Author: Felix

The end of an Odyssey

British-born science fiction author Arthur C Clarke has died in hospital in Sri Lanka at the age of 90. Clarke had been in and out of hospital since his 90th birthday in December and had breathing difficulties, his aide Rohan de Silva said.

“Sir Arthur passed away a short while ago at the Apollo Hospital,” Mr de Silva said.

Clarke, who foresaw communication satellites in 1945, wrote more than 80 books.

He was most famous for his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was made in to a film by controversial director Stanley Kubrick.

Clarke was Sri Lanka’s best-known resident guest and has a scientific academy named after him.

AFP

Though I believe that 2001: A Space Odyssey was first a film collaboration with Kubrick, for which he wrote the book as an exercise in working out the storyline for the screenplay.

Sad news indeed.

Adeptus Mechanicus Termite

In one of the display cabinets in the Warhammer World store when I was there back in September 2007, was a wonderful Adeptus Mechanicus army.

The highlight for me as this excellent Termite.

Adeptus Mechanicus Termite
Adeptus Mechanicus Termite

Converted with much scratch-building, it certainly is a wonderful model.

I wonder if Forge World will ever get round to making stuff like this?

Metric Imperium

Had an excellent game with Simon today, in the end it was a draw, but it could have gone either way.  I have taken a fair few pictures and will post a battle report at some point.

However we did have one problem, I couldn’t find my tape measure.
Well I could find a tape measure, but not my usual one. Why was that a problem, well my usual one has inches on it, the one I had found didn’t.
Well rather than abandon the game we played with cm’s!

It was interesting, move 15cm instead of 6″, soon got the hang of that and the ranges (as they are in multiple of 6 usually). Difficulties did arise when we had to measure 5″ or 17″ and then life got a little more difficult, but we both managed the mental arithmetic and got through.

So not the end of the world, and a good game was had.

Ork Fighter Bomma Reflections

Having given my Ork Fighter Bomma a wash consisting of Chestnut Ink, Scorched Brown paint (which helps remove the gloss of the ink) and some water to thin the wash down I left it for a while before going back to look at it again.

Taking time to reflect.

Though not glossy, it was a little dark for my liking, so I decided to lighten it a little with some drybrushing.

I didn’t want to do too much otherwise it will turn out dusty rather than dirty, but that can be a technique used to good effect when you do want a dusty finish.

I am quite pleased with the end result. I was trying to get a rusty looking battered plane and I think that this paint job does do just that.

See the full workbench feature on the Ork Bommer.

A couple of interesting Doctor Who links

Here are a couple of interesting Doctor Who links I found today.

Make Your Own Classic Doctor Who Scarf

With the re-imagined Doctor Who ready to return for a fourth season next month, I can’t help but think of one of the series’ enduring hallmarks; the Doctor’s ludicrously long scarf.  The scarf became a symbol not only of Tom Baker, the fourth actor to play the role, but also an icon of the quirky series.

Read

Putting colour back in the Doctor’s cheeks

A new video restoration technique could see dozens of classic episodes of series such as Doctor Who and Dad’s Army restored to their original colour for the first time in more than 30 years.

Read

Next month sees the next new series of Doctor Who and though Catherine Tate is in it I am still looking foward to it, hopefully it will be as good as the first three have been.