Blog 13th anniversary

 Thirteen years ago today, I embarked on the adventure of starting a blog. Thirteen years!

Image shamelessly stolen from the intenet. First result on Google

 So today is anniversary day. Another year has gone by and here we are again! Time to recap, what happened in the Old School Workshop in the last 12 months?

We had these Frostgrave/Stargrave beasts:

Ugly, but cute

 And I closed the year with these brave not-Praetorian people: 

I fall in love again every time I get to see this pic again

2025 started with a crazy project, even for my standards:

The Carcharodons RealScale Dreadnought

 

 But then... oh, my sweet friends. Then. Then I lost any trace of sanity and started a new spiral of madness. Titans. The new Adeptus Titanicus.

 

 

 Yeah, this is insane. But beautiful! I regret nothing!

Besides, to get my feet to the ground from time to time, I also painted some more Orks!

 

  Oh, well, yes, this is my concept of sanity. Yes, I hear you, right, I'm aware of what you are saying, point taken.

But I also had a game of Kingdom Death Monster. Awesome and crazy beyond any measure.

Seriously, you all have to play this game. I mean it

 I also got to another project (wow, I'm starting to realise that there are too many!). I'm not sure if this counts as a new project or coming back to a totally forgotten one, but this marks my turn back to Warhammer fantasy after decades of oblivion. If I ever play again, I'm going back to 4th edition, maybe 5th, the games I started with. No ToW for now. Then I'm back to the minis of that era:

 

Oh, I'm not posting these all in exact chronological order, but more or less in blocks.

I made a standalone side project with some other minis that were asking for some love:

Minis from long time ago

And came back for even some more Titanicus stuff:

During late summer I refurbished my old Sammar Nauth vignette and made this landing platform:

Which unfortunately I had to decommission almost immediately. Decision on it still pending

 I run a kind of beta test on the Qala Debdou board, where we played Necromunda:

 

And even if the result wasn't the expected one, we did have a lot of fun!

After that I scratchbuilt a Techmarine for my Carcharodons, as my army was lacking one:

 

And a standard bearer too

That gave some time to finally start the upper module for my Qala Debdou board:

 I took some time to get back to the World of Twilight:

 And managed to run another game on the board, this time a little bit more satisfying:

This takes us to this very month of November, in which I enjoyed the Halloween spirit with these:

And finally added some more stuff to the board:

 Wow, it certainly looks like more stuff when you put it all together! I can say it's been a fruitful year. I've started new projects, made some progresses on some others... Yes, I know I haven't actually closed any ongoing project, but well, I can live with that. I can see I have started to play again, which looks promising, and I can say without a trace of doubt that I have enjoyed every damn second, and I think that's what really counts.

Free time is scarce (I started a new job quite recently and I'm still getting used to the new responsibilities and facing kind of a whole new perspective on my career, which is also taking some extra time) but I'm confident about the future nevertheless.

For now my top priorities are making more progress on the board (I don't dare to asy I'll finish it, but I'm commited to put some good work on it), work on the Bretonnia army and get the children more involved, as they are showing more interest in dad's toys. I tend to not make any promises, but I can say I'm willing to start Season 14!

Thank you, my dear readers, for your continuous support. Blogging isn't the fanciest thing in these Instagram days, I'm aware, but every single comment encourages me, every post of yours makes my day, knowing that you all are facing the hobby with enthusiasm... well, makes it all worth.

If you are willing to start the 14th year of this adventure with me, I'll be more than honoured.

Let's go! 

Vertical and horizontal

 Some fresh updates on the Qala Debdou front! I've been working on the upper module and have enough progress to show!

You got to see the lift in the latest game I had, so let me show you a little bit more of it.

Made with the rests of an old toy crane, the same I used for the bridge you see in the pic too

This piece was always in my mind, I designed the lower module with the intention of connect it to the upper one with this lift.

I can tell now, I also had this other crazy idea, but unfortunately I had to drop it some time ago, as I had no room left for it. I wanted a kind of funicular or almost vertical train which would climb up through a railway.

This was my inspiration

Sadly I didn't find a proper place for it. And before anyone states the obvious solution, no, sorry, I'm afraid I'm not building more modules for this town :P

But let's come back to the lift: 

Ugly, dirty, unsafe. Just perfect

Handrails are for cowards

 It mixes the vibe of an industrial or mining lift with the silly looking of this whole project, so I'm ok with that.

Let me show how I fix these pieces to the board. Of course in the cheapest, laziest way possible:

I pierce holes in the foamboard and use toothpicks to fix the structures

Top engineering. Totally suitable for this town

 Ok, this covers the part you had already seen. Let's move on. You may have asked yourselves why the hell I am building such a big gate or hollow space on the left of the module. Though "because I could" sounds like a reasonable answer, I can elaborate a little bit more.

Now, what the [redacted] is this?

A bridge to nowhere!

I'm building a landing platform, which can host a larger ship, and which is connected to that hangar or cargo bay. Now, given that I have to think about storage, I cannot simply glue it to the module.

Underneath view

Now that explains that slot I cut open down the gate

(Right, I say it a lot, I plan things way more than you suspect. Though, to be fair, I improvise some others too).

Fix in its place but removable for storage

Mandatory tubes and wires

Crazy idea: my original plan involved stuffing all the space underneath the landing platform and build houses that hung from it. Small blocks growing like stalactites. However, I was talked out of doing it, and my pals recommended me to just add some light stuff and not overdo that part. Sometimes you have to listen the advice of wiser people.

Anyway, it looks good to me

Just an example. I have a different ship in mind for this, but that's for the future

Let's keep on building stuff! Let's get to the central section:

More lifts!

 This is an old MDF piece by Multiverse Gaming. I purchased it at the very beginning of the project (like more than six years ago! With more stuff!) but I had never got the chance to use it. Multiverse Gaming have gone fully digital (I believe like 2-3 years ago), so I'm happy to have this one.

 This piece will serve to connect these two levels:

 

Notice I've also built stairs to reach the upper level

This explains the height between the levels, as I designed everything to fit in. Just let me call your attention on the fact that the previously shown large industrial lift that comes from the below module conditioned the height of this upper platform. Then this small elevator platform conditioned the height of the lower floor. And so on. So I kind of designed this from the top down, though, obviously, I had to build it from the bottom up.

This absurd methodology explains what you are about to see:

A build-up of miscalculations

Right, no matter how well you think you have made your numbers and taken your measures, now I have a gap between the platform and the lift itself. Great.

This is the part when I improvise. I adapt. I overcome.

 Well, let's pay some attention to the rest of the section...

I have a problem with horseshoe arches. I cannot stop doing them. I need help

Now I'm adding the LEDs before I close the building

The access to that house in the mountain looks... interesting

Some basic colour to better envision it:

This should provide some fun to play on different levels

What about some more colour?
 

I finally added a wooden walkway to get to that remote home up left there

Here you have a general overview of the whole board so far:

Locked stretch goals on the right section XD

Just a close-up to show the module populated with some random citizens:

 I don't know when this project got out of my hands. Most probably the very first day I started to imagine it. I have a general idea of what I want to build on that space left, it remains to be seen if it's achievable!

Wish me luck!