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https://youtu.be/UOMcQLdQuz0?si=i5GdbGAK­IfNrKwur

Watched this last night, scenery looks amazing - if I ever get to travel to Australia I'll time it to coincide with this race!

Beau Miles is always worth watching. Has anyone ever been so eternally positive about pretty much everything?

Nice! They look great. Very clean paint job.

I got given some of the AK fluorescent paint recently and have painted up a test Tyranid. It looks really cool, so bright, stands out, really alien... Until I take a photo and it looks really dull and boring. None of the brightness comes through and it all looks really flat and the gradient is almost completely lost. Is it just my shitty phone or will all cameras do this with fluorescents?

I went to Colours yesterday, which was much bigger than expected. Mostly historical wargaming stuff but loads of general hobby stuff too. Less sci-fi but still plenty for everyone. Took the kids expecting them to be bored but they both said they enjoyed it. £5 entry and under 12s go free. It was way busier than I'd expected (we arrived lunch time). All in all pleasantly surprised. Definitely go again next year.

Epic win for this though:

When she later went to collect the ashes, she saw the urn had been labelled “Not Dead Ted”

Yeah feels good. I'm lucky I didn't get it as bad as some but before Xmas I would struggle with 2 miles at a VERY gentle pace. No energy. Everything ached for days after. Constant brain fog, tiredness, muscle and joint aches... Deferred my place for VLM to next year so that's the target, just to get around, no time target, just to be able to cover the distance will be a massive milestone.

Parkrun earlier, thought I'd try a bit of post (hopefully, still waiting for a relapse) long COVID effort at a fast run to see where I am. Been back running regularly for a few weeks after what feels like forever of being very careful not to overdo it and feeling a bit fitter but I'm aware I'm a long way off where I was this time last year... Only two mins slower than my course PB and I didn't try to get near the front for the start so was working my way through the crowds and bottleneck for the first half mile or so. Quite reassuring!
Was passing people for pretty much the whole 5k and fairly even pacing too. Progress feels good man!

the team should be prepared to swarm

Buzz off!

All look great! I've tried NMM a few times and it always looks shit. Followed a few youtube videos and it's obvious they are skipping out a load of steps, it just doesn't look that good with a normal black-grey-white blend but yours look ace. Tips please!

I didn’t paint the things in shadow / hidden

Unless you're entering a competition and painting in sub assemblies some models require impossible brush angles to get paint into every recess. No one will ever see and as you say, how it looks on the tabletop is what matters. And the Ghostkeel looks great!

Took both kids back to Ivy House Lakes on the weekend. Didn't have too long as we had plans in the morning but fished the afternoon and had somewhere around 13-15 (I stopped counting at 8) carp, all on surface or slow-sinking bread. Biggest was a bit over 6lb but a good afternoon out!

Also a new species caught: Moorhen!
The bugger went for my bread so I pulled it away but it had paddled over the line, and the hook caught it's foot. Released with no harm done, thankfully.

pointless money pit of a pastime

This probably applies to most hobbies :D and as always more expensive kit doesn't mean a better time on the bank. We fish with rods and reels almost as old as I am, most of my gear is second hand. Of course the new shiny will always appeal! I keep telling myself I need a rod specifically for lure fishing (which I do almost never) and a nice leger rod (which to be fair I do more often) but the float rod will do an ok job for both.

swimming

Does your average state school have a swimming pool in the grounds?

Anecdote alert but my eldest swims with a club who utilise various local pools, mainly council leisure centres one the club rents from a private school on Saturday morning. Full size 25m indoor pool available to the kids year round. The school has a swim team, they enter competitions, and clearly foster the competitive environment. There's posters up with quotes from kids about how they're going to qualify for this competition or set that time etc. Compare to the school my kid goes to to and it's worlds away.

Hardly surprising that places like that will churn out great swimmers really.

Took my eldest out today. We've been before a few times but they always lose interest because they hardly catch anything and miss all the bites as they're not paying attention so I've been on the lookout for a more commercial type place. Found Ivy House Lakes, near Swindon with two match lakes which looked promising but a bit of a drive.

They'd bloody caught two decent bream before I'd picked my rod up and went on to catch 18 fish over the afternoon, mostly small carp but one 9lb 5oz!
Not only did they catch the biggest fish, they caught more than me 😭

£10 for adult and child with one rod each is great value for entertaining children too.

You're just north of Cadair Idris there I think? The same ridge has just as good views etc but barely anyone goes to the other summits. There is a small car park n the North side (cash only when I was there about a year ago), which is a quiet route up.
Also the Rhinogs (area north of Barmouth up to Llandecwyn), lucky if you see more than a handful of people all day, opportunities for scrambling, generally not so steep and not as high but lovely scenery and views. There's a car park on the East side accessed off the Dolgellau - Ffestiniog road (marked on OS maps) as well as access from the West if you want to be coser to the beach (or chip shop) on the way home.

Tie a bit of string on so you can fold the hook down.

Just took a stroll along my local canal. This section is fed by lots of springs and with all the rain we've had over winter and recently it's gone crystal clear. So many fish in there! Spotted a decent sized bream, some chunky roach, gudgeon, perch and loads of small silvers - the pole fisherman's dream!

In-Country

Used to refer to our UK workforce.

Yes, the main effect is achieved with an airbrush. Black base coat and then GW Grey Seer to lighten up the areas of focus, then white to further brighten the focus points before adding the base colours. The purple was a mix of mostly white with a little Phoenician purple and the yellow was mix of mostly white with some yriel yellow because I wanted good yellow saturation as opposed to using a pale yellow which would be more pastel-like. All applied in thin layers building saturation.

Then the yellow on the robes got a few thin coats of pure yriel yellow to build the brightest areas, and several glazes on the paler areas to soften the transition.

The staff got the same airbrush treatment but then had a caledor sky glaze applied to get the blue green transition. I tried to keep the colour palette limited so most of the details are grey, apart from the gems on the hood/collar thing (which was all brushwork and is supposed to imitate the colours in the middle of the lilly flower).

Been watching a YouTube channel called heresy is for heretics where they do loads of bright neon colours which strangely helped with the technique for this.

I'd already built the model with the water element option so this seemed suitably perfect!
Here's my attempt at replicating the perfection of nature. Pretty happy with the result.

Had this "Invocation of the Elements" Ethereal (store anniversary model) built up for a while but struggling to think of a colour scheme as I don't have any Tau already (apart from another ethereal I painted up a while back) and was looking for something that would look suitably cool for a limited ed mini. In possibly the most British thing ever I was visiting the Oxford Botanical Gardens the other week and this water lilly flower both looked like a cool colour combination and a challenge to paint. Just look how deep that yellow is and the pastel purple, sick blends!

Anything we should be thinking about

Toilet, water, moorings (permanent or continuous cruising)

If you've lived in vans it's probably similar in terms of confines and considerations around resources like power etc.

Lost my mojo a bit recently but finished off some Fenrisian wolves I started ages ago last night as well as the Cyber Wolf model which is such a bad model it made painting it less fun. It's resin (which I didn't realise when ordering) so has loads of supports that need cutting off and cleaning up, loads of bleed from the mould to clean up too, the cast isn't that great and missing some detail where it hasn't filled the small gaps in the mould. Plus the size is off, it's physically smaller than the other wolves, slimmer in profile when looking head on, and it's wonky so looks a bit like it's falling over.

For a bionically enhanced monster wolf it's a bit of a let down.

In better news I got the Tyrannic War book in the post as a "sorry its taking so long, here's a free gift" for the Combat Patrol magazine to start shipping. Not really sure I'm looking forward to the massive pile of shame I'll accumulate but am looking forward to some different things to paint and having options to mix it up.

Late reply but I think you nailed it and I was too impatient and the paint (specifically the varnish) hadn't cured fully before the oils. Haven't tried again since but will try waiting longer between steps.