In this weeks weekly waffle we have another week completed and the deadline to have the grot bots rapidly approaching and over the course of the weekend I will be getting approximately zero hobby time in. That’s because it’s valentines weekend and being all loved up at the moment I’m going to be spending the weekend pampering the misses and not getting on with the work I know I really need to be doing. Now I’ve started with this as I can feel a waffle coming on and this for me is something of new topic. Not having been loved up for longer than I can remember, which may be function of me getting old and senile. One thing I want to make clear up front though is that this is my chose and not something I feel I have to do to avoid grief down the line. And that leads me into the real meat of the waffle which is that since I’ve been all loved up and I’ve not had or been putting the time into hobbying that I used to, I’ve found that I’m enjoying the time I do have more. For me it’s given a bit of balance so when I do sit down to do some building or painting I’m really up to make the most of that time. Now don’t get me wrong the misses isn’t some ogre that doesn’t let me hobby, on the contrary she will palm me off any opportunity she gets. It’s more a case of me being in a happy place at the moment where the hobby is good but not the most important thing.
I know in the past I’ve been guilty of throwing myself into things to the expense of everything else, which is good for a while, but then I burn out and get bored. To be perfectly clear here I’m not saying I’m going to get bored with my relationship, just in case she reads this and I really get in trouble. For me the relationship helps me keep the hobby as something else that I do and because of that I’m really enjoying the time I spend doing. Not feeling that it’s something I have to do which has sometimes been the case and I think is a large part in why I lose my mojo. As things stand I have a nice balance in my life and the mojo is strong.
So waffle over what I have I actually been up to this week. The answer to that feels like I have been going snow blind working with white plasticard all week. I’ve finally got round to making a start on the gort bots and whilst I haven’t managed to do the things I had originally planned I have managed to get quite a bit done. Although to look at them you may not think that. My plan had originally been to try and build the heads first and work my way down form there. What I actually ended up doing was building the basic shapes for the heads, which is s box with a section cut out for the chin, but didn’t get passed that stage. This is mainly because there is a lot of waiting around for the plastic glue to cure before you can start hacking away at the piece again. What this meant was that I started on the parts I could build whilst waiting for the plastic rod I’d ordered to turn up. The end result has been that I have managed to finish off most of the work needed for the bodies and hips. They still need some details adding such as bolts on the trim pieces and some additional access plates adding, which whilst time consuming is just adding bits with no ‘working out’ to do.
I’ve cheated on the engine front and raided my bits box for some exhausts that knew I had and used these in place of the scratch built ones on the mark I. This was partly to save some time and also because l like the more mechanical look it gives them. I’ve only got twelve of them with engines at the moment as I’ve run out of exhausts, but some more are on the way which will allow me to finish the others in the same way. All in all I’m happy with how these have turned out and with the bolts and access plates fitted I think they will be spot on.
I’ve also cheated on the weapon front and raided the bit’s box, which when it comes to Ork gubbins is well stocked, and I’ve gone with chain weapons for all of them. One of the things I wasn’t that keen on the mark I was that connection between the arm and the weapon but think I have it worked out here. But this is what take the time. The solution is simple but I’ve gone through a few iterations to get to this and after thinking of all sorts of complicated way to do it I reverted to type and when with the Ork solutions. It’s just a couple of plates mounted to the hand guard and then a tube that will act as the wrist bolted to this. It’s a simple solution but once you add a couple of bolts to it I think it looks good. Obviously I need to see what it will look like when it’s mounted to an arm but there is a good chance I will have all the weapons built like this before the tube stock arrives so I’m locking myself into a way forward here.
There is still a lot of work to go and there are a few things that I wasn’t quite happy with on the mark I that I would like to try and update on these but I’m feeling a bit happier that I can finish them in time for Adepticon. I’m going to use the same approach on the shooters as I did on the CCW’s so that’s one thing less to worry about working out. The legs will be the same as the originals so that only leave me with a few things to play around with for the arms. They could work as they are but I think there is a bit of room for improvement there so time permitting I will make a few tweaks.
As I said at the start when you look at just twenty bodies and a few boxes for heads it doesn’t look like a lot of work but I’ve included a picture of a few more bits that I’m working on to try and add a bit of context. Just thinking about the ‘wrists’ there a three parts that need cutting and scribing, twenty models with two writs each so you have one hundred and twenty pieces to cut and shape, then one hundred and sixty bolts to add. None of that is particularly difficult but each step takes time and that time soon builds up.
So the plan is to just keep plodding away. I won’t get much if anything done this weekend so progress will be slow this week but I’m planning to concentrate on the heads this week as there are quite a few fiddly elements to them which eat up time. If the parts arrive I will also make a start on the feet as there is a lot of simple shaping to do with them but it needs the glue to cure between each step so again takes a lot of time. The simple fact here I that I should have started a lot sooner so I wouldn’t now be rushing to get things done, but I do feel that I do my best work when I have a deadline looming.
That’s it for this week, as I said at the start I’ll be spending most of this week being all loved up and not doing any hobby but I will be hoping to get some work in during the week. So enjoy whatever you may be up to over the coming week and I hope to catch you all again next week.
