Boxes, Barrels and Bushes

I've taken a break from the Stoetzel's Federal building build, suffice to say I could have added boobs to the already salacious sounding title (just think of the hits!).
Now that I have three each of the pirate ship's boxes and barrels, I'd have a quick attempt at tarting them up..
Undercoated with a matt grey from Poundlandbargainworld (and yes I forgot to wash the soft plastic first) then various browns and sandy colours later I came up with what you see in the photograph, although I have picked out the rope around the barrels since taking the photo.
As a reminder, here's how they look straight from the box:

The barrels in their original form...

And a couple of photographs of how they painted up:
One of the most obvious things to me (other then the cheapness of the models themselves, is the lack of barrel hoops - something I could probably rectify if I could be bothered (I'm not)

Barrels sans rope painting

...and the boxes (obviously)

Also this week Boxes painted up

Also this week in a visit to my favourite shop "Poundlandworldbargainbuy", I came across this little ball of wargaming goodness:

A £1 ball of foliage - with purply-blue bits!

The B&M ball

 By chance, I also stopped by my local B&M tore and in their sale they had a similar, but larger ball for the princely sum of £2.49.
I immediately went to work pulling all the individual bits from each ball.
There are about 40 'plants' in the £1 ball and about 60 in half of the pricier one (but alas no purpley-blue bits!). 
 Each piece has four a leaf'-stems attached to a central ring (that in turn had been attached to a stud on the frame of the original ball.

Half the big ball's 'bits'

'Heart-shaped leaves'

In a further burst of greenery my last two packages of Chinese plasicky, shrubbery goodness also arrived this week.
Both packs are more or less the same, with minor differences .
One pack has "heart-shaped" leaves, whilst the other has more fan-shaped leaves.
There are 50 pieces (I think) in each pack and they were less the £2  (including postage) iirc.
As can be seen on the photographs, they're quite large (about the size of a 28mm figure) and have a 'stud' for basing.

Boring close up

Equally boring fan-shaped leafy bushes

Obligatory boring close up

Finally, you  may have noticed, in the background of the first photograph can be seen some bush-like material. This has resurfaced after many years due to building work affecting my outside shed. It's some form of bedding or potting material that I bought about 15 years ago to use a foliage for a twisted wire tree that never came to fruition  (hence the staining). It has the consistency of coarse string (what I would refer to as "Post Office parcel string) and I've an idea or two as to what uses I can make of it (other than the obvious one of thatching) - so watch this space.!

I won't be telling you of the boob I made cutting out a foamboard wall with two printed walls hidden on the reverse side, so that's it then for this week and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

Intermission

I'm taking this opportunity to take a quick break from my normal blogging 'style' (more of my normal moaning and complaining follows below) to reflect of the last 5 years, even  though it's another fortnight or so before my blog is five years old!
The reason for this early reflection has been the realisation that I made over 100, 00 'hits' recently probably thanks to the influx of many Russian spam bots. I didn't notice this at the actual time as I don't  put a great deal of importance in hits as more than a passing reflection of blog success, as I find that more to be the number of those who regularly leave comments.

This post will also be my 252nd, (another 'milestone' - the 250th - missed?), but what I have noticed is the number of bloggers that still have blogs on my blog-roll that have either ceased posting altogether after less than a half a dozen or so posts (when their enthusiasm was at it's highest I'm guessing) and well established blogs that fold after about three years of regular blogging (my very nearly gave up on my own blog at the three year interval).
In the early days of my blogging I was given some sage advice about posting regularly, on a given day and replying to each and every comment etc. Most of this advice has now of course been thrown out of the window by my then adviser (haha!) but I have held to it,

I've also noticed a decline in the number of new followers, which is probably natural, but it is always warming to be able to welcome a new follower to my blog and to this end let me welcome "Ric Walters", for whom I can't find a blog.
Some bloggers I know put great sway in the number of their followers, but still don't manage to get even 10% of them leaving comments (like 'hit's', something else I think too many put importance upon)  - I get about 10% of my followers leaving comments, for which I'm truly grateful.

As a postscript to the above I was very pleased to see "Confused dad" posting on his blog "Confused Dad's Mental Wanderings" very recently after an absence of five years.
 Perhaps there's hope yet for some older favourite blogs : "Lucky Joes Place" (2 years absence). "Welcome to Lazarus" (which had a revamp of old posts about a year ago but nothing since) and of course "Obviously Dead" (with the many adventures of the Whiteface faimily! - over a year) and finally "Plastic Zombie" , that has been spluttering for a good while, but I can live in hope though can't I ?
I may even get around to posting on my other blog too!

The internal corner with rabbetting for goodness knows where ? 

Yes, it's now back to the boring bits as this week has seen the continuing frustrations I've had with Stoetzel's Federal house. The first floor (2nd if you're from the US) has the same fault design as the ground floor in one corner of the building and in the area above the entrance.
When cutting out the seven doors for this floor I also had to add doorknob to them, for as in the ground floor doors, none of them had door-knobs represented on the printouts either,
It's a minor complaint, (but nevertheless annoying) easily fixed with my Gold Sharpie Xmas present, despite my current shaky hands!

Before (top) and after,

Upper fl;oor (the hole is for the staircase (- another nightmare in the making)

The "fun" with this build  just hasn't stopped as I discovered that the upper floor has been creased across the width of the floor and with foamboard it's difficult to remove  - so I won't be trying, but will instead be looking for a way to disguise the damage. (-failure may not be an option, but throwing it all in the IS!)
The two large yellow circles in the photograph, highlight the crease and aren't tea-cup stains (I haven't had that particular delight - yet), The crease has probably come about with the my current limited work-space.

Coffee stirrers - Who'd have thought ?

The "crease" has necessitated a slight re-think in how I'll be aligning the upper floor with the ground floor and I'll be experimenting with an edge of coffee stirrers to retain it in position - just one of many ways it could be done, but as many regular followers will attest, I do like my coffee stirrers!

More Piratey goodness

It hasn't all been doom and gloom though as I visited "The works" with my daughter and they've restocked on their Pirate ship sets. After my daughter had paid for her purchases she received a 20% discount voucher which she promptly gave to me. I bought up all their stock of ships (both of them), presented the recently acquired  discount voucher and in turn received my own 20% off voucher which I immediately gave to my daughter!
Two ships for £16 (after discount) - bargain!
I intend to convert both, one into a larger (longer) ship and the other into a single masted schooner-type but the final decision on that front is still to be made.

Bamboo

Finally, in the last week I received yet another bag of "trees" from China; I've only two more bags to await before I have to think about basing up the entire lot!
From the photograph it will be obvious that thees are bamboo, but what surprised me was the very thin strip of wire running through them (vaguely visible in bottom centre of the picture).
They're about 4-5 inches long and I thought could also be used as corn stalks, as I'm pretty sure I've seen them used in such a capacity.







Well, that's it then for another week, not much I know, but thanks for visiting and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

The Cursed House (and palms)

Front view - ground floor

I have made some progress to my "Cursed House" build (otherwise known as Stoetzel's Federal House) this week with the usual loss of a wall or similar occurrence. Work this week was however mainly held up by a bout of sneezing, coughing and bring up phlegm, as I developed a very heavy cold, all of which was not conducive to modelling, or my keyboard. Thankfully several packets of Lem-sips and hours of rest and I'm all but recovered.

Oblique rear view

First floor outside walls with internal prints

It should be fairly obvious that I've fitted the internal ground floor walls despite the model's best attempts to thwart me Why a single internal wall should be divided into three parts (the one from the front door to the back door) is divided into three .parts, escapes me - its' not as if it's too large for an A4 sheet, being only about 9" long!.
I also managed to cut and glue the internal wall prints to the external first floor walls (second floor if you're American) even managing to miss cutting out a pain of windows, before being laid low.

Left original, right 'worked on'

Succumbing to my current lurgy and not wishing to press my luck any further with the "cursed house" build it wasn't until Sunday I looked around for something else to do - something I couldn't easily f*ck up with a sneeze !
I decided to have a quick experimental trial at my palms.
Firstly let me say that palm trunks come in every shade of brown, grey and sandy-cream colours imaginable.
Secondly I now have a fairly large number of trees to 'spruce up' (no tree- pun intended) so whatever I do has to be quick!

Again, original on the left - not so effective as the previous one imo

Forgetting that as these are fairly soft plastic and should probably be washed in some luke-warm
soapy water I gave the leaves (fronds ?) a quick wash with Tamiya clear Green; the trunks were washed in some dark brown ink I've had for about twenty years and finally a bit of milky-coffee-coloured dry-brushing. IMO for the minute or so that it took I thought it was quite effective for a trial run.

Bottle palm - very happy with this

Imo, another success

Its a monster sized tree

 So the results are a bit varied with a few variations to the colours, brown greys or whatever, then I'm sure they'll look good en-masse. I'll also add a few yellowing leaves with some yellow ochre or similar washes. In the meantime here's a picture of one of my largest and most expensive tree at about 7" tall (175mm).
Also a late arrival to the jungle terrain were more plastic bits for my 'jungle', they're described as "flowering plants" om ebay and came form the same source as all my flora, namely "Model railway collectibles" -
They come in packs of either fifty or a hundred plants and either all of one colour or in five colours  (like my own)
I'm still awaiting three more packs to arrive - bamboo and two types of "grass" (in reality green bushes) 
It's hard to know what to do to 'improve' the looks of these flowering  plants, so maybe they'll be left as is (always my preferred option)

"Flowing plants"

The problems of not having a working laptop continue and  the proper space to use my desktop (I'm currently typing at 90 degree to my computer screen with my own shadow over the keyboard)  continue unabated but on the good news front I have the first of a half dozen or so shelves now erected in my wargames room, It's in the door alcove  and is now occupied by my Playmobil coliseum  of some 30"+ diameter. It's the first  step to clearing my table off and setting it up for a game!

That's it then for this week thanks for visiting and as always, your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

Progress?

'Copter, all but finished.

Despite having little opportunity to find the space, let alone the time to progress either of my current
projects added to my my laptop deciding to finally give up the ghost no matter how much gaff I applied I've still managed to make some progress, be it slim. 
Other than the blades on the helicopter needing attention the Poundbargainworld Helicopter buy is all but finished. It'll not win any painting competitions, but is very usable imo.

Not a great deal different to the original toy

The Stoetzel card build still progresses, even though the model still continues to throw spanners in the works such as the walls that have the wrong marking on them:

The curtain 'problme'

The curtains depicted on some of the walls are all well and good too , save if yo want to add perspex 'glass',  as I eventually discovered (and there is also no provision for the reveres of the curtain as the inside corresponding wall has none).

I had thought that I could colour the reverse of the 'outside' curtain, but this was before I'd thought of the 'glass' anomaly.

Front view

No matter all the problems I've had with this building (now nicknamed the cursed building) I've finished the outside walls (save for a bit of trimming and edging) and the three internal walls too, but these latter walls have yet to be added.

Rear view

The small central one is about 4" tall

I've also added a lot more palm trees to my collection and I'm awaiting several more bags of greenery too.
I've selected as many different types of palm as I could find to accompany my core collection of 80.

The small ones are slightly taller than a figure.

Today's latest arrival - Travellers Palms

That's all for this week, thanks for taking the time to visit and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

"Pirate Ship"

Happy New Year to you all that visit or follow this blog.
Over the holiday period I managed to make almost no progress in any f my current projects and was mostly frustrated in anything I did attempt. I did however manage to take apart my recent "pirate Ship" purchase, so here's the results of that exercise.
It'll be obvious to most that the two figures included in the set are oversized for the ship but there are are a lot of bits within the set that are otherwise suitable for use with 28mm figures.

Basic ship, straight out of the box.

Aerial view( note the ties on the croc and the cannon

The cannon and the crocodile were affixed with ties (the white bits), but were easily removed.
The wheels would have to be removed (fairly easy), mainly because they looked silly. There were half a dozen or so screws to remove to get to the wheels and it also allowed me to inspect the cabin area.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so they say, so here are the pics, with a brief commentary.
The wheels, with ties that secured it to the box.

More ties on the croc and cannon.

Giant figure with minute boat.

One of the two figures, but with additional boat, something I hadn't initially noticed. 

Giant-sized chest (useful for keeping the screw in), along with a group of three barrels.

A raft !

The longboat

Longboat with figures

A lot of the 'bit's are usable; here's the pics:
The longboat can just about hold three figures (mostly because my bases are 20mm square.

The cannon - best forgotten about

Raft with figures

The barrels - one of them may be a bit large!

Useful crates

A

A very big shark - but could still  be useful.

The Croc - very big - maybe a bit too big ?

28mm figures don't look out of scale on the shape though.

Plenty room on the deck for cannon on each broadside.

Lots of room for crew too.

Another deck view

The ship is obviously a toy and not meant for wargaming, but there is a lot going for it imo and most of the obvious 'problems' can be overlooked -  and besides it was only £10 !












That's i then for this week, I did make the conscience decision not to post the various photographs I took as I disassembled the model, but thought photographs with figures for scale would be of more interest.

Thanks for taking the time to look and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.