Every so slightly freaky

There's someone on arsebook called 'I fucking love science'.  There's some quite interesting things that come from this page.  Anyway, I'm half way though Grahame McNeil's Mechanicum.  And then I saw this:

DKK Vehicle Fleet redux

So I put in a bit of work in the week and got this far; (if it's the right photo) you can see the two unpainted eagle doors at the back of the painted command group.  And the three painted eagle doors at the rear of the new platoon command busses (three come along at once...)  All five new busses are undercoated (black on the bottom, white on the top).

I can recommend to anyone keeping a reserve of unmade Chimerae under your workbench just in case you need them.

The gap previously seen in the previous post has moved up the formation and is quite evident here.

And this morning plugged the gap with the final bus and base coated them.  So there are now five more stages.

1. Camouflage
2. decals 
3. weathering
4. Stowage
5. Commanders

But the new kitchen arrives soon and so these fine fellows are getting boxed up and the table put away to make way for tiles, ovens and kitchen units. 

DKK Vehicle fleet

So, since the huge effort of building the DKK LRMBT fleet in a day, they have been out on the table.  Track guards and antennae fitted, undercoated and as much basecoat as I had applied.

I had a good look at them all and was fairly pleased.  Only three more Chimerae to go.  Two of which I wanted to be Eagle rear door, mid turret command vehicles.  And one to plug that hole you can see towards the rear of the Chimera formation. 

A decent coat of Tamiya German Grey for the you-know-who's panzer in the rear corner.  2iC in front of him and OC in front of the 2iC.  Then three troops of three, with the anihilator or exterminator as the No3 tank in each troop. Where the ASL tanks were loaded up with stowage, the DKK ones have enough detail to stand on their own merit - the engine filters providing enough interest to not have to do my swede in figuring out where any stowage might go on these ones.  

So I was thinking about the camouflage patterns and the markings.  These would be done before weathering and the addition of pre-painted stowage.  Hummm..... stowage.  STOWAGE!  Fek !  Better see if I have any.  Oh yes, still here:

Soft luggage bottom left, hard objects top left, comms kit t.d.c.and second load of stowage in the old model box awaiting undercoating.  Tools, spare road wheels, track links and so on all to do.  So with the comms kit and hard spares (what some of you may recognise as stuff that the QM(T) didn't want to give you) and the softer luggage (the things at the QM (boots and socks) didn't want to give you) I had a look at the way this would be arranged on the model(s).  I quickly deduced that the as-built Chimera doesn't really have much space to hang, drape or otherwise 'dress' the model.  However, the mid turret, modern looking hacked about ones not only demand some stowage (to cover up the holes where the las-guns arn't) but will actully look a lot better.

So I jemmied the eagle doors off the back of three finished about-to-not-be-platoon-command-vehicles-any-more.  And have resolved to replace the five as-built Chimerae with mid-turret conversions.  So now my motor pool looks like this, worse than it when I started.  Oh well.

Fortuately I think I have another three under the bench.  Only two more to get.

Random Wildlife Photo.

A moth.  South Bedfordshire, late July 2012.  Next to a smartphone for size. No idea if its a native species or herald of some moth/nid invasion.

When Megalomanics try to play skirmish games.

Iron Broo,

Dai, you expressed an interest: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-omOa03CNgPg/UC-vS4BeFOI/AAAAAAAAH1M/_A-kFaiILwc/s1600/DSC05908.JPG

 If you're not Dai, these fellows are a sort of, er, umm, Necromunda gang.  More or less.  Can't wait to see the police crusiers go 'round a corner and meet this lot coming the other way. I keep getting an image of Gary Oldman in a linen suit

"Bring everyone." 

"Everyone ?!?!"

"EVERYONE !!!"

Look out ! It's the cops !

Got these back:

Had to pin most of the wheels back on, as they had obviously been smashed off in the post.  But the cops have gone in the box with the Cawdor gang. 

Inspiring (no, not another Olympic post)

So Karitas just happened to pop 'round, as one does. Amongst the usual flurry of activity that goes on here whether I'm home or not, we slipped into the garage to keep out of everyone else's way.

We chatted over the number of projects on the go.  And then began just cleaning up the workbench.  Lots and lots of stuff, which we eventually decided was detritus; the flotsam and jetsom of the hobby, was consigned to the wheeliebin (if you don't have wheelie bins where you are, this is what they are).

So we had made a bit of space.  Which normally, I'd promptly fill with another rushed project and then grind to a halt when I ran out space.  I think I must have conveyed how daunting it was to have such a lot to do.

Karitas asked me how I planned to approach things.  I suggested that one model a week, perhaps setting aside Thursday nights, would enable me to eat the elephant one mouthful at a time.

He had other ideas.  He was not daunted.  He was inspired.  He was sure that with a little gumption, we could forgo the modest game he had already prepared for.  We could built tweleve DKK Leman Russ before dinner.

So we did.  Learning points for me are:

• Allowing yourself to be drawn along with someone elses enthusiam can pay handsome dividends.
• Two people working together can build more Leman Russ than two people working in isolation can in the same time.  Sharing hobby time with someone else is fun.  Sounds dirty, I'm not used to fun.
• The generousity of people I have met on line and perhaps in person only a handful of times remains humbling.  
• Twelve Leman Russ in an afternoon is achievable for two people.

Got some hobby mojo here, looking forward to next week.