A study in plastic - part 2

Its been a while , but I am back , I did promise some pictures and in the mean time I have been kindly lent a Air brush and compressor, Ihave to say I am abit nervous about this because ; I have never used one , it is brand new and finally (and crucially) I am assured it was exspensive.

Anyway onto the pics' as mentioned before I ended up with a Panther:

Opening up the box we find...

Lots of bits , including a fancy new (to me anyway) track assembly system, I always hated the track on model tanks , they were either hundreds of small rigid pieces requiring careful assembly or a single elastic rubber track that once put on , placed the glued wheels under immense strain , we will see how this new approach pans out.

I was lucky enough on ebay to find a set of 1944 german infantry , who were perfect for my diorama and here are the pics

and finally the air brush

Well that's it for now, next task is to find the diorama base board and start to draw out the design in my head , once that is done I can start assembly.

It's about Video Games idiot!

Ah, the great satan of lifes distractions ; the video game and they have been distracting me for about 26 years , the first contact was through a Dragon 32 home computer , everyone was talking about a Spectrum 16K at the time but it was delayed so I plumbed for the Dragon as it was available and had 32K of memory!

I might at some point uploads some shots of the various machines in the attic (including a Dragon ) but for now just thought I would update on whats currently flavour of the month or otherwise in the household.

To lay out the land , I have a medium spec PC (by current standards) Athlon 64 3200 , Nvidia 6600GT , 2 Gig mem, and an XBOX 360 , kids have got another 360, Nintendo DS and PSP, so I have got access to those if required.

With regards to the 360 , there have so far been only 2 games that I have really enjoyed , Bioshock and Mass Effect , I enjoyed Oblivion but am yet to complete it so I must have got bored with it , I did find the fact that the game up'ed the anti on the random encounters strength as you gain levels a bit frustrating (why not just have area's that are tougher from the start) it discourages people to focus on rapid leveling early on ( I found that you could come out of the sewers as a level 4 if you worked hard ) as the game diffculty just ramps up everywhere to match you , mates tell me that there is a mod for the PC version that balances this much better but heh that's the 360 for you , no modding community ! . Gears of War and COD4 are both OK but not completely my bag.

On the PC currently waiting for the uber patch for Theatre of War (Battlefront) , I cannot play this game yet too annoying, but I hope that this patch will improve it. I am also waiting for Age of Conan, I love this story line and read lots of Mr Howard's books , I just hope the game doesn't become yet another dull MMORG like WOW and D&D online , I have tried to love them honest, but find that they just end up the same, The multi player games I have enjoyed are Dungeon Siege and the Battlefield range ,both excellent, simple to dive into but reward effort.

So the conclusion is I am not really playing anything on the PC at the moment which probably is true , I have got a couple of back burners on , Pacific Storm - Allies (looks like it may be to cumbersome to enjoy ) and I also dust off the odd game on the shelf but basically PC stuff is stagnant , if it wasn't for the fact the Mass Effect is so re playable I would be in danger of having to find something useful to do!

A study in plastic

As a whim I decided to ask my wife for a model tank for Christmas , use to make them years ago as a youngster and fancied having another go, I asked for , a tank , German , WWII and preferably a Nashorn ,

I got a Panther ,

Ah well better than nothing , I have decided to put a bit of effort into to this and create a diorama to befit the model , something that can really stretch my skills (and distract me of course!) , with that in mind I needed to find a subject and additional items to bring it to life , the subject is pretty easy Barkmann's Corner and in the detail I found a very nice potential candidate "On his way back, near the village of Le Lorey, Barkmann was stopped by the retreating German infantrymen who reported that Americans were closing in." This sounds great so one eBay purchase later and I am the proud owner of Dragon's "German Infantry -Battle of the Hedgerows 1944" which are perfect for the scene, Pictures of the Panther and Infantry box to follow

Well here we go!

Life's distractions that's what it is all about , we all have them so I have decided to record mine here,not so much in a diary format more about sharing what I am up to on specific distractions , so expect to see plenty of pictures and text.