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| Denver International Airport, only enough snow to be annoying not enough to cause delays |
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| Getting out before the storm rolls in |
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| Frozen Fields |
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| Crops from altitude |
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| Summer on the Colorado Plains. |
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| Bomber Altitude |
Air Scenary
I don't always manage a window seat when I fly and then I don't always remember to take pictures but here are a few that I did remember to take.
Calamity - Newspaper Office - Final Assembly
I'm just about done with the Newspaper Office for Calamity. I glued all the walls together, added some interior and exterior trim, finished the false front (almost) and built the roofs. Time flies when you are having fun and last night was about 4 hours worth of work. Everything just seems to take up more time than I think it should. But, the building is finally coming together all that is left to do at this point is finish off some things I missed, touch up the interior paint and paint the exterior.
Here are the pictures from last night, along with a little commentary:
Well, I'm not quite as finished as I thought I was after I looked at the pictures. Need to fix a few things and then I can get some paint on this one.
Here are the pictures from last night, along with a little commentary:
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| First walls up on the main building, using the new magnetic clamps |
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| Adding the first side wall to the main building |
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| And the magnetic clamps aren't working as well as I hoped they would. Had to resort to my brute force steel blocks |
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| Roof support added to the false front |
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| Time to build a roof |
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| Roof supports and some extra plastic sheet for strength |
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| Tar paper added and first strip of shingles on |
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| Finished the shingles on one side, moving over to the other |
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| Shingles are done, just need the ridge line pieces.You can see them in a little pile just above the roof. |
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| And the ridge is finished. These are the O scale Shake Shingles from Wild West Model Builders. |
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| The front, just needs some trim and the ornamental supports for the top. Couldn't find my package of supports last night, I'm sure I put them in a "safe" place. |
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| And with the roof off, shows off a bit of the interior. I'm seriously considering lighting at this point but I can't find a source of Hurricane style lamps. Probably overkill anyway. |
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| The first wall and floor for the addition. See how the board and batten style siding will still be seen where the original exterior wall and rear door are incorporated into the addition. |
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| And the addition is basically finished |
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| Overall look at the building from the single window side. The blocked alley will likely come as a surprise to some poor unsuspecting outlaw, the locals will know all about it though. |
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| And a view from the other side. The paint work on the exterior of the rear wall is an experiment using Liquitex inks for the weathered undercoat of the building. In this case, a drop of white, a drop of black and a drop of raw umber. I like the look but the ink is hard to apply straight up. I'll have to add some acrylic medium to it. |
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| Test fitting the roof. Sigh, failed on the measure twice cut once. Its not quite covering the sides of the building. I'll have to figure out a way to fix this. |
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| The building with trim added. Hard to see here since all the plastic is white. |
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| Rats! I forgot the baseboard trim in the main building. |
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| Trim is finished, roofs are finished and in place. Looks a little hodgepodge at the moment with all the different materials being used. Painting will bring it all together. |
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| And from the other side. The little nook here in the back should be a good ambush spot. |
UP Train heading north to Ft Collins
Its been a while since I posted some train photos but as I was driving to Denver this morning I was stopped at the train tracks on my way to I-25. I couldn't get great photos but they aren't bad for shooting from the hip. Its hard to pick out the numbers on 4186 but I had a shot of the cab in one of the photos I cropped to confirm the number.
It was a mixed train heading north with five engines in the lead and none on the end must have been fully loaded.
It was a mixed train heading north with five engines in the lead and none on the end must have been fully loaded.
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| UP 4064 SD70M |
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| UP 3982 SD70M |
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| UP 5197 SD70M |
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| UP 4186 SD70M |
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| UP 5123 SD70M |
Happy New Year and the State of the Blog
A Happy New Year to everyone! I welcomed the new year in with a glass of Glenlivet (only 12 years old though). I have been contemplating my blog over the last few days and thinking about the goals I should set for the coming year as far as my hobby is concerned.
The blog itself seems to be pretty well received at this point. From 2012 to 2013 the number of hits doubled as did the number of followers. I had fewer posts but I tried to make them higher quality and still try to post at least 12 times a month. I blew that in July but I more than made up for it in other months, finishing with 168 posts for the year.
For the blog itself I will stick to that goal; 12 posts a month.
Painting and gaming wise there are a number of goals for 2014:
1) Finish the WWI USMC, that project has fallen way behind and even my restart is behind with 18 Marines about half finished on my table.
2) Finish the Calamity boards in time for Tacticon '14 that takes place on Labor Day weekend. There are a few sub goals for this one as well.
2a) Finish more citizens, particularly the "innocent bystanders". I finished pretty strong with this in November and December.
2b) Finish all the buildings. Currently I have at least two and maybe three buildings that need to be built from scratch, excluding the Newspaper Office which is almost finished.
2c) Start and finish the boards for Calamity. Right now its designed for 3 2'x4' boards and could be expanded beyond that (but not this year!).
3) Get some more gaming in! Although I do have regular RPG sessions every month I haven't gotten nearly enough board and miniature gaming in. I hope to change that for 2014.
4) Finish fixing up the Norman Saga army and get it sold off. It has languished on the shelves for long enough, time to step in and fix the damage and maybe go back and do a little re-painting and get it posted for sale.
Sounds like plenty to keep me busy for the coming year. Here is some of my favorite work from Calamity painting surge at the end of the year.
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