Update Feb-March: Part 3: " Booze, Figures, and A Game Store Review"

So as Feb slowly ended and rolled into March, the first thing on my plate was my wonderful wife's (Gawd bless her!) birthday.

Cards, presents, and roses for her as she truly deserves it.

Roses and being a good husband...

And then that weekend, I decided that I needed to "rearrange my liquor shelf". It had gotten to be a bit on the chaotic side with bottles of hooch everywhere, so I decided to "organize.
First was the whiskies/whiskey's/bourbons...
*(Note: The Wild Turkey Rare Breed was bought in December of 2006 and has yet to be opened. I'm saving it for a special occasion), and the Fireball is NOT mine...yuk.

And then, next up was the rums...

And then I finally put it all back together, along with the other stuff...

But now...back to figures!

Figures and painting: 

So we are back to figures.
With the Halloween stuff out of the way, I went back to my pulp stuff.
First up is one of the figures from Crucible Crush's amazing "Cthulhu 28's" line. This is from the "Arkham Investigators".  I wanted to try this figure out as she presented me the challenge of learning to paint "sheer stockings".
I think I was able to get them to a passable look, don't you think?
(Oh and a B&W Noir pic is included)....

Dressed for an elegant evening of socializing at a RSVP party hosted by that gallivanting wealthy playboy, Edward Winder; the ever lovely Miss Barbara Kane was able to slip away unnoticed and find the secret passage that led to the tunnels below. Armed with her trusty pistol, she moved slowly through the ominous passageway, unaware of the trap that was soon to be sprung upon her by Edward and his henchmen.... 

And what kind of town, (Pulp or Western) would there be without a "Chinatown" section?

This set is from that amazing Pulp Figures line, (and once again, I must say, they are fantastic) and can easily be used in so many genres.

 

Four of the five figures from the line.

Seems we have a conversation going on here...Let's listen in shall we?

Lo-Fat and Wang Chung are discussing “Where they can find a Chinese girl with green eyes...”

 And when I was done with those, I moved onto some more Old West style figures.
These are from Wargames Foundry (or "Foundry" for short), and are from their Mexican Peons/Peasants Range.

Some new population for Chili Verde???

First off we have the Senors!

 

Juan and Pablo...waiting to see what happens next...or when the tamales are done....

Pedro and Sancho...Pedro waiting for his daily butt chewing from the love of his life, and Sancho just taking a siesta and waiting for the tamales to be done....

And now the Senora's/Senorita's...

The ladies of the group...

Maria, and Alda carry their water jugs to the local well...

While Margarita waits rolling her eyes in disbelief at the latest explanation from Pancho for his latest blunder, while Teresa carries a basket of fruit from the orchard to her casa...

It was after getting these done and placed that I had realized that I haven't taken a picture of my display case in a while. So I decided to do so, to see what it looked like.
Crikey!
There are six figures in here that I did not paint. The rest are done by yours truly here.
I will admit, it IS impressive to look at sometimes.

I am quickly running out of room on these shelves!!!!

However it's not all fun and games...

March is also not only my wife's birthday but also the birthday of my sister, whom I never knew.

She was born and died at the age of 2 1/2 years and was buried 6 years before I was even born.
I never knew her, but I think of her every day.



GAME STORE REVIEW!!!!

Okay so this is where I take a quick break from posting my "What I painted", and give you the lowdown skinny on a game store that has recently (within the past year), opened up here in the Indy area.
Lately there has been an increase in game stores in the local area, (and it kind of reminds me of the heyday back in the 80's).  Most of the stores have been focused on CCGs, RPG's and Euro-style boardgames, which are great, but when it comes to miniatures, it's few and far in between.
Enter "Sinclair Games".

Sinclair games fills the niche created for a store that is more miniatures focused.
I had been trying to get up to the Carmel area to see them for a few months but life always seemed to intrude.
Finally I did make it.

First off is the address taken off of the website:  www.sinclairgames.com

Sinclair Games
112 W Carmel Drive
Carmel, IN. 46032

PH: 317-815-4800

Carmel is an area slightly N/NE of Indy. It's (in)famous for it's lack of stoplights, and it's massive use of roundabouts, (which most people in Indiana are completely clueless to the concept of and treat them like they were four way stops), so getting there was a bit of an adventure.
The store is small and there isn't a lot of signage. It's tucked away in a retail/industrial/office strip mall/plaza of sorts.
Entering the store I found something that was good for me. While most stores that "did minis" pretty much focused on the "big things" (GW, FoW, etc), Sinclair also focused on other brands. True there were FoW things there, but there was also Reaper, Pathfinder, Bolt Action, Malifaux, Great Escape, etc,, and it was a welcome relief.
I will admit that the store IS small. Don't expect a massive size retail area or a dozen score rows of stock, But with their small size I was very pleased. They do have some RPG stuff, and a nice but small selection of board games. They also have a great selection of paints and hobby tools that we all seem to need in this horrible hobby of ours.

So to show how pleased i was, I spent money.

The first thing I bought was the "North American Store" by Perry Miniatures.
(Authors Note: I am currently working on this and am having very mixed feelings about it...more to come on that one.)

And I scooped up the Coppers set for TCW...

 And of course, I grabbed some more paints, (including some restocks of ones that were going empty), to use.  The German Black Brown, Medium Cam Brown, and the English Uniform are very common colors that I seem to put to a lot of use. 

And I picked up some Army Painter Quick Shade Soft Tone to go with the Strong Tone.

And I picked up some scenery. The ground tufts always helps bases and groundwork look better. 

All in all, Sinclair Games is a good up and coming store. The only drawback I see to it is the difficult location to get to, (not as bad as when Little Wars of Houston moved from The Katy Fwy to K'dale and was almost impossible to get to though). It's just one of those things that "you have to find out which is the best way for you to get there. I'm hoping that they will be successful and will grow in the coming years. I will support them with my business as I like their variety.

More to come!