My Castle

While cleaning up the basement o'rabbits this AM in preparation for tomorrow's game I had to get down this to remove a few millimetres of dust:

It's the castle my step-father made for me one year for Christmas. He taught graphic arts at a local vocational school and I learned an awful lot about painting and making stuff out of card from him. He made this for me when I was maybe 8 and it was fought over for years by all of my HO scale plastic soldiers. Romans defended it from Celts, WW2 paratroopers (from either side) made commando raids on it and my Napoleonic troops captured it quite a lot. By the end of a game the gateway and courtyard were usually piled high with knocked over plastic men (quite a few of whom tumbled dramatically from the parapets).

Here's some more shots including an Airfix German paratrooper for scale (please excuse my rather messy workbench/gaming table):

I almost lost it too. Stupidly gave it to a gaming friend when I was a stupid teenager. Fortunately his mother found it cleaning a closet and gave it back to me years later. The top tower had broken off and it's a bit battered but I have it back.

This corner I think is my favourite part of the whole model. Not sure why.
It's too big for 15mm and too small for my 28mm but I keep it anyway as a tangible reminder. It's one of the few things I have from my Dad, who died the summer before I met my wife.


Finally, here's a teaser of what I'm working on right now, starting another commission job and finishing up my German armour while waiting for glue and gesso to dry: