Dick Churchill

As a kid I watched the film of The Great Escape pretty much every year. It was a Christmas staple. The message I took from it was that in times of turmoil take solace in your purpose and quietly raise a couple of fingers at those who would do you down. There was a print out of the poster for the film on my wall for many years. I guess it is a nice piece of fiction. Whistling "Colonel Bogey" became a habit of mine when dealing with crap at work (my whistling is so bad nobody ever knew).

But a fiction it was in the most part. One of the truths in it was that many of the escapees were murdered by the Nazis. The first time I saw the film my jaw dropped. Unlike some of the other details in the film this bit was true.

Not many got to safety and of those that didn't not many survived. Dick Churchill was a damned lucky man by his own account. Of the seventy six men that escaped, seventy three were recaptured. Churchill considered himself lucky that he was not one of fifty that were executed. Sharing a surname with the then Prime Minister led to the Germans decision not to have him shot, saving him for possible leverage later on.

Despite the loss of life he felt the break out was worth the cost. Churchill had been a squadron leader and flew in medium bombers. He wanted to get out and get back into the war. This was despite the terror of going through the tunnel. I get the feeling from listening to him that he felt that there were times that things needed to be done and when it came they should be done properly.

It is true to say that most of my heroes are anything but. Dick Churchill however was a great man, if a little lucky.

The New, New Cruelty

About two years ago I came up with an idea to motivate myself. It is easy for me to focus on somethings and not on others and in the round I know I need to give a little time to all. For me this became difficult so I set myself a list of things to do each week with the intention of keeping to most of them, most of the time. Nothing too slavish but enough to give me a steer on what I should be doing. I called this The New Cruelty. The name comes from a Nazi themed restaurant In Steve Martin's film, L.A. Story, which is one of my all time fave films. It features Patrick Stewart (yes the guy that played Picard) as the maitre'd barking at guests and telling them what they could and could not have off the menu.

So as I am turning things around with the blog it made me think about the idea and that maybe it was time to revamp it. Things have changed in my life so things have probably changed with my approach to the New Cruelty.

1) Paint five 28mm figures (minimum) in a week or the equivalent thereof in other scales. By the end of the year I must have caught up on what I have missed so there must be at least 260 figures complete.  I aim to get ten per week done. 
2) Participate in at least one game of something per week be that wargame, RPG or board game.
3) Surf the net for less than four two hours a day (ouch). Tougher one than last time I was looking at this. Anything relating to my blog does not count.
4) Exercise is something I need to keep up with. I have a target on the FitBit. Whilst it is acceptable to miss targets on any given day I will meet the overall target for the week. I can't take the dog for a good long walk any more as the ex got custody of the dog.
5) Write ten blog posts per month. It was once per day when I initially started this but that was the idea for the year that year. No way I can keep up that pace. If at all possible and I can do a post around every other day I will get to a thousand posts by the end of the year.
6) Stop intending to do things and do things instead (well this still stands although I feel I have got more of a handle on things at the moment). 
7) Work out and stick to a morning and night time ritual.
8) Take vitamins etc.
9) If there is something that I need to do, write in a blog post so that it will get done (this is perhaps the most painful aspect of The New Cruelty).
10) Do something every day that helps me find a job and that advances one of my life goals.
11) Get out of the house and do something interesting or worthwhile at least once per week.
12) Eat less crap.

So some stuff has changed but maybe not too much. My life priorities are still pretty much the same with the exception of the last three points. Maybe I need to tighten this up a bit so I can use it a little better. Maybe next week.

Shedding Light (Well Lamps)

My eyesight seems to be getting worse. A few years ago I started to need reading glasses and it was never much good anyway. I have been using a magnifying lamp for years and this helps my figure painting become acceptable rather than a bit blobby. Still, I do okay I think.

When I was in the process of setting up the table I went to find my old lamp. The picture below shows you what I found. it was a bit of a blow. It was a great lamp. Good magnification and the anglepoise made it pretty much perfect. On top of that it was mispriced when I got it and it cost less than half price. An absolute bargain. It's well over ten years old and has seen some action.

Even more of a blow as I am a little short of money at the moment. So it came as a pleasant surprise when I found this in Aldi for £20. It's a fair but smaller, not anglepoise and for the most part the magnification is not quite as good.

Cheap has a quality all of its own. For something this cheap it works well enough. There is enough posability to make it work. The lens, although not massive is comfortable and has a sweet spot which, whilst small, is probably better than what I had. All in all a good waste of £20. If you need a lamp it is well worth the money.

I did find a couple of alternatives at Hobbycraft. they do look much better but are more exspensive

Operation Clear Out

Every now and again I come across that something that reminds me of how old I am and how far I have come. When it happens I always have a little bit of a smile on my face. It is now time to get rid of some of the stuff that I am never going to use again.

Perhaps I am beginning to think I might have a slight hoarding problem. Not a massive one but maybe enough that I need to have a clear out. So I have been doing this for the last few weeks. It has been hard for some of it and maybe not so hard for others. This was perhaps not so hard but it did make me think back.

Some of what I have is stuff that belonged to my mum and dad but the majority is mine. Some good memories and some not so good. One of the things I found was a box of terrain. It is all stuff that has been sat in a box for at least fifteen years. As I probably wouldn't use it now, my skills have moved on a bit, I don't really play the game I made it for anymore, I thought it was time to get rid.

The first to go are some hedges and stone walls. I am pretty sure that this was the first actual wargame terrain I ever made. This dates it to about 1983 or maybe 1984. When I realised that I had a bit of a shock. It last came out of a box in anger  in the last millenium. On top of that the hedging is starting to disintegrate. It did get a lot of use at one point and way back when it was pretty good compared to what my mates were using. Still time to go.

A fair bit later I got into playing Command Decision. Whilst initially it was all 1/300 World War 2 I got into my own Spanish Civil War game which was in 15mm. I built a load of entrenchments for it (the thing on the right). The wooden walls are actually an imprint of a plastic railway fence cut to the right size. The green flocked bases were barbed wire sections which I think I made with fuse wire and later replaced it with the wire often used for barbed wire. It has been a long time since I used flock and Basetex for basing stuff and I can see why.

Having come on a long way and having long since seen it's prime it is time to go. I am a little sad to see it go but the time has come.

A New Workbench

I have been without a workbench for almost a year now. Post clearout I now have some space for a workbench in my bedroom. Whilst it's not what I want I guess it's close enough. To be fair, I have never had what I want so I think this will do for now.

Right now I can see a point in the future where I will look back on this day and be complaining that I don't have enough space, as much space or any space at all. In the meantime I should be thankful for small mercies.

Looking back at some of the iterations of the bench (here, here and here) including looking at the background for the page I am pretty sure that this is not the best. But I am happy that I have something.

These a few pictures if you are interested.

End Of The Week - The First In A While

I have been wanting to post for a few days now as things start to be changing around for me. Over the course of the last few weeks I have been decrappifying my life. To date I think I have filled up the car six times with stuff that seems to have been taking up space in my home. Some of it belonged to my parents but it would be a lie to blame it all on them. There have been a few things I think I will miss but to be honest I think that there is very little that I had an emotional link to and the amount of stuff I have been keeping just in case I need it was getting crazy. Still, I don't feel like a hoarder just that I don't like throwing away things I might use some day. Maybe this explains why many gamers have mountains of stuff in boxes for games they are never going to get round to playing.

Last week I went to Vapnartak in York. At the moment I am not flush with cash but I did manage to come away with a few bits and pieces which have also given me the urge to get things moving again. Couple this with the fact that I am running an RPG at the moment I guess there was not going to be a better time to start painting again.

It is not that I have been doing nothing. A few weeks ago I was working on putting some Stormtroopers together. Along the way I started a few other projects that I didn't post about but I should do something about that in the days to come.

Some of the stuff that has gone has been furniture. This has allowed me to find a space for a workbench again. Whilst it isn't the ideal space (whatever is) it is better than what I had before which was round about nothing.  I am just grateful for a chance to paint again. It has almost been a year since I painted anything and I have been missing it badly.

There is still a lot of stuff for me to do. Not least of which is find a job. My sense is that I am definitely on the up at the moment. The clearout has lifted some weight from my shoulders and reminded me of what I have. As well as the painting I have found some XBOX games so I will hopefully find the time to play some of them as well.

With all of the good stuff I have to say I am thankful for the support that I have gotten and this has been instrumental in getting things done. Hopefully I will be looking back at this post some day and remember why I was thankful.

Maybe I need to be looking back at The New Cruelty and revisit what motivates me.

Stormtroopers

Last year I spent some time playing in a Star Wars RPG last year and I was surprised to say that I really enjoyed it. For some reason I felt the urge to paint some suitable figures. This led to a lot of internet searches which is pretty much how I waste all my time.

To save you going through what I found out I shall summarize. We were playing with the old Wizards Of The Coast figures which don't really interest me. They are pre-painted and a to be honest they are not the best models ever made. Most are a bit scrawny and they don't really fit in with the sizing of other figures. The Imperial Assault figures are very nice but they are not the cheapest and don't have a lot of poses. The detailing is great and they are 28mm which means that they fit in with a lot of other ranges. On the downside the range isn't great either. I have about thirty of the old metal Stormtrooper figures from West End Games. These are lovely figures and if I recall there were about ten sets of them. Nice as the range was it wasn't that great and there are a lot huge range and given that it is old school a lot of the races aren't there. Finding bits for conversion was also going to be a problem. On the plus side they are 25mm which is not that much of a plus. I have a load of 25mm figures from back in the day and some old Traveller figures which I used to love. Sadly the figures are long out of stock and to buy them second hand was looking like a lot of money.

This kind of leaves me with Star Wars Legion. When I first started looking at this game my opinion was a bit negative. They are big figures which don't really fit in with the figures that I have. There is very little available commercially that would fit in with them. Initially there wasn't much of a range.

When I thought about it though they quickly became my first choice There are now about fifty plus non-character figures out there and the range seems to be expanding. Basic units are relatively cheap compared to the old WEG and Imperial Assault figures. The non basic units are a bit more pricey but still cheaper especially if you can find a deal of which there are plenty out there. The characters are way more expensive though but I guess there are ways around this.

My plan is basically to do a lot of conversions. Star Wars has a lot of alien races but nearly all of them are men in suits. This means that a head swap is most of what is needed. Looking at the Rebel figures I don't see the need for a lot of miniguns so these were going to be ripe for conversion. hen I thought a lot about conversions. There are a few 3d printed options as well as the ability to convert yourself. I think it was the ability to use 3d bits that appealed the most. The construction, in the main calls for the arms to be stretched to fit in the sockets, the figures are relatively elastic. This means that they would take a lot of punishment before falling off.

So we get to the Stormtroopers. My aim is to have figures for an RPG. I have forteen Stormtroopers, two of which are armed with missile launchers. In my head a dozen stormtroopers is enough. That said, if I have them I might as well paint them. The exception is that I am going to scrap one of the missile launcher figures. The Rebels don't have a missile launcher so I might use this for a conversion option.

Now they are glued and have a base texture. My next step is to prime them. I can't spray prime indoors and outdoors is looking like it is out of the question for a bit. So I guess they are going to end up in a draw for a while.