Trailer Park...... (WIP)

Not these guys btw.

But the Sarissa Precision Retro Americana Residential Trailer P001....but different. You know I can never really build a kit as is, and this kit is surprisingly easy to modify, as you can see in the photo.

Made the 6 basic shells in 6 days  (and then He rested...) and I'm now working on adding a few details to each so they are ready for primer. Doorknobs and other 3D details mostly, or like on this one, a small toolshed on the side.

They are fun builds, quick, easy, look the part, no real issue other then the missing roof nubs so the roof only slots on the front and back, but meh, it works. Not a fan of the skylights, so those will mostly be gone. Now to work out how I want the Heavenly Haven sign to look and get proper signage made for it.  Won't be done for a long time though I think....scatterbrain and all that ;)

Less time = higher productivity

Manager speak :P

But seriously, at certain times of the day there can be a good 15-20 minutes between calls, so I put a small kit or something I want to finish next to me, and when I have the time, I do a bit of this or a bit of that.

I don't haver a fixed schedule yet (and tbh I doubt I will get one soon) so planning time for stuff that needs more work is a bit troublesome, as I really want to spend what time I have wisely (while having fun), preferably with my wife and kids.

Having said that, with what in between time I had I have managed to build the following:

I picked up a couple of sprues of scenery from a Superhero game (couple of cars, 1 snack shop, 2 dumpsters and assorted bits that I wanted to build....but more aimed at Post Apoc, so, with a few minor changes (Which the kit fought me every single step on) it now has a closed shutter and it looks much better :)

A TT Combat kit I picked up off of a model trading site, for 5 euros, of the Grey Harbor House A. Built that in under 2 hours on my day off (today), but my pet peeve of MDF kits is those damn stubs on the roof, so.....out comes the ribbed metal roofing (cardboard). I had a class tonight as well, so I did not feel like cutting up 40 individual sheets so used bigger strips and added a bit of detail to both sides, and called it a day. The future paintjob will hide many sins, I say.

Great bit of kit, simple but gets the job done. Not a fan of lift off roofs, but in this case I'm happy with it. The only issue I have with it is that the frontage as the top part has a buttload of flex in it, so I will put in a additional beam to fix that.

I copied the Fallout style of shack as this is for my Post APoc collection and should fit in nicely. Needs a little bit of extra detailing with the card supplied, but other than that ready for primer.

Also build a lot of 1/35 Miniart artillery shell crates for use as 20mm/28mm "Tractor Parts". The 100mm shell crates are perfectly fine and easy to build, the 152mm....not so much. If I can get more boxes cheap at a later date, the 10mm are the ones to go for. Also comes with a nice decal sheet with a lot of markings that will come in handy for other Soviet items.

I'm not dead, Jim!

Small update for the ones following my Blog, and my lack of posts.

2 weeks ago I got a call from a temp agency, if I was interested in a helpdesk function, and working from home, and I could start asap?. Pay is....pretty bad, but got to start again somewhere, right?

Just finished my first week, 8.5 hours of training and 44 hours on the job already. Dont worry, I'm not selling anything to old ladies, I'm booking people for COVID-19 tests for our government, and giving them the good news if they test negative. Negative being a good thing in this case. As in they don't have it.

Loving it. Should have done this years ago, if possible, right after my accident. Would have helped immensely as my inhuries don't seem to matter much for this work, though I am looking for a new heavy duty office chair as I've seen worn this one out. Again. My arse seems to heavy for them, or something.....

Have a day off now, rebuilt my hobby desk into a a more practical and ergonomically suited office space. I've found eneregy I didn't knew I had anymore, though I do need to watch myself as my energy levels may be way up, but my fitness and pain levels don't match!

And speaking of energy levels, I've been on a breathing....ehm....machine for the past 2 months now after my diagnosis of pretty damn severe apneu/apnea. First mask didn't go to well with me, got a new one just covering my nose and the improvement has been phenomenal. I'm actually sleeping full nighst now. I went from 90+ breathing stops an hour (still makes me wonder how I managed to survive up to this point, without brain damage) to 2-4 breathing stops per hour.

But...back to the hobby. I hardly get any time for that now :D I either start at 7:30, so no late night building, or work till 20:00 (and for the last few times I volunteerd to work till 21:00 or 22:00) so no go either. Once I get used to this work pattern I'll pick it up again, but work has priority now. Only primed a few things, cleaned a few bits, that sort of stuff. Massively cut down my FB and forum use as well.....and I don't really miss it. Cutting down on Youtube as well, focussing on work and sleep, and my wife and kids. You know, life.

Still, can't wait to get back to making stuff for Mordheim, so stay tuned (to see me go off on a completely different tangent, most likely, but hey, that's me :P )

A spire, a spire! A kingdom for a spire!

All good towers have a spire. Even my ruined one.....needs a spire. Just not on top of it :)

So, with a bit of inspiration from a church fire we had a while back:

I went to town, as they say.....

 Yes, it does look a lot like a wooden Star Destroyer, thanks. :)

Old tower, new tower

New on the left, old on the right (duh)

What a difference a few extra years of skill and tools makes, ey? I'll most likely recycle the old tower in a future build for Mordheim, I think.

Tower of a little less power

As the build was originally La Maisontaal, well, why not add a tower? I was making some block houses out of scrap foam for the girls so they can paint them (nice combo of hobby, doing something for the girls and making something nice out of scrap waste styrofoam)

I did a little math, it took me about 3 full 8 hour working days to get where I am now with this part of the build. Commercially, not worth it, but fun none the less.

So, you start of with some scrap blocks of foam, and I planned in a walkway to go up to the top along the outside.

Cleaning up after new years means I have tons of wooden from the fire arrows (or whatever they are called in English) so I can keep doing this for a loooong time.

But, while progess was good, once the various platofmr s were made and ready to be connected by stairs.....it just looked utter shite! A quick chat or 3 with my mates, and out came the jewellers saw....

 A few cuts and voila, everything gone but a platform on the front. or is it the back? From there, add planks, add bricks, add more bricks, add even more bricks......

 The fun part is torching the wooden bits. :) Brings out the inner pyro in me

 Every join has a wooden dowel through t (ok, cut down toothpicks, but a dowel is a dowel, or would you like to buy a vowel?) and most of them have the same again through the base as well (even the fake broken bit you see there). This thing is now solid as a ....well, house?

Yeah, looks the part, happy with that. 9/10 done now, final detailing during or after the weekend I think, give the desk and the floor a good cleaning tomorrow as there are slivers of wood and foam everywhere now and I need to get other work done as well.

Ab imo pectore

Blowing up (out?) the roof!

Took a afternoon off just to build a bit on the not-La Maisontaal, and since I can't find (enough) material for the shingles, I've set my sights on what the hell happend here. So, an explosion or 2 I reckon should do what it needs to cause this sort of damage. Told you not to get fire too close to these "spices", Albert.....

Wanted to make a section of roof completely blown off, with a light squash to the sides, and a door in the wallsection....just to have a spawnpoint for *insert monster of the day or door to a stash, or a entry point for Ratty & Co.

So, after a superquick sketch to check the concept, and a few quick cuts with my Proxxon, I got the basics, and just went to town from there. Really wish I could work faster, but I prefer this glue which sets fast but not as fast as a hot glue gun, but it bonds everything really well so it becomes really tough. My hands aren't helping either, the shaking got really bad near the end so I took a nice long break and did a bit more work just now in the evening, including cutting and sanding a base for it.

Well, hope you like. Needs some more work tomorrow evening for the final planking and gritting, and then work a bit on another bit of roofsection, but purely as a barricade-sort-of-thingy.

Hope you like. It keeps me and my head occupied at least :)