Weekly Round-Up

A dull week for me as I've been laid low both mentally and physically, I'm feeling a little better now though.

Welcome

I'm a little late in this, but welcome to new follower James Cotgrave.  I can't see a blog on your profile James - let me know if you have one and I'll give it a plug.

Shinies

I indulged in a little retail therapy this week.

On the shiny front, I picked up a copy of one of the GW LOTR part-works for 99p in OXFAM (other charity shops are available).  Not something that ties in with anything else I've got, but it's a nice Aragorn figure and for that price...

Later in the week North Star announced their annual pig in a poke (a-hem) lucky bag offer.  There are three varieties, and I picked up a couple of the Artizan NW Frontier bags.  

Naturally enough with North Star, they arrived very promptly.  I am slightly disappointed that the two bags were identical and didn't include any Sikhs or Afghans - but that's churlish,  It's the nature of buying blind; if I wanted to be sure of what I was getting, I could have paid the (quite reasonable) full price.  They are after all very nice figures.

Thematic Months

Autumn is here, so it seems to be the time for having painting drives.  To encourage us there are a spate of cleverly-named thematic months - all a bit of fun of course, so no pressure guys.  It also ties in with me bringing the hobby-station in from the Shed to the sitting room, which actually means I get more done.

October is Orctober and Zomtober.  As Orcs or Zoms aren't really my thing, you'll excuse me if I give these a skip.

However, November is more promising.  We have Dinovember and (a new one to me) Naval November (surely Navember?) - an idea put forward by r.a.e.gingerbhoy.  These I think I have a go at.

I won't produce any great eye-candy or massive quantities, but it's nice to have a focus for once...  (And to be able to twist things so they 'fit' that focus).

Give-Aways and Celebrations

A couple of things I should have mentioned earlier...

Monty Luhmann at the Twin Cities Gamer celebrated 200 followers and Jonathan Freitag of the Palouse Wargaming Blog celebrated two years' blogging with generous give-aways (which it's too late to join now).  Congratulations guys!

Ian Willey of The Blog With No Name is marking the extraordinary milestone of finishing 75 Bns of French for Waterloo in 6mm.  Pictures of his work and details of the competition are here.  If your interest in 6mm goodness, go there!

An End to Dinovember

Well I promised a big reveal on the mystery object from yesterday's post.  Here it is.

It got the 'dinovember' label because I see it as a form of transportation to a Lost World which may or may not be At The Centre of the Earth.

I'm a little surprised that no-one spotted it after Michael identified it as a cone.  It just goes to show that no-one read this post...

EDIT

OK, I've done some playing about...

Can You See What It Is Yet?

Saturday WIP

I had thought to post some photos of the painting table/workdesk as a Saturday regular, as suggested by Sofie's Painting Blog but I've been rather disheartened by this week's progress.  Despite my declaration to spend November on things Dinosaur, I thought to finish my Cairo SID members.  So far, these are far from successful (white suits anyone?), so I haven't done anything since Tues.

I had done some work on one of the big-game hunters though, so I suppose that's a nod in the direction of Dinovember.  Another is that I've taken advantage of Fat Dragon Games' 30% off sale (ends on Monday) to get a cardstock Mole (suitable for getting to Lost Worlds at the Centre of the Earth) for $4.19.  They also have a nice aerial steam carriage for the same price.  If you do go to rpgnow to check these out, make sure you also have a look at the free stuff!  I got some more of the Dave Graffam free building kits.

"Walking With Dinosaurs" Figures

Given the interest in my earlier post, it's probably worth doing this == STOP-PRESS == announcement.

In addition to the 'Walking With Dinosaurs' packs I mentioned, Argos are doing a boxed-set of the six major characters from the film for £11.99 - or £15.00 for two.

We might see them elsewhere too, as there seems to be a lot of marketing for the film (which opens in the Christmas holidays).

Dinovember: Trip to Wilko's

As part of my Dinovember drive I popped into Wilkinsons yesterday to see if they still had their £1.00 dinosaurs.  They did - and what's more they're currently on offer at three for the price of two!

So I stocked up...

Sorry about the photo; the flash has bled out some of the colours, but you get the idea.

If you like going Big Dinosaur, they have larger versions at £2.00 (also on offer).

Earlier in the week I was toying with the idea of ordering some of these beauties from Eureka Miniatures, but despite thinking that they are very cool, I'll have to hold off for a while.

Eureka's Stukasaurus

A tip picked up on LAF (where a few people like the sound of Dinovember!) is that you can get BBC Walking With Dinosaur figures in those pig-in-a-poke foil packs for £1.99.  These are apparently on sale in Tescos or you can get them direct from the BBC.  You can also buy a specific pack of three of the cute ones for £4.99.

Dinovember!

Well!  At last a 'Month' that I can get along with!

Now we've done with Orctober and Zomtober, the great Mr Awdry has declared it DINOvember.

First he did a transformation

of these...

...to these

And now he's presented us with these darlings...

Now my mind is a buzzing.  What can I do?

Well, thanks to the generous of heart, I already have one set of Dino-Hunters.

• I need to finish painting my other set.
• I need to finish my half-done pterosaur 
• I can assess my existing dino-herd
• I need some suitable Lost World terrain
• I can go shopping!!!
• And read, of course!

And if that isn't enough to keep me occupied for the next three weeks, I can dig out my other Lost World fauna and include that.

"Everything's more fun with dinosaurs"