Post Christmas - Getting a bit tubby

Yes, ok, post Christmas and the diet has to be taken seriously again, stop snacking. Not too easy when there is still stuff around and you're trying not to gorge yourself.

 These snacks are too easy to munch through, the Twiglets being my favourite. But I've always toiled with how to use these tubs in my modelling, it always feels wrong to throw them out.

There appears to be a lot of promise from these tubs, certainly the framework for a tower or a bow fronted house. 

Also I am wondering whether it would work if you glued the lid to the base of the board and did not glue down the tube could you make a model that could be stored easier by lifting it off the baseboard but use the lid as an anchor to the base?

Charmed I'm Sure

Not quite finished my post Christmas ideas collection of blog posts, but this one isn't so much about those Christmas leftovers(*)  but more about my ongoing frustration at not being able to get on and make stuff at the moment.

If anyone has read book one of the Karl adventures, you will know about The Alleys, the street where Karl's father has his small business, Axilion Trade. It has always been my intention to model this cobbled street one day, and I can see the hanging shop signs in my head. Not only shop signs, but also some of the many pubs and inns that feature in the adventures, and the things that may appear in some of those shop windows.

I've been spotting a number of quite cheap charms and 'embellishments' on sale that have been crying out to me. Quite a large number of these I've bought and squirrelled away for later use from The Works and a few other places.

Take this set for example, the mask could hang outside a theatre, buy four packs and you could build a clock tower using the clock one. The crown will work for either a pub or maybe a jewellers. I'll leave the others to your imagination.





There are several other sets I've got but have already been put into storage.

More thoughts to follow...


(*) Other celebrations can also generate exciting modelling materials too.

Post Christmas - Box Sets

Continuing my gathering of those unexpected goodies that can help the model maker that come at this time of year...

I'm gathering up some of the mince pie trays, sweet and biscuit trays that come from the selection boxes to use as moulds for plaster work.

Not sure exactly what I'm going to get from them yet, but I'll be experimenting in the new year.





This one has potential. Certainly the shield shaped tray.

I tried this a few years back when I modelled some stone pillars from an old chocolate selection tray.

Christmas 2011

   

Post Christmas - Crackers

Hope you've all suitably over indulged over Christmas and as a result have plenty of exciting modelling materials now at your disposal.

Even if I don't get much time in the year ahead to make good on some of these ideas, I thought I'd share a few and hope they inspire you.

The humble Christmas cracker offers quite a lot of potential. 

The plastic from the boxes make good windows for models, whilst the crackers themselves offer so many possibilities. The gifts - sometimes tacky - can be useful to modellers.

A shoe pedant might become the hanging sign outside a cobblers, whilst a giant gem could be the focal point of wizard's lair.

The cracker card has potential for being good backgrounds, this one a particular favourite has certainly potential for a Doctor Who diorama at some point

My crackers this year had bit of ribbon around them, these I save to decorate the garlands and Christmas wreaths for next year.

Still wondering what to do with the paper hats, any thoughts?

And finally, not forgetting those unforgettable jokes...

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. 

It's been a strange year, and for various reasons I have been unable to work on any models this year, and the writing projects have also suffered. 

At the moment all my model materials and finished work are in storage, so I do not expect a great deal of model work being done next year. I do hope that I will be able to relaunch the blog early in the new year and at least post some model ideas and updates for the new series of books I have planned.

In meantime remember this time of year gives rise to some interesting materials for model building.

Let's see what we can make out of this lot?

Best regards

Derek

Another chance to catch Karl for FREE

This weekend there will be another chance to download the first book of Karl's adventures for FREE on Amazon Kindle.

The Kindle edition will be free to download between
Friday 7th October and Tuesday 11th October 2016

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

Sorry this offer has now expired.

A big thank you to everyone that took the trouble to download book one over this weekend. I hope you enjoy the adventure.

So join the good folk of Miltonburg in this exciting adventure...

Varnished At Last

It’s been a long time coming, but finally the haunted house has been varnished. Last weekend, after blowing up the mower, I decided that Sunday would be dedicated to the models, weather permitting. 

Fortunately the weather was, quite breezy but warm, so with the shade up I finally got the mother of all varnish jobs finished. After a few hours with the tin of varnish and the brush the haunted house is now all but complete. 

The only thing left is to reattach the stone ‘support’ pillar which keeps coming off. I also got four of the larger ghost town models that had been recently painted up varnished as well in the mammoth session. 

The painting of these had not gone as well as I would have liked. The Wilko paint I had been using for ‘Burnt Umber’ has been changed since I originally discovered it. 

Although the tube are much larger, so more paint yay! this new version of Burnt Umber has come out more redder than before and I was forced to add a lot of additional black and white into the mix to tone it back to the darker wood effect I had previously taken to.

With Hobbycraft having had a special offer running this month on their acrylic paints I have taken the opportunity to pick up a selection of black, grey, white, umbers and others from their range and will be trying those out soon. 

Meanwhile, whilst the mower was blowing up, I’ve also suffered a hard drive failure, some data was recoverable from backups but other data wasn’t. Hence the blog silence for a bit. I have however made good progress on the tapestry and will be posting some new photos soon. 

(Oh and I not mention the boiler... They say things come in threes so I hope that’s me off the hook for several years now please!!!)