A spire, a spire! A kingdom for a spire!

All good towers have a spire. Even my ruined one.....needs a spire. Just not on top of it :)

So, with a bit of inspiration from a church fire we had a while back:

I went to town, as they say.....

 Yes, it does look a lot like a wooden Star Destroyer, thanks. :)

Old tower, new tower

New on the left, old on the right (duh)

What a difference a few extra years of skill and tools makes, ey? I'll most likely recycle the old tower in a future build for Mordheim, I think.

Tower of a little less power

As the build was originally La Maisontaal, well, why not add a tower? I was making some block houses out of scrap foam for the girls so they can paint them (nice combo of hobby, doing something for the girls and making something nice out of scrap waste styrofoam)

I did a little math, it took me about 3 full 8 hour working days to get where I am now with this part of the build. Commercially, not worth it, but fun none the less.

So, you start of with some scrap blocks of foam, and I planned in a walkway to go up to the top along the outside.

Cleaning up after new years means I have tons of wooden from the fire arrows (or whatever they are called in English) so I can keep doing this for a loooong time.

But, while progess was good, once the various platofmr s were made and ready to be connected by stairs.....it just looked utter shite! A quick chat or 3 with my mates, and out came the jewellers saw....

 A few cuts and voila, everything gone but a platform on the front. or is it the back? From there, add planks, add bricks, add more bricks, add even more bricks......

 The fun part is torching the wooden bits. :) Brings out the inner pyro in me

 Every join has a wooden dowel through t (ok, cut down toothpicks, but a dowel is a dowel, or would you like to buy a vowel?) and most of them have the same again through the base as well (even the fake broken bit you see there). This thing is now solid as a ....well, house?

Yeah, looks the part, happy with that. 9/10 done now, final detailing during or after the weekend I think, give the desk and the floor a good cleaning tomorrow as there are slivers of wood and foam everywhere now and I need to get other work done as well.

Ab imo pectore

Blowing up (out?) the roof!

Took a afternoon off just to build a bit on the not-La Maisontaal, and since I can't find (enough) material for the shingles, I've set my sights on what the hell happend here. So, an explosion or 2 I reckon should do what it needs to cause this sort of damage. Told you not to get fire too close to these "spices", Albert.....

Wanted to make a section of roof completely blown off, with a light squash to the sides, and a door in the wallsection....just to have a spawnpoint for *insert monster of the day or door to a stash, or a entry point for Ratty & Co.

So, after a superquick sketch to check the concept, and a few quick cuts with my Proxxon, I got the basics, and just went to town from there. Really wish I could work faster, but I prefer this glue which sets fast but not as fast as a hot glue gun, but it bonds everything really well so it becomes really tough. My hands aren't helping either, the shaking got really bad near the end so I took a nice long break and did a bit more work just now in the evening, including cutting and sanding a base for it.

Well, hope you like. Needs some more work tomorrow evening for the final planking and gritting, and then work a bit on another bit of roofsection, but purely as a barricade-sort-of-thingy.

Hope you like. It keeps me and my head occupied at least :)

La Maisontaal....needs a new name.

 Added in a chimeny, which went well. Added in arches in stone....which went shit. Added the roof, the burned parts of it (on purpose). Building on the fly is fun, but a bit more planning would be nice tbh. Already have 2 partially built bases from last year lined yup after this, when this is done (and painted!) I'll have a sit down and put some ideas some ideas to paper. Would be nice if I could find the old tower I made for La Maisontaal as well, but I'll be damned if I know where it is.

Lot's more to do, and a story is building, but not sure if I'm going with a Merchantshouse for exotic wares (explaining the blocked off storage area underneath the living area) or.....what?

Her's some pics to keep you entertained.

Hope you are. I'm also working on my years old 10mm Afghan comission (Rob is a really nice gent and never puts me down por being a slow as a frozen Chipmunk) and I'm aiming to have those built and plastered somewhere in the week, but pictures of that at a later date.

Terminated

Well, thus ends my final day at my current job. Boss didn't come and say goodluck, nobody arranged anything for my keys and passes so I just left them on my desk for my chef, I shook some hands with gloomy people and that was it. I can't remember having such a weird and uncaring last day at the job, ever!

Well, nothing I can do about it. Next up is waiting a few weeks to be called up for checks, and until then I'm going to make every day count by doing my best to clean out my storage locker asap and store what I want to sell and keep, and trash the rest into the bin, and terminate the lease. After that, it is all hands on deck to swap out the hobby and kids room, so getting the hobby room cleaned out is a high priority. When the kids are away for almost a week (to be planned) we, well, I mostly, can move the kids stuff into this room and and when that is done and sorted, make sure to get the new hobby room asap as well....working on the kitchen table is fun with mates but I need a proper room with lights.

I do worry that I will try and overextend myself to get the job done asap. My knee is giving me a hard time and I'm doing my best to ease up on it but this is a task that has to be done now and has to be done fast, as I want to get help, get training and get back to work in less then 6 months time preferably. Before I turn 40 at the latest.

So, what changes for the hobby? While I'm sorting the rooms, no painting. Building at the kitchen table will be possible, so more work to be done on the foamboard stuff. No buying (no change there) and focus on selling, AFTER I finish installing everything in the new room and I'm taking down stuff from the attic one box at a time. No point in trying to sell stuff now as I'm not focussed on that. I'm expecting a shipment of 3mm tanks in 2weeks time and I'm waiting for a friend to use his lasercutting skills to produce all of the bases I need plus more. Other then that, my 2 other wishes (the TNT rulebook and the new Battlegroup book) have been sorta sorted for now.....Piers can help me with Battlegroup, and the TNT rulebook can wait as I have to give the sample rules a few test runs with Erik. This means I have no planned purchases. I do have some wire and a few bottles of paint on my list, but I can pick those up at the Impact show on the 3rd of April. I'm actually thinking of culling the herd quite radically after I move into the new room. There is only so much room to fill and so many games I want to play.

You know, being sensible :)

My Oyumaru order arrived so I can now make more 3mm moulds so I can make more conversions, and, as it seems, tanks in sandbagged positions as it turns out the Iraqi ones didn't move a lot.

Speaking of 3mm, I've been reading and researching on the internet and what I read sofar isn't a lot of good to be honest. I can see why people think this is a good scale for massed battles, but just painting them green and putting them on green bases and calling them done or using elaborate basing labels is not something I'm willing to do. Ok, you can't see much of what I do on the table, but at least contrast the camo with the ground cover so you can see them. Good Blogs or websites on 3mm are very, very scarce, but I'm reading up on this one right now > Very Tiny Wars A good read I think, with plentiful posts. Air gaming is way better represented online.

Tonight we have a hobby night with the guys instead of gaming, so I'm hoping to either get stuff done for La Maisontaal or prep some more concrete blocks for sale. Either will do me good.

A whole lot of text this post was. At least I'm looking forward to the future, no matter how uncertain it might be right now.

Trying out something new - La Maisontaal wooden floor

While building the foamboard ruin I noticed after making such a cool looking piece that I could not reach everywhere easily with a brush (which is the reason why it stands on my desk semi painted right now) and I do not want to repeat that mistake again.

So, tonight I spent some time on making a wooden, seperate floor for the bigger of the 2 Maisontaal ruins. Seperate, because I can reach the floor space easier with all of the tiling, and because I want to stain the wood with a wood stain to give it some colour instead of basecoating it black and then having to paint it. Well, that is the general idea anyway. I've never really done this before.

All sateh sticks for breams and swirrel sticks for flooring, superglued together for strenght and the 2 colums in the front have been notched so it slides in. Also did all of the remaining tiling. Will do the same next week with the smaller building.

Tomorrownight will be about glueing stuff for Frostgrave and a small comission for Post Apocalyptic purposes.

Did you think things could not get any worse?

Did you think things could not get any worse?

My chef told me I had a meeting at 10. How odd, I had received no email? At the meeting room was HRM, my manager and his manager. Nothing unusual, just like the last meeting about my recovery.

"In light of the circumstances we will not be renewing your contract on March the 7th. Any questions?"

BAM! Out of the blue. Instant knockout, they had me literally gasping for breath. No, no questions, I was too shocked. HRM then asked if I was making improvements with my health. I said I did.

And that was it. Went back to my desk, told my chef I just got laid off, and he just said I could have seen it coming. This after the last warning I had 8 months ago, and then improving my productionspeed with 25-30%. Hardly ever internetting anymore, so not taking a small break every 30-60 minutes meant my nervers were getting frayed at work. So WTF I should have seen it coming?! I said I was leaving, he would tell HRM and my manager that I would go home and I just left, I didn't want to be there anymore, that place.

On the way home, I felt sad and relieved at the same time. Let's be honest, the job was incredibly mind numbing, everybody there seems to make a living complaining about everything (even more so then the typical Dutch) and the entire management couldn't find their way out of a paper bag cause they are so damn clueless/ignorant/aloof to the everyday problems over and over again. Honestly, who gives away free managerspositions here? Apply only if you are Asian and completely retarded and your life long dream is to shaft your fellow managers and staff?

So no real loss :)

The lack of income however is a problem, so I know have the dubious honour of applying for welfare, again, and choosing a quick job just to pay the bills or live with less for a while and retrain myself and look for a job that suits my particular skills and enthusiasm and company loyalty (mine flew out the moment they told me I have no more job)

This, however, is a problem to tackle during daylight hours, now is hobby time.

So, I'm now working on a model of the Abbey La Maisontaal from Warhammer fame. (Why? Because I can and I wanted some stuff for Mordheim and Frostgrave to try out). I've looked long and hard at the only picture from the White Dwarf that I have, plus the excellent WIP version seen on the LAF, and freehanded most of it. Here is where I am now, and in red I painted what I still need to do (some walls, gate, towerruin).

 Made the one with the crypt as a non accessible crypt, the front door is barred from the inside and I will pile rubble against the door in the back. Saves me from making a take out floor and roof. The other large building I made a full on ruin. And I just realised I have reversed it in the picture, the intact wall should be facing the courtyard....doh! Will build the tower and the gate somewhere during the weekend to get the basic shell done, and then I can start adding all of the card stones on the sides and widow-/doorframes. Here are some more shots as it stands now.

The tiling I made from thick card I got at work from the bin. It is a big piece (well, several really) that will last me for some time but I only really need for this project as it is too thick to be useful for other things. Still, looks neat, and needs some additional tiling in the hallway. Might even do the part on the right side.