This week’s update is going to be a little bit sparse on real content and more a ponder on what will be in the future and when I say sparse I mean really sparse. But I do have an excuse for not getting any hobby in this week and that is that I’m still recovering from last weekend. And that isn’t necessarily from the amount of food and alcohol that was consumed as much as it was from seeing Al in a pair of Lederhosen’s. I tried to dissipate the trauma by sharing it on twitter but it didn’t really work and I’m not going to inflict it on you again here. If you haven’t already seen the pictures think yourselves lucky, it’s a sight that will haunt me for the rest of my days.
So the weekend away meant no hobby time last weekend and I’ve been back on the road for work all week so no hobby time during the week. But it’s not been a total waist. During our drinking session last weekend talk at some point turned to Adepticon next year and in particular what we were going to use as an entry for Crystal Brush. We were all batting ideas about, should it be a single miniature, a dual, large or small, maybe even a diorama and that’s when I got ambushed. Not a little, you may be able to slip away from ambush but a full on smack in the face, now way out ambush. And it came completely out of left field. I was just sitting there talking about what to paint when Corrie said that I should paint up a grot rigger building a grot bot. Now for those of you who aren’t familiar with what a grot bot is it’s a scratch built Ork robot that I made quite a few years ago.
Now I only every made on squat of these things as they take forever to put together and I just ran out of patience to build any more. So here is this idea to resurrect an old build that on the face of it sounds ok but the catch would be finding a grot that looks like it could actually be working on the bot without sculpting it, which is completely out of the question. So there we have a good idea but at this point I’m still thinking that it’s not something that I could really make work, but the seed has been sawn, and Pete sensing my weakness goes in for the kill. He suggests that it shouldn’t just be a grot rigger repairing a grot bot but a full on shed where grot bots are built.
Looking back now this is the point where I should have gotten up and run away, but I didn’t and my fate was sealed. So Pete and Corrie then turn into a tag team of ideas. The shed should be open on one side so you can see in, it should be made from corrugated steel, it should have shelves full of grot bot parts, it should have gubbins strewn all over the floor with blue prints pined to the wall. The even went as far as saying that it should have some sort lighting that makes it look like a grot is actually welding and that was it. The little scratch build door in my brain rocked open and I decided that I had to give it a go.
Now whilst I’m certainly blaming them for sowing seeds of my destruction some of the other ideas I’ve come up with are technically my own fault. So what I’ve been planning this week is a full grot bot work shop and this is what is floating around in my tiny mind at the moment. Parts come into the shed at one end where there are little benches with grots building up pieces of the grot bot, legs, heads, arms that sort of things. Then there is a sort of operating table, I’m thinking Frankenstein were the bot is actually assembled. On the wall of the shed behind this section are all the bits that have been made in the first section. Then the bot is hoisted off the table and suspended from the roof whilst it passes through some sort of tesslar coil contraption that brings it to life. Then just because the rod I’ve made for my back wasn’t big enough I want to have a little parking area to the side where there a couple of completed bots ready for collection.
The only problem, well problems I can see with this are that my ambition is always much greater than my talent. And I’m not very realistic about how long my projects take. Which means in my mind I will have no problems getting this completed in time for Adepticon. But reality may and probably will come back to bit me on arse with this one. But my course is set and I’m going to give it a go. What I end up with will be anyone’s guess but I think it’s a challenge worth taking on. To that end I’ve spent quite a bit of time trawling through model shops on line this week looking for buts that may be useful and I’ve come with quite a list. Next steps will be dig out an old grot bot and get some dimensions so I have an idea how big this thing will actually need to be and then I suppose I’ll need to get started on the build.
And with that I’m going to bring this week’s waffle to an end. The goal is set and I just need to get cracking. Hope you have a good weekend and pop back soon to see how things are going.
