I'm sure its purple.

Today I had a few little jobs to finish for my character Izzanbard Devlin, so 1st thing this morning I visited Clare's Beautiful Beads and Crafts in Belper following advice from Meridian Ariel. I needed a clasp, and leather thread to hang my new marble in a claw that I had purchased at TORM. Clare's is a fascinating shop which I will visit again, the shop had everything I wanted so the marble is now mounted (see picture below)



The next thing I intended was to remake my tabard in a better fabric, I had some purple wool, so set to cutting and sewing it together, and by 3pm I was done, see the photo below which shows the old (made from corduroy) and new.

This is based on a pattern provided by Julie which I simply found in my email inbox and re-used. I only made one error while assembly on the very last hem of the front panel, somehow it ended up 2" (50mm) shorter than the other 3, so I unpicked it, luckily I had left just enough spare material and sewed it back together to match the length of the others. (It was very noticeable when I took the photograph)

The new tabard is go together with the new black robe the 2 are pictured together below, (click photo for larger image) which will provide Izzanbard a slightly higher quality look. The robe is 15thC medieval in style, with slit sleeves and was made by Jackie at Cloak'd and Dagger'd, and purchased at the Larp fair. I should have made my own, but I just didn't feel confident enough to tackle the item.

Bubble gum & coffee

This is what happens when your trying unsuccessfully to diet, your mother sends you a 900g jar of jelly beans.



Very nice jelly beans with 36 different flavors including ones such as coffee, cinnamon, candy floss, bubble gum, butterscotch and dozens of different fruits from kiwi to rather nice English blackberry, I'm not sure if I've tried them all, since identifying the colours from the chart is rather difficult.

Jasmine decided she needed some new photos while I had the camera out so here's few

Jonty wins the day but looses.

This Saturday was 3rd in a series of Ascendancy table top battles, this one saw the undead hoards face Avalon.
The battle that started out with all the advantages stacked in favour of Avalon due the players of the Ascendancy Larp game really getting behind and doing as much as they could to make sure they won.
However with 3 elements to the game, the General leading Avalon failed on 1 of them probably the most crucial to Larp world, while not to the battle itself, so Avalon won overall, I think they Larp game players may consider it a loss.
General Jonty returned in charge of Avalon, Jock took charge of the Undead or Forsaken as we call them, Sam took charge of Nightjar and making the Emperor look good while giving Jock and Jonty regular history lesson on why this or that was necessary, I was the newspaper reporter

and Andy did special effects.

It was big game using 4 tables in the Chimera shop, around 300 figures, 2/3 painted by me, and lasted about 5 hours, although I was at the shop for about 8 hours with setting up and packing away.

DaveP (the General at the previous 2 games) painted his own character figure, Dr Flay as the picture below, the paintings good but its the modelling he did to this figure which is only one inch (25mm) high which is excellent, you can't appreciate from this photograph, the original figure was a butler and had niether hat, cravat, glasses or watch from what I remember, perhaps Dave can elighten us with a quick reply.

A couple of figure of my own below which also required a bit of converting altough not to the extent of Dr Flay, Havelock needed a bit of hair, glasses and a cane thats about it.

Below Dr Flay, Havelock and Shaman Rat

Below Queen Morticia and her Necromancers

Today Sunday is brilliant day after yesterday and last weekend, a nice warm sun, the bees are buzzing around the few flowers that have come in my garden, and what with the clocks going forward, spring feels like it here at last, definitely looking favourable for camping events, although anything can happen, and rain in spring is always likely, still it would have been a good day to camp today.

So now its on to my next project which I hope will be a bit of kit for the next event, its fairly simple so I should have the time to get my sewing machine out, we will see how my time goes.

Undead (Forsaken) Army

Tonight I applied the last coat of varnish to the Undead army started 10 days ago here

I managed paint about 150 figures in the time I would normally paint 20 because they were already based, I had a bank holiday with no plans so spent it painting, and skeletons are reasonably simple to paint with no clothing, although with 7 chariots, stone throwers and several characters figure they were actually more time consuming than your average figure to paint.

A couple of photos below which don't do my efforts justice, but I'm pleased and looking forward to them being used.

Easter, it may be cold, but it is.

My sister bought me a Easter egg which was very nice of her apart from the unsuccessful diet she knows I'm on, also she seem like buying me things to do with monkeys, i.e I got a monkey shaped Easter egg.

Anyway did any of you get Easter eggs? and did the Gigantic egg DaveP bought Julie last year ever get eaten and if so did Midlands Midlife eat it on her own?

Photo of my egg (? monkey ?) below,
10 minutes after taking this photo it all magically disappeared :) while I watched the Bionic woman, apart from the box that is.

40K Mayhem

So Chimera 40K game number 3 or is 4, not sure.

Jock in his wisdom had dropped out, a choice due to family commitments between being a replacement General for DaveP in Ascendancy war game next weekend or supervising a load of kids playing 40K today, well for some reason he decided the Ascendancy game would be better.

So today's game was over booked with 9 players and various parents, most of the players had played last time, and in the intervening weeks had obviously re-read the rules and come back slightly better players. The child that did not listen last time, was now listening even if he did treat the figures his grandad had painted like worthless junk which made me wince has poured them out his expensive box designed to keep them safe. The morning game went well however the afternoon was chaos, 2 experience older players turned up and through dice roles ended up on one side while I had ended up with 4 youngsters, one a total novice, a Gabriel who can now roll dice, and 2 others. I can only imagine its what its like to be teacher, none of the kids had prepared, all 4 wanted to talk to me at once, constantly for 3 hours, can I fire, can I shoot, is it my go yet, is my go yet help.... thankfully parents were on hand to say wait your turn, and listen which helped. Anyway I survived and 5 minutes after starting at 10.30am it was 5pm and we had done, time flies when your busy.

The other good side was I was indoors, it was bitter cold in the morning, snow overnight and a mixture of sunshine, high winds and snow blizzard all day made me glad I'd not gone with DaveP to Maelstrom or with my Buckinghams Re-enactment group to Warwick Castle this weekend.

I now have the rest of the 4 day weekend to look forward to, although with no plans, I expect it to be quiet but hopefully fairly productive.

I failed my resistance role

On Saturday I went to Torm (The Original Re-enactors Market) in Coventry taking my friend Jock’s wife Bridget while he stayed at home to watch Rugby on TV.

We arrived around 10ish and quickly scouted the halls, before making purchases, I was looking for a pair of breaches, which I found and that was all I actually needed. For the last 2 fairs I’ve resisted buying a paticular hat, I bought something else expensive last time and DaveP saved me the 2nd time by pointing out a bargain hat which I bought, this time I broke, it was £75 pounds for this hat (A kind of Puritan Witch Finder General Hat) that I don’t need, I walked past the stall several times before my resistance broke, I’m happy but I really do have to admit I have become addicted to hats.

Talking of hats and bargains, DaveP left me with 15 felt hats which we unloaded from Julie’s car to mine, he got these fine looking hats for £1 each which is something only master bargain hunter DaveP could do, these are good hats which will be probably be turned into tri-corns, I dropped these off later that afternoon to AndyL who was equally impressed.

After the fair we went for a bite to eat at the Cocked Hat in Coventry, which we have been to several times. This pub was at one time a smoky smelly pub that you would avoid, but it now does a excellent selection of its own 6 or 7 different meat pies for a under a fiver, which while not healthy food are very tasty, with well cooked chips and peas.

I dropped Bridgett off home in Ripley, then walked round to Chimera, spent some money, then went next door for a bit thread from the sewing shop, before going food shopping to the supermarket and buying the new Elizabeth the Golden Age DVD.

I didn’t get chance to watch the DVD since I got engrossed by figure painting, before I knew it, it was quarter past midnight.
I’m currently painting an Undead/Forsaken army see photos below, most of the figures were assembled 15 years ago by AndyH but never painted. Sitting in box, with glue decay for that long they were a little worse for wear and quite a few needed bits gluing back on, where missing arms, shields and had broken spears, so I spent the evening repairing undercoating them. I also added several figures of my own enlarging the units.

I did find the lost Painted Zombies and Skeletal Crossbowmen, they just need the bases doing.

A few nights ago put finishing touches the Empire figures painted by DaveP (photo below) which at his request had the flesh highlighted and the bases flocked.

Jasmine likes spear men since they are easy to grab and run off with, to protect a little against this I made myself a painting box (picture below), which means I don’t have to put each figure away between painting sessions, I can just carry the painting box and shut away in a cupboard out the way.This does not stop Jasmine totally who hovers over my shoulder while painting and takes a quick swipe to grab a figure, she then moans with pathetic Meow when I say Nooo.