What a difference a month makes.

 Hello and welcome to Inso's World again. It's been just over a month and in that time, a lot has happened so I'll crack on with things.

First up, Rasputin has been sent off to Checkpoint Miniatures and is now in their shop: LINK.

I also finished the AK troopers, they have been sent off to Macrocosm Miniatures, cast up and I now have a bunch of them to start converting:

Click the Pix!

While I was sculpting them, I also squeezed in a Dwarf version of a Catachan Jungle Fighter officer (Colonel Ironhand Straken) which was also sent off and cast up:

Click the Pix!

In addition to this, I have sculpted a Dwarf Imperial Priest to go with my planned "extra platoon" for my Squat army:

Click the Pic!

He's still waiting to be sent off and will likely join the AK trooper conversions when they are finished. 

Then... things stalled on the sculpting front. I bought a few kits to try and stir up some enthusiasm but only managed a single conversion:

Click the Pic!

It's an Ogryn conversion using one of the new Space Marine Saturnine Terminator suits. I plan (at some point) to add a few more but that depends on how I feel. I also bought some Tyranid Raveners but have only assembled two and "rough base-coated" them.   Then, in a fit of enthusiasm, I decided to paint the Jungle Dwarfs:

Click the Pix!

While painting and finishing these off, Chris at Macrocosm Miniatures unveiled his new Kickstarter that was for the very troops I was painting. You can see the Kickstarter here:

Kickstarter

Now for a bit of other stuff that has probably been part of the reason that I have lost enthusiasm a bit...

First of all, Imgur decided to block the UK from seeing or accessing any images on their photo hosting site, from 30th September 2025. They have hosted my images for eight years; following the Photobucket mess that forced me to switch in the first place. YES I can get access using a VPN but it still means that anyone in the UK can no longer see my images without using a VPN... and also, why would I want to support a platform that just blocked the UK off the cuff and without warning? As a result... all the forums I post on are filled with "Content not viewable in your region" signs, instead of images. Eight years of forum blogs gone! I am yet to decide what to do about the forum and hosting situation...

Next... army list woes. WH40k no longer has "vanilla" Astra Militarum armies... you have to pick a regiment. That meant that I had to make my army Cadians but in order to use some of the weapon options, the additional platoon has now got to be Catachan. Luckily, the Predator team are Catachan and in order to add more to the platoon, I can just paint red berets on my existing troops and call it quits. Not a major issue but frustrating, nonetheless.

The weather has not been kind. It has brought my mood low; as has the clocks going back. I haven't had decent sleep for months and work has been increasingly challenging (Dementia care is a challenging calling). I am currently in a bit of a slump and am hoping for some decent luck to improve my spirits. I still have a list of commissions that I need to finish but my sculpting mojo has deserted me...

... so that's what's been happening and I am always hopeful that the next post will be fairly soon and have at least something worth sharing.

See you from the valley!

Phase one is complete...

 Hello and welcome to Inso's World. This post will be all about my Space Dwarf Army because I have reached the first major milestone... it has all been sculpted, it has all been cast up and converted and it has all been painted. What started as a brief conversation over six years ago, has finally reached this milestone and I reckon that it is worthy of a recap so please feel free to pull up a sandbag because it's a bit of a story...

Around nine years ago, I retired from the Royal Air Force and moved to sunny Cornwall. I hadn't been there long before I thought I'd sculpt something and when I showed it off, people wanted me to share so I decided to get it cast up and would see how it went. The sculpt in question was a pair of legs that shortened a standard Terminator into a Dwarf version. The image shows the legs fitted to GW Terminator bodies. This little foray into the world of selling casts of my own work didn't go brilliantly; selling a dozen sets of five legs and not really making back my costs:

Click the Pic!

Undeterred, I decided to make a small unit of Halfling Snipers to get cast up to both use in my armies and sell some copies. This fared slightly better but I didn't sell all of them and I ended up selling the greens to Checkpoint Miniatures:

Click the Pic!

After this, I continued to build my GW plastic Squat army until there was a competition to sculpt a sci-fi character... so I sculpted my Space Dwarf Berserker:

Click the Pic!

The sculpt didn't win and I felt it would probably be better selling it off... so I did. After this, there was a further competition and I sculpted a pair of Space Dwarfs:

Click the Pic!

Again, these didn't win but I didn't sell them and kept them in my collection... THEN, I got a message from Chris Nicholls (owner of Macrocosm Miniatures), saying that he had bought the Berserker sculpt from the guy I sold it to. I said that I had a couple of greens sitting idle if he wanted them so he bought the two competition sculpts from me. THEN we had a chat and I suggested that it would be cool for me to sculpt a range for him, at my own pace and all I'd need in return would be casts of the sculpts... and the deal was struck! That was about six years ago and led to me sculpting a range:

Click the Pic!

It was a bumpy ride... I had a mental breakdown and was in therapy for three years, caught Long Covid which lasted about 13 months, got side-tracked a few times and lost my mojo a bit but the range kept growing, the sculpts kept getting done and eventually, all of the items on my army list were ticked off. During the process, I was arranging my casts in to units and getting paint on them as I went along... culminating in an army of painted miniatures that is 125 miniatures strong:

Click the Pic!

As well as the army, I painted a few other bits along the way... like Thor, an Adventurer, a Berserker, a Grief Diorama and a few other bits... but they are for another post (maybe)... and the focus is on the army and having all those miniatures painted is the end of Phase One.

Phase Two will be adding tufts to all the bases and varnishing the army... THEN, the army will be finished and ready for Phase Three; the creation of a scenic display base.

However... I am currently basking in the successful completion of Phase One and will get around to starting the next phase when I have cleared some of the sculpting backlog I have managed to build up.

This has been a journey! 

I have received a lot of encouragement along the way, from the hobby community and a few people who are almost as Dwarf obsessed as I am. I certainly couldn't have done it without my friend Chris at Macrocosm Miniatures, who has left me to it and been very patient with my progress!

Six years...

Worth it!

See you from the top of the pedestal!

Mid August? Already?

 Hello and welcome to Inso's World again.

Time is flying by... Birthdays have come and gone... Christenings too... my daughter got engaged... work... and my bike passed its MOT (it had only done 71 miles since the last one so it really was due to pass)... life continues in pretty much the same vein as it usually does... Ticking along, as I usually say.

I managed to go to a small wargames/CCG event, locally... it was a nice little event and it was run by a local charity called Roll the Dice.

The hobby has been rather eventful... I received casts for the greens I showed off in the last post so I have assembled and painted some of them...

Click the Pic!

That's the first of two units consisting of an Engineseer and four Servitors. I have another unit to build and paint but I have been preoccupied with sculpting since then; especially because there were some of the AK rifles in the pack of castings... these are WIP but I am nearly finished with these five "AK Troopers" for Macrocosm Miniatures:

Click the Pic!

Just heads, collars and basing tabs to go now. They should be finished very soon because I am a sculpting maniac at the moment and you have to make hay while the sun shines. Once these ones are finished I have to create a helmet for a set of them so that it can be sent away for mastering... then, when I get some troopers and the helmet back, I can sculpt alternative heads/headgear on some.

In other news, I have a few commissions that are outstanding; namely some small arms for a Rogue Trader sculptor and some weapon arms for some of the Bob Olley Exo armours, for another chap. In the meantime, I have been working on a "secret project" that is ticking along in the background and will be unveiled when it is finished.

On top of that, I was asked to sculpt a Historical figure for Check Point miniatures and ended up with this:

Click the Pic!

It is Grigori Rasputin and was made for their Weird War range... and yes, he's a Dwarf. It is likely that there will be more character models sculpted for that range in the future so watch this space... although I was also building a "Goblin land torpedo" which is on the back-burner until I finish some of the other stuff... here's a WIP:

Click the Pic!

The three "volcanoes" are part of the "secret project", with the land torpedo above ; also showing the tracks underneath.

Since the last blog post, I have also based and converted another platoon of troops for my personal army:

Click the Pix!

It's a Command Squad, three Infantry Squads and a Heavy Weapon Squad (with autocannons). The units are pretty standard with the Infantry Squads having a flamer as a special weapon and the Command Squad having a heavy flamer instead. This platoon won't be part of the end display but will still be counted as part of the army (I just wanted to have some flamers in the army and use some autocannons too).

That's pretty much it... apart from the "secret project" and a special character for the Jungle Dwarfs (WIP):

Click the Pic!

As a result of all the work that is going on, I have stopped taking commissions for the foreseeable future as I have quite a lot to get done!

... my non-drinking continues and as a result, I have now lost over 2 stone (15Kg) in weight... which is a thing... It's nice but I need to keep an eye on it because I didn't plan on the weight loss... so I'm going to have to start eating more pies/pasties/fish & chips; if it goes too far!

See you from the chippy!

Sculpting, painting and a brief step back in time.

 Hello and welcome to Inso's World again. Things have been hectic over the last month and there's lots to get through in this post so I'll get straight to it.

First up, life is ticking along as usual... work at the Day Centre is still great, I'm still getting the occasional shifts in the Cornwall Air Ambulance shop and I'm also getting a lot of hobby time in (at the expense of going out on my motorcycle).

My son has just finished his courses to become a fully substantive Corporal the the Royal Air Force so I am very proud of him. My daughter is working very hard, "cheffing" in the kitchen at the restaurant where she works and I'm very proud of her. My wife is still working hard, managing the playschool where she works and I'm very proud of her.

The cats are still being themselves and that's brilliant.

My motorbike is just sitting in the garage being neglected... something that has to change or it'll die...

Now for some hobby news (takes deep breath)...

First up, I have finished sculpting all the bits and bobs for the Servitor and it has been sent off for casting, along with an "AK47" styled weapon for the next little project:

Click the Pix!

The next little project has started and I currently have five armatures on corks with the first layer of putty on them, waiting for some enthusiasm to get to work on them.

I have also been commissioned to sculpt a few infantry weapons for a different company than usual so there will more news on that once I get into the work on those.

While all the sculpting has been going on, I have received a large batch of miniatures back from Chris at Macrocosm Miniatures and have been busy, prepping and painting them... 

First a pair of Astropaths:

Click the Pic!

These represent the penultimate miniatures in my army project so I've just got the Servitors to go and the army will be finished... although I will need to varnish all the miniatures in the army... and add tufts to the bases... and build the display base for it...

... however, the additional Engineseer needed some paint so he got some:

Click the Pic!

Next we have an Adventurer:

Click the Pic!

He is just a random chap that isn't part of the army but I just wanted to sculpt something different. 

Lastly we have a painted Diorama:

Click the Pic!

I have 20 resin copies of the diorama that will be sold, at some point, to raise money for the Royal British Legion charity. More news on that once I get things sorted.

I have yet to get proper paint on this lot, however, since this photo was taken, they have been properly based and primed... they are the Predator Hunting Team with the Predator (Chaos Dwarf) at the front right:

Click the Pic!

As a result of getting extra hours at work, over the last couple of weeks, I have lost my motivation for sculpting so I haven't really looked at it. This will (hopefully) change after this week as my shifts will return to normal.

In a look back into my youth, I have also spent a couple of hours building this Father's Day gift:

Click the Pix!

It was very enjoyable and really made me remember the joys of assembling Lego! Bearing in mind that when I was younger, I was Lego obsessed, I am hoping that I don't rekindle that "horrendously expensive" obsession to add to the other "horrendously expensive" hobbies that I already have... 

That's the lot, I think. 

In the coming months, I hope to sculpt a small unit of Space Dwarfs (commission), some infantry weapons (commission), convert a few Servitors (when they arrive) and paint up 8 Servitors for the army (when they arrive). Hopefully, my muse hasn't gone on holiday and I can get things done. Only time will tell...

See you from the head of the line!

The 6th of May...

 Hello and welcome to Inso's World again. As promised, I will be adding a few more "reflections from Salute 52", now that I have had a chance to land and look back with a clear, less exhausted, mind.

So here goes...

All the travelling sucked.

Yes, I have travelled afar in my previous life but now that I have settled in Cornwall, my will to travel... or even leave the place... has really died. I found sitting on a train full of people who didn't want to chat, a bit weird and wasn't really happy with the cushioning on the seats either. The air-conditioner wasn't really on top form and the train was packed (luckily I reserved seats for the to/from London train). Thank heavens for Sudoku.

My lack of familiarity with getting around London didn't matter because the underground is very easy to navigate BUT I over spent on unnecessary tickets due to not realising I could just tap my debit card on the Oyster pads. Also, the closure of the Chiltern line, over the weekend, meant a few diversions which added time and uncertainty to the journey.

Overall, I wasn't unhappy with the "travelling tools" at my disposal but the time it took and the cost of travel was hard to rationalise for me. It was a whole weekend of traveling for 5 hours at a show... I could have done a lot of things in the same time, had I not gone.

Sleep?

Nothing to do with the event BUT I had little more than a couple of hours of sleep over the three days of travelling/being away from home. This was caused by a mix of excitement for the show, anxiety about travelling/tickets and my insomnia. It was a real shame because the bed I was "sleeping" in was extremely comfortable. The lack of sleep and all the travelling, coupled with my "post long COVID lungs" and polluted air, meant that I was pretty exhausted before I even got to Salute... which was a shame.

The show.

The South London Warlords put on a cracking event. There was something for everyone, the staff were amazingly helpful and surprisingly friendly considering some of the nonsense that I expect they had to deal with. The venue, as always, was perfect for the show and the food-courts were varied and really not as expensive as I could have expected. The ticket price was very fair and although I arrived a little too late for the extra free miniature, I got a nice little bag of freebies; of which a small part, are on my workbench. If I could think of a negative from the show perspective, it would be a lack of a place in the hall to get a cold drink without having to go out into the food court areas (assuming that there wasn't one that I never noticed)... but that's a really small gripe.

The crowds.

I'll be the first to admit that the crowds bothered me a lot. I wasn't expecting it to be the case but I was quite overwhelmed by the floating masses. I can't fault the courteous nature of people... I experienced no rudeness or bother from anyone at all; in fact, everyone was friendly and willing to chat and those I wanted to interact with, were brilliant. The problem I had with the crowds was the unrelenting nature of them. I am not one to sharpen my elbows and push-in so I found that I was standing around in a bit of a daze for a lot of the show... waiting to steer around people to get to areas I wanted to go. As a result, I lost my bearings completely and had to look at the map a lot more than I would have expected. The daze also meant that I missed going to stalls that I wanted to visit, didn't realise some of them were there at all, forgot about others I planned to visit and became so overwhelmed by everything that I felt I had to leave the event earlier than I wanted to.

When I tried to find a quiet spot, away from the crowds, it was like I was being followed by people who just wanted to be in the space I was in... so I felt like I couldn't escape... and the longer it went on, the more anxious I was getting.

... and the crowds didn't die down... they remained pretty constant throughout the whole time I managed to remain at the event. It was great for the show but too much for me.

I had a nightmare trying to find people that I planned to meet up with. It was lucky that most of them found me, even though I was really trying to find them. I had some lovely chats with them and met some people for the first time, even though we'd been chatting for years on Facebook. I missed a few people that I really wanted to see but I was so overwhelmed by the event that it was inevitable that I wouldn't see everyone... and at the end, I ejected so rapidly that I didn't have time to shout out a warning so missed others who may have wanted to connect.

It would appear that living in a quiet Cornish town has had a dramatic effect on my ability to deal with large gatherings of people.

The vendors.

I really can't fault a single one! Every vendor was happy to chat (when the crowds allowed it) and I was able to enthuse about their products or listen to them enthuse about them. I connected with lots of people I knew from past Salutes, met new ones and did a bit of networking and chatted with people about new products that I hadn't seen before. The stalls were interesting, well laid out and there were many little add-ons / freebies floating about if you wanted to find them (like the colouring table at Bad Squiddo Games, for example).

Overall or TLDR...

The event was brilliant, the people were brilliant, the stalls were brilliant, the crowds sucked, the travelling sucked and my ability to deal with crowds hampered my enjoyment of the day a little.

Would I go to another one?

If I was to go to another Salute, I would need to be lodging nearer the event to save on travel time. I would need to go with someone who could take my mind off the crowds and I would need to find a way of getting some bloody sleep! If I managed to arrange that, then I would go again... but not for a couple of years because I need to land properly.

The End?...

On to other things... and I have a week off work! That means that I have had a lot of sculpting time and have been busy sorting out a Servitor and another Engineseer. This is the Engineseer (all primed, ready for paint):

Click the Pic!

... and this is the WIP Servitor:

Click the Pic!

The Servitor still needs a bit of tidying up and also three heavy weapons sculpting... but it's really getting there now.

In OTHER, other news... this Thursday is Flora Day; my favourite day of the year. I will be out a lot over the next couple of days so there won't be much hobby going on but it will be for a good cause... my enjoyment!

In less happy news, it has been three years since I lost my handsome Sam on 6th May... I miss him very much...

Click the Pic!

...

...

See you from the heart of the community!

Salute 52 plus other animals.

 Hello and welcome to Inso's World again... and this post is going to be a little longer than usual because of Salute 52 and a bunch of other stuff that has been going on since the last one.

So... here goes...

First up, this:

Click the Pic!

The above image is of the Space Dwarf army box and as you can see, everything in it is painted! That's right, I painted the whole contents of the box. At some point soon, I'll have another few miniatures to fill the Astropath and Servitor components (six miniatures in all), especially seeing as I have finally got a design sorted for the Servitors and am in the process of sculpting one... and that will be the army finished!

While I was looking at the troops, I felt that a couple of the Advisors were a bit "out of theme" so I decided to convert a couple more. These were purely for my army so I quickly painted the conversions and added them to the army:

Click the Pix!

The (painted) guys on the left are the new Airforce and Artillery Advisors. They replaced the "sweary" artillery Advisor and the Airforce Advisor that represents me in miniature form (the one wearing glasses with a dog leaning on him). They had extra patches and insignia that didn't fit with the rest of the army so they needed to go.

In related news, I have a WIP Servitor on the bench that ACTUALLY looks like it may have a chance of being finished and looking the part. I don't have any pix of it because I don't want to jinx it... but so far, it looks promising so watch this space. That said, I won a VERY cheap lot on Ebay that may or may not have influenced the direction that I have chosen...

Click the Pic!

Now lets talk about the big adventure to Salute 52, at the Excel centre in London Docklands.

Friday 11th April:

Bus from Helston, Cornwall at 08:17hrs. Train from Redruth, Cornwall at 09:41hrs. Tube from Paddington to Marlylebone and then on the Chiltern line to Aylesbury... finally arriving at around 17:30hrs. An evening in the company of my father-in-law followed by a sleepless night in a very comfy bed, worrying about tickets and things...

Saturday 12th April:

Train replacement bus from Aylesbury at 07:50hrs. Tube from Amersham to Liverpool Street Station, then Bank, then the DLR over to Station House and the Excel centre for Salute 52, arriving at around 09:45hrs.

Finding the queue was easy and once the event opened at 10:00hrs, it took about ten minutes to get into the event. As is usually the case, the South London Warlords did a cracking job of organising the event and it seemed to go very smoothly. 

Once inside, I realised that I had not considered the effect that having so many people around me might have on me... OBVIOUSLY, living in a quiet town has ruined my ability to cope with crowds so I sort of went into a bit of a zombie-mode. I was trying to meet up with a few people but ended up being found by people, rather than finding them. Luckily, I got to meet up with almost all of the people I planned to but sadly, I missed a couple of them which was a real shame... however I managed to dish out a few keyrings that I prepared so that was a good thing:

Click the Pic!

Here's the queue outside in special "blurry vision" and the only selfie I took, once I got inside the event:

Click the Pix!

The best bit of the show was meeting up with people and chatting... closely followed by seeing the "Bunny Badger Gaming" table, that I had made a couple of miniatures for, being used in anger as a "turn-up and play" gaming table:

Click the Pix!

I was particularly impressed when I found out that the table went and won the "Most Innovative Game" award which is brilliant for the guys after all the work that went into the table, the rules and manning the game during the day. 

As well as reconnecting with friends from past events and finally meeting friends that I've been chatting to on Facebook for YEARS, I also did a bit of networking and chatted with a lot of the stall owners... as well as also meeting Annie's (from Bad Squiddo Games) mum and we had a lovely chat about her recent trip down to Cornwall. A big thank you to everyone I met; I won't name names but I really appreciate everyone who took the time to find me and share a bit of time for a chat.

... I had planned to stay until the event closed...

... but at !5:00hrs, the wheels fell off and a very tired Inso decided he had to get the flip out of Dodge and get back to Aylesbury. The tiredness, the travelling and the massive crowds, finally took their toll and I needed to make for the DLR and go back to Aylesbury.

OBVIOUSLY, while pottering around the event, dodging people and watching the skies for invaders, I managed to buy a few bits and bobs so here's "the haul" (along with the freebies):

Click the Pic!

A Mammoth Walker, 20 paint brushes, 3 packs of basing tufts, a highland Space Dwarf, a "Salute 52" mug, 16 variously sized wheels, a sprue of Quar (free), a "Salute 52" Highlander miniature (free), "Salute 52" dice (free), some stickers (gifted) and some samples (free)... and not pictured, the Salute carrier bag and programme (free). 

Not a massive haul but enough... end everything I planned to buy; plus a bit extra.

Three hours later at around 18:00hrs, I was back in Aylesbury having a cuppa and chatting with my Father-in-law.

Sunday 13th April:

On the train replacement bus from Aylesbury to Amersham at 07:50hrs, then over to Paddington Station for the trip home to Cornwall... finally arriving at Redruth at around 18:00hrs to be collected by my lovely wife for the last half an hour drive home.

Reflections:

First of all, the event was a brilliant success. There were big crowds, lots of games, lots of traders and all sorts of other bits and bobs to keep you entertained... a triumph for the South London Warlords.

The Excel Centre had plenty of places to get food and drink and (once stamped) you could leave and enter Salute to get fed and watered freely... and the prices weren't ridiculous either (city prices but not CITY PRICES!!!).

I tried to find people but was so distracted by the crowds that I was found by them instead. I missed a few people and a few traders because of the crowds and I have been quite surprised to see some of the traders in photos that I never realised were there. The meet-ups were great and it was lovely to chat and share news. I talked to some traders I've never met and have got a few people interested in possibly commissioning me at some point so that is cool. I am sad about not meeting up with everyone I planned to but I must admit that I was REALLY distracted by the crowds. I think that I've become more of a "small town" chap than I thought.

Travelling about was easy and I have no complaints... but the time I spent on getting to Salute and home again was a big investment for what turned out to be five hours at the event. I would have to think very hard about whether I would repeat it in the future.

On the whole, it was well worth going and I really enjoyed the event. I wish I had been able to sleep, I wish I didn't get so tired out (my post "long Covid" lungs and air pollution DON'T mix) and I wish I wasn't so distracted by the crowds but them's the breaks.

I will probably write another post once I've properly landed again.

I reckon that's about all I have to say (for now).

See you from the pit!