TIM’s Miniatures & Musings (No: 141)

Featured by theimperfectmodeller, posted in Musings, Uncategorized

This Posts Mini is …

… not a figure from the Footsore Baron’s War range!  I needed something a little different so I trawled through my box of outstanding bits and bobs and settled on this guy from Studio Miniatures.  Now when it comes to real life clowns I can’t stand them, l just don’t find them funny.  However, when it comes to painting them I love them.  An opportunity for freehand and colour expression which simply cannot be found easily in anything else.

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Telford

This coming weekend sees me in Telford.  It is the biggest show of the year – Scale Model World – run by IPMS and purported to be the largest show of its kind in the world.  Hopefully it will be a fun time but for me this year is likely to be a muted affair as I haven’t had as much time as I’d like to produce stuff for the show.  If I get to go next year I’ll aim to get my act together more but 2022 has been a difficult one.  In any event I’ll let you know how it goes.

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Social Media

I read an interesting article on the BBC News website the other day about a women switching off her social media accounts (BBC News – ‘It’s so liberating’: The people quitting social media – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63482162).  Apparently she found it liberating and better for her health and well being.  I can believe it.  I think social media is, for those who are unable to control there use of it, an addiction and a modern evil.  She put out a final post on the various platforms she used to say she was quitting and in response received numerous replies.

I quite admire the women for making a stand and I wish more people would follow her example but I fear it may be to late.  When people responded to her final posts with comments like “I wish I could do that” and ” you’re so brave” I despair.  Unless you are a business reaching out to the world using social media as a marketing tool then yes “you can do that”, you just delete the fucking app and forget about it!  Further, when you do that you aren’t being brave you are being sensible.  When you are faced by 4,000 Zulus and all you have is a rifle and some guts behind it then you are being brave.  

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Well It Made Me Laugh …

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Model Club

The first rule of Model Club is nothing really happens at Model Club.  Except last week something did!  Not only did a new member turn up but he was black, a person of colour I believe is the current phrase being used these days.  A very positive step it must be said and long may it continue.  

Now elsewhere in the country this is probably no big deal but Plymouth and the West Devon area is a throw back to the 1950’s when it comes to ethnic integration and aside from the Chinese and Indian take away families you’d be hard pressed to find someone who isn’t white.  So, as I say, it’s a step in the right direction.  I just hope he’s not into fucking WW2! 

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And Finally …

Does anyone know what happens if you get scared half to death twice?

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Until next time.

TIM 

35 thoughts on “TIM’s Miniatures & Musings (No: 141)”

  1. Excellent work on the clown Dave, I don’t think I’ve ever painted one, so may have to rectify that, maybe a zombie clown ! LOL
    Great news on the diversity at the club, and if he does like tanks, it may be from a different perspective ! LOL
    Hope Telford goes well, and look forward to reading about it.

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  2. Closest I’ve come to painting a clown is some Malifaux miniatures!
    Social media, a modern day pariah. I turned off all my accounts save this WordPress blog and my LinkedIn account (which will be shutdown the minute I retire). I will say that I have to agree with the BBC reporter, while the first week was tough, it has been such a mental health breakthrough fro me since leaving Facebook.

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  3. That clown has come out well enough to be considered a government minister! Nice paint job! 🙂 I consider myself lucky in having never used social media, so having no friends does have its advantages! 😉 Hope you enjoy the Telford show!

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  4. Absolutely stunning paintjob on the clown mate, I too dislike the real life versions just not funny and creepy as hell!

    Best of luck at Telford, and hope you have an enjoyable show.

    My mum had a similar experience to your new club member, she was the only white person when she signed up to a club she thought was dedicated to making your birthday and Christmas presents more presentable, she got some very strange looks the night she turned up with scissors, sticky tape and ribbon to the local “Rap club!”.

    On that note I came home the other night to find a very attractive blonde lady sorting out the grouting in our bathroom while singing “Total eclipse of the heart”. I thought my word she’s a bonny tiler….

    Sorry I’ll go now, cheers Roger.

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  6. That is one creepy clown! Its interesting that someone who doesn’t like them paints them in such a dark manner 🙂 I hope that the model show goes well for you and I think social media is more addictive to some people than others. I’ve actually noticed with my parents that they seem more addicted to it than I ever have been which is curious. I don’t know if there is any correlation with age and social media or not but there are definitely some who get more hooked than others.

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    1. I’ve always found clowns scary rather than funny which probably has something to do with it. The social media thing doesn’t strike me as just a generation thing for the young. All age groups have been suckered into it. Just comes down to the individual and the level of self control they have but it is worrying all the same.

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  7. That clown is creepy cool. His face is superb mate. Not sure if anyone has told you but blogs are classed as social media too my friend haha. I’ve done Facebook, Instagram (still have the fly on the wall podcast one) and this blog. I even did MySpace back in the early 2000’s. It’s all pretty shit to be fair. I quit Facebook about a decade ago but still get emails trying to tempt me back haha. Social media is a huge suck hole and, ironically, people are so busy being “social” on these platforms that they don’t have time to be social in the real world. It is madness but it’s here to stay. I use this blog as my way of connecting with like minded people and the Instagram to promote the podcast but believe me I’d be happy to switch it all off one day. The only one I’d struggle with is this here blog because I’ve made some really decent friends on here such as your good self old mate 😉 However, there’s a big part of me that hopes to, one day, switch off and live in the middle of nowhere in an off grid cabin.

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    1. Glad you like the Clown mate and I tried to make him as creepy as I could just for you! As for social media check out the Netflix documentary “The Social Dilemma”. Very worrying. The bottom line is people have to exercise their own control. Much like alcohol not everyone is a drunk. Like you I only use this Blog when it comes to communicating with the outside world but I do browse Pinterest for inspiration from time to time. I haven’t got enough years left in me to waste it on anything else!

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  8. Nice work on that clown. The face paint is tremendously realistic and I’m amazed at how well the spots on the shirt and the stripes on the trousers work.

    Well done you for championing diversity at your club. Wargaming has long been dominated by white boys and this is very much to its detriment.

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    1. Cheers mate, glad you like the Clown, they are fun to paint. Diversity at the club is welcome for sure. Just wish we could encourage more youngsters and women as well as ethnic bodies to get a greater perspective on the hobby but alas it’s a very, very slow process it seems. Shame because it’s a fun interest in my opinion.

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  10. Haha yea, I really hope the new guy doesn’t say “I’m into jets and tanks…and tanks and jets.”!! Now I see why you mentioned a clown specifically in one of your comments. And what a beauty of a clown that one is! Painting circles is a huge pain with a brush, at least for me. And here you go and freehand a whole bunch of them!! Damn you and your awesome freehand skills, haha! Social media, I dropped Facebook like a rock a few years back and I really don’t miss it. Blogging, Reddit, and I guess YouTube are the only ones I follow but mostly because I can choose to focus what is presented to me and not have to read about someone’s cat every single day or their political views.

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      1. At first, Facebook was not that bad for me. I was able to reconnect with old friends and keep in touch with them. But as time went on and more people got added from requests, some relatives, some friends of friends, and people from work. My close network of friends grew into a mess of people that I really didn’t care for. Plus if you’re part of any groups, you have to deal with those posts too. Now I have more control of the amount of fear and doubt I ingest everyday! 😉

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  12. Hey Dave, nice work on the clown and I can see how it really is a challenge to paint. I feel the same way about shields! As for the Telford show, good luck, and I hope your genius is appreciated, but if not, know that we sure as hell do. I use social media sparingly – Facebook is ok , but I use it to promote golf events and gaming. IG same, plus to see how crazy Luke is getting. This blog stuff is my main outlet – and even that is hard to keep up with – especially with a tee time (if you know what I mean). Go forth, and kick Telford’s ass.

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    1. Thanks Mark. Social media is sadly out of control for some people, like drink and drugs I guess but I feel for the kids more. I feel they are missing out on the early lives we had. As for Telford, hopefully it will be fun but competition wise it’s a stiff one and hard to call, the standard is so high. 🙂

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  13. Super job on that clown (be honest, it’s a self-portrait isn’t it?).

    Couldn’t agree more about social media. Social media, I think, is just a hellish thing. It’s done so much damage to so many people in so many ways. I used facepuke for a while and I really don’t miss it, I still log in to my account occasionally but honestly it makes me feel a bit stressed out, and when I see the few people I know who still post on it I almost feel as if I’m intruding, as if I’ve seen them doing something that should be private in a public place. I don’t know if it’s a generational thing, or perhaps just something specific to me and my friends/family but I really know very few people who’re active “users” of social media these days, and the handful that are are all at least a decade or two older or younger than I am, so hopefully it’s dying out and people will go back to talking to each other in person the way we should.

    I knew a lot of people who used facepuke, and before than myspace and bebo, but hardly any that still do – and that I think is one of the most insidious things that’s wrong with it actually. Back when I started at university I made friends with a couple of people who have never, ever had any kind of social media account in all the time I’ve known them (oddly, although I met them both in the same place at roughly the same time, they don’t know each other but that’s beside the point). It’s been 20 years and I still speak to each of them several times a week, even if it’s just a text.

    Now compare that to the friends I made when I went back to university to do my masters. I met three other guys there and we were best mates from day one, you never saw one of us without at least a couple of the others lurking nearby. We shared a flat for a bit towards the end of the year, and then our course finished and we all went our separate ways. We used facebook to keep in touch, except it was much more passive – if I wanted to know what one of the guys was getting up to I didn’t need to contact him, I could just look at his page and see exactly what he was doing. Now all four of us have stopped using social media, and it suddenly occurs to me that with that link gone I’ve lost touch with them; I’ve not sat down and spoken to any of them directly in at least a decade, just passively absorbed status updates until those petered out and stopped, and that’s bloody sad really. Obviously I can, and I will, try to track them all down, but I think that’s one of the key – and often overlooked – negatives of social media, it separates us from people who we would keep in touch with, if only we had to make a little effort.

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    1. An interesting tale mate and I think Facebook and some other social media have a lot to answer for. Hopefully people are starting to see it for what it is and that they will at least limit use to sharing family photos with family rather than what they have just had for breakfast with the world!

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  15. Oh, I do love/hate that clown! Looks like the sort of weirtd character we’d have on the table in a Zombicide game, to tell you the truth! Patterns and colouring look great as well!

    Perhaps a box of Eldar Harlequins might be something you’d be interested in picking up to work on from time to time as a similar palette cleanser? Lots of opportunity for colours, patterns and motley, and I’d imagine you could do some amazing work on them as well!

    I only keep a facebork account in case I need to check something there – so the odd sculptor or business that uses it as a contact point. My blog used to auto-update my account with my new pics there, but FB changed something so that no longer happens either, though it’s not like I actually bothered to check the thing anyway. Twitter is basically a place full of horseshit, but again, occasionally I check it for something relevent, though even people who have models I like to look at constantly post or tweet political crap of various types. Every time I look at it I end up blocking a few more people.

    Performative wokeness on Twitter from people who probably genuinely think they’re being usefully politically active by sitting on the thing all day or going on a twitterstorm just boggles the mind. Anyway, I block people like that – along with pretty much anyone from any political stripe who’s being an idiot. It’s kind of like sweeping dirt in the back garden to make it neat, though I still get a warm fuzzy from blocking a few more morons each time i go on there. 😀

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