After clearing out lots of old shoes from the shoe cupboard, and starting to clean up my man cave, I find myself ironing all my shirts for the week as well as any other stuff that needs it.
Where did I go wrong?

Nice interview with Martin Bower: http://ghatf.blogspot.com/2008/12/martin-bowers-model-world.html

Why is it that everywhere I go in the world, rain seems to follow?
Case in point, I recently got away for a few days with the family to Lanzarote. Hot and sunny right? Wrong!
The day we arrived, the island has the worst rain for ages - it was horizontal! It was so bad that we had two new indoor swimming pools in the bedrooms! Typical.
Oh, we had good days and fair enough, it was February, but come on!
Same thing happened when we went to Florida - thunderstorms and lashing rain.
Puerto Rico? Seven days of rain!
You know, I feel like taking a holiday in a place that is begging for rain, once we arrive you can pretty much guarantee it!

Had a good push today on painting and finishing the detailing on the Gunther.

I have painted about 80% of the base coat (hopefully it's the right colour!) and done all the basic painting on the diorama base. My only worry is that there isn't enough time before the South Cheshire Militaire to get it finished to the competition level that I originally wanted.


So, it may just be a display on the SFM:uk table - it might even be in progress during the event! We'll just have to wait and see ...

Just been having an interesting conversation about the history of communications and the subject came up about old interconnected networks.

Now, I was sure there used to be a system that used the sewers of Paris - got confused with Minitel - and then stumbled across this post by Molly Wright Steenson who is writing on the origins of the pneumatic tube network.

http://www.activesocialplastic.com/2009/01/pneumatic_post_in_paris.html

A really interesting read and a very good blog too!

Wear a hat!

Seriously, it's so cold out there that my lack of hair on my head is becoming a serious danger to my health and, even though I may look like a bruiser, I really need to find my hat to keep warm!

I know I put it somewhere safe (isn't this always the case?) ...

Well, having got the blogging bug anew, I thought I would resurrect this thing and make a concerted effort to keep it up to date (yeah right).

Anyone for a semi-mid-life crisis?

Over the next few weeks, I'll be tweaking the layout, adding some gubbins and generally enjoying myself!

It's been a long time since I've posted anything. To be honest, I've not really had much to say!

Model-wise, I've completed a couple of new builds and have several on the go - the main one being a 1/35 Gunther (a walking tank from an alternate WW2). I'm attempting to get this finished in time for the South Cheshire Militaire model show at the end of the month.

You can look at the photos on Flikr and follow the build diary over at SFM:uk.

That's it for now - back soon!

Yep, that time of year again.

The car is frozen solid and, after battling penguins to get inside, I find out that it won't start.

Very, very annoying!

Time to think about a new car methinks.

It's been a while since I posted anything and I have now completed three different builds that have been ongoing for a while!

First up is the 1/20 Maschinen Krieger Krupp Kröte:


Although the Kröte itself is finished, I still have to get around to completing the base and a figure to go with it.

Next off the conveyor belt was the 1/35 Dinomania Group Build entry, Dinodistopia:


Finally, I finished the 1/20 Maschinen Krieger Luna Pawn modification, the Meteor:


More photos can be found on Flickr.

Given my usual glacial building pace, this was an extreme challenge!

The idea, devised by Homo Ferratus, had only three rules:

1. You must use 1 Ping Pong ball!
2. You must build it within 1 hour!
3. Don't cheat, watch the time! ;)

So, I ploughed through my sprues and bits and gathered a few things that might come in useful ...

After a manic 45 minutes cutting holes and randomly gluing on parts, then shooting some white primer on, I had this:


The final 15 minutes were spent waiting for the primer to dry and quickly brushing on a Games Workshop wash (Gryphonne Sepia). Once my time was up, this is what I had:




Not too bad for an hour I thought!

Later on, I went back and adding some more decals and ID stripes and here is the final thing:



I also came up with some background for it:

Wächter Orbital Surveillance Drone

Deployed in NEO and Lunar orbit, the Wächter is an AI surveillance drone utlised by the SDR to watch for Mercenary troops and vessels. The Mercs spent a lot of time hunting these drones down, first in modified AFS patrols and later with Fireball and Fireball SG hunting teams.

The Merc success rate in disabling the Wächters was very high, and the assembly and deployment of replacement drones was too much of a drain on SDR resources to enable them to be replaced quickly enough to be an effective deterrant to Merc plans on the Moon and surrounding space.

More images can be found on Flickr. Forum threads discussing this build can be found at SFM:uk and the Maschinen Krueger forums.

As you can see, there has been quite some progress over the last two weeks. To summarise:

• Triceratops is done
• Panzerhoudah (for want of a better word) is in progress, with a new floor and sculpted padding. Need to add seats, boxes and cargo.
• Panzerhoudah driver and riders built (using a kit from Miniart), need to clean up and then paint.
• Two of the machine gun walking figures are built, I have started painting one, but not too happy with how the face is looking (I HATE painting faces, just can't get it right!).
• The diorama base is nearly done. I have sculpted additional cobblestones and need to lightly sand and add some of the details before painting.

So, it's slowly getting there - good job there's still a couple of months left before it needs to be completed!

Not the song by B. Bumble and the Stingers mind you, but an AI hovertank employed by the SDR to hunt and destroy Mercenary SAFS troops.

This is a 1/76-scale kit (the only official Ma.K kit at that scale sadly - there are some garage kits but they are very hard to get hold of) which consists of the Nutrocker itself (with photoetch wide-band antenna) and an in-scale SAFS (teeny tiny!).

I managed to pick this one up for a fiver on eBay and figured, as I was getting peed off with lots of sanding and filling, I would quickly knock it together to get me out of the modelling blues.

The paint scheme is simple. I first assembled everything (using stretched sprue for the thin antenna) although didn't glue the turret to the main body. Everything else is out of the box.

I then primed using Halford's Matt Black (it's all I had to hand at the time) and then did a light base coat using Vallejo Light Blue Grey. I then masked out the camo pattern using Winsor & Newton Artist's Latex Masking Fluid and applied the mid colour, GW's Codex Grey. Once that was dry, I masked off some more patterns with the latex and applied the dark colour, one of GW's foundation paints (the name escapes me at the moment, I think it's "something" Granite).

I then peeled off all the latex (which was very therapeutic) and rubbed any flaking edges with a cut-down old toothbrush.

Gloss coated with GW 'Ardcoat and applied decals. The numbers and elephant are from a 1/35 Tiger kit and the SDR Sun Wheel is a homebrew decal using Roggenwolf's insignia design (I want to tie all my SDR stuff together and this is a good thing to use - thanks to Roggenwolf for letting me use it).

Once the decals were dry, I put some satin gloss on (GW again) and then used the Promodeller dark wash on it. Worked like a dream, as long as you follow the instructions on their web site. Once this was rubbed in and off, I put on some of their dark mud round the bottom.

I then gave it a flat coat (Dullcote) and used a Tamiya weathering stick and some MIG pigments to simulate the dust and dirt that gets thrown up around the skirt as it hovers.

This will eventually be part of a large diorama, but I haven't thought that far ahead yet - I just wanted to finish something!

More pics on Flickr

At the end of last night's epsiode of Dr Who, fans were left with a series of cliffhangers which had them on the edge of their seats (not least in my house!).

However, we were all excited to be told that at 1pm today there would be a special trailer for the series finale - so I expect that there were a lot of fans like me waiting patiently for the end of the Politics Show to get a glimpse of what is coming.

Nothing. Not even a faint sound of drums. Nada.

Seems like the folks at the Beeb had a little senior moment and the trailer never aired.

Clever marketing tool to boost viewing figures for Sunday afternoons or just a bit of a cock-up? You decide.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/s4/news/latest/080628_news_01

Created quite a few unhappy fans I would guess ...

*UPDATE* Looks like the BBC are revisionist, as they've taken down the apology for not showing the trailer and just say "if you missed it"! Anyway, the trailer is now online, enjoy.

I put this together during the Bay 37 build so took the odd ten minute slot to finish it off.

This is a prototype of the AFS used by the Mercenary Forces in the Maschinen Kreiger universe, it existed only as a sketch in one of the books until Jason Eaton created the kit master for the IHYC and sold a limited number during the Japanese Wonderfestival earlier this year.

Anyway, I choose to finish it off in the civilian colours, as it reminded me of the powerloader from Aliens, so I used a mix of yellow and ochre acrylics for the base colour and simply weathered and washed it.

Need to do more work on my face painting, but I reckon it's done ... for now ...

It's not up to Jason's standards, but here's my HUWS:


More pics can be found here: http://flickr.com/photos/26399668@N03/2613726207/in/photostream/

Thanks!

Need more practice on my face painting methinks ...

Playing around with Photoshop tonight using directions from www.myinkblog.com.

A very nice effect that I think I'll use again on some of my other model photos when they're done.

Okay, so I've just been to Sainsburys' supermarket to quickly get something to eat. Whilst I was there I thought I would just get some new deodorant - it's quite warm at the moment and my current one is running out.

So I trundle up to the meager men's toiletries section (not even a full aisle) and all they have are body sprays.

That's it. Two brands at the most, but all body sprays.

So I enquire as to the whereabouts of the roll-ons (my preferred method of deodorising) only to receive the response "I guess they've taken them off the shelves because it's summer".

Hmm ... for my money I would trust a roll-on in the heat. So I wander up to the women's section and strangely all they have on offer are roll-ons! There are a few small sprays, but not deodorants.

So, as I meander around the other aisles looking for the kid's favourite cereal (nowhere to be seen) I notice that the aisles, although well stocked, actually offer very little choice in the way of brands. Usually the own brands and the higher priced main named brands.

I wonder if this is deliberate marketing on the part of the supermarket (well, dur!) and whether this is the case across the country?

So, to my work colleagues and friends, I apologise for being a bit smelly at the moment ... I'm purely a victim of circumstance.

Well, it didn't get first place in the SFM:uk Group Build, but imagine my surprise when my Bay 37 diorama nabbed the top slot in the Mecha Model Comp Maschinen Kreuger online competition.

The results table can be found here, but to summarise, the diorama received 24.67 points overall with the following comments:
I shall be enjoying a drink or two to celebrate my first ever competition win!

Some progress on the news legs for the Hundespinne. Essentially using parts from the Scopedog arm, with other parts from the Uchikoma legs and a 1/72 Tiger (plus some styrene tube).

Now I just need to assemble three more ...

An oldie but a goodie, this post is from 2006 and looks at the trends associated with logos for the Web 2.0 apps and sites.

Although it could be considered dated now, I feel it is still relevant and worth a look at:

http://www.fontshop.com/fontfeed/archives/the-logos-of-web-20/