I'm not dead yet...

...and to prove it here are some things I made.

Ragnarök

ODIN!

Lord of Valhalla, high king of the Æsir.

Odin carries his treasures, the spear Gungnir, the magical ring Draupnir and the head of Mimir which predicts the future. He is accompanied by the ravens, Huginn and Muninn, his wolves Freki and Geri and rides out on Sleipnir the eight legged horse who was fathered by Loki.

At Ragnarök Odin shall ride before the Æsir and the Einherjar wearing a golden helmet and an intricate coat of mail where he shall be swallowed by the great wolf Fenrir and so die.

HRYM

During the end times Hrym shall captain the ship Naglfar, made of the finger and toe nails of the dead, from Jotunheim to Vígríðr bringing the legions of jötnar to the final battle.

I missed my birthday!

So this old blog of mine rolls into it's third year and I think I can safely say that the year just gone was indeed the terrible twos. What a shockingly small body of work I have to show for the last 12 months. It's been so bad that things in the 'need to finish' pile from last years birthday post are still in it now although progress is being made and I've revisited all of my half done stuff and added at least something to them to bring them nearer to the finish.

Currently on the table are an ANZACs battalion command group and some French Bombers, Officers and NCOs for the Gallipoli range along with the balance of the Indian troops section pack. The sculpting schedule is full of interesting stuff for the next two months with a whole new set of subjects in the offing.

I'll put up some pictures of the new stuff as they are completed but I won't be showing off everything as I'll leave some of the new sculpts to be shown off in the GB newsletter for which you can sign up here (side panel on the right!).

So on to the boring stats, starting with sculpting output.

Full sculpts: 90

Conversions: 81

Heads, bits and accessories: 103

Absolutely awful considering I was aiming at something like 250 as a baseline. Just shows how badly my funk set in this past year. New years resolution, work more.

Blog stats:

18,399 visits from

7,156 unique visitors.

53 Followers and

78 subscribers to my feed

Most visits in 1 day:

299 on Thursday 5th March (TWDC Chaps)

284 on Tuesday 7th July (Broom Riders)

274 on Wednesday 8th July (Broom Riders again)

257 on Thursday 12th February (Combat stress)

Average daily views: 44

Top 5 referring sites:

Gripping Beast 3,585

Musketeer Miniatures 1,419

Lead Adventures Forum 1,253

Frothers 884

Dave Woodwards blog 688

Top 5 viewing nations (including top viewing city):

UK 9,606

(London 4,032)

US 2,422

(Sacramento 197)

Germany 871

(Munich 407)

France 816

(Paris 254)

Australia 762

(Melbourne 342)

Curious search terms that have led people to my blog...:

Deep tissue blister 8

no cointreau for old men 4

soapy sex 4 (lower than I expected)

"harry potter" kojak 3

I lick and take it 1

can I wocha vido of panting 1

elijah wood 1

goodly painted necron lord 1

naked and soapy 1

revenge for cake in the face wedding 1

should my 2 year old play outside in the snow 1

soapy fanny pics 1 (just 1, I'm suprised...)
soapy porn 1 (again...)

what are the layers of the sun and explain what happens in each layer 1

Funny what can take you to a wargamers blog innit?

Anyway, that me for another year so I'll be off to try and make 2010 a bit more entertaining.

Imperial Guard turn counter

Started off as just another bugler, albeit a converted one, turned into an objective marker and eventually became a turn/kill point counter.

I really must decide to stop before these things get out of hand...

Bad lighting had made the Dark Green uniform appear black. Bum.

Stay lucky,

Soaps.

Lunchtime challenge.

As I had nothing to do for a hour this lunchtime I decided to set my self a challenge, could I convert one of my WW1 French infantrymen into a 4ok Death Korp of Krieg Guardsman. I toddled of for a grilled cheese sandwich (it was lunchtime after all) and a quick think about how to do it. Once I'd decided what I'd do I started the clock and began.

1. Snip barrel of rifle and replace with plastic rod. Cut rod to 'lasgun' angle and run a file around the bottom to create the groove. 2 mins.

2. Cut a small piece of thin plasticard, score and glue to shoulder. 1 min.

3. Stick on French pack (Master casting for upcoming WW1 french) and entrenching tool (that I had lying around). 1 min

4. Take WW1 German helmet with gasmask head (master casting for upcoming head sprue so it was a little large for the figure) trimm off filter, file and drill to accept length of plastic rod for air hose. Glue in place. 6 mins.

5. Bulk out collar and cuffs, add eagle and central vane to helmet and tidy up face mask and shoulder pad all using green stuff. 8 mins.

6. Stick to GW base. 1 min.

7. Flat colours paint job. 28 mins.

8. Devlan mud wash all over. 4 mins.

9. Sand the base. 2 mins.

10. Ink the base. 2 mins.

I came back to it at tea time and drybrushed and flocked the base.

So there you go, a passable approximation of a Death Korp of Krieg guardsman from casting to colour in just under an hour. It's kinda rough and there are a few things I'd adjust or take more care over if I were to do any more but at least I know it sort of works. I'd been wanting to scratch this itch for a while now and I'm pretty pleased with the results.

Stay lucky,

Soaps.

Are you hardcore?

If you are at the Cold Steel event then, congratulations, you are!

God I hate the cold...

New Year's resolution.

Stay away from dressing up box.

FAIL.

Normal service will resume shortly.

Enter the loop here.

Wocha,

Well it's all been a bit quiet around here this year hasn't it? As most of you will know I had a right old moody earlier in the year and just forgot how to enjoy sculpting. I started out 2009 in a pretty good place, cracking on and producing loads of goodies. Unfortunately I burned myself out good and proper and started way more models that I could reasonably expect to finish, reasonably by my usual standards anyway. After Salute, yes it was that long ago, I decided to have a bit of a breather and relax for a while, then I kicked back for a while longer and then I decided to paint an army or two. Months later and the new stuff I started before Salute was still sitting there on my desk, their little tin eyes staring at me. Okay the figures were all headless but I'd started loads of new WW1 heads and they were all staring at me, accusing, waiting and slowly making me hate them.

After a couple of months I was really resenting them for still being on my table. Somewhere around August I managed to get the heads finished up and sent off so at least it was just a bunch of headless dudes accusing me now. Bastards.

Sculpting was now a bit of a chore as I knew I couldn't do anything new until I finished the chaps that were waiting and so I did nothing, for ages.

Then I did my sci-fi nonsense and suddenly it was almost okay again. I hid the half finished figures and did something else out of left field. Morris dancers. I know, right? I think it did the trick though coz then I did some armed Morris men (pics from the Beast soon) and some character packs for the Woodbine Brits and Turks and then I revisited the balance of the French section pack and finished them in one sitting! All of the above are with, or in transit to, the Beasty boys and should be making an appearance sometime in the not too distant. The sculpting schedule is full and I even have plans for some more 'Lord S 1930s madness' packs that I will have to fit in somewhere without Darren finding out until they are done. That and the extra pack of sci fi oddness that I've been working on on and off since the last lot came out, but again, don't tell Darren.

So anyway having rehashed the contents of my last eight months of blogs and provided you with absolutely zero proof that anything I've said is true I'm going to get back to work. I may even dig out the half finished balance of the Indian section pack whilst I'm on a finish what you started kick. That would mean I'd have to sideline the ANZAC battalion command pack that I'm doing this week. Hmmm, decisions decisions...

Stay lucky and don't eat yellow snow,
Soaps.

By Toutatis!

Asterix is 50 this week, so raise a glass to the plucky Gaul.

Oh yeah, I aitn't dead...

Local travel...

Snowboard, cunning.

Nice bit of snow innit?

Stayed up to watch Pittsburgh win number 6 and watch the snow fall sideways. Nice.

I am 2

Well here it is, the start of another blogging year and lets hope it's a bit more active than last year huh?

Thanks as always to all of those who visit, be it on a regular basis or just the once, and thanks to those that comment and boost my oh so fragile ego.

Now for the bit that no-one has been waiting for, the statistical breakdown for the year:

Total blog visits last year: 16,673
Of which unique visitors were: 5,929
Usual daily visit total: 54

Most views in a day: 324
Of which unique visitors were: 304
(This was the announcement of the WW1 separate head system for woodbine.)

Top 10 (of 125) referring sites:
Gripping Beast: 5,850
Musketeer Miniatures: 1,318
Dave Woodwoodwoodwoodwood's Blog: 1,311
Lead Adventures forum: 542
Mawdslio's Blog: 511
Blogger.com: 486
GuitarheroAndy's blog: 430
Tabletop gaming news: 390
Wargames butterfly: 365
TMP: 276

Top 10 (of 65) viewing nations:
UK: 10,012
US: 2,245
Germany: 611
Australia: 590
Sweden: 405
France: 363
Canada: 351
Finland: 309
Poland: 241
Netherlands: 233

So it all seems to be going swimmingly, look how many people I disappoint on a daily basis by not updating more frequently! Lets see if we can't rectify that in the year to come. I doubt it, but lets see...

Next up we have my sculpting out put for the year. Now I haven't totaled this yet and I will see it for the first time as I type it. I'm guessing I won't have hit last years production target and imagine I will be well down on even last years poor numbers. Right here we go...

155 figures or 2.9 a week (last year 173 figures or 3.3 a week)
91 swaps and individual parts made or 1.75 a week (last year 402 head swaps or 7.7 a week)
28 conversions or 0.57 a week (last year 30 conversions or 0.57 a week)

Target set last year 260 so well short! At least the headswap total is well down. Just think how high it would be if we hadn't decided to go with seperate heads for the WW1 stuff.

I think this gives me an idea of my level. Three figures a week on average is pretty poor but with a bit of actual work discipline (more than an hour or two a day as it is now) I might be able to bump that up a bit. Lets be a bit more sensible and go for 200 before the next birthday post.

Of course this year I have slacked off mightily and spent far too much time making models for my lunatic projects like my ever expanding Daemon army and my pet Action Force project. Both of those contain plenty of conversions and scratch builds, not to mention all of the good work hours spent painting and photographing them for my other blogs. Now that the Daemons are all but finished (as they have been three times before I might add, I just keep adding new stuff) and the Action Force anniversary project is out of my system for a bit I should be able to knuckle down and get rocking.

Or maybe not, I am notoriously lazy after all...

A bunch of headless chaps on the workbench are all but done now and will be photographed and posted soon, in fact there are so many partially complete models on the bench at the moment that when they are all finished I'll be a third of the way to my new target. Maybe I can afford that slacking off time after all.

Ta ta for now and see you soon.

Stay lucky,
Soaps.

HATMAN

Post a comment here if you voted 'other' in the WW1 head sprue poll and state your preference. You can vote for up to three options.

Enjoy.

Messing around...

Wocha,

Now I've been trying to cobble together some form of coherent narrative but the days have all been blurring a bit lately and thoughts are occouring randomly, so that's how i'll be writing them down! Enjoy, and do try to keep up...

Well as usual there is plenty to do so I have been doing something else. The first distraction came in the form of a couple of sniper bases for our Games Day table. We wanted to playtest some sniper rules with an eye to the forthcoming WHW Great War in the East suppliment (I can't wait until they decide on a name cos that takes ages to type...) and Darren was too busy e-mailing all his chums and generally Lording it up in the Eveish country seat whilst Lord S was in London being under the weather and considering the benefits of castration (for his cat you understand not himself).

As an aside do you remember Robin of Sherwood, the 80's TV show? Remember how Guy of Guisbourne used to be all La-de-da and high and mighty when the boss wasn't around and then fall into place as soon as D'renou turned up? Yeah, it's like that down at the Beast...;>)

Anyhow, so Darren is 'busy' and he askes me to paint up 3 snipers for the game at Games Day so long story short (or apparently not as the case may be) I did. Here you go.
Turk riflemen with the bayonets snipped off. If nothing else it gave me a use for those old Dryad bits I had lying around.

Apart from the fact that I had cracked a tooth and so was on some marvelous painkillers and antibiotics, Games Day went well. As ever, when you are running a demo, Games Day became 12' square with a baked potato in the middle but was enjoyable none the less. Although my demands made to the Black Library staff to the effect that Dan Abnett come over to the table and sign my books fell on deaf ears the day went well. Plenty of Historical games were on show and details (well, pictures) can be found here and here and I'm sure there were lots of other things going on but I didn't really get a chance to look. I took a few photos but they were mostly of the Gallipoli game and some of the old Battle Honours WW1 stuff I did as my first ever sculpting job way back when. With a decent paint job they didn't look half bad either.

Gallipoli from the ANZAC side
Man down!
Turk High command converted by Musketeer BillThe Turkish defences.The Turkish trench line.Mons. Battle Honours figures. Yes there was a whole game to look at but I tunnel visioned...
So home from Games Day and I settle down to do some proper work. Then the Beasty boys send me a parcel containing all the castings of my new 'bits' and the test spins of the master mould for the first batch of Brits in Wolesley Helmets and Turks on full kit. Woo Hoo! I lost no time in breaking out all of the goodies I had received and having a little play, despite the fact that there are a couple of artillery crews that want finishing...

First off I had a play with the castings. I wanted to see if GW ogre flesh spray would work for the Brits. The conclusion was, not really, but they didn't turn out too bad.
Next I got out my saw and had a silly five minutes. Now I should explain a few things first. When I make a range of figures that will be uniformed I tend to make up a number of standard parts and get them cast. It saves trying to make the same hat, torso, weapon, whatever over and over again and keeps things consistant. Now this is hardly a revolutionary technique and will be common to almost all comercial sculptors out there but I wanted to clue you in, if for no other reason than when I start talking about these bits you all know that they are a mid stage production tool rather than something comercially available. Right so that's that out of the way, so...

I grabbed my new sprue of British and Empire heads and decided to try some simple conversions with the new Brits. I present to you a taste of thing possibly to come from the WDC:
Royal Naval DivisionMid war Brit in Tin 'at.

I also couldn't resist having a play with some bits for my personal favourite selection from the up coming ranges:
Those baggy panted loons the French Zouaves and Tirralieurs! I can't wait to crack on with these fellas.

I've got loads of bits to play with now including, but not limited to:
Seikh heads
Gurkah heads
Indian heads
Cavalry torsos

French Adrien helmets
French kepi
French colonial troops heads
French tropical helmet
French uniform torso

German pickelhaub
German and Turk stormtrooper helmets

And all sorts of other goodies. Now just because a bit appears on that list don't expect to neccessarily see packs added to the range. Some of those bit (but I'm not telling which) were added to fill up the mould and so that I had a bunch of stuff ready if I want to do any quick conversions.

Well, those artillerymen won't sculpt themselves so I'll be getting back to work now.

Stay lucky,
Soaps.