Magnetized

I've had this model for ages but this year I finally got around to start finishing it. One of the minor reasons was that I got decent magnets now.
I háven't finished the model yet but you're all smart enough to figure that out by yourself, this is just the last photo stage before I dó finish it.

The leg section with base:


I painted the magnetside of the magnets red (the other side I call the glue-side..wow that's creative!..not).


The model has 3 different shoulderpads, basic, weapon 1 and weapon 2.


The thing what is a bit stupid is that it has basicly 6 possible headcombinations, but only 11 headparts. The regen-part is combined with one of the basic-parts which leaves you with no nórmal head. Good thing that my 2nd carnifex has just arrived in a box, so I wíll make one.


So far I've magnetized the heavy weapons and 1 set of other guns, the rest (a bunch of other combi's) is WIP.

Heavy weapons above, other set below.


Even though I did the whole paint the magnetsize red so you know which side you need to glue etc..I did make a major error..the lower right torso magnet was glued the other way around than which it should have been and I already built in the heavy weapon arm magnet. If it was just the torso it wouldn't have been a problem to 'break' the magnet off, but I can't possibly get it óut of the heavy weaponsarm.
This just means that the places of the heavy weapons arms are fixed. The venom cannon is the lower set and the barbed strangler has to be the top set.
If not, it looks like this:
*the combi on the photo is a twin-devourer on top and a barbed strangler in the lower set, which doesn't work..*


As I said, the next carnifex has already arrived. I'm not sure I want to get that one magnetized too. Next to that I'm not sure if I want to built the error that I made on the above model into the new one on purpose so that all arms will be completely interchangable or that I want to do this one right and will have to wait a bit longer to get éach and évery possible combination (some sets such as the devourer only come in one set per model).

Pinkpop (music festival)

At the end of May I went to the Pinkpop festival. I haven't been posting because I had too much other stuff to do, but I'm back.

Pinkpop is at least worldfamous in the Netherlands and it's the oldest yearly popfestival in the world (this was the 40st time!). A couple of years back there was a major decline in visitors but the organizers managed to get out of that dip and came back strong. A short explanation: it's around eastern (Dutch: pinksteren), the Dutch word contains 'pink', it has mainly popmusic, a 'pop' means doll in Dutch so you end up with a pink doll as a logo and lots of people walk around dressed in pink or with the pink hat sold for a good cause (amnesty international) and which is a real collectors item.

I've been going to festivals for years because at least the following reasons: 1) it's an affordable way to see a lot of artists in a short time 2)it's an easy way to get to know new music 3)we always go with a group of cool people 4)a long weekend of drinking and stuffing your face with junkfood..what's not to like.

I'll stop rambling, here are the photo's:

I saw in random order: The killers, Bruce Springsteen, the Tingtings, Kyteman, Placebo, Mando Diao, Franz Ferdinand, Novastar, Milo (famous for his cover of a 50ct track), Madness.

Some minor links to music which you should check out if you don't already know it:
Kyteman's hiphop orchestra (Dutch group, but a lot of English, and French texts)
The TingTings (poppy, but cool).

Walchsee: training and having fun

Last weekend (thursday 14th-monday 18th) I went on a training seminar to Walchsee. I don't talk too much online about me doing martial arts because most(not all ;) ) people talking on the web about martial arts are a bit deranged and I don't want any spammers or too crazy people coming over here.

In short, we left on thurday with a rented car, drove to Munich, stayed the night, drove to Walchsee (meaning Walch-lake) in Austria, trained hard together with people from Munich till monday morning and in the afternoon we drove back (got back at 2AM) to Groningen. Great drive, great weather, great people, great training, great environment..etc..go check out the short photo vid I made with photobucket.



If anyone sees this and wants their photo removed from the vid, you know where to mail me :)

Dawn of war 2

I know it's been out for a while now, but I only played it today.
It runs surprisingly smooth on my pc considering I heard it had high demands.
Like most RTS games, there are basicly 2 parts: the campaign and skirmishes.

Missions
I started off with the campaign which lets you fight as the Blood Raven space marines (no other campaign available as far as I know :P). They've mixed rts with a bit of rpg so that when you fight between missions you can upgrade your commander and your squads with equipment and with a sort of experience point system which lets you aquire certain traits. I really liked this system so far because it lets you really take control of the strengths of a squad and tune it to your way of gaming.

Bossfights
The missions (I think I'm in level 7 or 8 now) aren't too easy, but not too hard for a beginner either. After a couple of levels each mission ends with a bossfight. Sometimes the boss is a bit of a challenge and other times I find myself thinking, is dead already?..erm..oke.. You fight orks which are always plain funny if only for their acknowledgements and or screams when they run, the eldar (sometimes it's hard to see where they are standing, they're so thin) and after years and years of waiting..finally TYRANIDS! So far I've only played one mission against them, but they came in numbers as they should.

Skirmish
After the first mission against the tyranids I wanted to play around with the tyranids myself (hey..I've played Tyranids on the table top for years now) and started up a skirmish. The units are quite cool, the abilities look awesome and it's cool to finally see them running around on screen. But (you probably felt this one coming, there's a but) the upgrade system is sometimes a bit vague because of a bit of a disorderly system of upgrading the tyranids. Next to that as a table top player I think I've got the right to whine a bit, they change the rules or application of some upgrades quite a bit (a tyrant with reinforced chitin or crushing claws is impossible in the book, rending claws plain useless in the book). But those are just small tears because gamewise its all good.

The real minus with the skirmishes is that there isn't much to do than built up fast, crush your enemy as fast as possible or hold back (a bit) to make the game last longer. Either way, because with at least the tyranids there isn't much of the normal rts base-building (just 2 upgrades to your main building) which makes the skirmishes boring quite fast. I don't see myself play skirmish after skirmish online, let alone against a pc AI. The last option is still tons of fun in many other RTS games. In some games (even in small skirmishes) skirmishes give you the time to get a feel for a side, but you kinda have to force yourself to do this in DoW2 otherwise you'll just built some basic troops, some large critters and stomp the opponent.

Conclusion:
The campaign is cool. I like the tooling and upgrade system you use for your squads. The story isn't too deep, but name a rts where this ís the case... The abilities are quite cool, although there are always some abilities which won't be used in favour of cooler/stronger/better abilities. The effects of the abilities look really nice. But the amount of detail gets lost sometimes because either there is so much happening that you want to stay zoomed out or the detail is too small to really notice constantly. The acknowledgements are funny (orks), stern (marines) or arrogant/wise (eldar). But as cool as the campaign is, the skirmishes get boring quickly, and that's after playing only one skirmish. It seems skirmishes are just an obligatory option in this rts.
All in all:
The DoW games (1 + adds & 2) are a must for the warhammer 40k table top gamer (if only to see the different armies move around digitally) and are fun for most other gamers. As for DoW2, have a go at the campaign and it might even be fun to play around extremely with the upgrading system to see how much it affects your game. Try a skirmish, but don't be too disappointed if you get bored.

For more info: Dow2 website

A 'Lee' on my wall

Lee from Quit your day job made a drawing of Wolverine in an elevator and sent it as a present for my birthday last February and I finally got it on my wall. I'm not sure if I réally like the color of the frame, but untill I find a really really awesome replacement this one will stay.

The reason it wasn't on my wall earlier was because the concrete walls here need a really really good drill, which I don't have. However, I found some small cheap concrete hangers in the local DIY shop and this one went into the wall without a problem. *note..my neighbour tried to slam concrete nails into her wall, and they came back flying..just to show how hard these walls are*

The first photo makes the drawing/frame look a bit fat, but that's because I'm afraid I rushed the chopping and resizing of this pic a bit.

Mr Carnifex

I've had this model for over 2 years but I kept postponing it because I wanted to magnetize it and didn't take the time to find out where to get decent magnets.
Since I dó have magnets now which you know I've already tried out at another model, I finally restarted painting/building the Carnifex.


I wasn't satisfied with the way I started painting it so I did all the red on the legs and tail again and will re-do it on the rest of the model.

Next to having trouble getting started with the model itself, I decided I needed a cool scenic base to go with it. And last year I stumbled upon this base:


It's made by a small company in Poland and it didn't cost me more than somewhere between the 3-5€. There was some kind of knight-corpse on the base which I turned *I put down a holstered eldar gun on top of where his sword was* into an eldar ala Iyanden because they're one of the opponents which were struck hard by Kraken *sorry..that is just 40K talk*. The base isn't finished completely though.

I'll try and get some decent work done next weekend and I'll see how fast it can be finished. It's a lot of work though, magnetizing all configurations (different weapon-arms).

Food: Poffert

Poffert is quite a local dish (northern part of the Netherlands), over half of the people I know..dón't know this 'dish'.
It's a kind of a doughcake with raisins & currants.
In normal circumstances, it should take you about 2,5 hours from start to finish (it being actual on a plate), but the while it's cooking you can go and do almost whatever you want.

The recipe:
Ingredients:
- 500gr self raising dough
- 250gr raisins/currants (pick one or mix them)
- 2-3 eggs
- 2,25 deciliters milk
- a knifetip of salt
- breadcrumbs..*can't seem to get a better translation of 'paneermeel'so click the link*

Preparation
Put the dough in a bowl and make a little cavity in it and break the egss in there. Add the salt. Get an electrix mixer *I'll show you later why you really need it!* and mix it, when the mixing gets tough, add some milk till you're all out of milk. When the dough's kinda smooth add the raisins/currants and mix them with it.

You need a special kind of cooking bowl for the Poffert (shown later) which you have to 'grease' with olive oil and cover it with the breadcrumbs. Put the dough in the bowl and top it off with breadcrumbs. Now you can put the lid on the bowl.

What you need is a very large pan *you'll see it below* and put the cookingbowl in it and fill the pan with water to just below the edge of the lid. Boil the water *lid on the pad* and let it boil on a low fire for 2! hours.
Take a look now and then to make sure everything's allright (if the fire's too high, you'll get water splatters all over your kitchen ;)

After 2 hours, take out the pofferbowl, open the lid and get the poffert out. Cut parts with a breadknife like you would do with a cake. I like to add butter and jam, sugar or syrup on it. Most people are stuffed after 4-5 pieces.
I'd say you can easily prepare a poffert for 4-5 persons and have a good meal out of it.

The photo's which will show how ..nót to do it, although it turned out alright.
Rico (a friend of mine..yes TAS..thé Rico) tries hiding the mess we were making


Ok, this is what happens when you find out you don't have a proper mixer and have to use your hands:


We scraped the dough of his hands with cutlery..*he didn't lose any blood*

The pan we used:

The special poffert bowl (notice the lid with clips)


Tada! Poffert