Gnomevember Begins

Last month I eschewed Drokktober and went cold turkey on Judge Dredd stuff. Lotsa reasons, lotsa things to do instead.

Like... Gnomes! I've sat on these guys for too long, it's time to take action. Let Gnomevember commence!

Day one. This is a Gnome. Classic design, drawn quite some time ago and coloured in Photoshoppe (yes, that old). There'll be another tomorrow, and then the next day, and so forth, interspersed with Gnowledge and Gnomic utterances. It may last the entire month, it may not. let's ride this thing and see how far it goes.

Jack the Ladder and Friend

 It's Halloween again, but it feels different this time.

Once again, the spectre of Covid is at large in our country, and this time it seem the bugger is here to stay. While all of the Simian household are double-jabbed and our town is in the relatively-free Level 2, the trick-or-treaters of a couple of years back are still doggedly pursuing other suburbs in search of candied booty. We didn't even put the decorations up in the house this year, much to Jet Jr's disappointment. 

But we still did the pumpkins. 

And this year, as Junior has reached a significant age, he got the bigger fruit to work with. This is Spooky:

He did a great job, although the cutting was still left in my hands (all fingers still attached and accounted for), giving him the task of scooping the innards out. Junior wanted something not evil and more fun, and so Spooky is the result, whereas I had more nefarious intents and a more challenging canvas to work with. This is Kooky:

Kooky is a special boy, as he's the first fruit of 2020's pumpkin ladder, so was shop-bought as a seedling, but home raised. He's also the only survivor of the endeavour, and is a real scar-face. He's seen some things, man...

He does have a nice bottom, mind, but I couldn't find a way to incorporate the lovely patterns there. I could have made more of an effort given the rather Frankenstein-like scars on his 'face' (the main inspiration for the design), but after six months in the garage in all extremes, I fear Kooky will be the first to succumb after this transformation, so I played it safe. 

Junior and I will plant seeds ourselves this year, having selected a sunny spot and sourced material for a raised bed. They should be good to go either next February in time for a Southern Samhain, or, if they're late, some cooler storage. We wait and see...

Happy Halloween, readers!

Monkey Business

 I'm posting again, but unless my reader is following every post as they're put up, seeing the new content might be a bit weird and all over the place; so this page will be something of a growing index to the entries that aren't naturally positioned around this here one. It might also provide an insight into ten years of Simian mental meanderings...

Posts so far:

2/7/21 : New Plymouth (11 November 2015)  - a photo essay

3/7/21 : Giving a Hoot (11 March 2018) - heirloom and restoration microproject

4/7/21 : Justice Denied (3 December 2017) - a film review.

5/7/21 : To Enhance Your Land Raiding Needs (7 March 2016) - another Adventure 2000 Matchbox toy

6/7/21 : A Pallet Bench (5 October 2020) - scrap wood furniture

7/7/21 : Drokktober 2019 begins - Days 1 through 15 of a (nearly) daily Judge Dredd doodle.

8/7/21 : Daddy's Little Heartbreaker (6 November 2016) - I make an RPG game! Nearly. Frequently. 

9/7/21 : My Zombie Weekend (11 June 2016) - a cautionary tale of viewing movies cold.

10/7/21 : A Box of (Past) Delights (8 January 2018) - a model childhood.

11/7/21: Drokktober 2019 returns - with Days 16 through 21

12/7/21 : Palindrome! Drokktober Days 22 to 26

13/7/21 : Drokktober 2019 forever - Day 27 through to Halloween and the end!
               Bonus post: What is the Future of the Future? - Manic Street Preachers review.

14/7/21 : The Midlands Cuckoos (6 March 2019) - Moore and Parkhouse's The Bojeffries Saga

15/7/21 : License Expired, Go Offshore (30 June 2018) - Bootlego!

16/7/21 : The Mirky Dozen: Wild and Woody (10 July 2015) - The Return of the Hobbit's elves

17/7/21 : Wonderful (25 June 2017) I hated Wonder Woman! Phshaw -yeah, right!

Try July

 

Whoa-o here he comes...

Yeah, I'm thinking I'm back.

It's July, my birthmonth*, so I'm going to spend the next thirty-one days posting once a day on this blog and do some stuff. I have a few things planned this month: a birthday, and a D&D session on Zoom, so that'll fill a couple of days. Some home projects, too. School holidays need filling up, and some old entries the teeming masses have been left on tenterhooks about need to be addressed. Did I finish the J Grubb General Store model? What about the elves? Has my model painting improved at all? No. Are there more Dreddworld judges to mess up graphically Yes! Could I fit a gnome article in? Always. Did I see that Justice League movie? How dare you!

I will post past things, future things, backwards, forwards, sideways and out of sequence, as Jetsam has always been. Time is fluid, and I am, if nothing else on this blog, a big fibber.

Stick around, readers. This is either going to roar to a majestic conclusion or I'm gonna total this thing!

(*Today is also my mum's birthday. Happy birthday, Mum. I miss you)

We Never Leave a Man Behind!

 Good news in the Simian household with the arrival of a box of weird stuff from my teenage years!

This was quite the thing. Collected (I think) from various stages of a garage tidy-up by my Dad, it's presumably passed through two houses since some of it was first packed away - and it shows. Things have got dusty, some a bit worse for wear over time, and even the moths have had a go (eek)

But amongst the old scout badges (of more later), and early modelling gear (again, later), a prize. 

This dude:

Once again, this is a Grenadier model - one of a blister pack of four, including a fallen orc, goblin and thief/magic-user (I could never tell), which a scan of Miniatures Workshop tells me was Fantasy Lords release 110: 'Casualties'.  I think this was an early purchase - 1984 or 1985, as the spread of subjects was probably economically attractive, and I was very keen on dioramas and dungeon dressing back then. He's clearly had a few paintjobs. Well, judging by the way he's laid out he may have just had a few. Here he is after an initial bath and scrub in Simple Green:

Those are enamel paints, so the soak might need to be a bit longer. It's telling that some of the colours here were the mainstays of my 'Humbrol Years' of model painting: there's a burgundy, for example, which was one of the few paints I purchased which wasn't a hangover from earlier WW2 model painting (of which more, etc) Underneath that, of course, is the white undercoat. These days I use black and work up to light, but I think for a novice painter it was a blessing - as was the enamel I used. Both worked really well for washes, and the paint jobs held impressively after years of being knocked around - as the bath above shows. At least I only have one side to clean.

So now all of my old minis are present and accounted for. I'm pleased as punch. Time to get painting! 

Blasters to Laser, Mr Solo!

 It's the Fourth of May - Star Warps Day again!

Incredible to think that it was only fifty years ago today that I stood queued outside the Oamaru Majestic Theatre to see Star Warps the Movie(tm) and its EXPLOSIVE end:

Star Warps. It made me the man I am today. 

Hell's [Jingle] Bells

 2020 has been a rough year for the arts and entertainers. Albums delayed, tours put on hold, and we even lost a few to COVID-19, alas.

But amidst that bad news, some good. Albums have been worked on, musicians have still collaborated, new compositions created, and old projects dusted off. Case in point: AC/DC's new album Power Up, the second since the death of Malcolm Young. It's good - great, even - and something of a miracle in the circumstances; but this isn't a post about that album. Let's go back further.

Come with me to a time where the mullet was giving way to the all-round longhair of new metal and grunge, to AC/DC still at their second peak and the era of one of their greatest songs 'Thunderstruck'. It is 1990, and I am flatting and have my own band. I begrudgingly appreciated 'Thunderstruck', and nearly a lifetime later would eventually sing it myself. But this isn't a post about that song. It's another song off the same album, The Razor's Edge. This is 'Mistress for Christmas'

Now, lyrically there's not a lot of Yuletide marking here. Possibly the song came about from the titular rhyme. There are Jingle Bells in the opening (and I've made my opinion on that song known already) and some guff about descending smokestacks later on, but hey - just enjoy the thing! That's what it's for.

And let's have no more talk of 2020. Cheery Mistress, to one and all!