Something that I like to show you even if it is not directly related to miniatures. Carnivorous plants are common in pulp or sci-fi on jungle planets, indeed. But how they are? During a really recent trip to Padova I went to the Orto Botanico di Padova. Founded in 1545 by the Venetian Republic, it is the world’s oldest academic botanical garden that is still in its original location. In the new wing of this garden, inside a new greenhouse building, there was a convention about carnivorous plants organised by Associazione Italiana Piante Carnivore. I’m used to miniatures or comic conventions and I found this one with the same spirit. So I could admire these strange plants that drink distilled water and eat rotten insects. Lots of kinds of carnivorous plants exist. I show here some together with their trap system.

It is like a beartrap, and it uses the same activation method. Every pair of closed leafs is a victim more.

Small spheres made of glue along leafs. And insect that slowly are absorbed on them.

The following three are based on the same principle: one way cones or recipients where insects are attracted and cannot escape, plunged into a sticky liquid.

Bigger recipients. They remind me a vagina. Attraction and death.

Dangling recipients big as 1/2 litre bottles! They seems threatening…

The same week of my working session in Terni for the illustration for Ferrum et Gloria, we met with Diego to visit a part of Umbria, the region of Italy where live Andrea. Towns we visited underlined in red.

In a plain with a river, a jewel from Roman and Medieval times. Something was so perfect that you could think that was fake as a backcloth.

Larger town of the trip. Laid down an hill. White stones under the Sun.

Bronze tables with laws in Umbrian characters and language.

Land of truffles and other delicacies.

Roman theatre.

A dungeon boardgame from some years ago. To spent late evenings in hotel.

Where spill a famous Italian spring water. And with this beautiful white castle, closed on Mondays. And yes, it was Monday.

The city of paper makers. So we visited the paper museum.

Myself with a slimmer body: less 4Kg than before and a better health than three months ago.

Andrea while he is buying paper made in Fabriano to take notes for the rules, to draw with inks, or to paint with watercolours.

The most beautiful town that I visited in Umbria! A lot of Roman remains nestled in a perfect Medieval town.

A town full of gardens and flower-pots along the streets.

Town of olive oil production. Even Medieval, as usual, but with a public villa decorated with Liberty style and with Bohemian landscapes.

Then we returned to Terni for a playtesting…

It’s Ferragosto (feriae Augusti) time again! The day of the year established by our emperor Gaius Iulius Caesar Octavianus Augustus to rest! And this is even the day to celebrate Summer. And Summer is bikini time too! As in previous years something on this topic, just like my Blood Bowl team painted by Filippo Simoncini…

And more. A clip from a great Japanese film about girls and machine-guns:

Buon Ferragosto! : )

I’m losing weight. After some years of constant little fat accumulation (too many pizzas…) I was out of my target weight. Moreover I have other problems as colitis and kidney stones. So I decided to stop this situation with a real diet. After two months I lost more than 4kg. It is not so much but it is a result. Now I weight a little less than 78kg and I want to reach 73kg. The goal is to obtain this result just before Lucca Comics and Games convention, together with a printed copy of Ferrum and Gloria in my hands. And after my example even Andrea is following a diet! A healthier way of life is necessary to gamers…

On the same topic is what concern my lead mountain. I weigh all my unpainted miniatures and I found that they are almost 2.3kg. I have a few more in the post, so I could say that the total amount is 2.5kg. Comparing my fat to my miniatures I understand what those 4kg I lost really are! I reorganised what I still have to paint, bonding the figures within a same theme, taking notes about the pieces, packing all in labelled boxes. I wish to start a diet for my miniatures too. It is a non-sense to own a lot of miniatures that you can’t utilise because they are unpainted. So I want to hold purchases back, keeping my lead mountain under control. I want for it a weight loss. I can obtain it as I can lose fat.

And now the birthday report! And an Of Gods And Mortals mega-game. Here my birthday cake with a 44 sign and a candle added: my mother couldn’t find the 5 to compose 45…

In the morning a party at work, in the evening with family. And Sunday with friends from university years. I organised the party at the local IKEA store. A novel meet with shopping. Next year another eccentric location is in my mind.

Saturday instead a trip to Canino to play with Diego, Narciso and Andrea. The 2nd of July is Diego’s birthday, mine is the 3rd, so I like to organise a special day with friends and miniatures. This time we played with OGAM for a Ragnarok scenario. I built armylists and some rules for this event. The duty was even find and assemble our available miniatures and terrains for it. Two Aesir (Thorr and Odhinn) versus two giants progeny (Loki and Surtr) for more than 2600 points each side instead of 900. Huge.

Surtr the black arrives with Muspell people. The 9 worlds are in flame!

Utgard Loki at Yggdrasil roots!

More giants and trolls are on rampage!

Frost Giants versus heroes from Valhalla!

Bersekers smashed!

Loki is free on a cliff, ready for his tricks!

Pause. Launch at restaurant and than after-launch with ice-creams.

Thorr arrives to kill giants!

Odhinn the All-Father strike!

Aesir won! They are unbeatable by giant hordes. Something in the scenario didn’t run as we thought. However Ragnarok is not ended: Fernir still doesn’t eat the Sun. So we will propose a better Ragnarok scenario at RomaGioca, the 20th of September. Hopefully we will play against our friends from Macerata for another epic struggle.

And here what remains after the Ragnarok! An empty terrain…

And today they are 45…
In a future post I will show some photos of birthday parties with family, fiancée, friends, colleagues, and hardcore miniature addicts like me. I publicised a wish list with archaeology and military books. Moreover I suggested some rare euro coins. And to celebrate this event I ordered a ton of lead, and some items from British Museum shop, related to my next game after Ferrum et Gloria series. In the meantime I have two goals: publication of Ferrum et Gloria part I, ready for Lucca C&G convention in November; a weight loss of 8 kg. If you see photos of mine with a slimmer look while I have in the hand a printed copy of the rules, then these goals will be achieved.

After the part 1 here the part 2: more things about my holidays in Trieste.

This is the church in a Venetian gothic style in Muggia, a fishermen village at the south end of the huge Trieste harbour. Only some more kilometres along the coast and there is Capodistria, now Koper in Slovenia. Then Croatia, ex Italian Istria.

In Trieste there is a huge railway system. This was useful for the role of the harbour. Now some train deposits and railways are abandoned.

Inside an unused rail station now there is a rail museum.

This is the aspect nowadays.

Among rust, a German WWII wagon.

Some dioramas reproduce local railways in various years.

I did an amazing find! It is a tram for the line that I used to catch in my childhood! I live very near the terminus. In 1980, after more than 15 years of construction, an underground line substituted the tram line and these trams were retired. This is the Tram ACEGAT number 446, built for Trieste and used in Rome after production engineering. Moreover, this vehicle was used to test the actual underground line. On a window there is a trace of an advert with the name of my road. It felt so weird to find a piece from my past in a far city.

The sea museum. The strange thing is that on the walls there is an huge exposition about Austria-Hungary navy with pictures of victories against Italy! Yeah, that navy was constituted by Trieste people!

Far East museum. A samurai armour.

Japanese steel.

A sword made by coins. It was used as a kind of wedding gift.

The castle of Trieste is built on the top of the hill on the sea. Inside a Roman museum, and an armours and weapons museum. A medieval Syrian halberd is the Trieste’s heraldic sign.

More things that we watched in Trieste. Here some condoms with uncommon shapes. Look at that with the Big Ben rectangular shape…

Fashion toilet and bidet for luxury homes, with python or crocodile texture!

A very pleasant holiday. When the next?

My Italian holidays for 2014. This time in Trieste. I never stayed here before, it is a little far from Rome and no miniature or musical event was here, so I think to visit one for all this city on the sea, embedded among Alps, Venice and Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The architectural style is a mix of imperial gravitas and Slavic gusto, with some Art Nouveau added, proposed with an almost Venetian taste. A lot of faces and bare-chested women on building façades.

This is the villa just outside Trieste built by Mexico emperor. He died executed by firing squad in Mexico only a short time after he arrived in the place.

Under the unused throne room. After him, the villa was inhabited by a Savoia prince that after died in a prisoner camp in Africa during the WWII. I don’t want to live here!

Trieste is a multi-ethnic ex-imperial city. This is one of the two orthodox churches, the Serb one. Before I never visit a church of this kind. It is different than ours. A great atmosphere, cants, candles, kissed icons.

This was the empire harbour but, after the WWI, Italy occupied the place. This is the dock where docked the first Italian vessel.

The main square on the sea with the light of sunset on the windows.

The same place, the night with artificial lights.

The canal inside the city.

The old double church on the hill built inside the Iovis temple using even other pieces of Roman buildings and monuments.

The ground part of the Roman basilica. At the bottom the double church.

The Roman theatre. Well, but where is the arena?!?

The Roman arc along the cardus.

Roman eagles that were on the top of the Iovis temple.

Roman dices and pawns. No, you can’t play with them, it is not allowed…

Pontiarii low relief. You can view the retiarius on the top of the bridge with a stone in the hand. A secutor is approaching towards the other fighter. Wonderful!

More on part 2…