..but sooo short on time. I’m going to try and take an hour out one evening this week and update the blog with some WIP’s etc. Sorry for the lack of waffle but life has been as rushed as usual. Lots going on.

January has been mostly Raining!

It’s been busy. So whats new! We’ve been hitting the shows with 4 in the past three weeks. Penarth was our first and being our local show (only 30 mins down the road) it was as always a pleasure to do. I get meet up with lots of folks from the Penarth club and have a good chin wag.

Mike, Phil, Ade, and Alun also came down and enjoyed themselves. At mid-day they disappeared to the pub for an hour, which then turned into 3 1/2 hours. They came back all very jolly in time for all the traders packing up. Not that this seemed to upset them (did I mention them being jolly!) They then headed back to Aberdare where the drinking continued. Alun is no longer allowed out drinking with us anymore.

Hazel and I were too tired to join in the fun following the show so we treated ourselves to an Indian instead. Sad gits I know.

Next up was Vapnartak in York. I’d never been to this one before but it was a really nice show from what I saw of it. I was doing this one on my own so I was stuck to the stall for the whole time. Wendy and Andy from West Wind kept me supplied with Tea and Bacon butties through the day which helped keep me going. The show as not a great earner but I suspect that was due to where I was, but I have no complains with the club as they put me in at short notice. Sculptor Ian Mountain popped by with his Wife and Son in tow to say Hi. It’s always good to put a face to a name. Ian has been responsible in the main for the excellent Hussite’s that Kingmaker Miniatures have released. He has plans afoot of his own which should prove very popular. I can say no more. :o)

The day was rounded off with a slap up nosh at a local ale house in the company of the Beastie Boys and Dave Bodley of Grand Manor. Much jovial banter and industry gosip followed and it was a good end to the day. (Lord S’s hands remained unblemished with the taint of money as he narrowly avoided having to put them in his pocket!). The long 4 1/2 hour drive was all that was left, but I bailed on this and stayed with my sister in Manchester instead. The following day on the way back home, I called in on Griffin Moulds in Birmingham. I was greeted by Stewart limping out of the office to meet me. He had fallen of scaffolding a few months back and managed to shatter both his ankles (Ouch!). I was given a guided tour of the factory and he kindly answered all my questions about mould making and the like. The set-up is great and very professional. The Wargames market is only a small part of their business, but has been growing all the time. Their main focus seems to be on high quality casting for people like the Royal Mint and similar customers. Probably why the quality of there miniature casting is so damn good.

A little highlight to the tour was watching the casting of some metal masters for Minden Miniatures. These were some of the nicest figures I have ever seen I and was pushed to see a mould line on them. I left Stewart with a batch of figures from our upcoming Irish War of Independence range to mould up. I have less and less time on my hands now, so out sourcing mould-making is going to be more frequent I think. Then it was back in the car for the drive home to be greeted by flying fur and being licked to death before I put my bag down. The dogs were happy to see me too!

This weekend was an epic with two shows over the two days. Call to Arms in Theale was the first up. We couldn’t make it last year as we had been snowed in so it was good to finally get to this one. A nice little show all round and very friendly. We got to chat with lots of people and I even got to spend some money. I treated myself to Monty’s Meatgrinder, the latest FoW suppliment. The show was quiet as far as sales go, but at the end of the day Glen of Hersants came over and treated himself to a huge pile of Arabs which was nice. :o)

We packed up and headed North towards our next show, Hammerhead in Kelham Hall, home to Partizan. We can’t get into Partizan as they don’t allow new blood in. Bloody stupid policy if you ask me. Someone literally has to die before they let in a new company, and as the list is rather long I don’t give a toss about getting in anymore. So Hammerhead seemed a good choice to pimp my wares to the locals. How wrong can you get. It was without doubt the worse show we have ever done as far as takings go. We ended up at about a £60 down due to the cost of a hotel and the fuel bill. It was a very disappointing weekend for us due to this. We did both shows in the hope that it would give us enough dosh to cover last months expenses, but in the end we had more profit from the Penarth show. Hey ho!

Prior to the show season starting I attended Cold Steel in Evesham, home of Gripping Beast. It was another great weekend with the usual suspects attending to battle it out and eat curry and drink beer.

Lord S presides over the Curry Feast

I with I would have bought a lottery ticket that weekend as I managed to win the Poker game on the Sat night (I won back Lord S’s share of Musketeer that he took off me last year and won a 1/3 share in GB. Have since found out that this is the debt ridden 1/3!).

Phil is introduced to the GB gambling den

Lord S has a shock when Darren explains how much was left in the GB kitty!

I also won all of my 4 games using my Abbasid Arab army.

There were some very good games played.

Darrell managed to make it this time.

It was great fun and I managed to stay dry this time, even though there had been flooding a few days prior to the weekend.

…that I’ve been neglecting my blog. Life seems so packed with things to do at the moment that I don’t seem to get the time to sit down and put down what I’ve been up to. I shall try harder though once I get my new PC.

Hazel has settled into her new job and seems to be genuinely enjoying the work which is great. I have been trying to get various figures made in between getting ready for the show season and sending out orders. The first pack of Ghulams are finished and I’m just working on the command at the moment, among other stuff. Also had to do my taxes so that’s kept me even busier!

I will try and get some pics up over the next day or so and write a bit more. But now it’s time for bed!

Well its almost the end of yet another year, and what a year. The decision to send Hazel back to Uni was probably the biggest one we took and had the most consequence for us. It made sure that the year was going to be a tough one and that the burden of all the household bills and putting food on the table fell on myself, and looking back any sane person would have said it couldn’t be done. How we did do it is a mystery to us, and we did it only just, coming bloody close to loosing the house and everything else towards the end of November.

I am extremely grateful to all those of you that bought from us at the various shows we attended towards the end of the year, as that is what kept us afloat. As the Duke said “It was a close run thing”, or something like that. I guess when life takes you to the edge like that, it enables you to really appreciate what you do actually have. Still, life has opened up a new door now, and Hazel has a good job which will free me up to expand Musketeer over the next 12 months to enable us to invest in new ranges, not just from myself, but other talented sculptors out there. That is something I am really looking forward to and I hope it proves as enjoyable to the rest of you.

Due to the large amount of orders we have had over the past few weeks I have been rather neglecting the blog so here is a quick catch up. Hazel and Myself attended her graduation at the Uni of Glamorgan where she picked up her Masters in ICT Management. She is now officially intelligent!

She’s all mine!! :o)

We’ve had the kids up with us over Christmas this year for the first time which has been nice. Not that they are around much as they bugger off with there mates most of the time, but its good to have them here anyway. We enjoyed a rather nice Christmas dinner by yours truly with lots of prezzies, which we started opening the evening before. Manly because I can’t wait!!! All good fun though. Hazel has been struck down with her annual Christmas bug and so has soldiered on through it all with a snotty nose. Despite that its been a good few days off.

I hope you all had a good Christmas and we wish you all the very best for the New Year.

…how busy it just got. Most weeks I may get 3-4 orders in. For the past 10 days I’ve had between 2-6 a day! I having to do real work at the moment to get them all cast up and posted. I hope you lot are proud of what you’ve done!!!

On a serious note it is really good news for us, as although Haze is working now, we won’t see her first pay till Jan 11th, so thanks for ordering chaps and making Christmas possible. :o)

I went up in the attic yesterday and dug out some boxes of WH40k Chaos vehicles I’ve had lying around for some time now. I have a notion that I may paint up a small Chaos Marine force up to battle Mikes various troops. I saw this little baby on the Steve Dean forum and was inspired.

 http://www.sd-forum.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7613

I don’t think I’ve seen a better example of weathering ever.

I was so inspired that I sent him an email to see if he would paint the vehicles for me. I live in hope.

I pinched this off Mike’s Blog this morning.

Which sci-fi crew would you best fit in with?

I got my dream job of being Kaylee’s monkey boy on Serenity! :o) Oh happy day.

Serenity (Firefly) 94%
Moya (Farscape) 88%
Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) 88%
Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) 88%
Heart of Gold (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) 81%
SG-1 (Stargate) 75%
Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) 69%
Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) 56%
Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) 56%
Enterprise D (Star Trek) 56%
Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) 50%
Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) 44%
FBI’s X-Files Division (The X-Files) 44%

If it doesn’t work out with Kaylee, then Zoe’s single again. :o)

I just spent the past hour playing a game of 40k with Mike. We’ve not played it for ages so we had to read the rules as we went along. All good fun though. Now where did I put my ‘Nids?

Feeling better today :o)

Thanks for all the cards and flowers guys!! :oP

I’ve been awake since 2am. The wind is howling, rain is lashing down, and Molly on of our dogs has been crying like a baby because she doesn’t like the noise. The fact that I feel like shit because of my Man flu doesn’t help either. Did I mention I’ve not been well…?

Sorry for the lack of posts. We have had rather a busy couple of weeks at Musketeer HQ with all the various things that have been happening.

Starting with Warfare, what a great show. I went about 10 years ago so it was great to see how much it had grown since then. We were kept very busy the whole weekend with chatting to people and selling lots of figures. From what other traders told me, they took more than they did at Salute! This was probably due to the “No SELWG” factor coming into play, but good for traders either way. Certainly our best show yet! I kept sneaking off to go and chat with various people as I do. The Beastie boys were busy as usual, but they did find time to discuss there latest commissioning. A resin Dice box made in a Viking stylie. Well it started out that it would be a dice box, but we discussed other uses such as plant pot, a place to store your weed, Jewellery box, etc. The possibilities were endless. Either way it was rather nice so I put in my order with Darren.

The Steve Dean forum members turned out in force throughout the weekend. I find that it’s pretty much the norm now that most shows will have a couple of members of the forum turn up. I was payed a very nice compliment by one gentleman who described my John Finch Pirate as “the finest miniature I have every seen”. I was extremely flattered by this, and even more so when I found out later that the gentleman concerned was Mr Bill Gaskin, maker of beautiful dioramas that have regularly made there way into WI. Lets hope he does Pirates soon! :o)

I had the chance to catch up with my old mate Tony from my army days. We spent the evening after the Sat show chatting over a meal and a pint. Lots of stories were told and Hazel didn’t seem board at all. I must be loosing my touch. It was good to catch up on all the news from the regiment. It’s strange but it never really feels as though you leave. More like I’m just posted away. We parted with the promise that He would come up and stay over a weekend and get a game of FoW in with me and the lads, and I would come down to Tidworth and visit the Regiment. Assuming they let me in. :o)

The week following Warfare was spent casting and packing new stock by me, and panicking and worrying by Hazel when it dawned on her that she was going back to work soon.

Reveille II in Bristol was our next show the following weekend. Not a big show, but very friendly and worth attending. We found ourselves once more next to Great Escape Games, and spent the day in between customers chatting to Stu. Always a pleasure. We pointed out how we had pinched their idea on using Waste pipe from B&Q as a frame for our new Banner. Cheap as chips compared with a commercially made one and just as good. The Banner also means you can now find us a bit more easily at shows. :o)

Last weekend we had Recon in Leeds. Or rather I did as I went up alone so I could stop off at my Sister’s house in Manchester. Hazel doesn’t do sofas but I’m less fussy about where I sleep. It was good to see my Sister and the rest of the tribe. I took a bit of time out to visit my cousin who had just had an operation to remove a 10 inch growth on her spine. I was glad to find her sat up at home and looking as though she was recovering quite well. I left with the promise to stop over a little longer next time.

I then had to dash off to drop of a big bag of Saxon Cavalry with a customer. Tim is using them for a Vandal army in the WAB GT in Feb, so as I was in the area it was easy enough to drop them off personally. He has a great collection of beautifully armies, which made me quite jealous. There was something that was very familiar about the address he had given me, and when I drove into the road where he lives I realised that it was where my first girlfriend at school used to live. The last I heard was that she was now a lesbian.

What can I say, I have an effect on women.

Recon the show was not really that good on it’s own, but I did have a big pre-order to take up which saved the day (thanks Zac). It was a very friendly show with club members being very eager to help out carrying traders stock in and out of the building. Lots of people came through the door and at first I thought it would be a good show, but after a short run of sales it basically died, and most of the afternoon was spent chatting with Duncan and Nick from WI/Northstar and Julian from Chiltern Miniatures. Julian I found out is another ex-forces chap. He was an officer in an Infantry regiment for a number of years. I’ll forgive him that, being a cavalry man myself. The show ended early for me and rather than spend another night away from home I headed back to Wales. Not sure I’ll make the trip up next year.

So this week Hazel started the job. Inside she was crying. (Only because she was going to miss the dogs).

She is working as a Project Support Analyst for Welsh Water. Don’t ask me, I have no idea what the hell that is, but she has enjoyed it so far. The woman she is going to be working with is off this week, so she is a bit of a loose end, but is making herself useful rather than sitting there bored. The job is a six month contract, but has a good chance of being carried on afterwards as it’s a massive project from what she tells me. I’ve been very good and had her breakfast done, lunch made and dinner ready for her return each evening.

All this and I have Man Flu AGAIN!!

I don’t usually get ill, but I think a combination of lots of driving, lack of sleep and general financial stress has kicked the shit out of my immune system. This week has been worse than the last bout, and although I have lots to do in the way of mould making and orders, I’m finding it hard to get off my arse.

And then yesterday I saw this on TMP.

http://theminiaturespage.com/news/146941/

Now initially I was rather worried by this move by the Perry’s.

Before I start I should say that I think that they are without doubt two of the finest figure makers in the business. I have loved there figures from the start and having chatted with Michael a few times, and once with Alan, found them to be genuinely really nice guys, so this is nothing personal, just an industry observation.

I found it rather strange that they would need to do this. From what I gather they don’t really need the cash, and the fact that they have held their prices where the rest of us have had to raise them, seems to prove this. I thought about the impact this would have on the Market and on people who produce ACW ranges to provide a living wage for themselves. There was much jumping up and down by people in support of the move, and they all being punters, I can see why. The figures will be 33p each rather than the usual £1+ that most figures cost, making big armies a possibility for most people. The problem I have with it is that it has the potential to de-value the market if they start covering lots of ranges. If a manufacturer can’t sell lots of Rank and File figures for his ranges then you may see the death of a few companies. I don’t have and great worries for myself yet, as I have no real interest in producing ACW, but I’m pretty sure that the move will have an impact on quite a number of people.

This industry is dependant on people investing there own money in a risky project that will have very limited returns. I’m pretty sure that most punters are convinced that we rake the money in, and that we are all mini GW’s. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even “big” companies have problems making ends meet, and it’s even worse for the smaller ones. When I hear from some traders that they had a good show because they took £200 you can see what I mean. They probably worked really hard all week making up stock, travelling to the show, and working all day to make that.

So as much as this is party time for all the buyers, it is rather worrying for the rest of us. I can only hope that they don’t start too many periods in plastic. I do think that ACW was an excellent choice though and wish them well in their new venture. I’ll be grabbing a few boxes no doubt.

On a lighter note, Phil had the grand opening of his Games room the other week, and treated us to a game of WW2 using the PBI rules from Peter Pig. Great fun and we spent the afternoon following it in the pub, my good lady providing the taxi service. :o)

Mike and Phil’s son Josh. He’s in my Black Book for wiping out my HMG platoon on the first turn! Grrrr!

Look!! Phil has managed to actually not sell some figures and has them in his new cabinet.

I’m still not well. :o(

Hazel got the job!! :o)

Long day today. Casting from 9.30am till 6pm and packing till 9.30pm. Absolutely bolloxed now. Off for a shower and bed. Up at 4.30am to drive to Warfare. Looking forward to the show so i can have a rest!

Hazel got an interview today for next Tuesday. Keep your fingers crossed for us. :o)