Giant done! Please "pledge" a model!

Picture-fest 2017. My traffic to the blog is steadily and very unevenly increasing. Last month I had 9000 pageviews and roughly 2500 unique IP:s (not sure if that's correct for a number of reasons*) . Everyone who knows anything about memes all know that over 9000 is a magically tired number and I should be ashamed I did not reach 10 000 views.

An ogre bear-trap as a crown.

But who gives a flying fuck except I? So why the slow updates? Because I have been swamped with life and troubles, especially economical ones, I have also spent a stupid amount of my life helping those less fortunate than I; I shall repeat the old Scottish proverb: Help a man and he will come back to you the next time he is in trouble. 

Above: The closest you'll ever come to this llama's true identity.

Such is life in -10 C Sweden today. Crime literally everywhere, even at my very calm and new address: I shall not indulge any details because I would out ("doxx", as some fuckers call it) myself further. Just settle on the fact it reminds me a lot of the old banlieue of the Stockholm-area I used to "live" in - using bunny ears around "live", because it was more like "enduring" than living. Fuck-fuckety-fuck: Police tape and later a civilian police car, for some reason, with two white guys aged 37 and 39 - obviously police-men - in civilian clothing, just sitting twenty meters from the crime scene, for no reason, just looking like obvious police-guys. Not really increasing the value of the properties around here, so please fuck off as well, it's not as if you are going to do any good in -10 C.

But back to the Hobby: Finished the Middle-Earth giant, and I am rather pleased with his weird design, which I went on about in some detail last update.

Here you can see some of the various techniques and polymer and epoxy clays I have used. The "crown" is a shortcut, it comes from a WHFB Ogre-set. If enough people express an interest in buying this model, I will make a mould - but I would in such case probably need to remove the crown and add a another, non-IP-infringing one (not sure if that is necessary, I will consult my newly appointed legal advisor, yes I have such a guy nowadays, sad to say, but such is life in multicultural, crime-ridden Sweden).

And here you can see in excruciating detail how it looks before painting. Since I would like to make a mould out of this guy, I will first paint him, even if it tends to make mould making slightly more troublesome. If four models are being "pledged" (four pledges from one guy, or four guys wanting one each, or a combination thereof) I will make a mould. The price I am asking for one fucking Middle-Eart Giant (measuring 130 mm) is 39 EUR for the guy and a hefty 4 EUR for P&P. and if you want a 120 mm base, you'll have to add another 2,5 EUR This is like a version of the P500 for boardgames. Go to BGG for information about P500. It is basically KS for BG:s, MF:s.

The giant may be a giant, but some parts are not gigantic, so he choses to have a nice little loin-cloth to leave something to the giantesses' imagination. And they need it, 'cause giants are not common in Middle-Earth or the Oldhammer world, for that matter, in case you wanted to pledge a model, hint-hint...

The giant thrashed a couple of hobbits out fishing and is now using their boat as a shield. The shield is obviously optional.

Next update will be a properly based and painted model, because I really want to make a mould out of him. Fucking pleased with this dude in all his weirdness.

Inbred lady-like hips and legs, just like some of the pharaos of old...

This giant swept through a Rohan village a while ago where he "found" an anvil which he attached to a tree trunk. But before doing so, he had a big and nice barbecue of Rohirrim civilians. A giant has very little love for humans.

The giant keeps a spare hammer, some bottles of wine (as "magic hooman medsin" ) and a tiny bedroll made out of cowhide.

He protects his malnourished legs with metal and wood which are attached to his weird beast-legs with chains he found close to the hobbit fisherboat.

That's it. I will now prepare for tomorrow's charity dinner, which I am one of the coordinator's of. Even if I have a very grand plan and scheme for my life, I often wonder "how the heck did I get here". Sometimes it is easy to get...

... sidetracked, and sometimes it is troublesome finding what was the tool and what was the purpose, and was this really the path or the goal?

Where are we going, with the steering wheel on the 

left side, going on the right side of the road.

But it doesn't matter, jam will cheer up anyone, obviously. Sometimes, when something awful happens, I try to look at things like above. It obviously doesn't make sense, but hey-ho, life is like that and it is -10 C and I am at least grateful I am inside centrally heated apartment complex and free of loans (hrm, well sort-of).

Peace out, readers and bloggers and hobbyists and other assorted humans.

- - -

*) Sharing IP:s can be more dudes than one and a guy using TOR etc can be counted as five unique dudes. It doesn't matter, as long as someone get some sort of enjoyment out of this hot mess I call Llama's War of the Ring.

Sculpting a Giant (Middle-Earth)

Middle-Earth was put within parenthesis(-es) because there is nothing canonical about this beast. There are numerous reasons why it is looking so bizarre and almost alien, and frankly, it does not really look that Middle-Earth:y. It does not matter because I am just "getting it out of my system" so I can start doing other models. I have always wanted to make a giant with the backstory I have dreamt up:

1) Giants are uncommon and hence have to marry close to their kin...
2) ... which makes them predisposed to the genetical disease that some of the pharonic dudes had, where one of the characteristics was wide and strange hips, almost female. Google it, very interesting, something that I have always wanted to incorporate, since I love fluff meeting designs and sculpting in a wonderful clusterfuck, it makes for unexpected designs, at least I think so...

Bizarre body, and legs of a half-beast

His battle-axe is an anvil attached to a tree-trunk.

3) This goes well in with the paradoxical theme: They are considered stupid and not-kosher by all "normal" humanoid cultural-beings (even orcs!), but still the giants behave like they are da kangs of the world. Even getting the same inbreeding characteristics as a particular blue-blooded family in old England: Miniscule chins! 
    This whole shabean (shabang) of feeling "like kings of the world" obviously is something I have borrowed from some of my former colleagues that were socio-economically "challenged" - never have I seen more over-compensating self-horn-tooting in maybe except am American hip-hop video on MTV...
4) Number four goes perfectly well toghether with the basis of the design of their heads: FAS. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. 
5) Lastly, tying in to number three, I would like to give him some sort of crown, but I fear it might look a bit to Warhammer-Orky. But I would love to do that, so we shall what happens. Obviously, it can't be a regular crown, it has to be like a gilded bear-trap or something equally stupid.


All together we get a strange looking giant (though it looks a bit like the plastic WHFB-one, but that is just a coincidence, which we shall talk about later), a giant whose culture we can draw a lot of conclusions from just by looking at it: The FAS-face tells us their females indulge in alchol despite being pregnant, and all the other weird characteristics makes the design very... bizarre but still quite logical.

Obviously, I won't make a mould out of this one, because I am not sure a lot of people like the weirdness of it, but I am actually uncommonly happy with the strangness of it. A while ago I was given very good plans of a design of a giant (not yours J, those plans belong to you!) which I have started doing. It is a lot more "normal" and looks more akin to what you would expect from Middle-Earth, but again, all work and no play makes a sad llama. And besides, we got a post that is more like how things used to be on this blog: Playful and a bit... stupid?

What is then left to do? A lot actually. The legs, armour on lower part of it's legs, arms and especially the hands, his shield/front armour, more stuff to contrast and make it's size more obviously giant, face and the possible crown. But it should be done before end of February.

Also, the fastitocalon is close to being done. But that is for a later update. And also-also: Welcome new follower Christian! If you have a blog of your own, please let me know. And that goes for the rest of you, feel free to advertise it so I shan't miss interesting hobby-stuff.

Fastitocalon Miniature, version 2!

Sculpting away. I have now redone the shell after the latest designs and I reallyI like it actually.

Below you can see the first changes, and above we see how it looks right now. Making a mould out of this piece will be more than interesting. Perhaps it will be even more than a challenge? Who knows.

Also, welcome new followers, Alex, Airborne and Purp! I hope you will find something mildly amusing upon these internet-pages. No guarantees, jamborees!

Making a miniature waterline boat

Miniature as in 28-32 mm scale. I am modifying a cast I made from the original one that I sculpted in 2016. The original boat was way too flimsy after it endured the mould-making process so I decided to do what the big boys do, and cast it up and then modify it. Which is what I just said, but you can't be too clear on the internet.

It doesn't look like much at the moment, I have been hacking the bottom out of it and I will clean up the very minor mould-lines later. I am very sick at the moment, and have been all time after Christmas, with thankfully a short interlude of feeling well during New Year's Eve.

Was thinking of sculpting up some weird seagull-thing or an albatross but we shall see... An oar or some rope might have to suffice.

Wrapping up 2016!

2016 turned out to be arguably the best year in my life so far, inbetween awful depressing stuff. A very bordline-kind-of-life for me at least. So, to say it was the best year so far might be what the old ones call an "exaggeration". But what do "they" know, really?

Life isn't always black-and-white. But 2016 was just that!

Where to start? What recently happened was a very nice trip - though way too short due to me being unplanned and Sweden a bureaucratic hellhole - where I was gifted this little handmade thingie (amongst other things):

A tool-holder from someone which I appreciated very much (besides for presenting this to me). The tool-holder has my name on it in case you missed who is typing this or if you just stumbled upon this hellhole of a blog!

But let us go back to the highly personal list and not dwell too long on my beautiful mug...

One of the highlights of 2016!

So here is a list of my highlights of 2016 (in my personal opinion, obviously some of these things listed might be seen as something bad if you are a leftist, but I will allow you to have your opinions):

1) Brexit! Good on you UK. Fuck the EU. If you want multiculturalism, then let's start by letting the UK being the UK and not some sort of "harmonized" EU-state.

2) Trump 2016! MAGA - MAGA - MAGA! And yay for politics on a hobby-blog as well! Huzzah!

An Angolan cat.

3) Traveling to "Angola"  and having the time of my life for almost 1,5 months!

4) Starting my new company. Also an awful experience due to paperworks and my dwindling economy.

5) A lady "gave me head" on an airplane which five minutes later led me into joining the mile-high club with said lady, a tight 21-year blonde. About time I think. Happened just 1-2 weeks before the end of 2016.

As well as a bunch of other positive social things, interesting "licensed" purchases, buying a tail-coat (which destroyed my wallet, but still a highlight for the reason I needed it!) and so on... I also learnt a lot about myself and re-valued a few things I did in my old neighbourhood and my old job, and while I still think I was in the right acting like I did (see posts from 2009-2014) I am trying to become more humble - but not too much.

To be humble is important, and that is my only New-Years-resolution: Be the right amount of humble.

2017 is here and I will start it off by sending a package far away. It contains a mixture of sweet and sour.

Next update could very well contain hobby-stuff so please do hold your breath for that to happen. Here's to a happy new year, dear bloggers and readers! And feel free to share your positive experiences of 2016 in the comments below, for some reason or the other.