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 :)

La Maisontaal....needs a new name.

 Added in a chimeny, which went well. Added in arches in stone....which went shit. Added the roof, the burned parts of it (on purpose). Building on the fly is fun, but a bit more planning would be nice tbh. Already have 2 partially built bases from last year lined yup after this, when this is done (and painted!) I'll have a sit down and put some ideas some ideas to paper. Would be nice if I could find the old tower I made for La Maisontaal as well, but I'll be damned if I know where it is.

Lot's more to do, and a story is building, but not sure if I'm going with a Merchantshouse for exotic wares (explaining the blocked off storage area underneath the living area) or.....what?

Her's some pics to keep you entertained.

Hope you are. I'm also working on my years old 10mm Afghan comission (Rob is a really nice gent and never puts me down por being a slow as a frozen Chipmunk) and I'm aiming to have those built and plastered somewhere in the week, but pictures of that at a later date.

Remember La Maisontaal?

Back in January 2016 I started La Maisontaal, well, my version anyway. This then ended up in storage, parts broke, and was never finished. I found it while clearing out storage boxes last week, and I want to put my mind off of things, so.....why not.

So, we start with the only piece I have left (as far as I know, the other parts broke and I just gave them away). And from there, things just happen.

Add some wood from leftover fireworks, and add more and more.....

And more wood.....and sand. It's nice to be back working on it.....even if it's no longer La maisontaal but just a large house for Mordheim. Really keen on finshing this one for a change, a new goal as you say.

I've put it all to side for now, let it rest a few days, I need to sort some life stuff out, finances, get stuff catalogued and ready for sale for some hard needed extra cash.

And then the house of cards fells apart....

I'll keep this short.

Still sorthing through stuff, getting a lot of kit ready to be sold when I have the time, currently focussing on the larger items. I'm also looking at removing the extendable part of my desk and dumping a small couch there, I need a place to chill and for the girls to sit and play to keep out of my wife's hair.

But....in all their benevolence, the UWV has decided I'm fully fit for work, to do light office or assemebly work for 40 hours a week, and they tell me this pays 13 euros on average. I'll get the letter with their conclusion next week, and have informed my mental health coach and the job coach and a few others as they don't seem to udnerstand 40 hours is completely out of the question, and I've been trying for the past 9 months to find a 20-24 hour a week job to ease back into a working life.

But having the stamps of Autism and (not) recovering from being run over makes finding a job really, really hard. Heck, I've had 3 professionals look for work for me in the past 3 years and they didn't find any that would have me. But sure, on my own I must be able to find a 40/week job. Oh, there is a pandemic going on..... I have 4 months of unemployment benefits left, and then we will just have to eat into our savings (well, mine) so in theory we should be able to make it into 2021. There should be some jobs by then, right?

So, rather pissed, feeling ignored again by "professionals" who seem to read medical reports in the most positive way possible.

To keep myself sane I started a 4 week challenge: Colouring the Guard. Building Frostgrave sprues into a 10 man squad of lowly town guards / deserters. Got to try something, right. Not that my hands work properly or anything, but hey.

<sad emoji>