It is Christmas! And this year I want to offer this card from a Micronauts collector friend of mine.

I want to show to you my personal painting service: my father!

He is the man that paints all my miniatures, free of charge. He is guilty of the passion of mine for modelling , because when I was a child he built some airplanes from a modelling encyclopaedia. After his example I started to build my models, and in my later age I found out that I could put my passion to the plastic soldiers in my little age together with modelling, playing with them in a smart way too.
He is not the skilled painter of the world but he is my father and he paint for the love that he has towards me, and this means he is the best painter in the world!

Here we are together at Paris, last year. I was the one with the shirt I will wear when I won the Anticamente championship.

Today is his birthday! Happy birthday dad!

This is my mayor. He arrived this morning by mail from Madison WI. This nice guy made of lead is the result of a great idea: honour a dead father with a miniature that represent him. His name was Dan J. Binsack and you can find more informations here. A lot of people bought this lead person, especially in the circle of Very British Civil War players. So he is present in a lot of games. I found for him the role of mayor for my Flyton in my future games.

I spoked about more bricks for my town. Well, these are made of polystyrene.
I bought for 4 quid from Scalescene (see here), a maker of train modelling scenery in form of pdf, the draws to print. You have got the basic pieces to build a viaduct, its length is how many you want, the only thing to do is to print more sheets to apply on cardboard.
But what is thought for train modelling is different from what is for war with lead people, so I could not use cardboard, I needed more hard and durable materials. And something modular too, because I haven’t the need of a fixed scenery, but something always different and easy to store.
So I called my friend Fabio from Bologna, the artist of polystyrene, and he decided to bring to reality the viaduct!

Here you can see his child Alice while he was buying the polystyrene sheet. (Imagine the scene: “Come with me Alice, daddy are going to bring you in a beautiful and interesting place”) Its thickness is equal to the wideness of the road on the viaduct, so the only thing to do is cut bricks and after dig the arches. It seems simple, innit? So, it is simpler to say than to do, but this polystyrene artist can make it with mastery, I’m not capable to do a clean work like this.
The following step is to print a lot of arches on adhesive paper and attach them on the polystyrene.
I want a viaduct of about 1.5 metres, so he have to do a lot of work. In a following post we will see the progresses on this project. I’m informed of every step through mms from his mobile, so I’m waiting news like you.

“I’m building an English city in 28mm scale. For now I have got a double deck”. I told this phrase almost eight months ago. After I told it I found it very funny, because you cannot do a city with a bus…
Instead it is partially logical. I want a city to set my skirmish games, because in skirmish battles with firearms you cannot have a scenery based on a lawn (the first who moves kills all with a burst), and put some tins or books around is dreary. So this bus is the first thing I bought to set a scenery, the first brick of my city.

I bought for few quid on E-Bay this old model, almost a wreck. I repaired some lost parts, put the numbers of the 12 line (I was taking this bus line when I went to Luca’s house) and changed its disrupted adverts with Marmite ones. Its aspect is around the ’50 I suppose, but I will put it in every set since 1938 to 21th century. Who cares is sometime it will be not chronologically exact, it is always a double deck, an English icon.

Here you can see the second brick of my city, a transport from 1938. And sunday I bought a railway crane and a van. More bricks are on arrival…

This is Christmas time, or better, it is gift time! Here in Roma there are a lot of Christmas markets without soul, always the same stuff, all is equal on every counter.
There is a traditional market in Piazza Navona too, also knew abroad, but every year I ask to myself why it is so boring. Apart from the Christmas decorations, the other things are poor toys and sad caravan games from amusement parks. And the atmosphere is tired. The only fun element is when someone sells, undisturbed under police eyes, prohibited articles as illegal firecrackers or danger toys.
Since a couple of years there is a Japanese market in Rome too.

This market runs for only a day every three months. It was started by two brothers from Japan who have opened a shop. It collects young vendors with the passion of Japan and obviously some of them are from Japan. You can find Japanese items as bento or gashapoon, but there are even things made here with a Japan feel in them. Italians love Japan and its culture, as Japanese love Italy and its culture.

There is second hand stuff or articles privately bought by mail in Japan.

You can find articles to decorate your room, and handcrafted stuff at most. Even handcrafted jewels for girls.

A joy are these items decorated like cakes, with chocolate and whipped cream. I had hungry after I saw them. Fortunately there was a stand with some Japanese food. I ate a sweet with beans cream as in Doreamon animes.

There were cosplayers too. Every occasion is good to be dressed like a manga! And there was stuff for Gothic Lolitas too. Apparently not so Japanese, but you have to remember that this culture is from Japan.

I bought some gifts for my female friends. I think I return here the next market.

Always in Seraphicum istitute, the place where these conventions about rail transport modelling are setted. This one is Happy Model and the other one is Interscambio, but I cannot see the difference, there are the same vendors in the same places! This time I’m with Paolo, while Renato’s car is out of order so he remained at home.

I bought a railway crane and a car for a project of mine in 28mm. Paolo bought a camion in N gauge for his Meka. There were a lot of things, but train collectors are used to high prices and we are not. Even the scale is against us, you cannot find some of useful for 28 or 15mm. In the future I will write a post about scales…

For the joy of your eyes I took some pictures of a large train circuit. I let one’s eye dwell upon the diorama scenes around the tracks: camps, bridges, river. Think about this stuff on your game terrain…

After the heavy rain, now the hot and a clear sky. Here you cannot see the sky but you can taste the atmosphere. We are near the Exposition Palace, in the Umbertine (last years of ‘800) part of the city. Almost all the pics you can see in this blog are took with my new camera, a camera bounded with my new smartphone. This picture was took with free hand, I only press the button. In other times I couldn’t do these things!

In the last weeks I didn’t go for a walk because of bad weather. This afternoon (and evening) instead I met one friend of mine. She is pretty, isn’t she? We went around even in the bookstore of the palace. She gifted me two funny things: one big soft dice (I think we use it for dice fighting in a future game reunion of my mates at my home) and a pencil with a metal Traex helm (there is a griffon on the crest, so the traex has got a sica supina as sword) on the top. Thank you!