So I've made a load of bases for the buildings, arranged some of the broken wall elements into a ruin and based that and built a load of bomb craters. I don't know why but I love making bomb craters. Might have got a bit out of hand. I just flatten a ball of modelling clay into a chubby disk and start squishing the center outwards forming a ridge. Eventually I start pinching the ridge to give it some sharpness and finish by adding a bit of text by pushing some rough surfaces gently over the whole thing.

I also felt that a well was needed, so I built one of those too. I think it's come out ok. All these elements are made from that Das paper-based modelling clay. It's some mix of papier mache and clay I think. It shrinks and takes too long to dry (unless you nuke it in the oven), but it's pretty cheap and easy to use. Notice one of the many exotic tea towels in use here. Present from the in-laws, they get cruises, we get tea towels, lots of tea towels.

All these bases are dried out now (because I nuked them in the oven) and so they've all curled up a bit at the edges. I'll sort this by using the gentle and sophisticated method of gluing them to death and leaning on them until they capitulate and stay flat.

I am starting a new big Diorama. Going for North Africa, 1941(ish), I'm thinking small skirmishes as part of operation Crusader. Got a load of Panzer IIIs and IVs and at least 2 Airfix Matilda's in my stash (most of which remains untouched). Working in 1:72, so I'll end up trying to paint some of my sons big variety of DAK and 8th Army troops. But they'll need somewhere to battle in as well.

Hello, never blogged before, or twittered, face-booked or dipped any kind of toe into the social media world for that matter. And here I am, trying to build a website, and write a blog, oh blimey! It's not that I'm a technophobe or particularly socially awkward (or even possibly Canadian), I've just never had anything much to say to potentially everyone. But, "hello" seems a fairly safe place to start.

​Thankfully, this blog isn't really a lot about me, more about what I'm trying to learn to do and get better at. And that is: make models, gaming boards, dioramas - anything like that. In particular it's about me using GAMEIN5D, an invention of my own (patent pending) which is a system of folding and interlocking gaming surfaces that also make pretty robust boxes.

In short, I wanted a way to build as much model stuff as I liked, as big as I liked for me and my two boys, but they had to be able to be tidied away after. So with one imminent birthday approaching the GAMEIN5D was born.


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