Paint Table Sunday: Roger, Roger and more on dinosaurs!

I have had a couple of good weekend's painting, Last Sunday I had a bit of a frustrating day as I wanted to finish my Lucid Eye Jaguar Tribe figures as I had painted and varnished them, however I couldn't find my superglue to attach their shields. I opened a new one about two weeks ago so know it is in my room somewhere but where exactly I couldn't fathom. Rather than wasting any more time on looking for it I decided to have a go at painting my Star Wars droids instead.

I undercoated five of them them last Saturday, so took a deep breath and painted them using a method I saw on You Tube using Citadel's contrast paint; the first time I had really used it. Given that one coat of this was enough, followed by a few silver bits and painting the blasters black, they are unique for me in that they are almost entirely painted in acrylics, The other unique thing was that they took less time to paint than they took to assemble!  I did the last four this weekend. Anyway, here they are. I didn't like the very thick plastic bases they came on so, in another first, I mounted them on transparent bases so I can use them for number of different scenarios. Now I want the core boxed game for the Clone Wars but fortunately it is out of stock everywhere!

So here are my current projects as of today. At he front re the Savage Core Jaguar Tribe and I have to just finish  then varnish their shields and add static grass.  Next I have got out the 1864 Danes again as they are well on their way and not too fiddly. A new lady pirate (see below) has found her way in there too. Behind are the next group of Savage Core figures but they still have a long way to go.

I have been humming and hahing about The Drowned Earth solo Kickstarter but it is quite expensive and we have just had to buy a new cooker. The Lockdown is seeing people work on more solo adaptions of rules, which is a good thing for me as solo play is really all I am going to be able to do, going forward. Also, I won't get frustrated with myself because I don't understand the rules and won't ruin everyone else's game by being slow and useless!  My doctor says that my dyspraxia does contribute to my inability to play games, interestingly. Maybe Savage Core is enough.  Perhaps I will just buy their Baryonyx model, as it is the local dinosaur!  

The Drowned Earth Kickstarter is going tremendously well (they don't need my money) and they are now planning to include a big herbivore. They were having a poll to choose between a ceratopsian (not a real one; an imagined one) and an ankylosaur and the ceratopsian has won, Why no love for ankylosaurs? There are plenty of toy triceratops' and styracosaurus' on the market but I have never seen an ankylosaurus.  When I was little it was a very popular dinosaur.

Ankylosaurus seems to have fallen out of fashion, sadly. I am not up to date on the surprisingly fast moving world of fossil classification to know if it has gone the way of brontosaurus and been removed from prehistory. Or maybe it is too hard to mould? I had one of these model kits when I was little. I took the cover illustration rather literally and painted it a lovely glossy chocolate brown with a nice silver top.

Of course I have also bought into the Jurassic World Kickstarter, so that will be enough dinosaurs for a while.  I had this small Copplestone Castings nanotyrannosaurus on my desk and on Saturday I painted it start to finish. Good dino practice! It's about 9 cm from nose to tail so would also work as a bigger beast for my 18mm fantasy figures. Maybe the Antediluvian retrosaurus next!

I have had another Kickstarter arrive in the form of some figures for Pirates of the Dread sea. I didn't bother with the rules but just went for the human and skeleton pirate figures as I still harbour (so to speak) a desire to do some Pirates of the Caribbean the Online Game type, skirmishes.  As usual I will saw off most of the slot so I can mount the figures on washers like my other pirates.  They are big figures compared with my Foundry ones but match very well with the Black Scorpion ones I have.  The Contrast Paint I used on the droids should work well on the skeleton pirates.

Where I used to work. The Old Bat asked architect Richard Rogers where she could get a model of it for our wedding cake so he got his studio to build one: one of only four architetcts' models of the Lloyd's Building in the world.

I am now officially a pensioner, as I got my first monthly payment from Lloyd's of London this week. It certainly helps towards the household bills, which I need with three non-contributing parasites living here (well, alright, the Bag for Life contributes a bit). The Old Bat has been off work for so long that she no longer gets sick pay and isn't entitled to statutory sick pay. Never mind, we won another contract on the back of the one we are working on at the moment, which is something.  Guy, at least, has got his contract for his first job in September, which is better than some of his other friends who have had their offers withdrawn due to the Chinese wrecking the economy.

I am working my way through the trashily enjoyable Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World on Amazon Prime and I really must get some Lost World tribe of the week games worked out.  All the sets look like theey are made of MDF anyway,  Although Jennifer O'Dell's, jungle girl Veronica is the obvious sex symbol, I find myself strangely drawn to the Rachel Blakely character (perhaps because she is a better actress). She certainly contributed to my colour choices for the Lucid Eye female explorer I painted a few years ago.

Jennifer O'Dell and Rachel Blakely, Splendid!

The two actresses posed for this particularly effective picture back in the show's heyday (if, indeed, it ever had one).  Which reminds me, my second collection of Facebook Lockdown Lovelies is on my Legatus' Wargames Armies blog here. I am running a long way behind because these posts take ages to do!  Rather than posting pictures of actresses from the past, as I have been doing, many are doing things like putting up pictures of their ten most influential albums, I realise how poor my comprehension is of pop (and especially rock) music when I see these. In most of the ones I have seen so far I don't even know the artists let alone having heard of the albums. Maybe one day I'll put mine on here. Not that I can ever choose ten of anything in these type of things and they would vary from month to month, of course.

First random annoyance of the week is...people who describe other people as 'folk'.  Folk? Really? I just find it a very odd and old fashioned term. It just engenders a vision of people dancing around maypoles in some yokel part of Britain wearing big hats and chewing straw.  No doubt the whole folk music and Morris dancers thing interpolates itself into it. The term seems more popular in America and, perhaps, up North (I do not study Northern culture if it can be avoided). It's like using 'personages'.  It's also like the way American call drinks 'beverages'.  I have no rational explanation as to why these annoy me but they do!

Second annoyance of this week are people who write LOL after a supposedly amusing comment they have made on Facebook. Almost without exception the comment is not amusing but people feel that they have to be funny even if, like me, they have no sense of humour. LOL, appalling netspeak though it is, should be used as a reaction to someone else's comment, not your own. It's like those tragic celebrities who clap themselves on TV shows or people who laugh at their own supposed witticisms, like Eurosport's annoying cycling commentator Carlton Kirby. Oh, he does think he is amusing. but he is just annoying. Grrr!

Anyway. today's album is His Dark Materials by Scottish composer Lorne Balfe, one of the Hans Zimmer school. I really enjoyed the TV series although I have no knowledge of the books and haven't seen the film The Golden Compass (2007), which covers the same story, even though my old college appeared in it.  Interestingly the music was written before the TV series and is more in the way of a stylistic dry run for the actual soundtrack which I then had to acquire too. Atmospheric stuff but more suitable for painting steampunk figures to, I think.

Dakota Blue Richards: Little girls get bigger every day

In the feature film, the young heroine, Lyra  was played by Dakota Blue Richards, who I only remember from the Oxford-set detective series, Endeavour. She is the type of actress who reprehensible Fleet Street photographers always seem to want to pose in profile. 

Today's wallpaper is an illustration by Maurice Milliere (1871-1946), Born in Le Havre, he received most of his artistic education in Paris, where he became a top illustrator for magazines like La Vie Parisienne and  Le Sourire. He, essentially, developed the genre of what would become pin-up art, with his saucy, under-dressed, young. modern ladies about town and was a great influence on pin-up master Albert Vargas.

Wargaming highlights of 2017

My first ACW unit

Usually I start these posts with the words "it is time for my wargames review of the year", except this year it is three months past the time for my wargames review of the year but that isn't going to stop me.  It was a poor year, in many ways, which started well then got bad and saw a late rallying right at the end (rather like Napoleon at the battle of Marengo, in fact).


Figures Painted

2016 had been a dismal year, with just 10 figures painted. 2017, however, got off to a much better start, prompted by Eric the Shed's planned anniversary Zulu War games.  As my meagre contribution I painted 32 Zulus in January to add to the 40 I had already done. I followed this up in February with 12 Perry plastic American Civil War cavalry.  March dropped to six North West Frontier British but I finished another 17 in April. In May I got another nine ACW figures, three NW Frontier British done and June saw six more NW frontier.  Then I painted nothing until November when I completed my Sikh mountain gun, which finished off my initial force for The Men Who Would Be Kings rules.  So 2017 saw a much better 78 figures completed and an unusual amount of focus with just three conflicts represented.

32 Zulu Wars
21 American Civil War
31 North West Frontier

So why the big fall off after June?  Quite simply my eyesight deteriorated so that I could no longer see properly to paint. In particular, my left eye deteriorated to the extent that I could no longer judge distance in close up work, so I could not aim the tip of my paintbrush.  I have been having laser eye surgery for some time but in November I started a four month treatment of very expensive injections into my retina and this has transformed my vision.  Then, for Christmas, my sister gave me an optivisor type thing and, having sneered at these for years, I suddenly could paint again.  I had actually reached the stage where I was about to call time on painting soldiers which would. for me, have been like giving up women or wine.  Something so incomprehensible as to make life utterly worthless.  It was so bad I was actually considering starting on model railways instead.  Best just to go to Switzerland and have an injection, I thought. Although, that said, I have spent a lot of time in Switzerland and I remember it being full of model railway shops so I would have probably abandoned the lethal injection idea and come back with a load of trains, track and little tiny naked people playing volleyball, instead.


Wargames played 

Isandlwana at the Shed (actually in Eric's kitchen, not the Shed)

A cracking start (actually I hate people who say 'a cracking start'- I am becoming offended by my own use of sixties style cliches) to the wargames year was provided by the peerless Eric the Shed and his epic all day Saturday anniversary Zulu Wars games; Isandlwana in the morning and Rorke's Drift in the afternoon, on the 22nd January, the anniversary of both battles.. After that, though, there was nothing.  I did not get down to the Shed again.   Partly this was caused by the fact that my eyesight problems have damaged my night vision and driving at night is now difficult. I hope to risk it when the evenings get a bit lighter.


Scenics

Unlike Eric the Shed, I am useless at scenic items and I made no further progress on the plastic ACW buildings I started last year.  I did build and start painting the Renedra mud brick house (a truly horrible model to put together which needed trowel fulls of plastic filler). Unfortunately, I have now forgotten which colour I started to use on it, so work came to an abrupt stop.  To build an Afghan/Egyptian/Sudanese village I also picked up a number of other ready made and kit models at various shows.  I have just ordered a couple of vacuform models of houses, too, which will take me back to my Bellona days in the seventies.

I bought the very last model of Grand Manner's fortified house, which I may deploy for some medieval Hundred Years War Lion Rampant games. It is really a Scottish or Borders fort but the conical turrets will make it look more French, as will the pale ochre paint I am planning to use.  The Old Bat called it my Polly Pocket castle and said it would look better pink.  The less said about pink walls from her the better, at present.  Grand Manner, my favourite resin scenery manufacturer, are only going to be selling painted models from now on, which is disappointing.  It will be interesting to see if this gamble pays off for them.  Higher margins but less sales?

Rocks under way

More successfully, I bought a number of aquarium type rocks and started to repaint them for Lost World or Savage Core Adventures.  With more on the way I hope to have enough soon for some attempt at a scenic board for pulp games.  Next I need to stick on some 'follidge', as the annoying Terrain Tutor calls it.

To do this I bravely invested in a hot glue gun and made exactly one piece of scenery by sticking an aquarium plant on a large washer.  I haven't touched it since, though.  The Terrain Tutor did have a good tip in suggesting coating plastic plants with Games Workshop wash which  removed the shiny plastic look very well.  I now have a huge plastic crate full of plastic follidge, which I aim to start working on now it is the spring, appropriately. probably while the Old Bat watches Gardeners' World; the TV programme I detest the most.  Get a proper hobby - not grow your own dump fill!


Shows

Salute!

I did attend Salute, as usual, which I didn't really enjoy for the first time, although I did enjoy the Wargames Bloggers Meet (above- I am on the far left - picture from Wargaming Girl's blog).  I've just got my ticket for this year, though!  Eric the Shed kindly gave me a lift to Colours, which I hadn't attended for a few years and I bought some scenics (the advantage of going by car not public transport).  I didn't attend the other of the three shows I usually do, Warfare in Reading, as I was on my way back from El Salvador


Lead pile and Kickstarters

Lead pile reduction didn't go so well this year and I bought over 150 figures but given I painted 78 figures the net increase could have been worse.  Some figure arrivals came through Kickstarters etc, such as the Peninsular Wars figures with the Forager rules, some more of Dark Fables Egyptian ladies and the early twentieth century Germans from Unfeasibly Miniatures.  I also got some Foundry and North Star Darkest Africa, Artizan and Perry Northwest Frontier, Perry ACW, Victrix EIR, Lucid Eye Savage Core, North Star Muskets and Tomahawks highlanders, Manufaktura slave girls and Crooked Dice female cultists, Biggest figure was Antediluvian's Retrosaurus which is also my favourite of 2017. Apart from the NW Frontier figures I didn't paint any of these because of my eye problems but hope to move some along this year.  I did sign up to the Drowned Earth Kickstater but cancelled it when I found out it really wasn't suitable for solo play.


Wargames Rules

As I said I might in my previous review, I did buy Chosen Men and The Pikeman's Lament.  Pikeman's Lament looks good (although I am still not entirely convinced about small bodies of pikemen in skirmishes) but Chosen Men was just terrible, as it couldn't work out whether it was a one to one game or not.  I sold it on, which is why it isn't in this picture.  As a result of stating my unhappiness with the latter, I was steered towards the Forager Kickstarter.  Death in the Dark Continent was a new glossier edition of some rules I had already played and, indeed, owned but I like to get rid of my old ring bound rules, as they look ugly on my bookshelves!  Battle Companies was also a glossy hardback of rules which first appeared in White Dwarf years ago.  The children and I had some great games using this in the past, so I was happy to get it all in one volume with added companies from The Hobbit.  I picked up the new supplement for Congo, even though I haven't played the rules yet but I enjoy Muskets and Tomahawks, which is by the same people.  The most interesting looking rules are Savage Core, which is very Lost Worldy and I have at least one solo scenario for.


Wargames Blogs and Facebook

My Punic Wars blog; the latest to get the widescreen treatment

I only posted 39 times on my main blog (this one) in 2017, which is the least since 2011.  Mainly, of course, because I wasn't painting very much.  I only posted on five of my other blogs too.  The number of visits is around the same as last year, averaging about 10,000 a month.  The most popular post, with 1082 views, was one of my paint table Saturday ones which also looked at the Spirit of Ecstasy sculpture, not coincidentally, I suspect.

I am still posting on Facebook, although not much about wargaming, admittedly, and now have 151 'friends', up from last year's 107.  I have only had to delete a few because of political content. Why do people assume that their politics is shared by everyone else and write as such? I have joined several more of the very useful Facebook groups; including the one for the interesting looking Rebels and Patriots rules.  I did see a post that seemed to indicate that more people were joining these than using blogs these days and certainly I now only tend to look at other people's blogs if they link to them from Facebook page.

Plans for the this year

I want to finish my Carthaginian war elephant crew and then, I think, concentrate on my Afghan Tribesmen so that I have both forces for the North West Frontier.  More ACW plastics, some Darkest Africa and maybe finish some units which are well on the way (like some of my Indian Mutiny troops).  Also Savage Core, both figures and scenery, will be a priority.

Musical Accompaniment

While writing this post I listened to the extended version of John Williams' The Lost World: Jurassic Park which has made me want to get my Retrosaurus on the go!

Paint Table Saturday: Rocks and Sikhs

This week I had to go to Epsom hospital and have an injection in my eyeball which, I have to say, I was not looking forward to.  This is because the laser treatment I have had around the edge of my eye can't be done in the centre of the eye. I have noticed a real deterioration in my vision in my left eye since June, to the extent that not only couldn't I paint figures but I was having trouble using the PC if there was bright light out in the garden backlighting the screen. .  I had to shut my left eye to be able to see clearly and couldn't paint figures as I had lost my ability to judge distance.  Well the two nurses at Epsom looked after me very well indeed and after some anaesthetic drops all I felt, as they had explained, was a slight pressure on my eyeball for a second.  I did not need, as I thought I might, a piratical eye patch and the only inconvenience is the ointment I need to apply to the eye every three hours, which makes it a bit blurred and gummy feeling.

Today, for the first time since June, I had a good half day's painting (my vision is certainly improved) and got on with the Sikh artillery, to the extent that I may be able to finish them tomorrow.  They are not brilliant but they will do for me.  I am, at least, now contemplating getting back to finishing the next batch of ACW confederates. 

I have also got two coats of grey onto my aquarium rocks for Savage Core and The Lost World.  I reckon they need another two shades of paler grey before they are done and then I will add some follidge with the hot glue gun.  I really like the cave in the one at front left and need to work out some sort of dicing table for what will spring out of there to take on my explorers or whoever; ape men? velociraptors? saber tooth tiger? under-dressed cavegirl?  Unfortunately, I am going abroad next weekend for the first of two consecutive trips and by the time I get back and then go up to see Charlotte in Edinburgh it will be well on the way to Christmas!

My friend Bill suggested we go and see Blade Runner 2049 this week which we did at Esher cinema, which has recently been turned into an Everyman.  I don't go to the cinema very often (I haven't been to Esher since Titanic!) and as soon as I got in I realised why.  The entrance hall is now a full on restaurant and you get your tickets at what looks like (and is) a bar.  Inside, the seats are large and comfortable but they all had little side tables attached and everyone was eating.  They had (very pretty) waitresses bringing hot food into the cinema auditorium.  This is disgusting.  The noise is bad enough but the smell!  People who eat in cinemas should be killed and their bodies used for organ donation.  I didn't really enjoy the film either as I am getting sick of the unremitting trend for gritty and dark in visual entertainment.  In addition, there were a number of foreign actors in the film and I had trouble understanding what they were saying.  Despite superior special effects, I didn't think the production captured the feeling of a teeming, multi-ethnic city like the original did.  There was too much space.  I won't bother with the DVD and the music was awful.

Today's music is an old favourite, Carmina Burana, which I haven't played for some time.  I first heard this when the German TV version, by opera director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, appeared one Saturday night on the BBC in October 1976.  What on earth is this, I asked myself at the bizarre mixture of musical and visual styles in the TV version (prepared in co-operation with Carl Orff, who always saw it as much a theatrical as an orchestral piece).  Recently, I saw another German TV version from 1996 by Hohlfeld which was better photographed, slightly racier and less straight to video looking but didn't have such a strong orchestra or singing cast.  On CD I prefer the Previn version, which is very good indeed. 

Kiss of the sun (1907)

Today's wallpaper is by the Polish painter Jan Ciągliński (1858-1913). Although born in Poland, he spent most of his career, other than a brief time in Paris. based in St Petersburg. In his will, however, he bequeathed most of his works to Poland and many of them were on exhibition in Warsaw over the last few months. He visited North Africa and the Middle East and painted a number of orientalist pictures, of the realistic, rather than the harem fantasy, type. He taught at the Imperial Academy in St Petersburg and became a professor there in 1911; teaching many well known Russian painters.  

Paint Table Sunday: Rocks 2

A brief entry this week as I have had no time to do hobby stuff, lately, and am trying to evade potential oversea trips.  Nigeria has been postponed (hooray) and I shifted Saudi onto a colleague (double hooray - at least Nigeria has beer and statuesque women to look at) but still have two week long trips in November (I get back from one on Saturday and have to fly to the next on Sunday).  In fact we are going to see Charlotte again in Edinburgh that month, so I will have to do 10 flights in November.  I hate flying and will probably expire on one of these trips.  At least my blood pressure is down, thanks to my glamorous new doctor.  190 over 100 not so good, 130 over 83, much better.

Yesterday, I did get a bit of paint on my Savage Core/Lost World rock formations.  I have three big aquarium pieces and will add some smaller CD and MDF based ones to scatter around them.   I still haven't tried painting any figures lately but have to have an eye operation next week (I don't even want to think about it).

I haven't bought much hobby stuff, either, although I did succumb to this Star Wars kit on the basis that I will probably get Star Wars Legion when it comes out next year.  This AT-ST is, it seems, exactly the right scale for the 32mm figures.  It's a long time since I made a complex model kit (Renedra buildings apart) so I am not sure how this will go, given my dodgy eyesight.  I'm not going to give up trying yet, though.

I have had several requests to become friends on Facebook lately but when I have looked at the person's page they are usually full of the standard political drivel so I don't bother with them.  Facebook can be useful, though, and recently there was a post on the Death in the Dark Continent players page which highlighted the fact that the old BBC series, The Search for The Nile, from 1971, had been put on DVD at last.  I saw this when it first came out and have been hoping it would appear at some point but it disappeared.  Great to see it again now.  Shot on location in Africa and with James Mason narrating I can't wait until mine comes from Amazon!  There seemed to be a feeling that the BBC wouldn't release it given they regarded it now as politically incorrect.  Interestingly it is labelled as "as seen on the BBC" not an actual BBC disc.  Should be good African inspiration anyway.

I need to clear out some old figures and rules of periods I am never going to realistically paint or play.  First up is Frostgrave where I have some of the books and a few figures.  Eric the Shed played a game or two and was not impressed with the rules mechanism which he found a bit blunt (especially combat).  I found all the descriptions of how magic worked totally confusing and well beyond my poor brain.  As a fantasy world I would rather stick to Lord of the Rings, especially with the news that the Battle Companies rules (which only ever appeared in White Dwarf, some years ago) are coming back.

J interviews the Legatus

Speaking of Lord of the Rings, Guy, who is on the Oxford Union Committee this term, was a bit miffed that Liv Tyler cancelled at the last minute but this week he met JJ Abrams (which made Charlotte jealous).  I used to enjoy his Alias (although I still haven't watched the final series, where Jennifer Garner was pregnant and Rachel Nichols came in to do the action stuff).  One of my past lady friends, J, a kickboxing infrastructure journalist was the motion capture body double for Jennifer Garner for the Playstation Alias game, which is why it is the only computer game I own.

Now we live in pretty much equidistant from three supermarkets (Tesco, Sainsbury and Waitrose) so I don't get over to Morrisons in Weybridge very often any more, now Guy isn't rowing but I went there earlier in the week to take some books to the charity bookshop (most charity shops won't take books any more and the price you can get for them on eBay makes it not worth the effort of selling them).  Anyway I was staggered to see that Morrison's sells Cloudy Bay sauvignon blanc (the best sauvignon blanc on the planet - well, it used to be).  I had to buy some.  I had the very first vintage of this wine when I visited their sister vineyard in Western Australia, Cape Mentelle, in 1987.  I tried to get it back in the UK but it wasn't imported then.  The initial run was very small, not like the 100,000 cases plus they produce now, now that they are owned by LVMH.   In fact it was the Cape Mentelle, Australian team that chose the name, against the wishes of the New Zealand winemakers who wanted to call it Tua Marina.

I might have some time this afternoon to do some painting so might see if I can do a bit on my Sikh artillery which I really want to finish as it will complete my TMWWBK's British force.  So far it looks bright this morning.

It's all a bit Austrian this week (my family on my mother's side was Austro-Hungarian) and today's wallpaper is a painting by Austrian artist Franz Eybl (1806-1880) who by the age of ten had already entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.  Most of his paintings were landscapes or portraits so this lovely nude, from about 1860, is unusual.  Portraying an everyday scene, rather than a classical or mythical story, was somewhat unusual and daring for the time.  Her figure (especially her posterior) is very reminiscent of J, the computer game body double, I realise.  I did do some drawings of J rather like this.  I wonder where they are? Viennese bakers, in this period, were famous all over Europe and the croissant (as seen on the bottom left), as we would call it now, was very much an Austrian not a French creation (the modern croissant was created by a former Austrian artillery officer (inserts desperate military reference) who set up a Viennese bakery in Paris in the late eighteen thirties).

Austrian music too, in the long and expensive form of the complete Mozart symphonies by Jaap Schröder, Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music, using period instruments.  I remember going along to Blackwells Music Shop in Oxford, when the first boxed set (not box set, pig ignorant Millennials), came out in 1980 and finding that they had all sold out in four hours.  It has taken me 37 years to buy them and discover the complexity and controversy over authorship of these symphonies.  Being a late romantic aficionado I have always had a rather schizophrenic relationship with Mozart (50% hack, 50% genius) but they certainly make calming background music when writing reports on US education models.

Mirabel machine made

Now, Mozart also reminds me of the world's most sickly chocolate: the Mozartkugeln, a disgusting amalgam of chocolate and praline marzipan which has also been the subject of bitter legal battles in the cut throat world of European chocolate.  The originals are hand produced by Fuerst but other firms, notably the better marketed Mirabel, are allowed to produce their versions under slightly different names.

Fuerst, hand made

I discovered these hideous chocolates in Switzerland in the mid nineteen eighties when I had a girlfriend who was just about perfect (39D-23-36), apart from her penchant for sickly food and drink  (she loved Bailey's Irish cream. embarrassingly) products.  My mother always wanted me to marry her and, indeed, invited her to dinner the night before I married the Old Bat, as a sort of 'you've made a big mistake' gesture.  S would do anything (literally) for Mozartkugeln and so in the (we shamefully admit) four year intersection between her and the Old Bat (Plastic Woman, the Old Bat called her, on account of her wearing, shock, horror, makeup) I plundered the duty free shops of Europe to feed her insatiable appetite for these stomach churning treats. The complete Mozart symphonies is, I admit, a sort of aural box of Mozartkugeln and there is only so much you can listen to without feeling queasy.

Paint Table Saturday: Rocks!

Not, of course, Paint Table Saturday rocks, as I am not a faux teenage American.  No, in my actual hobby time on Saturday today, I did not actually paint anything but I did do some work on my progressing scenic project for the Lost World and Savage Core (had one of those today with an apple from our tree which contained a nasty little visitor - although we are getting some lovely apples, on the whole, this year).

Last week, at Colours, I bought a couple of scenic rocks and during the week I sprayed them black and painted the base the same colour (Humbrol 29) as the bases on my figures.  You can see one of these in the picture at the top, which is now ready for the first coat of dry brushed grey.  I also painted all the little stones black as they will be grey too and not just the earth colour of the original.  I have envisaged a rocky landscape with added 'follidge' so was looking for one more large piece to comlpement the two I bought.  I found an excellent one on eBay which arrived this week.  I liked the look of this a lot but thought it had too much follidge for my purposes.

Like Monty Don attacking a bed of weeds, I set to and removed all the follidge, putting it aside for replanting later, where it will be scattered amongst the three pieces to give them some visual unity.  I discovered that each piece of follidge was planted in a little recess filled with (I assume) hot glue.  Having pulled the plants out (like real weeds, some came out easier that others) I then prized out the little hardened pots of hot glue (on the right) which, with a bit of help from a sharp knife, popped out like the scarabs in the wall in that scene in The Mummy.  One or two even skittered across the floor.

I admit to doing all this in the kitchen rather than at my desk, which meant doing so in the presence of the Old Bat.  Having worked out where some paths could go, I started to fill the recesses with filler, only for the Old Bat to point out that if I stuck some stones in the holes they would look better and also mean I would have to use less filler.  This never occurred to me but the Old Bat is good at crafts.  Fortunately, the Old Bat had a bucket of small rocks outside, left over from her demolition of the rockery, and after bashing some to bits with a hammer I  dropped them in the holes and topped them up with filler.  I have left some unfilled for the replacement follidge but now have some clear paths through the piece.  Tomorrow I will put some PVA and sand over the filled parts and, if it stays dry, spray it black.

All of this scenic effort compensates somewhat for a dismal attempt at figure painting last Sunday, when I tried to paint one of my Savage Core Amazons.  I have problems with my left eye (basically a blurred patch) and have now discovered that I cannot paint faces on my figures any more.  I tried and tried but just can't see what I am doing.  Hopefully, if they are roaming around lovely rocks no-one will notice but I found it frustrating not to be able to paint her features. She has a hood on, which makes it more difficult, admittedly, but I was quite depressed about it for a few days.

I went into Kingston last week to get September's wargames magazines and some spray undercoat and ended up buying a new chair for my desk.  Mine broke some months ago which meant that its spring loaded reclining function had gone, so in order to not fall out the back I had to sit perched on the front in such a way that the seat was cutting off the blood from my legs and giving me cramp.  Now I have a nice new chair, although Charlotte, who is now back in Edinburgh, said that I must have really tidied up my floor for this photograph, which is true. 

Today's wallpaper is a particularly enticing looking odalisque by the American orientalist painter Frederick Arthur Bridgman (1847-1928).  Originating, like the airmen, in Tuskegee, Alabama, he studied in Paris under Gérôme  (of Pollice Verso fame).  He spent a lot of time in Algeria and Egypt, making sketches and collecting clothing and props to give his paintings an authentic air.  Many of his paintings were accurate records of life in North Africa at the time but he produced a fair number of more exotic odalisques as well and none more enticing than this one.  Like all orientalist painters, his work fell out of fashion from the mid nineteen fifties but now they can  fetch $250,000 and up.

Today's music is the new CD by the principal harpist of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Elizabeth Hainen, which she planned out when stuck in her house in a snowstorm for several days.  An eclectic mix of composers from Bach to Glass it provides the requisite relaxation my glamorous new doctor says I need in order to reduce my very high blood pressure.  My musical niece, who is staying with us during the week while studying at the Guildhall School of Music, had a bit of a coup yesterday evening, when one of her compositions was played on Radio 3.  A proper composer, now!