New Nest

So yet another home is left behind, empty from my belongings. I'm a happy tenant of a single-family home with huge garden in a small town known Lapua. Extra space came to use as our previous apartment was getting very small. One of the best things about the new space is that I now have a room of my own dedicated for the hobby, yay!

Panorama view from the new lair of izeColt

Finnish "antique" from the 50's

The study is very cozy and relaxing space. It's a place where my creative horizon can spread like never before, providing great framework to leech energy from.

The desk is a product of Lahden Puukalusto Oy and it represents functionalism pretty well. It consists very, well, functional storing capacities. I say the desk is a product because it is a working class version of Bilnäs' expensive counterpart and nowhere as neat and slim. But it makes its stand pretty well and looks beutifully patinated.

The history of the desk is grim. In 1976 an explosion occured in a warehouse of Lapua ammunition factory (State Cartridge Factory), killing 40 people, mainly female workers. Sixty children lost a parent in this Finland's worst modern time disaster. The desk, as far as I've been told, is a survivor from the accident. It was later sold in an auction to a former worker of the factory.

But now the desk has found a new home in my modest corner. It works as a focal point in my creative process, storing all my tools and paints within it just in a hands reach. The mechanics of the lock has a soul of its own and functions when it feels like doing so. It's pretty simple yet enough complex to keep my stuff safe and beyond the reach of the little gremlin.

I've already done some pretty interesting new creations in my new nest. I will be sharing them in next couple of days along with some amazing plans the rat pack will be doing in near future.

Stay tuned!

The First Confrontation

OK, maybe not yet! The Rat Pack got their tails swinging around their old neighborhood during the Easter holidays. Where else could that end up but in a clash of pints with old friends and discussion regarding miniatures, along with a few rounds of pool and karaoke...

"Show me what you got, punk."

Nicodemvs tries to flank Kul around pint of beer...

Why not to study miniatures in Pubs - Lack of proper lighting.

Korri is demonstrating why pool is known as the sport of strenght...

Time to put toy soldiers on the back seat and start enjoying the beer...

Bat...

...and Ryyd.

There's nothing more beautiful than grown men singing karaoke, drunk.

Rats Invading UK - PART II

We woke up around 5.45 am, had a quick breakfast and headed to Warhammer World where we'd jump in the Gamesday coach to Birmingham. We met John, his son and grandson around 7.00 am at the gates of the Games Workshop HQ. We felt both privileged and anxious to have a chance to talk with the master...

Our minds were blown away when John handed his art book to us and showed his latest converted/painted miniatures while the coach was bouncing towards Birmingham. With shaky hands we browsed the most amazing paintings of John's, each better than the other, trying to get as much out of them as we could get in the short time we had on the road before the terminus.

It's unbelievable how much passion and skill John Blanche puts into his art. Seeing his work, in real life, was a tremendous experience, one of those that - and I'm sure I'm also speaking from the behalf of Mikko too - we will NEVER forget... His enthusiasm towards the hobby should work as an example for all of us.

Mikko is admiring Mr. Blanche's masterpiece...

For some odd reason the time seemed to fly by... We arrived to Birmingham in about an hour or something, ready to launch our raid to Gamesday '11. The happening was almost like we expected it to be; Intense, loud and exciting. Most of our time we were just hanging around the Design Studio stuffe, trying to learn as much as possible from the pros, discussing about techniques and things like that. We thought about buying ourselves couple of copies of The Emperor's Will art collection book from the Black Library, but the queues in the front of the shopping area were insanely long and so we had to give up for that idea...

It was nice gesture from John to introduce us to Jes, with whom we had tons of fun talking about the miniature designing, sources of inspiration and many other things. I believe I won't be telling lies if I say that the world would be quite marvelous place if there were more guys like Jes around, such is his spirit to what he does and how friendly he is. It was a true pleasure to meet such a splendid fella!

Great galactic crusade hit Birmingham. For the Emperor!

John Blanche showing his artwork @ Gamesday.

This guy just looked like someone whose hand you had to shake.
Just kidding, it's Mr. Goodwin, obviously!

Mikko is bombing the studio staff with questions
regarding the sculpting secrets.

Baneful banners.

Jervis signing the millionth rule book...

One of the latest Games Workshop's hit, Nurgle Lord, in three-up.

I managed to survive the first cut with my entry in Golden Demon, but didn't get any further than that. Got myself a nice pin though! Steve did better and got a third place in the open category with his entry. Way to go mate, congrats!

With tired feet (again) we made it back to the coach and started our journey back to Nottingham. There, at the GW HQ, we ended up joining Gamesday afterparty in Bugman's with John and Steve, had a couple of pints of Hobgoblin and shared the fun. What a great ending for a great day indeed!

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Had a very mild hangover, nothing too much to handle though. Got away it after another great English breakfast. Last night, at the afterparty, John had asked us to join him and Steve for lunch at the Bugman's and so we did took another trip to Warhammer World.

Later on Jes joined us too for a brief moment. We missed him at the Gamesday afterparty and therefor it was really great to have a chance to meet him yet again. What a blast it was to listen to the troupers discuss about the very essence of the miniature hobby and sharing their insights with us common mortals.

After lunch we went outside to terrance where John asked if we'd like to take a couple of shots from the miniatures painted by him and post 'em on our blog! What a shame it was that we only had our iPhones with us and not any real camera... Despite that I think we managed to take quite decent shots. We'll be posting 'em in our next post, maintaining the excitement you know...

But yeah, as the blasts usually tend to be, this was a brief one too. We shared all the bestes with the gang and split. Mikko and I still had the rest of the day planles and decided to go and buy our souvenirs, hopping in the Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem on the same trip for the last time, as it was kind of along the way to our guest house...

This particular little corner of Ye Olde Trip became our permanent spot...

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The trip back to Finland went as smoothly as it could, if we just ignore Mikko's major hangover and the fact that we almost missed our coach from Nottingham to London. Flight was on time and we crashed Mikko's place in Helsinki around 1.00 am. At 2.00 am I once again hit my head into pillow with tired but happy feeling...

Tired but happy...

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Mikko told me that I should try to keep the story short and sweet, but I found it hard to comply. Sorry. Our journey to the heart of the hobby was just too damn cool to keep short; We had the best of time, all the time. We met a bunch of great guys who welcomed us with open arms. Perfect trip indeed, just like I hoped for!

From this day on the hobby will be nothing like it used to be. For me, it has reached a new level, evolved and made me really think what I want to get out from it.

But now, I'll let Mikko tell his thoughts regarding our journey...

Over and out.

-izeColt

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What a Trip! I mean, honestly! Those four days that we just spent in England were some of the best days of my life! We, two keen hobbyists from Finland, had this amazing VIP treatment through the whole stay. We got several great opportunities to talk with our idols about the hobby and more!

There were so many things that we were allowed to see - original artworks and original sculpts, amazing stuff altogether! There were so many things that I learned - Tips & tricks from the true masters of the craft!!!

Whoa! I'm speechless! all I can say at this point is thank you John, thank you Jes and thank you Steve!! I had the time of my life!!!

I think I'll have to post another blogpost just to clear my head more about my future plans, 'cause its about to burst right now!!! So stay tuned...

-okkiW

Rats Invading UK - PART I

izeColt & okkiW @ Helsinki Airport

FINALLY. There we were, Mikko and I, sitting in the airplane, waiting for our 2-hours-late flight to take off to Gatwick, wondering what an adventure we were about to jump into. We were both silently going through our thoughts, every now and then throwing up in the air sentences like "Can you really believe that we're about to got to visit Nottingham and meet THE fellas?". Yeah, it was quite unbelievable thought about a year ago, but now it was about to become a reality...

After landing to Gatwick we jumped in a tube to London Victoria station, where we took a coach to Nottingham. It was around 2.00 am when we finally arrived to our guest house in Beeston, Nottingham. Getting off my Spanish boots from my sour feet was an unbelievable experience and I felt like I was in heaven when I was finally able to hit my face in the pillow and catch some Zs.

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The next day, after ye' good olde English breakfast, we had a meeting with Steve at the Bugman's Bar, where we arrived after an hour of walking. We sat down on the terrace of Bugman's, had refreshments and talked about miniatures in a splendid company. Steve, as we expected, was an avid hobbyist and a down-to-earth top guy with whom you could spend hours and hours talking about miniatures and their inner life. True professional so to speak.

Steve studying Synthia and Captain Gaga.

Citadel Miniatures museum.

Steve was also kind to give us a little tour in the Citadel Miniatures museum where we spent a brief moment collecting our jaws from the ground for time and time again. Annoyance though, the meeting was short-lived as Steve had to get back to his place to finish his Golden Demon entry.

The day was still young and we decided to take a look at the inn Mr. Blanche had recommended to us. Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem it was, the oldest inn in England, founded around 1200s. The place was awesome, full of character, not to even mention the beer which was perfect. We had to be careful though as it was going to be an early wake-up the next day...

Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem.

Last Weekend & Weird Visions

Ouch!

My head still eachs from last weekend! izeColt Called me and invited me to have a drink with him. So we had few beers and talked about future projects...and them some more beer & less talk and then some little more =)

So when i woke up in the morning, i felt like Hell for some reason ;) Anyway, as i lingered in the borderline of life and death my imagination was running wildly. In that delirium i saw this following scene inside my head:

"Aaah! This is pointless", "we're never gonna find IT in this damned snow storm!!!"

"Stupid! Can't you remember what Captain told us? It is not our job to find IT, We are here so that IT could find US"

"Well yeah! But I have come to doubt that we have been wandering in this freakin' labyrinth for hours now and soon it is going to be dark and all!"

"IT is called "The wandering beast" after all. Maybe he's not at home?"

"Be quiet yer both!", yelled the Captain. The Captain was big man and renowned for his skills with the sword. He had been leading his mercenary party for years now. This time they were on a mission to bring down a beast, beast that had been causing troubles on the rural areas of the Northern Empire.

Only this time, finding the catch had been a little bit more difficult than usual. The tracks had led them to this labyrinth of razor sharp rock pillars. They had been searching the labyrith for whole day now, but all they had found was a haunting sound of a wind sighing trough the rock pillars.

His men were tired and bored "We have hunted down scums like this before havent we? And we have always found treasures as well right?", asked the captain, in attempt to raise the morale of his men. "RIGHTRIGHT!!", answered the rest of the mercenary party. "Despite, I have sent Crowell ahead already, he is a good scout. He will probably bring us some information soon enou..!"

"Thats Crowell! Beheaded!" Yelled Snarr the Cutter "But the head 's missing!"

"Looking for this?", asked crooked voice that echoed in the walls of the rocky labyrinth. As if appeared from nowhere, a large creature suddenly stood in the front of them. The Creature was tall, muscular and lizard-like. It had pale skin and long tail with spiky, club-like business end. But the most signifigant feature was a large singular eye that stood in the the middle of the creatures brows. The eye was large and it seemed to radiate coldness around it, at least the mercenaries felt the cold shriwelling down their spines, as they answered the creatures penetrating gaze.

"We are looking for you!", answered the captain. "We are here to kill you, so we could bring your one ugly eye to the Mayor of the Razor Peak City".

"You have been raiding the food supply caravans for the whole winter", "and this has been a harsh winter!"

"The people of the Razor Peak City don't want to starve to death this winter!"

"So we came here to put the end to your illegall business, my fiendish friend!"

The creature answered with howling laughter and threw away the head, the one he had severed earlier.

"Very well then... Boys! Kill the beast!", "But watch out that tail!"

Nordic Challenge, In Photos

Grhm... And here, finally, some photos taken from Nordic Challenge 2010...

Photobucket Album