The Expedition - Two new photos

Hi again. This will probably take much longer than I thought. This year started bad. After New Year the missus had to go through surgery and remove her gall bladder. In and out of the hospital during four days (luckily they let her sleep at home. When your in a wheelchair everything is much easier at home) and on the evening of the fifth they did their work on her. And then our dog started limping on his left front leg. The veterinary checked him and said the elbow, which surprised us, since he felt strained around the shoulder. But she said elbow and demanded to open there and have a look. The elbow was fine and our dog was feeling terrible after the surgery. Probably she managed to pinch him so he reacted on the elbow. Very good vet. :-/ She said then that since the elbow was fine it was probably a nerve-root tumour, but the symptoms were wrong. What can we do? we asked. Let him go, was her answer. But she let us get him go through X-ray. No tumour what so ever. Well, the symptoms were wrong. :-/ Two other vets checked him and without us saying anything they said it is probably some muscular problems around the shoulder. So next step is another vet, specialized on muscular problems with dogs, seeing him on Tuesday, the 18th. So where is all this ranting go? Well, all of this costs money and to finish my little expedition I need to buy a little more stuff. But that will have to wait awhile longer. In the meantime I give you a family-photo of the von Schneider-family and a photo from when the expedition is welcomed in Syrinx.

The expedition

Hi again. New month, new year and new post! Happy new year! I start the new year with a little something I call The Expedition. It is not finished yet since I haven't made all the bases I need yet. But I'll show some of the photos here (the colour ones) and some (sepia-like) at Benno's. I play a little with the names on the explorers. First we have Sir Alfred Toby (Sir Toby is one of the absent friends in the old TV-sketch Dinner For One, which is aired in Sweden every New Years Eve), then Mr Benjamin Butterbur (Mr Butterbur is usually called Barliman and lives in Bree in Tolkien's Lord of the Ring), Mr James Winterbottom and Mr William Pommeroy (both from Dinner For One), Dr Napoleon B. Brown (there is an old bluessong called Dr Brown and one blues singer called Nappie Brown, but it was Buster Brown that sang the song with saxophone player J.T. Brown), Admiral Adalbert von Schneider (a little mix. Adalbert is a ghost in one of Johan's and Peewit's adventures and Admiral von Schneider is (again) from Dinner For One). The admiral have two dogs, Nuff and Spud (Nuff is also called Alan Lancaster, bassplayer with Status Quo and Spud is the drummer John Coghlan). Very nerdy, yes I know, but I like it. :-D Some of those pics have been shown here already.

Some finished figures

Many many projects at the same time! First some people for a restaurant scene. The scene have been shown before, but here are some more people for it. Don't know if the green dress is finished, maybe add some white dots on it.

The monk is probably going to another project! Also working on figures for a little scene at a royal court. Just have to buy Valdemar's "Knightly life" first.

And here is a little picture on the figures I am working on right now. No Lakotas! Sorry about that, hope to get to them in the future.

Some are for that court-scene, some are for the magic lute story (that 'Party in the woods' is a part of) and some are for something else! :-D

I finished my Italeri-house! Haven't glued it yet, but not going to paint more on it! We will see if it turns up in any post in the future.

Some years ago I bought a Cut-and-assemle castle from Usborne or Dover (don't remember which). It is pretty big and never finished more than this. Should have put it on cardboard, but now it is like it is! A little small for Valdemar figures, other than that it fits pretty nice with them!

Wild West dio

First! Welcome Ray! http://onelover-ray.blogspot.com/ and http://raysmusicemporium.blogspot.com/

This was in a duel against Pascal http://samsminisworld.blogspot.com/ at Benno's. I won, but I liked Pacal's entry better. I think they tell us at least something about us. I have a tendency to overdo it and Pascal is a gentle person. Over to the pics! Among the citizens worth mentioning this time is the mayor, Cornelius T. Babblaloss who have a tendency to talk a lot. Here he welcomes the circus. But we start with a scale comparison :-D

And here is a night picture. You can see a statue of this town's biggest sponsor and his dog among the trees. :-D

The clown. It all started with him and a sharp-shooter, but the sharp-shooter was changed to a more passive one.

The children, from Preiser, was painted last year and it was a real test to see if my eyes were going old. And, yes, they are. The grownup Preisers were painted 15-20 years ago.

The plastic bases under the figures are not nice, but it is a way for me (with restricted space) to make big dios with the same base. The houses aren't fixed either. Just the trees and the grass.

At first I thought that the cook from Strelets' Medieval Britain would look too big, but he fits pretty well with the much smaller preiser figures. Sherriff Lucky Lopez seem to be a bit late to the welcoming committee.

And here we see the town council welcoming the circus.

Jolly Bob

This is my first attempt at painting a tartan and it didn't turn out that well. At first I was going to call him Aberdeen Angus, a good name and a good wine (from Argentina of all places), but his tartan was too bad. In stead I call him Jolly Bob after a very old Swedish song about the sailor Jolly Bob from Aberdeen. In real life he is from Strelets' Medieval Britain-set, so he is British with a lot of Russian in him.

And Molly and Sally don't have a history at all. Just two Preiser girls from one of their sets called something with 1900 in the title. Preiser's idea was probably a beach scene.

And that poor fellow (I'm going to call him Averell I think) is an ESCI ACW Union casualty. One of the very few they ever made.

And the house? Made from cardboard and I'm not very good at this, but I try and I have fun. :-D And the house is from this book (still available):

Welcome to Suso-Frick Junction!

And a little more. At last finished the base for my little and very old "Out Shopping"-dio. Sorry, Peter, the ******* wagon isn't finished yet. Have the means, all I need now is time and courage. But in the mean-time I've finished A LOT of figures for this base. I put them on transparent plastic so I can change the scene if I want to.

I also put a little poll at Benno's just for fun. And I found these little gems (Preiser, so they are a little to small) in the collection. Totally forgot all about them, only add some wash and change base and they're ready to go.

What else did I do on my vacation? Picked chanterelles. Yes, everyday. The missus loves them and she can't get very far in the forest with her wheelchair so I pick them. And we eat them. First fry them with some onion and then add cream and make a sauce of it. Yummy!

And the guilty part! Oops!

A tree

Since last time I added a tree (it's a dried grapevine and it took forever to dry it). I glued it on the base, supported it for a couple of days, took away the support and went on a small vacation (Midsummer/mother-in-law's birthday) and when we came home the tree was (hmm, wait a minute. Must look in a dictionary. Hmmm, "lutade" in English... hmmmm...) leaning a lot. Way too much, really. I can chop it of and leave the stump.

Still walking

Started walking in February and they haven't reached their destination yet! And they're only at the stables.Very slow walking indeed.

A little update again

Okay, the stable got stairs on the outside and I DON'T like them! (Pics on the stairs and the parts to the balcony.) But I work on them. Hopefully finished some time after Easter. The two commandos has changed a little bringing more variety to the scene. Also finished my yellow knights, just three horses to finish now. Maybe can take pics of the knights later. Hmm, strange. There's a leg here. And Valter doesn't want his breakfast. Not hungry. Well, hope he's allright.

Something else

Okay, still working on my knights. Only the black wash on the armour and three horses to finish, but no pics yet on that yellow army. I am still working on my entry for the 20th painting competition at Benno's. Some people think I'm hopelessly after deadline, but where's life there's hope or something. The first building those that are visiting Bennos have already seen in my duel entry, here is the other building (the stable, it is not finished yet so I hope that Benno will prolong the deadline a little). The figs are already finished (more or less), but no pics yet. Think I'm going to call it "Out shopping" or something like that.