Finding Findings and Other Adventures in the Local Craft Megastore

First off, I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. I didn't anything on my Xmas list that had a direct bearing on my miniatures hobby, but I did get some nice fringe benefits. First and foremost would be the first in the three part series of Conan audiobooks from Tantor Media. This matches up with the Del Rey edition that restores the original Weird Tales text to Howard's work, and presents them in the order written, rather than in a highly debatable biographical chronology.

I've gone and ordered the two follow-up CD sets, and the Kull set is due out this week. I've been listening to the first set while painting up some 2mm pieces for Kull and Imaro.

I also used some Xmas money to pick up the first volume of the reprinted Kull comics. Besides being able to enjoy Kull in yet another format, I hope to get some inspiration for terrain and scenics.

On that note, while I was blitzing through my bits box last week to photograph odds and ends I'd found (or torn out of stereos), I also took some pictures of some things I've picked up at the local craft megastore, which in my case is Michael's. I know the chain is throughout North America, not sure about the UK or elsewhere. Anyway, it has a lot of stuff that can be adapted to our purposes, and they often have 15 or 20% off your whole purchase or 40-50% off a single item coupons in the local paper. I make use of the bigger discounts for high end items (air brush, cork board, spray primer, gorilla glue), and the smaller but broader coupons for things like these...

These are in the jewelry/bead section, I recommend walking around with a list (of anything) in your hand so it looks like you're a caring, thoughful significant other doing some shopping for the other half. When really you're thinking how great these would look as strange towers or momuments (left and right packets), or VSF ray guns (left and right again, particularly the right), or sand-buried pillars (middle).

Just tonight I went to hit their Boxing Week sale, and while apparently some other wargamers in Peterborough scored all the Christmas trees, I did pick up a packet of findings that will be perfect for the stone tower of Great Zimbabwe, or it's living Nyumbani parallel.

(Side Note: also picked up some really cheap cork board, it was all half price, and some Christmas decorations that are basically disco balls in two or three different small sizes - great space ship material, including at least one Death Star)

Off in the woodcraft section there is a display rack of these. The one on the left could be huts, domed roofs, temples, etc. The ones on the right are definitely huts of greater or lesser dimensions. I've used the smaller ones already in my other African kraal (not pictured here but up in the photo section of the 2mm Yahoo Group).

These are more for larger buildings, or more domed roofs. The one on the left is half a sphere, the other two are straight-sided, sort of yurt-like.

Beyond traditional shapes, these pieces could be used for fantasy scenes or buildings, from giant mushrooms in larger scales (say 28mm) to the strange architecture of Valusia.

And then even stranger structures could be done with these bits. I'll cut off the peg at the bottom before using, but these could be wizard or elven towers (they remind me of the description of the elven cities in the Dragonlance series). Or sci-fi control towers, or laser towers.