Hello folks, just a quick note to confirm that a) I’m not dead, incarcerated, abducted, ill or awol, and b) I haven’t burned my brushes in some spectacular artistic rage-quit tantrum. No, I’m afraid that my recent lull has a far more mundane explanation – my house is a building site at the moment, and 40% of it is out of action so I have nowhere practical to paint or model. That, and a sudden influx of OU work has effectively seen me cease any meaningful hobby time. Is it fun? Hell no, but it isn’t permanent either, and all things pass with time.

I’m really looking forward to the building work finishing soonish and picking up where I left off – assuming I can remember which end of the brush to hold! Meanwhile, I continue to follow those blogs that I enjoy & so get my hobby kicks vicariously for a while, (and boy, is there some great stuff going on out there!). Keep on trucking peeps, I’ll catch you on the flip-side.

Hello chaps & chapesses, something a tad left-field today. About a year ago, I had an amazing game day with Ross, a fine and true Brother-in-Lead, and long-time adversary. We pitted his fantastic oldschool daemonic hoard against my Praetorian Imperial Guard in a series of games that were loosely based on the classic ‘Last Stand at Glazer’s Creek’ scenario from White Dwarf issue 222, (which was in turn based on the famous Anglo-Zulu war battle at Rorke’s Drift of course).

The day was so inspirational that I promised myself that I would try and write a short story based on the game. I love reading, and I used to like writing fiction in school… I know how to put together a decent assignment for my degree studies… my blog posts are (usually) readable… how hard can it be, right?

Well… it has taken me a year, on and off, but I’m finally done… weighing in at almost 9000 words, the true tale of Eidolan is ready to be told. I’ve set up a separate page to keep things tidy, and it is with a mixture of pride and embarrassment that I present it to you now. I hope that it brings some enjoyment to those who take the time to read it:

The Tale of Eidolan

Hello chaps & chapesses, another post from holibobs and three new pirates to join the ranks of the Awesome Red Skull Executioners! It’s been damn hot these last few days, so painting has been a real challenge, but I’m pretty pleased with how these guys turned out. Now… Hopefully the interweb will hold up long enough to get this post out! (Honestly, it would be quicker to smuggle files out in the memory banks of an old R2 unit with a secret mission to find an old hobo somewhere in Tunisia…)

Hello folks, thought I’d put a quick post up with the results from some holiday al fresco painting! I’ve found it a bit tricky not having a steady light source, so this isn’t my best work technically speaking, but jolly good fun nonetheless… I’ve had some funny looks from fellow campers though, the site is quite open! One lady looked quite alarmed when she asked what I was doing, and I replied that my therapist suggested painting toy soldiers as a way to keep myself calm 😂

Anyhow, I digress. First up we have the famous ‘space sensei’ – probably the cream of the crop with the old RT pirate sculpts. I’ve gone with a fairly muted pallet here and a bit of freehand work on the kanji script for that authentic sensei vibe. The kanji is actually the characters for a promoted lance in the game Shogi. I don’t have a name for him yet but here he is (oh, and I forgot white paint, so I couldn’t do the eyes – hence the sleepy look!):

Next up, we have a pair of pirates that I felt were begging to be painted as aliens… In my mind, they are a weapons team from a culture that celebrates and encourages a symbiotic pairing between individuals to achieve a goal. In this case we have one chap augmented to be a dedicated weapons platform, and another specially adapted to act as spotter and close protection… I’ll have to see if I can figure out how to make that work from a rules perspective.

I’m kind of fixated on ‘Cheech & Chong’ for their names, but stuck for a name for the alien race that they come from… Any suggestions?

Anyhow, hope you enjoyed looking as much as I enjoyed painting them – hopefully there will be plenty more to follow! TTFN! 😎

Wow… it has been a whole year since I started this blog – and how it has flown! With this being a kind of milestone, I thought it might be fun to do a little reflection on where the hobby has taken me these last 12 months. It’s a fairly rambling, meandering post,  but let’s look at ‘models done’ first:

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