Was Geht

Posted on June 4, 2025 by grumpyoldtin

This was written a few months ago and a few things have changed which I will update in another post.

What’s going on? Well a few things actually.I have been seeing a Psychologist on a weekly basis, which has been helpful. Sadly this has finished due to cuts in Government spending. It did involve some art projects, which was nice. And to make a YouTube playlist starting from depressing to uplifting.

Originally it was supposed to have nine tracks, from a low mood, to middling and on to happy. But me being me stuff had to be added.

Health wise still pretty much the same. The Doctors at the Hospital still don’t know what caused the thrombosis, so I have to continue taking blood thinners. One of my cancers has to be biopsied and that resulted in another operation. When the results came back the tissue was precancerous. I had an all clear on the other one and having checkups every six months.

I did write a long piece on dentistry, but it was long and boring. I will just say I have ongoing dental problems.

Kids, go for regular checkups, worth it when you’re older. Damn my fear of dentists.

The Employment Service have enrolled me on a German course. Apparently my age and lack of German are the two big hurdles to me getting meaningful employment. After roughly thirty minutes it all starts to go “Blah, blah, blah” as my mind starts to get overwhelmed. I just forget everything and I feel so stupid. But I have to keep reminding myself that compared to some members of my classmates I am not that bad. It has been stressful and as a result I have had some spikes in blood pressure, giving my blurred vision in one eye and headaches.

My plan this year hobbywise is to finish off some projects. I get excited about things, start a new project…..

Oh look a squirrel!

….and then get excited about something else and this has left me with quite a few unfinished projects.

What I want to finish this year is Bloodbowl and HeroQuest. I also need a way of storing the components. I also have two unfinished armies from Dragon Rampant, Elemental and Undead, which would be good to have finished.

There are also plans to go through my stuff and try and de-clutter and sell surplus bits. And some work in the house.

Don’t worry there will be more hobby updates coming.

A bit of a photo dump

Posted on June 2, 2025 by grumpyoldtin

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.

Slow Return

Posted on April 13, 2025 by grumpyoldtin

It’s been a while and still a long road ahead in terms of health, physical and mental.
One day at a time.
I kept up my painting. It has been a chore at times and I don’t take the same pleasure in it as I used to do.
One change I did make was to move my painting area upstairs. I used to paint in the cellar and that time was used to escape the clamour of daily life. Now I find it too isolated. Whereas upstairs I can hear voices and not feel so lonely. Plus I have cats sleeping in the window, drinking my tea and I have a view.
Having a view is nice. I didn’t realise I missed having a window until now. I used to have a view in London and it is good for the eyes to change focus every so often.
My lighting set up is still downstairs as it would be a mammoth task to unwire it all.

I didn’t realise that it had been over a year since I last posted. There are going to be posts covering this period. Yes with photos! One thing that did throw me a bit was my computer giving up the ghost. Yes I know one can still post on a mobile, but it isn’t the same.

I gone done and made another thing

Posted on February 8, 2024 by grumpyoldtin

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.

Here it is in action with my little photo booth

Physician Heal Thyself. Or. Third Time’s the Charm

Posted on January 25, 2024 by grumpyoldtin

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.”

― 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.

Some gouged out sections to allow for bits

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

https://www.oldschoolminiatures.co.uk/blog/design-a-war-machine-for-the-osm-mean-green-challenge

Greetings for 2024

Posted on December 31, 2023 by grumpyoldtin

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.

Life with eleven cats and other madness

Posted on June 15, 2023 by grumpyoldtin

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 ecumenical advisors to accompany the Baron Figure from earlier this year

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 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.

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.

A return to Weasel Town

Posted on June 14, 2023 by grumpyoldtin

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.

https://www.mueller.de/p/pet-bistro-klumpstreu-2572035/

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).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bentonite

I will report back with further information.

And tomorrow, if you are lucky, I will post some painting and reflect on life with eleven cats.

Putting off writing

Posted on June 13, 2023 by grumpyoldtin

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.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/keta-minies/daemon-damzels-army-to-3dprint-digital-stl

Weasel Town

Posted on February 14, 2023 by grumpyoldtin

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…….

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.

Some news, some is important, some middling and some trivial

Posted on January 19, 2023 by grumpyoldtin

This is the important one!

Some of you may know Heresy Miniatures?

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.

https://gofund.me/811fdb7b

Now to something of middling importance.

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.

One of them decided that he adored me and decided to stay. I now have a constant companion wherever I am.

Not Noggin the Nog

Posted on January 11, 2023 by grumpyoldtin

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noggin_the_Nog

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…

https://thelittlesoldiercompany.co.uk/product/noggin-the-nog-the-characters-white-metal

Now Mr. Wood has a new Kickstarter for some totally not related at all fantasy football teams.

These do look rather lovely and if you are a fan of whimsical sculpts, especially of Martin Buck, I would recommend you have a peek.

Starting off 2023

Posted on January 10, 2023 by grumpyoldtin

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.

3D printed dice cup for my Orc Bloodbowl team

A 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.

I am building up a collection of scifi NPCs which I rather enjoy painting.

2023

Posted on January 9, 2023 by grumpyoldtin

Finally it is here. Last year was a bit of a blur, nothing really of note stood out and it really did go quickly. I did hit a significant number complete with upcoming health checks. Nothing major to worry about, slightly high cholesterol and low thyroid function. I don’t have occult blood which is really not as interesting as one would think.

One thing which I do regret is that Grumpy Old Tin laser cutting is no longer a thing. The makerspace I was using changed hands and the new owners, Pioniergarage- Salzburg, have a difference in opinion about accommodating the less abled. Long covid means that it it is impossible for me to stand for two or three hours beside the laser machine and the computer is placed so you cannot sit and operate it.

More tomorrow as I had a bit of a painting blitz this last week.

Finally my Product of the Year is Vallejo’s Model Colour Vermillion. A really good punchy highlight red. I did get on the cool kids bandwagon and bought some Dirty Down Rust. I only tried it once and I realise I need a bit more practice with it.