When miniatures can see their own shadow, a long winter is gone

The sun is shining again. I guess you can spot the tricorn.

Do you know this feeling when you can't do anything anymore? When everything is too much? When you are only able to do the 'dumb' stuff but nothing that needs a bit of concentration? That’s the state in which I lived for a while. And for a reason as I found out.

Weeks ago a visit to the doctor revealed that I had less vitamin D3 and B12 in my blood than Count Dracula after a hundred years of sleep. The values were on the edge. No wonder that I was going down, down, down... The first injection of B12 that I got then made me realize why people use drugs: It felt like I would be able to dance for three days without a break. And I actually can't dance. (No, you don't want to see that, believe me.)

My first action with the new energy was that I started to declutter like crazy. I visited the recycling station several times with a completely full car and unloaded stuff that was no longer needed. Old electronic devices whose operation made no sense at all. Lots of old computer parts. A lot of other stuff. Our waste bin here at home was also very busy. I realized that I would never use the old stuff again. Jesus, for what? Definitely not for anything serious.

But not everything was thrown away. There is a kind of welfare supermarket here where they sell donated stuff cheap and all the income is also used to help people who need it. Whatever I found reasonable to be used again or to be sold I gave to them and they where really happy to take it. If you have something like that in your area: use it, it makes sense. And its a kind of real recycling by the way.

At the moment there is still a large pile of books in the trunk of my car that I want to unload at the public bookcase. Our bookshelves look a lot more organized now!

I also had a huge archive of CD‘s and DVD‘s (about 900), full of data, software, projects, backups, games, books, documents, music and movies. Data from nearly 30 years of computing and electronic 'entertainment'. Sometimes data so old that I once copied them via serial cable from a nowadays nearly forgotten home computer to a PC. Or movies from digitized video tapes. Yes, back in the days I did that. That was me. And I tell you : trough the eyes of today the quality was terrible. So I looked through all of it and I needed weeks for that task. In the end, almost everything that was allowed to stay found a place on a single USB hard drive that fits in the pocket of my trousers. What a contrast to a full shelf!

If you wonder how one would use such an amount of discs: I had a database with a complete inventory of the contents that I constantly kept up to date whenever something changed. It always amazed people when we talked about something, I typed a search in my computer and almost immediately picked the disc with the according information, software, film, book or whatever from the shelf. A kind of private internet on discs. But that's over now.

So, the sun begins to shine again, the mood lifts and the power comes back. What felt like a never ending winter is over and some new action is going on:

1. Paint Rack

I bought a color rack that should make painting easier for me. The painting place will be no longer full of bottles that stand in the way and it will be easier or quicker to find the colors. Fortunately, this rack from Vallejo also fits my Army Painter bottles. My copy of the rack, which I bought via Amazon, came a bit warped and therefore wiggled a bit. But a few days later it had settled, exactly as I had expected. Sometimes you only have to use common sense and wait a bit.

2. Airbrush gets new life

I am assembling accessories so that I can now re-enter airbrushing to prime or prepare figures in larger groups. Up to now I used the Army Painter Primer-Spray and it gave me very good results but that had its pitfalls. It smells and spreads of lot of particles and can therefore only be done outside where wind and weather have to play along. And I have no garden or other real good place where I can use spray cans so it was always difficult for me. And by the way, maybe I will use the airbrush again to paint 'pictures'. I did that in the past and I was not too bad.

Nearly there. A new airbrush, cleaner, primer and cleaning pot. The compressor sits under the table. An very old but still working 'big one' from LUKAS. Back in the days bought for a descent amount of money. My car back then cost only 500 ,- bucks more... I tell you: nobody in this country drives cars like that anymore. ;-)

3. Gaming-Table setup

I am buying and organizing material to build a FINAL setup for my gaming table. After a long journey I will settle with a system of square tiles with a modeled surface with some height lines and limited 'deepness' to emulate rivers and holes in the ground.

Mounted on 25 cm wooden squares that I will let be made for me in the hardware store and that I will decorate with material from railroad landscaping. I will not waste my time with strange experiments in self building trees and the like. I am going to end now my endless search for the 'best' landscape solution.

And in this moment, literally while I was writing this blog post, the doorbell rang and the grass mats arrived. Loose grass of the same kind like the one the mats - for movable parts, bases and so on - is on the way.

Tomorrow morning I will visit the hardware store for the fist time in a complete year thanks to the shitty Covid-19 desaster. I have a long list. On top: the tiles for the gaming table. The show will go on.