March Update

Stitching, Crafting & Writing - a busy March

Tapestry

The last few updates have concentrated on the Doctor Who Tapestry. I've been keeping a record of how long the work on the ancient one and the background area for him has taken based upon the playing time of the audio books I have been listening to whilst stitching. 

The previous post had the time at 43 hours 20 minutes. Additional work undertaken since then.

I completed most of the work on the Ancient One whilst listening to the first of the two new Target Novelisation Audio books: The TV Movie & Dalek a total of 9 ¾ hours. Then I moved on to the background. Backgrounds need to be simple, so I’m going for the green gas cloud that was used to kill the Ancient One at the end. This also includes binding the edge of the material. This takes some time. This was started listening to the other new novelisation audio books:  The Crimson Horror and the Witchfinders.

Doctor Who – The TV Movie by Gary Russell

Read by Dan Starkey, BBC Studios (5 hours)

 

Doctor Who – Dalek by Robert Shearman

Read by Nicholas Briggs, BBC Studios (4 ¾ hours)

 

Doctor Who – The Crimson Horror by Mark Gatiss

Read by Catrin Stewart & Dan Starkey, 

BBC Studios (4 ½ Hours)

 

Doctor Who - The Witchfinders by Jay Wilkinson

Read by Sophie Aldred, BBC Studios (4 hours, 10 mins)

 

So here I am, working with 20 shades of green to try and blend the smoke swirling up around the Ancient One. 

After another 8 ½ hours of the latest Big Finish Doctor Who releases.

Doctor Who – Stranded 2 

Doctor Who – The Lost Stories 6.1 Return of the Cybermen

Doctor Who – The Lost Stories 6.2 The Doomsday Contract

Bringing the time spent on this one character to over 61½ hours so far.

 

Next Tapestry Update

Building the Gateway

This has taken a backseat over the last couple of months again, but I have managed to make a little progress as the below photos will show. The left side now has basic wood and Daz clay coverage. I will get the basic coverage done before trying to clean up and add any details.

 Previous update

Writing.

As you will know, I seldom reveal too much about writing projects whilst they are still in development.

All I will say is that work on the new werewolf trilogy is going well, we are proofreading book two and I’m making final edits to the text for book three.

Book three has had some additional writing added to it, so I returned to the original notebooks, pulled out the pencils and got scribbling.

First draft is always handwritten in pencil. This filled the second skull book that was used for book three so I had to take up a new notebook, not having another of the skull books I found this nice little denim covered book in my collection of notebooks to use for the next 20K or so words.

Hopefully, I’ll be revealing more details of this project soon.

 

Little Houses Part One

Getting too large

One thing I've noticed recently is that the models are getting larger. There are not many basic homes coming out of the coffee stick ghost town production run. Aside from using random boxes used as the basic structure, I think I'm getting larger in order to get through the stockpile of sticks that are threatening to take over the kitchen.

It also means that to do any modelling starts to become a larger undertaking, shifting boxes and large models around before I can begin. I started, a few weeks ago, to prepare small boxes whilst waiting for the microwave or kettle to do their thing.

I've decided to keep the models from these boxes small, and to tile the roofs with small card squares like on some other models rather than use the wood. I should be able to work on these quicker, see results faster which might encourage me to work on them in odd moments rather than put off the modelling until I have a longer free period.

This small collection of buildings will be more basic and homely, and I have a game project in mind for them.
But that's for later. In the meantime, let's get started sticking the boxes together and getting the roofs on.

To be continued...

Love of Lego

During the 1970s as a small kid I discovered Lego. I loved it, and so did my parents if truth be told. I think most adults do. Quite often I remember setting Mum and Dad a challenge to build something after I had gone to bed, to come down in the morning and see what they had made. I remember a yellow castle very well although I don’t have any photos of the models. 

In those days you didn’t photograph everything that moved or didn’t unlike today when camera phones get whipped out at any and every opportunity.  (But that’s a discussion for another time.)

As time went by I remember buying small sets of either tiny models or just assorted bricks to take home and build up my collection. It really is no wonder I still make model houses today from all sorts of materials, but back then it was Lego. There were small stickers in the boxes which you stuck to collector sheets to send off for bonus sets, people that were giants to the mini figures of today and trees that were flat.

Then along came mini figures and space Lego. I got some of the early sets and build my lunar landscape, and made up stories about monsters from outer space that terrorised the base. I recall being influenced by a TV series at the time called ‘The Nightmare Man’ (look it up – go on) and ended up scaring the hell out of myself courtesy of my own imagination.

Then as the years went on the sets got broken up and put away, but never forgotten about. Then a few years ago a couple of friends got me started collecting the packets of mini figure collectables that Lego now release. And like anyone else inflicted with the “completest gene” I had to collect the whole set of sets. 

This has led on to me rediscovering the whole world especially now that there are sets for Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and Monster Hunters to name but a few. Although I do think the new sets, however ingenious with new style pieces and parts that interact and light up in ways they never did before are a trifle more flimsy being built from single width bricks (1x3) rather than the thicker (2x3) bricks when the range of pieces and colours were fewer.

However, the addiction has been awoken and I now have a display of Lord of the Rings at the moment, plus a Halloween display planned, along with Lego being my planned style of Christmas decorations for this year