An April and May update

 Game wise that is...

The month of March has roared in and out with the majority of the damage from the tornado taken care of, life is kind of getting back to normal in our small Indiana town, (which is quickly growing).

As a result of all of this, my painting and gaming for the month of April came to a stop, and then for the most part May kind of did the same thing. Some figures got painted but not enough to my liking.

I did do a few things however, gaming wise and "other wise" (aka "Real life")...

Let's get to that first.

Soooooo....My wife was absolutely thrilled and then overwhelmed with anxiety when her BFF from high school and life in general announced that she was coming to visit us (all the way from Colorado no less!), and thus "we needed to get the house in order".

My wife decided that "We needed an actual coffee table".

Now I'll be honest. We haven't had one in the living room. 

So me in good old typical husband tradition, went scouring and found a table, that she approved of, brought it home and all was good. 

And now onto other things....

So we had company....

My wife's BFF and her husband were on a long road trip across the US, and made the return trip here back to us. To give my wife and her friend some "alone girls time", I took her husband to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where we delved into "All things racing".

IMS has an amazing museum. In all of my years, this is probably perhaps the third time I have ever been here, and each time it is amazing. The cars they have on display, the history of the track and the races, everything. It's been well done and very easy to take in.

Some pics of the cars in the museum, along with some very famous names on them. (Click on photos for a larger version).

And of course, the trophy.

Odd Indy 500 Trivia fact....

Whenever a driver wins the Indy 500, he has a mask cast made of his face which is then reproduced in silver and added to the Borg-Warner Trophy here. This is the actual winners trophy, which is never awarded. The winning driver gets a silver replica of this for themselves. 

We also had a chance to play around on the simulators and my friend hit the wall at 234 mph, which would have been a spectacular fireball and sure to make the evening news.

And now....FOOD!!!!

A friend of mine says that "It wouldn't be a good post about minis and gaming, if I didn't include some "food" pics on it. So I often wonder "Just how many people come to read my posts and focus more on the food than the minis and gaming?" If you are a reader out there, please let me know in the comments.

Robbers Steak

So I decided to try out a recipe from a site based on the Robber Steak as written by Jonathan Harker in Dracula.  So with recipe and ingredients in hand, I went to it.

I had to use the oven version as my grill is not yet ready for summer cooking.

(Skewers full of meat going in the oven...)

(Looks good so far...)

(And on the plate...)

They were actually very good, and tbh, I can't wait to try them out on the grill.

I also had a chance to fix dinner for everyone and made my famous jambalaya, (complete with Cajun spices).

(Dinner is served!)

(A close up of dinner....)

And of course, dessert!

In this case, it was sugar sprinkled strawberries with bananas and vanilla bean ice cream.

After our friends left and went back home, I was also able to introduce my wife to this little delicacy.

Just a simple small whiff from the jar and it sent my mind reeling to "Back in the day" in South Korea.

(Oh yeah...)

(It's "an acquired taste" for us Americans...)

But it wasn't all "fun, games, and good times..."

So one day in early April I drove to Lafayette to do some business, and when I came out, "this" greeted me...

Ouch!

So my passenger side mirror got tagged and broken. Instead of filing an insurance claim, I hit up my friendly body part shop, who found one the same style and size in a junkyard for less money. A few days later, it's fixed and good to go.

And now I guess it's to the gaming and minis stuff....

What's on the table???

Knowing that I want to run a game for Little Wars next year, I decided to take out my Western buildings and do an experimental town setup.

Now the tables I use for gaming makes for an 8' x 4' setup, Each table being 8' x 2' plus I usually have an end table for me. with that being said, I wanted to get an idea of what "a small town setup" would look like. This will give me an idea of just "how big" this town could grow and become.  This would also give me an idea of what I need to build as well as to finish. 

(Click on the pics to get larger views).

(A test layout for my Western Town of Rimfire (Arizona, Territory). This setup is less than half of the table length.)

(An oblique shot of the town. I've noticed that I still need to build a corral for the livery stable, some hitching posts, a few more residences, and here I can see that I need to finish a roof for one of the shops.)

(Here we can see the unfinished jail... Man I gotta get off my duff and finished that thing.)

(Looking from the sheriff's office/jail down the main street.  So much more to build.)

(Looking from the cemetery. It looks to be getting pretty crowded in there.)

(Looking down Main Street from the Sheriff's office and the unfinished jail...)

(Looking from the filling up fast cemetery....)

(Good old Wun Hung Lo's Chinese Laundry...)

(A shot of Main Street...)

(Looking across the opposite site of the street.)

So the Western town is coming along nicely, but as always there is so much else to build:

Church

Gunshop

1-2 more saloons

Dance Hall

Corral for the Livery Stable

Hotel(s)

Bordello (s)

Grocers

And the list goes on and on and on and on....

And I also found out that I ran out of color, (Apple Barrel Craft Paints), and only then discovered that it is no longer made...(sigh)

(Anyone have a spare container of this, let me know...)

Other than that, I just did some building plan drawing on some foamcore. Getting some ideas to build a 28mm Brownstone and an adjoining cafe for some gangster gaming.

(Some plans for da "urban redevelopment dat da boss has in mind...")

So that's about it for now. 

Right now it is June and I am busy working on some dungeon monsters. I'll finish those up, and jump back either onto pirates or some pulp/gangster figures and who knows? I might even get the design for this building cut and assembled.

Keep your eyes peeled for more to come!

Thanks!

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!