Give Us Your Money - UK Miniature Bargains

I never imagined I'd be writing a post about politics, economics and miniatures, unless there was a really tenuous link, but events of today have presented an opportunity to do so.

It's been quite an eventful day in the UK, some bloke called Nigel decided he didn't like foreign people and 16 million people decided to join him in taking Britain out of the European Union. Rather than a super smooth exit, we as a nation have decided to take a crash and burn approach. This has left our currency, the Pound Sterling (£) at its second lowest level in my lifetime (and the last time it took months rather than hours to sink so low...).

So what's this got to do with miniatures? Well if you're outside the UK everything here is super cheap. So in true spirit of capitalism you might want to take advantage of our misfortune and bag a few bargains.

In a show of solidarity for my fellow Brits here's a couple of small companies I can recommend:

Via Facebook

The excellent Hasslefree Miniatures, I've bought from them plenty of times (just not not got round to painting anything for the blog yet).

And:

Via Facebook

Bad Squiddo Games, who have the best selection of female miniatures I've encountered.

Probably worth taking a look at Airfix as well. Needless to say my planned purchases from abroad will be on hold for the moment, good job I have plenty to be getting on with...

Cold War Jets at RAF Bruntingthorpe

Yesterday I decided to head out to RAF Bruntingthorpe, with a friend of mine, to visit a Cold War Jets open day. Partly I wanted get a bit of inspiration for my Cold War jet goal which I've set myself for the next year as well as see the jets in action. The day features various jets from the era doing taxi runs along the runway at Bruntingthorpe, but no take-offs, so that spectators can get much closer to the aircraft than they would at a normal air show.

As we'd arrived their early we were able to get out onto the runway where a couple of the larger aircraft, a Handley Page Victor, a Hawker Siddeley Nimrod and an English Electric Canberra were getting ready for their runs. The Victor has become famous locally, after an accidental take off back in 2009 so I grabbed a few quick photos before heading over to the Canberra.

Handley Page Victor

The crew of the Canberra were kind enough to let me grab a few photos of the cockpit through the entry door, hopefully they'll prove to be useful should I decide to model one at some point in the future.

English Electric Canberra

Next up was the Blackburn Buccaneer, since my last visit the collection seems to have acquired a few more which was good to see, including one in a Gulf War (the 1990's) desert camouflage scheme which of course was the last time the RAF Buccaneers were used in combat.


But of course, the highlight of this show are the two English Electric Lightnings that are based here which I've written about before. With the new releases from Airfix the Lightning is currently high on my wish list when it comes choosing a Cold War aircraft to build. I have to confess my photographs are better on my previous post so I'll leave you with a short video.

It's a lot louder than the video makes out, you might be able to tell from the reaction of the people in the crowd!

The 15 Minute Goblin

Not long ago I had a friend visit from Russia who was a big fan of the Games Workshop range, primarily through the computer games that they've released. As he'd travelled such a long way I decided that with Games Workshop HQ only a short trip away that I had to take him there.

Now for me it's been I while since I was involved in the Games Workshop hobby, however he really enjoyed his trip and came away with a set of figures and some paints, keen to start painting them. So upon our return home I set about giving him a quick tutorial on painting and how to do simple highlights. The result, the 15 minute Goblin.

I've never painted a Goblin (or any other variant of Green-skins) before so it was something new for me too. With the addition of a brown rather than a Games Workshop standard black set of robes I felt it was a fun experiment.

The Sales Assistant in the HQ shop did manage to persuade me to purchase one of the newer plastic figures, promising me that they'd moved on a bit since I last painted their figures. I eventually left with a Chaos Nurgle Champion, something about pustulent skin and corroding armour obviously seemed appealing at the time.

He took me a bit longer than 15 minutes to paint...

Cold War Jets Open Day - RAF Bruntingthorpe (25th August 2013)

Here are few pictures I took at last year's Cold War Jets open day at the RAF Bruntingthorpe in Leicestershire. It was this event that renewed my interest in Cold War era jets and I can highly recommend that you take a visit to this year's event.

The event involves various jets, trainers, fighters, bombers, making full power taxi runs along the runways, but no take-offs. This means spectators are allowed closer to the aircraft as they are moving.

RAF Bruntingthorpe is also home to the Lightning Preservation group who have restored two of last English Electric lightning to fly, at least one of these should be taxiing on the day.

In this case I was allowed on the taxiway as this Canberra approached!

So if you get the chance check it out, just don't forget your ear plugs! For more information about the open day click here and for the Lightning Preservation Group click here.

So why am I writing about this event? Well this was moment that I first thought about trying to build model aircraft again, and yes, I do have a Lightning kit in my stash waiting to be built (2 actually...)!