Another blast from the past! My collection of older Orks is now finished once again, albeit with a twist. While these two were great figures, comapred to the more muscular new range of Orks, they paled in comparison ... so as rebuilding them made no sense, they had to become specialists to compensate for the size difference. Flash Gits fit the bill perfectly, so a quick trip to the bits box and a couple of comically oversized guns were born. Not even sure I could remember where most of these parts came from, but straws and plastic ball joints were involved. I'm lacking a suitable material to use as mechanical piping, and wouldn't mind returning to the first guy to add more wire in there for a slightly more chaotic fee, but it'll do for now.

Colour wise it was again a nice simple choice, with lots of reds, silvers and the key colour of yellow in there. I hadn't played around with a scorch effect before, and this one was achieved by adding lots of washes of Devlan Mud and Gryphon Sepia in a random order until it just looked right. There will be a few more of these to follow over time, but as they're not a unit being fielded in my army at the moment it's more of a casual project when I happed to have spareparts that don't really belong anywhere else.

Lots of fun painting these guys up really. Replete with weaponry, the tally stands at ... 2009 Pledge. Purchased: 6. Completed: 32.

I love this figure. It's what could lovingly be termed a golden oldie and was my pride and joy as kid. Two hours in the paintstripper and he was ready for updating, so he got a completely unnecessary banner, had his staff chopped in half and turned it into a voodoo shaker and the staff became a prop for a spare skull in the bits box. His right arm was changed over too, as the original Ork arms from this period were far too human and looked terrible. 

The quasi-military uniforms on the Orks of this period were great, and a particular favourite was a diorama by Mike McVey with Stormboy Orks in full regalia and they looked great. This fellow deserved something more akin to Sgt. Pepper than army officer, so the whole suit was painted up in yellow with red details. I'm opting to use a little more red on character figures than on the bulk of the army, so it's apparent from distance that they're clearly rather important Orkses. Even if I have yet to have a successful games with a Weirdboy as a HQ unit. Still, he looks nice.

With my psyker in hand, the tally stands at ... 2009 Pledge. Purchased: 6. Completed: 30.

Not much to say about this fellow really, other than he was a study in how quickly it was possible to paint up a Necron Warrior.

Well, a little more background won't hurt. A friend's son appears to have accumulated a large number of Necrons courtesy of his father ("although if you don't want to play with them son" etc) but to give him an opportunity of retaining interest while painting, I wanted to come up with a very quick way to paint them to tabletop quality with minimum effort. All told, not including drying time ... this was about ten minutes work and a filler project while I painted other things.

Basic colours are simply spray painted silver over the plastic, several washes of Badab Black to line and shadow everything. Gryphon Sepia was used around the joints and the back half of the head to differentiate between the different metals. The gun details were painted blue, although with hindsight I'd paint the rod before spraying and glueing it into place. The chest detail has been left silver, although I'd be tempted to paint this as a glowing blue or green if there was more time.

Another figure without a finished base, but in my defence this was deliberately left alone as I haven't a clue what the young man would like to do as a basing scheme.

On a related note, I did make a small error and happened to purchase three vehicles for my Orks as well. So that's doubled my otherwise rather good figures for the year. One Necron being worth the same as an Ork Battlewagon doesn't bode well for the coming month's painting achievements methinks. At this point the tally stands at ... 2009 Pledge. Purchased: 6. Completed: 29.

There's a little English pedant tucked away inside my tubby frame and he dies a little every time the Orks are saddled with yet another deliberate misspelling of a word, and the latest victims of this are these lovely Tankbusta figures. Originally purchased by the most excellent Cylindric, but he gave up on the idea of building an Ork army and I duly inherited them. Two hours in the paintstripper and they were ready for some action.

The assembly phase was a little frustrating and needed quite a bit of pinning and some milliput to fix things into place. They're great figures, and packed with character and were a blast to paint. With most of the army consigned to a rather dull shade of bluey grey for cloth, I wanted to liven these lads up with a brighter blue and some put red on the rockets as without it, they blurred into a single lump of metal. They're bright, brash and very clearly a little unstable in the mental fragility department.

Bases aren't quite finished yet, but that's because I'm mid-crisis as to how I want to paint all my army bases and mulling whether it's worth continuing with this style of basing. As usual, big shots below, and I warn you there's quite a few of them so it may take a little while to load. After my frenetic activity over the past two weeks, the tally now stands at ... 2009 Pledge. Purchased: 3. Completed: 28.

Okay, technically he's an Axedwarf, but man will do for the purpose of a title. Another one of the Confrontation figures I bought many years ago in a fit of excitement, then immediately consigned to the storage container. Crying shame really. So he's now finally out of storage and there's a very good chance the other dozen sitting in the drawer will make an outing at some point too.

This was an interesting diversion from the swathes of greenskins that have been painted of late, and with the weather being so distinctly rubbish at the moment, I thought it was apt to play around with ruddy skintones. The blonde hair almost works, but in the end I think my clumsy brushwork has let it down a little. The metals look good considering they're done with two metallic paints and a couple of washes. Very happy with the nose and lips, and a triumph for finally applying a little patience to my technique.

I did find a few examples online of how these little chaps should really be painted, complete with gorgeous NMM ... but simply by closing the browser window I can now pretend they don't exist :) Things to improve for next time; pick different colours for the cloth and leather work in contrast to the hair and skin as it all runs together a little too much.

As usual, big shots below. At this point the tally stands at ... 2009 Pledge. Purchased: 3. Completed: 23.

The art of slacking is something I do very well, so it's no big surprise to myself that some five and a half months after this figure was painted and submitted to a competition that I've finally put it up on my own site.

This fellow was painted up for a TWF Challenge under the heading of "The Red Period" to celebrate that most feared of times under Games Workshop where everything possible was painted red, no matter how appropriate it was. As a result, this is a homage to painting metals red for no reason at all. And jerkins. Oh, and shields.

At this point the tally stands at ... 2009 Pledge. Purchased: 3. Completed: 22.

On the back of a two week holiday and one week of casual exercise to get back into the rhythm, I was understandably expecting a pretty bad review (in the "must try harder" category) but in truth it wasn't too bad. Body fat is back on the rise, but it was on the cards after two weeks away of eating great food and drinking beer every day. Apparently I still need to drink more water! Five pints a day at the moment, but we'll see if it's feasible to get closer to six pints and cut back a little on the coffee instead (down to three small cups per day).

With my weight loss this week, I've now officially lost over a stone since starting to exercise properly 18 weeks ago. That includes summer BBQs, a fortnight of holiday and the occasional lapse of willpower! All things considered, this review was a pleasant surprise and my stats for this review give me ... weight: 80kg.

I suppose the fact that it's been six or seven weeks since my last update is proof that the ankle is on the mend. That doesn't mean things are perfect.

Nine months on from the injury, I'm still a way from full fitness. Why? Calf strength. It's very evident my right calf is still bigger and stronger ... an inch diameter bigger in fact, but the progress is being made and walking around Japan for a couple of weeks felt good. I've noticed there's a greater frequency in tweaking the calf muscle on the good leg, which indicates I'm still favouring it over the left leg, so that needs working on too.The current test is to stand on a stair with my heels just off the step and raise myself up on tiptoes while trying to put more of my weight over the left leg, and my word it's trickier than it sounds.

Regular running sessions at the gym haven't given me any major discomfort and it's now possible to lightly jog either a kilometre or for ten minutes straight without pain or twinges. The physiotherapist has given me an almost clean bill of health, and with one more review booked in for early January to check progress is still on course, but that's very likely to be my last session with him.

Overall I'm happy with my progress and looking forward to posting less updates :)

Osaka to Miyajima. A gentleman for whom the term "spry" was invented, got onto the Shinkansen with his good lady wife and proceeded to lift a bag, which easily weighed the same as himself, onto the overhead luggage rack before sitting down and neatly placing a sheet of newspaper on the floor, removing his shoes and putting his stockinged feet firmly upon it. People watching really should be considered a sport for the next Olympics now that they've allowed golf to join in the adventure, and it provides a more fascinating and engaging experience than curling too.

We opted to stay at a ryokan for two nights in Miyajima to gain something akin to what you would define as an authentic Japanese experience. This initially caused a little trepidation to me, as I'm a creature who enjoys the modern comforts and being able to pick what food I eat and when ... so warping back in time and being fed fish on a daily basis would probably not constitute my ideal holiday. For the former, there was no real problem once we arrived and I discovered it wasn't a small room made from bamboo, but a large building with spacious rooms (ten tatami  in size) with modern facilities, electricity and air conditioning and instead was more tradition in terms of the wonderful people who ran it, and how they presented the ryokan to you.

Meals were an odd affair and it is probably worth mentioning at this point, I don't eat fish. It's not an allergy, simply a preference based on unpleasant food experiences with sea-based fare as a child and something that never appealed to me in adulthood so was never pursued. This poses a problem in a country that not only loves fish, but classes it among the key food groups that can constitute elements of two or three meals per day.

Dinner on the first night was already on the table when we reached the dining room, and comprised of sashimi, pickles, daikon and an enormous prawn inspecting you as much as you were inspecting him. My wife was always trained as a child that when confronted with a food you didn't like but were compelled to eat, add ketchup until the original taste was no longer present and it become paleteable. My take on this approach consisted of adding a little delicious wasabi to the dipping sauce then going to town on the sashimi. Tuna and salmon were both excellent but the sea bream didn't fare so well, but otherwise it went well. Delighted with my progress (three types of fish, more than I've had in the last 20-25 years) and feeling reasonably full, I sat back to revel in victory ... but then the next course appeared. More sea breem, but this time cooked through and presented with vegetables on the side, so back to the plate we go. It was delicious, and a huge improvement on the odd-tasting offering that it was when raw. Having finished this, we sat back again ... just in time for the beef course to appear. My word! Hiroshima beef in a teriyaki marindae is rather superb but after three strips the fourth eluded me, but thankfully the wife was on course to hoover that up. No dinner would be complete without the compulsory dessert course, so out came that most traditional of Japanese dishes ... baked cheesecake. Somewhat of a surprise after the distinctly regional fare offered to that point (with the meat sourced locally) but pretty damned good and thankfully that was the end of dinner.