wanted to recreate them. In the small space of a Kill Team board I wouldn’t be able to do it justice, but maybe I could give a taste.
First up was to make flocking, My local DIY store gave me a small piece of pure white foam and the poundshop provided cheap paint to colour it.
Planning out the board
Laying down 10mm of foam under the “metal” floor plates. I wanted them raised so there was some variations in the floor level.
The buildings
Adding the sides for extra strength.
Glueing parts into position
The crane
Adding colour and weathering.
More details.
Some of the columns in place with vegetation.
Set dressing.
Over all I wasn’t so happy with this board. There were a few tiny mistakes. I didn’t like the colour scheme on the buildings. I would have approached it differently next time. I have no idea where I am going to store it now. I did offer it up for sale at the event, but no interest.
News and announcements
(sorry, no balloons)
Olleys Armies Miniatures Blog, News and Workbench
Just a little bit about my hobby activities.
Let's build.
a maker, a teacher of making
In a world of poems, words steal love and put it on a blackboard
The adventures of my Greenskins, Dwarfs, and Bretonnians
A game designer's view of gaming
I play for fun... all else I take seriously
Collecting and Playing Orks
A Miniature Wargaming Blog
Turning Over a New Leaf
Fantasy, sci-fi and historical miniature gaming
Miniature painting, wargaming terrain tutorials, reviews, interviews and painting guides
A Gaming Podcast
Miniature painting and gaming from under the stairs
Custom Creations from Aaron Verbal Arcand
A fantasy war gamer grumbles into his beer.
My time well wasted
A wargamers hobby blog
Miniature painting and Modelling
Miniature wargaming and the occasional zombie
Wargaming
A YouTube channel about tabletop wargaming and the miniatures hobby, mostly.
a site for those who studied and taught glass at CSM as well as glass enthusiasts
Video Games, Comics, and Shenanigans.
An old git talking about toy soldiers and enormous wobbly breasts
genuine grumpy old tin 