No More Nails 2, Foamboard 0

Fingers crossed, anyway. The first two bits of foam board seem now to be stuck flat where they're meant to be, and I have stuck the last one down with the aid of five large household paint cans as weights.

In other news, thanks to AndyM and the guys, the TV is now up on the wall of the studio (that actually happened on Wednesday) and I spent some time today setting up the Apple TV properly so I can toss a primary or secondary display from an iPad, iPhone or Mac to it. The uses of this are many, from D&D initiative trackers and map displays, through watching the Test Match to showing me what the camera or cameras see when I'm shooting video. (This also makes the latter one step nearer!)

Back to Wednesday scenery evenings

Starting work on tidying up and prettying the Dead's Army boards and bits, as they're going to a few shows this year. Myk was building the Sarissa shed, Andrew painting the bandstand while Carl and I worked on removing the warp from the cemetery board and garden planning for Godrey's cottage.

Watch this space, as they say. 

Custom laser decals

I wasn't intending to get this started quite this soon, but as things escalated on Twitter....

Mill House Studios (a.k.a. me) are able to produce custom decals for shields etc. These are laser printed on clear decal film, either from your artwork or custom designed by me (for an extra charge).

Current prices, from your own artwork, are:

• A5 sheet - £3
• A4 sheet - £5
• UK P&P (up to 5 sheets in A4 card-backed envelope) £2 (that's basically UK Large Letter rate)

For more details, see here.  Prices may be an introductory offer and subject to change.

I'm open to suggestions for a range of things people would like me to design/carry as ready-to-order sheets. Among the things that spring to mind are aircraft decals in 15mm and 28mm, as these seem to be scales not catered for by the model trade.

Omaha prep

Fortunately, less of the usual amount of panicked building of extra bits of terrain on Friday, except... I found a pack of Flames of War Czech Hedgehogs kicking around I'd forgotten I'd bought, so they got glued up, given a spray of Halfords black primer and then a quick dusting of rust (AP Fur Brown).

Other than that, I spent an hour and a half setting up the table and not finding four of my very small and easily losable German MG Tobruk gunners (top halves only), which was annoying.

First off, figure out which way round the tables will go. I think it is possible to get an 8'x6' board in the other way, but you'd have to go out one door and in the other to get round it :D 

Next, attempt to remember which way the boards tile. This is NOT as easy as it looks :D

Strew beach with obstacles.
No, more than that :D

Then find all the barbed wire, disentangle it and place,...

Finally, offer silent thanks to the team at the last show for helping put all the figures back in the RIGHT trays. This was SO much easier than it has been previously!

Life gets in the way of hobbies...

I'd say I hate it, but I really don't, given life in this instance was a kickass gig with the band :D

Did manage to get a small something done, namely tidy half of a table that's been used for Wednesday painting sessions, and also restock the studio printer with decent paper for RPG handouts (the A3 laser liberated from my sadly defunct previous employers - I mean, when a printer has been sitting unopened in its pallet outside the IT/Tech office door for long enough it's no longer being depreciated by accounts, what do you do? (Answer, ask IT nicely if they have any use for it or if its just being skipped when we close :D )

So I guess that counts for yesterday's hobby streak :D

Back to basing buildings and Dux prep today.

Another building finished

Rapunzel! Rapunzel!....

That's TTCombat's rather impressive tower done - mostly done last night, but the last bits of detail work polished off after work this evening. Largely AP Fur Brown, with AP Skeleton Bone stonework and PSC Field Grey roof. Wooden doors are AP Werewolf Brown, except for the downstairs one which is AP Weapon Bronze. Spot brick details are Fur Brown 50/50 mixed with either Skeleton Bone or Werewolf Brown to produce a range of shades.

Undecided as to whether a light wash is needed.

The astute will also notice I have more bookcases, thanks to a seller on the local Facebook Marketplace (and AndyM for helping me collect them). Not in their final places, as they need some holes cut in the backs before they can go on the long wall, to allow access to what were originally sensibly placed sockets!

More shelves in the studio....

Big thanks to Tom from the club who came round tonight with the bookshelf I’ve been meaning to buy off him for a while (in fact it’s the one that half the painting competition entries were on at the show), and we reassembled it in situ.

That’s now five sets of shelves in the studio, none of which match :)

Monday at the club's temporary home

By dint of a surprisingly small amount of tidying at my end, and a mammoth move of three cupboards worth of scenery and 36 boards from the St. John's Ambulance building, Peterborough Wargames Club is temporarily resident in my workshop/studio for the next two Mondays after today.

The one winning point it has over our regular venue just at the moment? It has air-conditioning, because we fitted air-source heat pump heating, and it does a great job of keeping the place cool when turned to the appropriate setting :D

We could, with hindsight, have just about fitted Posh Lard in!

And to prove it...

Rod and Reuben playing Cruel Seas, and Rod,
Dan, Adie and I playing Rumbleslam in the studio.
There is pretty much room for another 6x4 in the middle.

Shawn and Carl playing Saga; Ash, Pippa,
Grahame and Chris playing something in 6mm
 in the workshop. Harder to squeeze another 6x4,
as there's a fair amount of clutter (temporarily
the scenery cupboards and more permanently
the club's show direction signs and the 2' wall-
mounted worktop). Could be done though.

Adventures in video

Well, that was a learning experience. I finally got the camera batteries charged (and a new charger ordered that doesn't require a US to UK adaptor :D) after Wednesday's setup stuff and Thursday and Friday's general gefuffle in getting James out of hospital (our NHS are wonderful, trust me, but woefully understaffed and underfunded - don't get me started).

Nice setup - basically I have a pair of lapel mikes that go to wireless belt packs (they also do a single one for not much more than half the price), and the receiver unit will mount on the camera accessory shoe out of the way and plug into the microphone input on the camera. As I have a newer Canon (700D) DSLR it'll shoot full HD video and the view screen will flip and twist so I can see it while I'm filming.

Things to work on:

• the view screen is sufficiently small I can't see it very well without my glasses, which means I can't tell if I'm correctly focused when sat down.  The autofocus can 'hunt' a bit, which currently is solved by a process that involves a bunch of faffing with manual with something placed in the chair at 'me' height to focus on. More experimentation required - I think I can force it to use a limited set of autofocus points so it will reliably pick up me rather than the bookcase behind me.
• I could plug a small monitor into the camera's mini HDMI output so I can see what it's showing better, however...
• this would make my tendency not to look into the camera even worse (which is not helped by having a lazy left eye that tends to drift inward :D)
• That said, I don't look as bad in front of a camera as a talking head as I thought I might...

Still. Can't show you the resulting video as it's for someone else, but here's a screen grab of iMovie, just to prove I'm not making it up.

Next step is to sort out all of the above, and also figure out which multi-camera software I can use for gameplay videos.

Yes, I'm not done tidying yet :D

I do also now have a small camera clamp, which was bought for James while he was in hospital but wasn't terribly useful, which now allows me to do over-the-shoulder workbench shots without camera shake and my head getting in the way.

I do also have a shelf clamp for the DSLR, but it's quite hard to get it to stay in position and not sag, annoyingly. 

The below (very short!) test video was done using the iPhone audio, rather than the lapel mic - as it's pretty much just above my head, this isn't that bad (yes, the dialogue is banal, but it's just proof of concept). It does demonstrate that my cutting mat has seen better days, however...

Setting up the studio

I was asked a couple of weeks ago if I would record a video piece for someone. More details of exactly what it was some other time but it did require me to get the main studio room set up for the purposes of recording video. Which is where you get to find out what my other two Amazon purchases were, namely, a tripod and a pair of wireless lapel mics.

You’d probably have got a little test piece with this post except that I’ve discovered that both my camera batteries are absolutely flat as a pancake. And they take forever to charge, so I guess that’s it for tonight.

Cryptic accountability post for 16th Jan