Happy New Year

(This is my 101st post - in case you were wondering)

As 2013 draws to a close it's time to reflect on the year and it's highs and low.
For me the year started with my eyesight rapidly deteriorating, which was no fun at all but by September and two operations later I my eyesight fully restored.
My enthusiasm all year has been up and down like a bride's nightie with the inevitable down sometime around the end of November when any pretense of enthusiasm for blogging and gaming in general hit an all-time low, but this has since been lifted somewhat by just one or two recent comments on my blog and replies to my own comments on others' blogs.
Over the last two years of blogging I do feel that I've made several new friends in the Blogging community, which is a strange thing to say considering that I've never met but one of them.
The highlight of the year, as hinted at, was meeting Matevz or Mathyoo as many of you will know him as.

Without Bryan/Vampifan's, Matevz, and many of the regular commentators to my blog I think I would have given this up a long while ago.

In 2014 I aim to game more, once the batteries are recharged and the enthusiasm for it returns.

(These are not mine, the  picture was "borrowed" )

On to the Xmas haul, which on the Wargames front saw me the proud recipiend of a Full Thrust Fleet (FSE for those that know about these things). I blame Colgar6, and his excellent bat-reps that overflow with his enthusiasm for everything he does. The present came from eldest son who has his own fleets for the game and probably recollects from his childhood playing this game with me. It is a bit of a diversion from Zombie gaming but a very welcome one at that.
All was not lost though on the Zombie front as I did receive some related items.

From the overly generous Lord Siwoc I got a rather bulky pack of mantic Ghouls as a prize in his rather unsubscribed Xmas competition.
Expecting one or two sprues worth of Ghouls, my jaw dropped when I opened the package to a veritable feast of figures. When I get back to painting Zombies, I can see these being combined with some Wargames Factory zombies.
It's been quite a revelation to me blogging, just how generous fellow bloggers are, this was not the first competition I've won and I've also been the recipient of other gifts too!  This is surely one of the most wonderful communities to be a part of.

Worst Dice roll ever ?  (Picture again "borrowed"_

With that, it's time to wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year and here's to another enjoyable year reading your blogs, making new friends and maybe even meeting a few more of you.







As always your comments are welcomed and appreciated .

It's that time...

...of year again, when we lose several days of lives to do next to nothing and over-indulging
(hopefully) in everything from things  that are either not good for us just plain silly.
So, are you celebrating the birth date of Mithras on the 25th or maybe you'll be participating in fertility rites involving druidic sacred Mistletoe (yours was cut with a golden sickle right ?). It might also be that you're setting fire to a pagan yule log to warm and light you through the winter darkness,  or bringing in a Germanic tree to decorate.
 Whatever it is you do at this time of year (you may even just be enjoying the holiday period like normal folk do with family and friends) I sincerely hope you enjoy it.
I'll also take this opportunity to thank each and everyone of you that has read or commented upon my blog. Without all of your participation in my wonderful bloggosphere experiences over the last two years, this my 100th blog post, would not have been possible, so once more, thank you.

Trees

The demise of our local "Model Zone" shop saw my eldest son buying up trees, more than he could use so I ended up being the beneficiary of one bag of trees, with somewhere around 18 trees in it.

The trees themselves lay dormant in their bag for a few months before I finally got around to seeing what I could do with them.

My original intent was to use a couple of them in the park that I built, but as those of you who saw the finished park that idea had gone out of the window. 

 I decided to dig out my old trees and base them up with the new ones I'd acquired from my son.
The few, still "usable" trees that I dug out were in a very sorry state as can be seen by the photograph on the left. It's no wonder the state that they were in considering that they're probably over thirty years old and have been through many, many tabletop battles.

I did think that they were salvageable though and with a generous amount of PVA glue and flock (some of which came from the bag the new trees occupied) I think I made a reasonable job of rescuing them from obscurity.
The result of my efforts can be seen in the photograph on the right. The flock I used is probably just about as old as the trees and is a mix of home-made and commercial (I think).

It only remained for the new trees to be mounted on irregular shapes bases of differing sizes and the refurbished old ones to be interspersed amongst them.
I mounted all the trees in multiples of two, three or more trees; the bases were chamferred and given a coating of wall filler for texture and painted in greens and browns.
The final outcome wasn't as shabby as I thought it would turn out and the 'rescued' trees fitted in well enough for me. (The tree on the right in the first photo is one.)

Although the whole process took quite a while and I was plagued with problems over getting the models and paint to stick to the bases (goodness knows why), I'm quite happy with the result 

That's it for another week and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

Fences

For my next scenario, set in the suburbs of Perdition I required some extra scenery as most of my stuff so far has been of an urban nature.
So whilst working on my park I was also working on some bits of scenery too. Although the fences are probably more suited to a rural environment than a suburban one, they're still another addition to my scenery.
The obvious choice (to me at least) as the preferred material to make these with was of course coffee stirrers.

 For the initial preparatory stages I cut coffee stirrers to a length of about 120mm and then laid them out as shown.
They're about 25mm from the bottom of once fence plank to the top of the third,
The pile of "posts" that can be seen to the side are 30mm long.
One central post was glued in place initially to easy handling before the second was put in place.
 To join two lengths of fencing together another post was glued between the two fence pieces.
  As can be seen on the photograph to the right I used a lot of clips/clamps to hold the pieces together whilst they were gluing.
To reinforce the join, a second 'post' was glued to the other side of the fence, this can be most clearly seen in the photograph at the top of the page (in the middle centre).
Some of you will no doubt have noticed that there appear to be a lot more fences in the third photo than those laid out in the second one. Five fence lengths makes about 60 cm (about 2 foot of fencing)

 and my initial estimates of what I'd like were woefully inadequate so I ended up making about about three times more than I initially thought I would.
The photo on the left shows the second 'batch' of fences getting to the same stage as the first.
At what would be the corners of my fences I glued a post made up of four of the post length that I'd cut earlier. This gave me a good surface area to glue one length to another with some purchase and it also made the fences free standing .

The various lengths were glued into 'L' shapes; the smallest 'L' shape was 1 length by 1 length (1x1). I made others of 2 x 1 lengths, 2 x 2 lengths and 3x1 lengths. The pieces with a single length at the corners were made in two versions, a left hand one and a right hand one.
The photograph shows the finished models in their unpainted state. I still haven't got around to painting any of them as my enthusiasm for this particular project diminished rapidly as I thought it would be quite a quick and easy process - how wrong I was !

 I had made just over 40 lengths of fences which, including the corner posts and fence joins used up about 200 coffee stirrers!
 This gave me a total fence length of about 16 to 17 foot of fencing (about 500cm) but still seemed inadequate when I came to use them on 6 foot by 4 foot of my table.
The use of the free-standing fences should be fairly obvious from the last two photographs and the varying lengths used against buildings does provide a good representation of a perimeter.
I have found though that  really should have made some provision for some gates in the overall scheme of things.
Instead of gates I've had to leave a gap in the fence lines as a temporary measure and by trying to use a free-standing fence I'm unable to make a simple straight length of fence, which is a bit frustrating.
This was one of those projects that I thought was a good idea at the time but I do wish I'd thought it through a lot more before starting out on it, but on the plus side I do have some extra terrain even if it is limited a bit in its use.

And that's it for this week, except of course to welcome  my latest follower "Alexis Gayaud" and to say that all your comments, as always, are both welcomed and appreciated.

The Park

Well, here it is finished at last, or at least as finished as it's ever going to be !

The first photo shows a general view from the rear, but shows all the major features in place.

The two picnic tables I used have had a bit of clutter added.

The plan view shows how the completed model fits into one of my standard urban terrain boards, even if the entrance is actually off-table ! (Just for the ease of taking  the photo.)

The playground next, showing it embedded into the grass mat, with some muddied bits.

I cut the grass to accommodate the foot-prints of the three bits of equipment, so that they didn't appear to be floating on top of the grass.

I did repeat this for all the benches too and ended up using all eight of them.

The slide had a 'fun' poster added.

The other half of the park, used as a picnic area.
The picnic benches were not glued in place, but left free-standing and even though I could have used all four benches that I'd made, it looked rather crowded and left little room for figures - something I'm always aware of when making any model.
Even my figures' 20mm bases take up  far more room than they should.

   Another view of the right hand side of the park showing the rubble mess and two of the four bins that were all used in the mode. (again these were embedded into the grass).

As the picnic tables are loose, they could be replaced with a stand of trees or something similar.

 Close of the bin, nearest the monument, showing the various bits of tissue, plastic etc that I used.
The rule in this case was less is more insomuch as I put lots of small bits in the bin (and a newspaper to top it off).

Close up of the monument, nothing spectacular, just glued in place.

The newspaper in the corner was the only extra bit of detailing that I added to the  final model.

I could have been added a lot more in the form of rubbish but I though this sufficient.

 Another view of the park from the rear, showing just how tatty the play area is!













Finally, I have to welcome my latest follower, Robbie Rodiss, who has two excellent blogs (Aut Caesar, Aut Nihil  and   The Independent Wargames Group.), whom I have known for a long time.

That's it then for another week and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.