Vampifan's Views 57 - Monthly Musings 35

Vampirella by Michael Kaluta

October has been yet another busy month for me. Without doubt, the best news of the month was I had my second operation to remove the cataracts from my right eye. As before, it was a complete success and I now have damn near perfect vision in both eyes. One minor hiccup is that my close in vision is just a bit blurry. For everyday life this is of no concern. Where it does affect me the most is when it comes to painting figures. When I paint my figures I like to hold them up close to my eyes. Anyway, I was told by the surgeon that this might happen. I may have to get a pair of reading glasses. In the meantime, I have bought myself a pair of magnifying glasses, which I wear just like normal glasses. They have 4x magnification and are superb for focusing in on close up things like a miniature figure in my hand. For anything else they are worse than useless. They only cost me £4 from Amazon and at that price I really can't complain.

Speaking of painting figures, I have a mixed bag of figures currently on my painting table. They consist of 6 Recreational Conflict Hazmat Troopers, 3 Crooked Dice Doctor Who female companions, 3 Shadowforge assorted females (a US Army medic, a vampire and a sci-fi cop), a Black Scorpion female US Army medic and Ken the Zombie.

Let me tell you about Ken the Zombie. He is, apparently, a limited edition figure made by Partizan. I learnt that one was up for grabs on e-Bay. I made a bid of £3.80 for him, never expecting to win. This was a day before bidding closed and I felt certain I'd get outbid at the last minute. That has happened before far too many times. Indeed, I have never ever won a bid on e-Bay. I have bought things on e-Bay before but only if the buyer has the "Buy Now" option. Imagine my complete and utter surprise when I was informed that my bid was successful. I couldn't believe it! I am very happy to have him in my collection and soon he will join the ranks of my painted horde.

Coming soon - six new original films

On the card modelling front I have just finished making a Stoelzel's Structures Barn. Expect a review of it very soon. I am tempted to make the Farmhouse next, to go with my Barn, but Carl has just released a new set which has me very interested. Actually, to be honest, ALL of his sets have me interested. But this one is unique as I don't know of anyone else who has produced a card model of a cinema complex. The Colossus Cineplex is a two screen cinema with a large car park surrounding it. Carl ran a competition on his new forum to come up with the names of fictitious film titles. I suggested quite a few and he chose four of my titles, which appear as film posters for the model. I've included a picture of the six winning entries, which Carl has expertly illustrated. My suggestions that were chosen were Nun But The Brave (a thriller about a vigilante nun), The Scarlet Chronicles (a Vampirella film. In the Vampirella comics, the Crimson Chronicles are often mentioned but seeing as that name is copyrighted, I changed it to the Scarlet Chronicles), and Brummies vs Zombies and Geordies vs Zombies (both sequels to the film, Cockneys vs. Zombies). The other two film titles were suggested by my friend and fellow blogger, Colin Nash. It was a fun contest and the thrill of seeing four of my titles appearing in the set was reward enough for me. You can check out and buy this model from here - http://www.wargamevault.com/product/139063/Colossus-Cineplex

Finally, I want to pimp a new blog-site run by my good friend, Stephen Gilbert, called Zombie Goths and Anime Candy. You can find it here- http://manicgoblin.blogspot.ie/ I persuaded Steve that it would be a good thing to buy the Zombicide board-game and he persuaded me to buy the Super Dungeon Explore board-game. We are both equally enthusiastic about these games. My interest in fantasy gaming has lain dormant for many years now - gone but not forgotten. I'm very excited about getting back into fantasy gaming after such a long absence.