Retail therapy and what I won.

As you all may have noticed I have not been as timely as I would like in updating the blog and reading and commenting on all of your blogs. Part of it is that I am actually somewhat busier than usual and part is that a little of the wind has been taken out of my sails after my latest blood work. Although I feel more or less fine, and my kidney function is approaching normal, my Creatine Kinase levels are off the charts. I'm talking more than 10 times the normal upper limit. So I have been asked not to exercise for another 3 months. This has caused a fair amount of stress in the family as we don't really know what is going on and reading about it on the internet doesn't have much of bright side. But as far as I know I haven't had a heart attack or a crushing injury and don't have muscular dystrophy. I go back for more tests next week.

End sob story.

So I figured I would do the rounds of the local hobby shops for some retail therapy. For me right now that is the Hobby Bench. I went to the one on Bell Rd and 43rd Ave here in Phoenix. As per usual I spent way too much time drooling over kit. I had intended to buy some green stuff, but all they had was putty in a tube, and bought some Tamiya Clear Red and some Model Master matte varnish. I then went to Hobby Lobby, because I thought I had seen green stuff there before. Of course I couldn't find any, so I bought some Vallejo matte varnish and some more Anita's Earth Brown, since I use that for basing. The last stop was Best Buy to see if they had flash diffusers similar to what Dave D showed on his blog here. They didn't, so when I got home I ordered what I couldn't find from Amazon. I could have saved myself  a lot of time but I guess it distracted me from my worries.

The reason I'm buying all this varnish and photo accessories is that I'm trying to figure out my shiny figure issue and work towards taking better pictures.

And to wrap up my rambling, what I won from Joakim at the Miniatures Man.

The squares are 1" (25.4mm)

The whole Chainmail thing from Wizards of the Coast passed me by. When you say Chainmail I think of the old mass battle rules in the little brown book. The figures are pretty cool and seem to scale well with my other 28mm figures. The female Paladin is pretty huge, giving me a Brienne from Game of Thrones vibe.

I hope you all are well, and that I'll have something of interest to post again soon.