Friday 6 July 2007

AAAARGH! I need a fag!

No I don't. If I tell myself that often enough then maybe, just maybe, the craving will just go away and I'll be at peace with the world.


Hello and welcome. Yup, as you might have guessed I've recently given up the weed and I'm now into day six without my rollies, and I'm ready to kill. So I thought I'd start a blog to chronicle my forays into the dark and uncompromising world of miniature sculpting, mainly to give my hands something to do while I'm taking a break from pushing putty into something vaguely resembling toy soldiers, partly to share my battle against the urge to light one up and hasten my demise, and most importantly to prevent my present short temper from doing something that will end in my incarceration. It will also give people that I'm supposed to be doing some work for the opportunity to check-up on what sort of progress (if any) that I'm making on the job they've given me....hmm, I could be getting myself into trouble here...


So, other than giving up smoking,what other events have occurred this week? Well, I've had yet another near-death experience at the hands of an East European lorry driver, the latest in a line of many. I won't bore you with the details, but I was nearly smeared across the cenral reservation by him pulling out as I attempted to overtake him on a two-lane stretch of motorway. Having learnt from experience that the outcome of overtaking one of these guys is as predictable as pogo-sticking in a minefield, I was ready for it and applied the brakes before I became yet another statistic. I eventually passed him without further incident, opening my window as I did so to let him know what I thought of him using international sign language. It beats me why this keeps happening - the law of averages suggests that I can't be the only driver in the UK to have this experience, so why do they do it? Having left-hand drive is no excuse, I've never had any trouble with say French or German trucks, it seems to me to be a uniquely East European trait. Poles, Hungarians, Romanians, whatever; it's probably some deep-rooted psychological desire to get us back for selling them out to Stalin at the end of WW2 or something. Either that or they're consumed by a pathological desire to find out who would win in a fight between an articulated lorry and a family car. My family car.


Ok, rant over.


On the sculpting front I've resumed work on some Vikings for Gripping Beast after a break due to moving home. At this point I'd like to thank the Beasts for a) giving me my first sculpting job, and b) having the patience of a saint (well, two saints). I'm not the fastest sculptor in the world to say the least, although I'm pleased to say that recently my speed has increased to 'glacial', so that's a bit of a result. Thanks also to Soapy for saying encouraging stuff to me and guidance on technical issues, and even bigger thanks to my personal sculpting guru Bill of Musketeer Miniatures fame, who is currently getting trench-foot camping out at Bovington this weekend.


Speaking of whom, I'm currently working on a viking with cross-strapped binding thingies (there's probably a proper name for them, buggered if I know what it is) over his trousers at the moment , something I haven't attempted before. I once asked Bill how he did them on his outrageously sexy Saxons and he told me that I would need to, and I quote, "titivate the putty". Oo-er, sounds rude to me. Is it legal? I'm sure there are web sites devoted to that sort of thing you know.


Two little Norse dudes out for a ruck
The one on the right is based on one of Soapy's dollies

2 comments:

Bill T said...

Yes there is a website for putty titivation, but you've not made enough figures to be allowed to see it yet. :o)

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