It's been a good if strange weekend for me... Friday saw me adding another N gauge loco to my stable in the form of a Dapol Class 122 'Bubblecar'. Now, I love this model, because it's a great design and as it is a single car unit, it can be run realistically on any of my layouts, be they large or small. As you would expect for the era I am depicting, the paint scheme is BR Green with contrasting details, so it just looks damned fine. I purchased this from 'Rails' of Sheffield, my local bricks and mortar store, who are in my opinion, one of the best places to shop. They have great stocks, very reasonable prices and the shop is bright and clean. Perfect! I got it home (grinning all the way and chattering away to my brother like a 6 year-old high on 'Haribo') and fitted a standard Bachmann 2 function, 6-pin decoder, before programming it and setting it going on my layout. Well, I was grinning all over again, because this is a real

It's been a really nice day... Yesterday, I completed the last of my February work flow and so this morning I had a lie-in until 6:24AM at which point I wandered into my studio with a coffee and proceeded to get all of the cleaning and preparing of the work for March out of the way. My good lady wife was taking a day off by chance, having worked from home over the weekend on some government/education statistical tomfoolery and so we had a rather enjoyable pootle into the Derbyshire countryside, for a late lunch in Matlock and a relaxed drive homewards, in the golden-red afternoon sun, both well relaxed and feeling as if we were 'wagging school'. And so, after another hour and a half at my desk, polishing a few little chores off, I am enjoying a rather pleasant glass of Shiraz and typing this epistle to the apostles of gaming before indulging in a little more wine and hot toasted muffin and an episode or two of 'Neverwhere' that rather fine surreal fantas

It's been one of those weeks... I've been hard at work on assorted commissions as usual, but I've crammed in much more than usual for no good reason. My audiobook library which generally feeds my ears and mind as I work (yes, I need a distraction, because I work in a kind of automated way - it's a job, not a hobby these days) has been seriously strained to keep up with the hours I chalked up this week. Anyway, I just purchased 'The Silk Roads' and 'The Wolf Of Wall Street' which at a combined 45 hours, should keep me busy in the week ahead. Anyway, I've been thinking on lots of things related to my hobby too, and I have been asking myself what makes an Old School figure? Now, remember, back in the day, no matter what these thirty-something self proclaimed fanboys will try to tell you CITADEL WAS NOT THE ONLY FUCKING COMPANY. Excuse me for the outburst, but there's an over emphasis on the whole subject of old school armies consisting of

I am, as most of my acquaintances now, a truly cynical bastard, of the old cut. But, today I am bright, cheerful and full of love and kindness for my fellow man/woman/hamster. I've just spent one of the most enjoyable hobby days in the last couple of decades, taking in the magnificent spectacle of the 'Festival Of British Railway Modelling' at Doncaster race course. We were in the car at 8:55 and by 9:25 we were parked up, 100 yards from the main doors...  ...and by 9:30, despite a considerable queue of a couple of hundred folk of all ages and both sexe,s we were inside enjoying the pleasure of having a 30 minute start on the 'pay on the door' crowd. I confess, that I had forgotten just how large the venue is. Few wargames shows use this much space, nor fill them with as much eye and wallet candy. What's more the aisles were very generous, so that you didn't have people knocking you sideways with rucksacks etc. I really do wish that wargames s

The Festival of British Railway Modelling The Festival of British Railway Modelling is a model railway exhibition, which takes place in Doncaster, the spiritual home of railways. Visitors can admire the layouts on display in a range of gauges, watch free modelling tutorials and browse through the exhibitors selling products for all aspects of the hobby including hard to find specialist items. https://www.world-of-railways.co.uk/shows/show/the-festival-of-british-railway-modelling Over 30 layouts and 80+ Exhibitors 73082 Camelot Locomotive Society     A1 Models     All Components Ltd   Anoraks Anonymous     Aspire Gifts & Models     Belmond (UK) Ltd   Bill Hudson Transport Books     Book Law/Santona Publications     Ceynix   Cheltenham Model Centre     Craftlights     DC Kits - D & E Videos   DCC Trains Automation     Deltic Preservation Society     DEMU   Digitrains Ltd     Doncaster Model Railway Club

Well, I have managed to get another couple of hours in, on my layout, now tentatively named the Redmire Valley and I am making progress which is more noticeable every time. Today, I fitted the stone retaining walls, gave them a good sooting, and likewise weathered the tunnel mouths. A little tip to those of you who may be thinking of using plaster walls. Don't use sandpaper to thin or clean the surface. Use a good quality steel ruler, the edge of which will give a smooth and clean finish which is far superior to sandpaper. My walls were about 12-14mm thick and in a few minutes I knocked them down by about 4mm. Once I had the walls in place, I then added a frame of gorse bushes on the edges. From here I will expand the gorse out onto the hillside in small and large clumps, but by starting with a fairly angular and defined 'frame', it allows me to blend in the new features and provides a focal point for the addition of future foliage. I had to remove the o

It was with excitement and I confess, some trepidation, that we packed into the troop transport and made our way up the M1 then A1 to York, in a blinding sunrise, headed for the first major show of the season, 'Vapnartak'. The trepidation was unfounded as, despite the ravages of winter, the massing throngs with long beards and girths that would cause a Brown bear to tip it's hat at the fine post-hibernation figures, were moving purposefully through the doors of the Knavesmire Stand at 9:30. It seemed that despite the ravages of the recent weather, enough wargamers had survived to repopulate the hobby and this fine show, for the 2016 season. We were so thrilled to see this, that we immediately did two laps of the table top sale and thence to the bar for a large hot coffee and blackcurrant cordial chaser. As expected the clan turned out in force from Sheffield, Hull and Rotherham, along with our Manchester and North East, cadre so that we were 9 strong by about 10:30,

Well, I've had 3 hours on the layout this afternoon...  Starting from a bare surface of Modroc, applied on Thursday, I have firstly sealed and stained it with earth brown acrylic, PVA and flow improver, then after about an hour, that all got a coat of Winsor And Newton 'Galleria' burnt sienna acrylic, then about half an hour after that, it took 20 minutes to apply a stone brown coat over that. If I am lucky, I'll then be able to finish the four stages with a wash of Vallejo sepi a shade, wash. The 1st coat seals and adds a stain to the plaster, so you can easily see any areas missed. The 2nd coat is still dark, but darker than the first so that you build up a warm undershade, and so that you can see where you miss. The 3rd coat is the 'real' colour and again because you can see where it's going, you don't miss anywhere. Finally, the 4th stage tones the main colour. The next stage will be to drybrush the vertical faces and paths with the m

Well, it's been 11 days since Ollie delivered my layout, and I have now put 14 hours into it. On Sunday I added static grass, weathered the tracks, base coated the rock face adjacent to the tunnel, resurfaced the 'yard' area with Noch ballast and then blended the ash and ballasted areas into it. Today, I took a big step, having never used Celotex insulating board, and in 3 hours measured, cut, fitted, shaped, sanded and then filled the area forming the ridge and scenic pathway , which runs the length of the layout (8 feet). I'm really happy at how it's shaping up and once I add the texture of the rock faces and the pathway, and get the grass all finished it will look pretty darned fine. Thence, I will add a wooden fence along the whole length of the path, and another to the front of the tracks. A few judiciously placed dry stone walls will break up the countryside as will a few hundred trees. The brick retaining wall is going to be replaced with a fully 3D

Vapnartak Sunday 7th February 2016 Knavesmire Stand York Racecourse Christmas is out of the way, the waistlines expanded as the troops emerge from Winter quarters and what is arguably the best show in the North of England, 'Vapnartak' is upon us. Who would have thought, during those sometimes freezing days of the Merchant Adventurer's Hall that the then humble little show would grow to eclipse and outshine the larger shows which followed a couple of months later. True, a winter show can be risky, but personally, I have only missed one Vapnartak due to weather, whilst I and my merry band of so-called 'cheque book wargamers' don't even make the effort with some of the other shows in the region that have faded into the West like world weary Hobbits. The Knavesmire stand is a great venue (I also go there for the Your Model Railway Show which is even larger) and my only grouse to be honest is that they should use more of the venue space an