The shelf on the desk

This is all about the shelves I built about 4 months ago. Probably should have taken a picture before I filled up the shelves, but here it is in use. 

Again, all the wood I used was rescued from burn pile at the local dump. Most is 3/4" plywood. The outer frame and middle separator are 5 1/2" deep (the actual width of the 1 x 6 plank on the left-hand side) and held together with screws. I intentionally left enough room for my home-made cardboard spray booth to fit under. The three inner shelves on the right are 3 1/2" deep and are held in place with doweling and glue. The two inner shelves on the left are around 3" deep, maybe a bit more, and have a backing behind them (the rest of the shelves are open-backed). The tool holder on the bottom left is a 3/8" plywood and roughly 4" wide, installed at an angle with a parallel piece behind it to act as a stop for the ends of the tools so they don't end up behind the desk. Also left a bit of space under it to put things like small pliers, side cutters, rulers, etc. The unit is attached to the desk with some L-brackets left over from a different project. It's been very nice to have.

Looking at the picture, I can see at least 5 unfinished works in progress. Some of which have been in stasis for 5 and 6 months. That's how distracted I can be, though I'm hoping to work on things to be quicker at finishing.

Update: March 2024

As one might guess, the past few months have had me pretty busy and blogging is pretty low on my priority list. I think I'm realizing that I can't remember having played a miniatures wargame since October. While nothing happened game-wise, there was some other hobby progress made.

New Hobby Space

Until now, I've been building/painting at the kitchen table or on the couch with a 14"x14" wooden tray. This tray was getting quite filled up as I would have two or three little things going on it at a given time. After finishing the spaceships featured in the last post, I still had some half-painted fantasy minis, a die-cast car I had started a surgery on, and the beginnings of an idea for making Aeronef ships out of bread tags. Of course, the three projects going at the same time meant the board was also cluttered with cutting tools, paints, brushes, glue, and random bits of wood, metal, and plastic.

When getting the board down (ever so carefully so as not to spill anything) to work on something, I might stare at the three projects and fiddle with each for a couple of minutes, then sit and stare at it all. On top of that, because I had no real dedicated space for my stuff (except the paint, I had a place for the paint), it started getting dispersed throughout the house and I was losing track of things so that it was more difficult to actually do whatever it was in my mind to do. In other word, the negative inertia acting on me was mounting. I was also feeling a growing itch to try using my airbrush again, which had even more negative inertia attached to it than my board.

So it all went on hold as I devoted time to looking at peoples' hobby desks. About a week of that and I decided on a general plan, found useful stuff in my modest salvaged wood pile, and cut the main pieces. Then, on a night in late November, the wife and kids gone somewhere, I built a little hobby desk.

And here it is, all cluttered like every other one I saw:

Definitely needs something on the wall to help with organization, I think. The airbrush is now so much more accessible, I've used it more in the past couple months than all the years previous that I've owned it.

Painting of Blacklist: Fantasy Series 1

I got a bunch of these minis primed in the fall so that they'd be ready for painting at any time, but it took a long time to feel like I had the time to paint again. Only a few models got done, though some were done with the help of one of my daughters.

A dwarf warrior. Will probably put a wash on him still.

My daughter helped me paint these kobalds.

Giant spiders, too!

Aeronef Shipyard

We keep plastic bread tags for some reason or another and I've always had the thought I should do something with them, so I made an airship and plan to make more. I also made some using the handles of plastic forks.

Aeronef airships.

So that's been what I've been working on when given the chance, plus one other thing that will be posted about when it's done.

A small upgrade

My scratch modeled female warrior suffered a loss. One of my younger daughters took it to look at an it came back sans épée. Couldn't find it for a while, but by some miracle, the sword did show up. However, I never really felt the sword suited the sculpt and I had already decided to make a different one.

I'm currently in the midst of the summer busyness, so it has been a bit of time, but I finally got to work on the replacement. This time, I took a slightly different approach by forging a new sword from a bit of paperclip. That's right! Using a hammer, I flattened my paperclip stock to a near-scale blade width. It bent a little, like it wanted to be a sabre, but it wasn't too much and I moved on to filing.

First, filed out the bow, then a point. With a few more strokes, I more or less defined a central ridge on both sides. Next, I filed down the non-pointy side for a handle.

Filing done, the word was affixed to it's new user's hand. Once the glue dried enough for me to work on it, I built up a pommel and cross-guard with green stuff.

So here we are, ready again to prime!

Finally Starting from Scratch

One of reasons I started this blog in the first place was to keep track of my progress as I worked towards the goal of sculpting my own miniatures. Hence the name of the blog.

Now, I've already done some spaceships (with Full Thrust in mind) and airplanes (with Canvas Eagles in mind) carved out of wood, but the real challenge to myself, the ultimate goal, and what has become most interesting to me as I've been on this journey, is to sculpt people.

I must admit, even while I have been modding Heroclix and gaining that experience, the actual idea of making a mini from scratch has been pretty daunting. In fact, the first thing I read on the subject of sculpting miniatures from scratch was on a website called Storm the Castle. The site owner, Will, has a series of tutorials that start you out with sculpting six inch figures in play dough and gradually working you down to smaller scale figures using finer putties and tools. I read much of it. It's probably a good tutorial, but...

But, I jumped right in to modding Heroclix with the thought that I can start out simple with them by adding or changing out simple objects at first and then working into more difficult stuff, like clothes, then limbs, and eventually getting to hands and faces.

Then, almost one year ago, I felt somewhat confident enough to start a miniature from scratch. I put together a wire armature using a strand of chicken wire that had not been twisted into the fence form and some green stuff. I watched a few videos that show how to make armatures and then I started.

In July, this is what I had:

My first armature (top) after the first layer of green stuff is applied. I had mixed up too much green stuff, so Patriot (bottom) got some scale armour.

Then I didn't touch it for months, choosing instead to mod some 'Clix, paint some 40k Tyranids, D&D minis and MtG: Arena of the Planeswalkers minis. Then the COVID 19 hit and I didn't do any modding or painting until late April when I took a couple of hours to add to my armature. Filled out legs, arms and torso. I realized that my model might be a tad on the small side for 28mm, so I figure it could be a female character. Then I made a head. Maybe it took a little more than a couple of hours. With a little putty left over that I wanted to use up, I made a sword as well.

My scratch-built mini as left in late April.

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Today, while I sat with the kids to help them with homework, I added some armour and a shield.

Just poked holes to try and mimic chain mail, looks more like some kind of animal hide covering. Something I'll want to figure out in future sculpting endeavors. Her shield is cut from a twist-off cap for a packet of apple sauce. The sword was formed around a piece of paperclip.

So there she is, my first sculpt from scratch!

I'm happy to be done and excited to start painting! While there are some things I will be trying different on future sculpting, I am pleased with how this one turned out. I learned a bit and got something cool in the end.

A Gamer Box

I made a gaming box for my DnD game. It's posted on instructibles.com: see how I built my box.

Organization is key!

I've decided I want to clean up and organize the games shelf a little bit. It's a floor to ceiling affair that's just over 8 feet wide. I've been placing random minis and sculpting/painting tools and materials all over amongst the board games and I think at least one shelf could be cleared of the present clutter if I modify the space to maximize the storage area. My first move is the installation of some drawers.

This bottom drawer houses my entire WH40K collection, consisting of Imperial Guards and Tyranids purchased at a thrift store, and a few Heroclix that I have rebased. The middle drawer is the Heroclix to Star Wars mods and some other minis. Top drawer is Pirates of the Spanish Main ships.

You can see the process at my Instructibles posting: www.instructables.com/id/Old-Drawers-Relocated/

Wooden Bookmarks

Made for my sister-in-law, who happens to like sharks. All wood pieces cut/shaved from an oak (I think) piece of a discarded crib.

Very simple one on the left, just carved her first initial, very light wood stain, and attached shark with a leather strip. On the right I got a bit more creative: applying a blue wash and painting the boat over top.  Used an actual fish hook and line to attach the shark, which I just painted gray. Both treated with a spray-on varnish.