Impact 2017 - great times.....

Just got back from Impact 2017. The venue was well packed with a diverse selection of traders and display tables, and I might be wrong, but with 6 euros entry it was cheaper compared to last year? I could swear it was 7 euros then. (though a few traders or clubs will be in for a nasty surprise as I spotted a few cars beside the venue that had been ticketed for not paying for parking - 63,50 euros each. Ouch! ). This year, you got a few tickets with your entry fee that would be used for the raffle, and every hour they announced new numbers for a free item. Really nice toutch! Als the goodie bag was well stocked with little items. A few candybars, a free mini from Warmonger Miniatures, some fliers for shows and discounts, a Warlord 28mm US Marines sprue and a nice sheet of pre embossed styrodur. And a resin base as well, but I forgot who made that (I gave it to some friends from Tilburg who actually use those).

Beautiful weather too (which can be a good/bad thing for a show) and with Kim taking the car and the kids to my parents, I took the train to Eindhoven and walked to the convention centre (it would be daft to have gone by car anyway, a trainticket costs as much as 1 hour of parking in Eindhoven, with fuelcosts on top..... ).

Anyway, a well packed venue, with shops in the outer ring and games in the middle. There seemed to be a bit of everything, with most popular games well represented by the shops but with loads of other stuff as well. After picking up the things I had pre ordered first, I browsed the shops for a bit and after that, the smallish Bring & Buy, which turned out to be the place where I was to spend the most dosh. After that it was nothing but pure eyecandy, lots of effort being put in the games and tables.

I had a nice and long chat with Sander at the bar, who had his 6 year old son with him, with a fine discussion over a Belgian beer (and a iced tea for his son) and some swapping of purchases and freebies as some of our interest overlap. When he went to get some final bits I had a lengthy discussion with his son about how Sander paints and how he actually paints quicker then his father, though not always with the desired result. Brilliant, if I can half of that chat with my girls when they turn 6 I'd be happy as a clam. After that they left for a trip to Eindhoven and back home again.

I then had a long chat with Ferry and his son Maarten about Gaslands, games development, the hobby online and how expensive life is :D Maarten left after a bit to join the scrapheap challenge, and after a bit we both had another small tour of the show, discussed the game Tanks! as being a nice game for him and his son and then we parted ways. I feel I will have to organise a evening event in Tilburg in the near future just for Gaslands, as Ferry and a few others are very interested in it.

Since I really suck at remembering peoples names if I only see them a couple of times a year chats can be a bit akward, as i never forget a face so I know he or she, I just can't put a name to them. It's nice to hear people have no problem remembering me or my name, my Blog and my work, so I must be doing something right. People were quite impressed with the Japanese buildings, which was nice, so I need to get that tutorial up next week.

I cut it short at around 14:30 as I really need to study for tomorrows exam, hence I'm now blogging at the ungodly hour of 17:00 with a sandwich at my side.

Right, the haul. Again, I have foccused purely on what I want to use in the very near future, and some bits I can resell or swap/trade with others. In the end, after expenses, I spent just shy of 40 euros, and when I sell what I don't need right now that should balance out nice enough.

In no particular order I bagged (and my apolagies for the odd angles of some of the pictures, these are all taken with my phonecam and those pics and the Paint software seem to be at odds with each other. I can save a picture straight up and it will show on its side or inverted when I upload. When I correct it in paint and upload it again it sometimes works, sometimes does not. Quite annoying but I don't want to shit here all night editing, sorry! Also, some pics are fuzzy, thats 100% my fault :D ).

 <Freebie> Warlord US Marines sprue > Going straight in my TNT bits box for repurposing in conversions

<Freebie> As most of my friends do no scratch build, the free samples of Styrodur all ended up in my bag. I'll put them to good use, want to have a stab at finishing the Japanese shrine monday or tuesday and these are perfect for that.

Shitty pic, sorry about that. Hans bought some zombies off me and gave me this skinned teddybearfur as a freebie to try out. Enough here for a small house and then some left over bits for some experimenting. He did mention though he prefers to use cheap towels for this as they are easier to work with. We'll see how this works out....

Second hand purchase - 1 out of a lot of many partially assembled/disassembled Star Wars fighters - this one came closest to 1/72 for me so I bought it. Landing gear is ripped off so will need some TLC, new bits and a new PJ.

Damn you Paint program. Anyway, 2mm I beams to make Czech hedgehogs with. I've seen L and I beams used and I think the I beam is just a tad stronger in scale. Not sure how to bae them yet, in groups or seperate......

Second hand purchase - 2 Matchbox Panzer IIIL new in box. Will make excellent wrecks/parts donors.

Second hand purchase - Ehm, late WW1 truck-thingie? Will be built as is and used as scenic piece for Pulp games in 20mm.

Second hand purchase - 28mm Perry Japanese porters. Now all I need is a merchant to go with them and they will make a great objective.

I don't think this needs any explaining..... Miniature SM dungeon you say? Nope, for adding to the front of tanks of course.

 <Freebie> A goblin coming out of a pot and a shield. I traded the shield away and I'll cut the goblin from the pot. The goblin will then be sent off and I will keep the pot.

Very fuzzy pic (sorry about that) of a Copplestone spy, and a Northstar Police Oficer and 3x the Yakuza muscle for Big Trouble in Little China Pulp. All 28mm.

A cowboy with a rifle and one with his hands up. Just....because? I want to see if I can paint a cowboy. Just for funsies.

I think these are 28mm Japanese Foundry Officers? Well, they will now become statues in Hong Kong, for Pulp reasons.

28mm Norhtstar and others Monks and a Samurai.

28mm Terracotta warriors. Either I'll use these for Hong Kong Pulp, or put them up for sale as they are OOP could help me with the finances. Not sure yet.

 28mm GW Praetorian casualties. Picked these up purely for resale tbh.

 28mm GW Tyrranid Red Terror. Beastie for Frostgrave, Sci-Fi and Pulp. Strip, build, paint.

Resin 28mm scatter scenery. A box of porto potties is actually 4 pcs but I traded 2 with Sander. 2 is enough for a table, or as he said it, you are not having a rock concert. I'm rally liking this TT Combat stuff. Well priced, excellent resin and well cast too. Barrels are from Baueda.

<Freebie> Anvil frag cannon.....also going straight into the TNt box for future conversions.

 And that was it. I saw plenty of other stuff, but it's a few more months till the next show and I want to try to get most painted before that (famous last words....). Well, at least the scenery anyway.

A day well spent, not too expensive, plenty of chats with friends and people I know or follow me on my Blog or Forums, also plenty of eye candy and ideas. Yes, a day well spent. Now, off to study.

Smell the fresh country air!

Well, maybe not....

Again, heavily leaning on what Jimbibbly makes, mine is  a tad wider but it works, a Japanese outhouse.I think I will make a another one, these take very little effort and can be found in the fields as well.

The big building is fighting me all the way atm (hence I put it aside and made an outhouse).

 Needs woodpanneling, maybe another window on the lower floor? Extra sanding on the roof to make the roof shape fit better. We'll get there.

Front is almost finished, but also needs a window on the top somewhere? Doordetails have to be done too.

And here be dragons! 50 cents for the pair, both (lightly) damaged, so I based them and they will do nicely for Frostgrave of dungeoneering or a cultist hideout. Just needs some sand and other base details.

And lastly, with my apolagies for the terrible picture, a small idol carved in some sort of stone (it didn't look like resin) after cleaning dirt off of it. Based it, will do nicely as a African/South American idol, covered with moss, plants and grasses. Should do fine for 20mm and 28mm alike, and great for Pulp.

I'm now downloading and editing posters and fliers suitable for Gaslands to put up on billboards that I will be massproducing soon.....eating up a lot of time but as always, the look supports the game.

I have just doubled the amount of peasants in my village!

From 1 to 2 :D This farmer can afford 2 rooms in his house..... I've noticed I'm copying heavily from Jimbibbly's work (well, the models he sells at Oshiro), so much so, that I have cancelled my order with Warlord for the house, rice stores (and oild drums). I feel that the 200 Pounds spent there is better sent to Oshiro for things like lanterns etc, and I'm perfectly capable of producing my own quality buildings for a lot less and to my personal taste and style.

I just realised I will also need to build a few outhouses....

Other then that, nothing new. I picked up a few more broken toy trucks, and salvaged the wheels and useful parts, and part of my Caliver order arrived today, a box of PSC A9 Cruisers and a box of 25 Pounders. Sadly, this meant 1 box is on backorder but that is for my late War English so no problem there. Also, I seem to have collected all the aircraft I need for the British and German in the Desert now but I will do a post on that at a later date. Right now I'm working on building number 3 and I already fucked up one wall so yeah.....(managed to fix it though).

Productive weekend

First up, I've been spending real money. Since the type of kits you can trade is a bit limited (tend to be older and/or cheaper kits) I've paid for a pick up order at the next show I'm going to (a kit builders convention at the Overloon museum next weekend). Some kits for my 8th Army-to be, a truck for my DAK-to be and some bargain bin PSC boxes at half price on top of a order of PSC stuff from the UK. I really should stop buying stuff!

To prevent myself from buying stuff I'm just going at it, a lot. That way I'm not or very little online and can focus mostly on what I am building, and when I am online I just listen to podcasts or list stuff for sale. It's not perfect though.

A few weeks back I bought some prebuilt scenery for Samurai games (did I already mention this? I can't remember) and they arrived loose in a box, thus damaged, and they were shoddy built as well, so I put them back up for sale and it was bought and picked up a few days ago. I had picked up the Bushi Buntai (from Northstar) from a sale from a local shop as well, only to get an email from Northstar telling me Sarissa Japanese buildings are 10% off and free shipping over 10 Pounds......well, that hooked me. So, the money I got from the sale plus an extra tenner netted me a nice simple building, 2 rice stores (and a sprue of 28mm scale oil barrels, but those are for TNT). I want the building and the rice stores as the base and expand from there.

FFW to this morning, and I thought, why not try and build me a small shed/poor farmers shack. I've seen tons of stuff from Jimbibbly so plenty of inspiration. So, with a bit of scrap foamboard, some cardboard, swizzle sticks and a couple of matches, and quite a bit of time, I created this:

Foamboard block - scraps from a big foamboard I picked up somewhere ages ago. Turned out this black stuff is very, very hard to cut, nothing like the cheap white stuff I have. 40mm to the rooftop, 30mm for the walls. But it didn't feel right......

 So I raised it by 5mm with a piece of foamboard. Looks better now.

 Matches for the beams, and swizzle sticks for the door and the main spar to support the roof.

I didn't bother to cut out the windows - paint em black and it works too, the roof will be fixed and you can't get inside anyway.

I made a thin cardboard roof first, glued that in place as a base for the wood panelling, glued those in place (I've started using Modge Podge....it's not very sticky in the beginning but sets really fast so I can speed things up).

And then I doused the roof in cheap superglue to solidify everything. The rocks have been epoxied and then coated in superglue as well.

Compared to the bases I use (coins or 2mm MDF) it looks allright. As usual, I'don't use a base (or only very mininal) so I'll coat the black bits with gesso now to fill the holes and cracks.

Does anyone know if these houses are plastered or what kind of material do the use for the walls?

Anyway, it's built, I've learned a lot and the whole thing cost me a tiny bit of foamboard, half a dozen matches, 2 toothpicks and a handful of swizzle sticks. So....about 30 cents worth of material and glue? Now to actually paint it.

I've been hitting the 2nd hand shops again, managed to find 2 more tractors loads like the first one for 1 euro, plus 2 trucks plus trailers for 40 cents so I've been making tire piles.

Basically meant for Gaslands, they will work fine for TNT and RT as well, or stacked in a junk yard, 20mm or 28mm, and are good for roadblocks as well in both scales.

20mm on the left, 28mm on the right. All the tires have been filled with foam and sand and glue on top, with a healthy dose of superglue to seal it. Epoxied them to the bases, now that they have set I can trim them all down.

And that's it for today as it's now 4 in the morning....<bleep>