Author: theimperfectmodeller

Welcome to this weeks Miniatures & Musings!

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This weeks miniature is from Hasslefree and goes by the name of “Earl”.  This is a figure I have done before and not that long ago either but for some reason I had bought him again.  Not entirely sure why but now that I have painted him again I suspect whatever idea I had for him will now come back to me and I will end up buying him yet again!  That’s the ageing process for you!

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Well It Made Me Laugh

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The Wednesday Whinge

I love my hobby like we all do but there is one thing which gets up my nose (there are probably others too) and that’s finding a miniature I like but only being able to purchase it as part of a set of figures.  I wouldn’t mind so much if the rest of the figure in the set were as equally good but all to often they are not and they end up in the unwanted lead pile.  It’s much the same when buying a pack of socks from Marks and Spencer, there’s always a couple of pairs that you know you will never wear.

I’m no marketing guy and I expect from a sales point of view packaging the figures in this way works well for the company.  To be fair they may even think their sets of figures are all excellent and compliment one another.  Personally I prefer being able to choose the figures I want even if I had to meet a minimum price or figure volume to complete the purchase but alas that option doesn’t exist.  Until it does if I like a figure that much I will just have to pay over the odds.

Such is life.

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Give Me Five

Lockdown continues to deny me and countless others simple indulgences such as having some friends round for dinner and spending the evening putting the world to rights.  Reminding myself of this got me thinking who who would be my top five people, now no longer with us (we might do living people next week), that I would most like to have at a dinner party and have a jolly good chat with.  I thought a nice mix of politics, music, film, comedy and sport would make for a very interesting evening.  In no particular order I came up with the following guests.

1. Winston Churchill
2. John Lennon
3. Elizabeth Taylor
4. Robin Williams
5. Brian Clough

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This week TIM has been listening to …

“Take it Easy” by the Eagles.  It will be 46 years this June that I saw the Eagles live at Wembley Stadium along with a 100,000 other people, the Beach Boys and Elton John who topped the bill on his Captain Fantastic tour.  That was 1975 and this track which was released in 1972 is as great now as it was then.  Well I think so.

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This week TIM has been watching …

“Gangs of London” starring Joe Cole who can also be seen in Peaky Blinders.  This was a series recommended to me by IRO who described it as romantic comedy 😉.  I jest of course.  It is a pretty gritty and violent but extremely watchable.  Well IRO and  I think so.  Certain things didn’t turn out as I expected but a predictable drama would be less fun.  Now I just have to wait for the second series.

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Remember …

Nine times out of ten when your wife asks “Do you remember what today is?” she’s just trying to scare you.

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TIM

Welcome to this weeks Miniatures & Musings!

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This weeks miniature is a Hasslefree figure called “Tony” and is based on the character played by Nick Frost in the film Shaun of the Dead.  Having done the three “Shaun” character figures which Hasslefree have on offer it made sense to do this one.  I must take a closer look at the other figures to see if any of the others have been sculpted as I nearly missed this one.  It will also provide me with an excuse to watch the film again, not that I really need one!

The figure itself is pretty plain but when I looked at some on line images I noticed that “Tony” wore a T-Shirt with the wording “I Got Wood” written on it.  It wasn’t possible to replicate this in full due to the left arm being across the figures midriff.

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Well It Made Me Laugh

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The Wednesday Whinge

When I was a kid we had very few TV channels to choose from, three to be precise.  The BBC never had adverts but ITV, our only independent station at the time, did.  A program on ITV would be shown and every 20 minutes or so there would be a break in the broadcast for adverts.  Back then the break would be captioned with “End of Part 1” followed afterwards by “Part 2” etc when the program returned.  More importantly the program, whatever it was, simply picked up where it left off.  Somewhere between that point and now things have changed a great deal of course.

These days going straight to the adverts and doing away with the announcement of a break, and the return thereafter, doesn’t bother me.  I can live with the fact that the Ad breaks are longer and more frequent too.  What does irritate me though, thanks no doubt to the increase in my TV viewing due to Covid lockdowns, is what happens when the program returns after the adverts.  For some reason it has become necessary to remind me of what happened in the previous 15 minutes of the program before they went to the advert break.  This doesn’t happen once it happens after every break in the bloody program.  More than that it seems to happen in almost every program I watch these days!

Just what is going on here?

Between the start of the program and the resumption of it after the break did a million new viewers suddenly join in?

Is there a need to pad out the 24 hour TV schedule by such repetition?

Or is it that the average UK television viewers memory retention is only slightly higher than that of a fucking goldfish?

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Give Me Five

I have no idea what inspired this weeks choice (probably my daughters choice of family TV viewing) but I decided to think about my top five animated films.  After some deliberation I came up with the following five.  In no particular order they are:

1. Toy Story
2. The Jungle Book
3. The Lion King
4. The Simpsons Movie
5. Shrek

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This week TIM has been listening to …

“Whole Lotta Love” by Led Zeppelin.  Fancied a bit of Led Zep this week and settled on a classic for this weeks post.  For those of us in the UK it will always be associated with Top of The Pops.

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This week TIM has been watching …

“Le Mans 66” starring Matt Damon and Christian Bale.  I didn’t know the true story of Le Mans 66 so this film came as a complete surprise and I loved every minute of it.  Will leave it a week or so before watching it again!

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Remember …

Taking a dog to the beach called Shark is a bad idea.

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TIM

Welcome to this weeks Miniatures & Musings!

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This weeks miniature is from Reaper and the female figure goes by the name of Almah, Merchant Princess.   A lady not to be messed with and for inclusion in Alex’s Fembruary Challenge.  I went for a simple paint job but am now regretting that I didn’t take the opportunity to see what freehand work I could have considered doing.  Always next time.

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Well It Made Me Laugh

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The Wednesday Whinge

I hadn’t intended to start with the subject of Racism but then two things happened.  Firstly IRO did a podcast on the subject and then I had an issue with eBay.

I’d never thought of Racism in the hobby but I thought IRO was good to bring the subject up and it did get me thinking about it.  I’m not intending to get into a great debate on the subject but before I get onto my whinge a couple of observations.  Firstly, having attended numerous models shows up and down the country I have rarely, if ever, seen many ethnic minorities in attendance.  I might be wrong but culturally within my sphere it appears they have little or no interest in the hobby.  Then again they may all be at home painting away.  Secondly, the military subjects which dominate from what I see tend to be “white” conflicts.  Of course there are plenty of ethnic campaigns too but the point is do they sell?  I remember a manufacture telling me that for every cowboy figure he sells he can sell 30 or more WW2 figures.  The bottom line is it’s about the bottom line.  Now on to my whinge.

My whinge is in two parts.  The first is very simple.  Now maybe it’s just me, and it probably is but it strikes me it is impossible to have a grown up conversation about racism without someone immediately calling you a racist.  Even IRO felt awkward talking about the subject.  Why?  To my mind if you cannot openly talk about the subject then you are more likely to create new racists.  Yes, black lives matter but so does every life.  I could go on and on about the subject but quite frankly I can’t be asked to address the inevitable abuse.

Now to the second part of my whinge.  Remember this little chap that I posted a few weeks ago?

Well I decided I would put the little chap up for sale on eBay where he sat for a few days and then I received a message from eBay of which this is an extract.

Quote:

We had to remove your listing because it didn’t follow our Offensive material policy. Listings that promote or glorify hatred, violence, or discrimination aren’t allowed.

Now of course everyone is free to draw their own conclusions.  Personally I fall into the camp which says history is history and we should learn from it and not pretend it didn’t happen.  I’m also of the opinion that anyone who is offend by an inch high figure is a sad fuck and is simply indicative of a sad world where political correctness has gone mad.

As someone who worked for a vast global company for 32 years I have worked with people of all races and from all over the world.  Truth be told I have found people generally fall into three categories.  Those I like, those I don’t and those I have no opinion on at all.  Colour of skin is immaterial, if your nice your nice if you’re a shit you’re a shit.

Simples.

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Give Me Five

Before I get abused for being insensitive and racists I thought I should keep the ethnic theme running by this week listing my top five ethnic actors/actresses.  In no particular order:

1. Sidney Poitier
2. Morgan Freeman
3. Denzel Washington
4. Rami Malek
5. Thandie Newton

This week TIM has been listening to …

“When Tomorrow Comes” by the Eurythmics.  I do think Annie Lennox is a great singer and together with Dave Stewart they made some excellent music.  Will doubtless line up some more of their tracks in the future but today decided to go with this one.

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This week TIM has been watching …

“Bulletproof” a TV series set in London.  This one passed me by but I have managed to watch the first series and thoroughly enjoyed it.  The good news is there is a second series of six parts, just like the first, and a third comprising of three episodes.  Now looking forward to watching those too.  Oh, and the two black actors, Ashley Walters and Noel Clarke, are very cool and no I’m not just saying that.

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Remember …

Don’t assume it is your people skills which are the problem, it is more likely to be your tolerance of idiots which needs working on.

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TIM

Welcome to this weeks Miniatures & Musings!

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This weeks miniature is another Knuckleduster figure and my last one, well for now at least anyway.  This little chap goes by the name of “Valentine” and is based on the character Liberty Valance played by Lee Marvin in the film “Who Shot Liberty Valance” which also starred John Wayne and James Stewart.

The figure is the 4th of the six figures in the “Bad Guys” faction.  I will get around to doing the other two at some point but for now I feel the urge to paint something different.

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Well It Made Me Laugh

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The Wednesday Whinge

I’m thinking of making this a new feature.  Bottled up indoors as we go through probably our longest and most dangerous lockdown in the UK I feel the need to vent my spleen on somethings which make my blood boil.  If I don’t get some of them off my chest I will simply explode.

Will you agree with the my rantings?  Possibly, possibly not but please bare the following in mind.  Firstly, my aim is to get things off of my chest, in other words this is therapy for me and not to be confused with rational behaviour.  Secondly, I am always willing to concede to a better argument or explanation as to why I might be wrong in my ranting.  Worst case scenario we can agree to disagree.  In any event we will kick off next week.

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Give Me Five

As we are in Fembruay I thought it only right an proper to consider the best 5 female movie characters having done the chaps a week or so ago.  In no particular order my top 5 are:

1. Sarah Connor – Linda Hamilton, Terminator franchise
2. Ellen Ripley – Sigourney Weaver, Alien franchise
3. Clarice Starling – Jodie Foster, Silence of the Lambs
4. Hermione Granger – Emma Watson, Harry Potter franchise
5. Katniss Everdeen – Jennifer Lawrence, Hunger Games franchise

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This week TIM has been listening to …

“Mama Weer All Crazee Now” by Slade.  I felt the need for a return to my teens and to clear my head with a good blast of loud music.  Classic BBC Top of the Pops recording with no speakers or anything plugged in!

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This week TIM has been watching …

“The Serpent” starring Jenna Coleman.  Given my on/off love affair with Jenna Coleman (she’s not phoning me again at the moment!) I was always going to give this eight part mini series ago.  Based on a true story it is a little creepy at times and you do have to concentrate because it jumps backwards and forwards all over the place.  Nevertheless an excellent watch in my opinion

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Remember …

Every time you talk to your wife the conversation will be recorded for training and quality purposes.

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TIM