After an overview of what was around, in this post close-ups on miniatures in Empoli Games.

A kit for a temple in 1/72 scale. I have to do something just like this in 28mm. One year or another.

Always in 1/72 scale, some gods.

Why I need a temple? To put decency to a terrain with this kind of troops. Large amounts of ancients…

Skirmish with Japanese people. By a comrade of military service times, then a wargamer.

I know little about this epoch but something as this one let me a desire to know more.

Masses and a terrain like a military map. Large scale wargame at its best.

MDF changes wargames terrains. Far West with a lot of wood as it seems to was.

Building a Ratte. A lot of plastic instead of steel.

Beautiful and dirty Shermans on sale. I must build one for the Battle of Rome.

A scene from the war in Africa. With Folgore artillery.

WWI and treches.

Russians want to conquest a Lidl store (on the top at centre in the photo)

Italian tanks in Italy.

A lot of Germans and a Stuka above.

More of the same war but in a colder place.

To end, a bunch of Orks.

Romics is not the place for exhibitions or talks about comics and authors, it is more focused on cosplay and gadgets. But this time there were really great exhibits. And the best was this one on Diabolik. I was amazed.

Different reprints of the first number.

Some modifications on the pages between different editions.

The same sequence in three versions. The last one is the modern work of Palumbo, one of cartoonists that I prefer more.

Always Palumbo, in successive phases of a cover.

Homages by some crucial authors to Diabolik.

What I will read in the future. Palumbo’ sketches for the new second season of DK series.

A room with models of Diabolik’s car.

Every model is inspired by comic stories. Often the car has got some tricks to support the escape of the thief. A real evil genius. He is the king of terror.

What was I saying? Oh, yes, gadgets. While I sipped a bottle of mango bubble tea (weird Asian food is usually sold in comic fairs), I could walk around to immortalise some statuettes. Here some of them for you.

At this time of the year you could think that now is the turn of Lucca C&G. I’m a more than a month late with reports, so Lucca C&G is for another time. Here there are a series of 4 posts about the Roman comic convention at the start of October instead.

The fair is for 4 days and to avoid crowds we visited it the first day. However Saturday and Sunday we were in Empoli. But that is another future post.

Andrea was at this table for a couple of hours. He was present as adviser for the upcoming class about game writing.

The other two mates with me and Andrea, ready to spend money on silly things. Just like me.

This edition was the biggest of its history with 5 pavilions and a lot of stands more. We stayed an entire day to see all.

Around there were a lot of gadgets, stuffed animals, statuettes, t-shirts, contact lens for cosplayers, and all you can think that is related to comics. And comics inside all this were the less part.

However I like cute things.

The last gadget sensation: a Marvel door mat!

Three thematic posts will follow…

So it is spring and time for another Romics, the comic fair of Rome.

Bigger every time but not so great and big as Lucca Comics & Games. However there were a lot of things to do and watch. 5 enormous pavilions to live. We started at the 10 in the morning and we left at 19 in the evening. And our feet were aching. As our wallets.

Here Andrea caught in the act as victim of a sinister comic seller. That people are terrible chaps…

Gadgets are sometimes more important than comics in comic fairs. Since a couple of years we are flooded by Funk vinyl toys. I watched hundred of them to find a Chrome Blue Flash for a friend of mine.

Romics is a place fulfilled with cosplayers. Sorry, I haven’t photos of young girls with costumes. Too busy with other things. But I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe…

Always in hormones topic, after mousepads with tits, smartphone covers with tits!

As usual, statuettes with big tits and asses. However this time I saw less art pieces as these around.

Another kind of statuette. On the right a Sturmtruppen, comic characters of some time ago by Bonvi.

Lego minifigs are huge numbers now. The collecting market take advantage of pieces from first series so some of them are now sold at 45€ each! But they are very cute.

Some lego bricks together.

This edition was dedicated to Go Nagai that was in Rome for a prize. In these days, in newspaper kiosks you can find new edition of statuettes, dvds and comics by Go Nagai.

Some original animation cells by Grendizer aka Goldrake Atlas Ufo Robot in Italy. This is like a religion for my generation.

Gadgets from 35 year ago. Among them, evaporators for heaters!

Other gadgets: sweets box and processed cheese. At that age I eat chupa chups and cream chocolate only to have gadgets with anime characters.

So, we have an interesting long weekend, an holiday at home. More Ganesha Games duties will be next. For another Romics we will wait Autumn.

After the overall part in the previous post, here the focus is on wargame relate part of Modena Play.

We stayed two days, the first as visitors and to speak with people. This is true even because we are preparing a new game for Lucca Comics & Games together with another editor here present. The second day we were guests in the space of roleplay editors, so Andrea could run some demos of Advanced Song of Blade and Heroes.

Wargame part is not so historical hardcore oriented as other convention where we go usually. Here there was a WH40K tournament: masses of mega tanks that shoot each other at 10cm distance…

Following, another tournament, with Flames of War: masses of historical tanks that shoot each other at 10cm distance…

Inside the tensile structure there was the two-dimensional wargame section. A place where cardboard pieces are positioned with tweezers.

Wings of War games. The author flew around the tables.

Lego imitators do what Lego have to do: historic Lego sets as Romans or WWII.

At this point Gundam kits is a modelling genre in and of itself.

There were some dioramas with German WWII theme full of details and with mixed settings. Really beautiful things!

More wargames were around. As more boargames and interesting things. This is only a partial report of what you can find in Modena Play. I hope to return here before another 5 years.

I live very near the Cinecittà studios, even called “Hollywood on Tiber river”. Here they make films since 1937. This time I visited them for a special event.

The last Tarantino film, “The Hateful Eight”, was filmed in 70mm. I remember when I was a child, where cinemas were enormous halls with big screens. Nowadays we have only cinemas with a lot of small screens. So inside a Cinecittà studio, the mythic “Teatro 5”, a cinema hall was recreated to play the film with all its 70mm glory.

In the foyer, some Cinecittà set designers recreated a set inspired to the film one. Like making models, but in 1:1 scale.
And in the end we spent more than 3 hours watching a great film as old times. Exciting thing. That was very different than television.

These last posts are more involved in reviews about particular aspects of elements present in Lucca. There were so many things that every kind of report lacks always something. I’m reporting things near to the miniatures world, but I could speak only about comics, or living roleplay, or videogames, or tournaments. Reports slant of these posts is more related to things that stroke me. I didn’t took photos about all, and most of what is here were picked fast around. I had to be at my stand for demonstrate wargames. However I took some pauses. And these are things related to statuettes. As these heroes of my first years of life.

So many pieces around. And so many vendors of these things.

Collectors are males for the most, I think. So female statuettes are very frequent. Even sexy ones.

Some time ago I was thinking about some naval game in the space with vessels from anime. It is could be very interesting.

Since a couple of years you can find these dolls everywhere. In my opinion they are too much big to collect easily. Moreover they are infinite, with multiple and limited editions for the same character. Only for Flash I found 7 different pieces. As advantage I can say that you can found so many characters kinds from films, tv or comics that is impossible not to find something that you want. Doctor Who series is only one of the latest ones.

And now a more canonic 28mm miniature. It was in painting contest, the same where Bosio won 4 prizes. I like this one so much for the supreme colour use that emulate two different lights and different temperature.