28mm Painted Hasslefree Miniature: Tetsuhara the Sumo

Going on annual leave from today until the beginning of May so my posting and commenting will be a bit hit and run but I'll be about as I'm not really going anywhere, going to be nice doing feck all.


Sumo (相撲, sumō?) is a competitive full-contact sport where a wrestler (rikishi) attempts to force another wrestler out of a circular ring (dohyō) or to touch the ground with anything other than the soles of the feet. The sport originated in Japan, the only country where it is practiced professionally. It is generally considered to be a gendai budō (a modern Japanese martial art), though this definition is incorrect as the sport has a history spanning many centuries. Many ancient traditions have been preserved in sumo, and even today the sport includes many ritual elements, such as the use of salt purification, from the days when sumo was used in the Shinto religion. Life as a rikishi is highly regimented, with rules laid down by the Sumo Association. Most sumo wrestlers are required to live in communal "sumo training stables" known in Japanese as heya where all aspects of their daily lives—from meals to their manner of dress—are dictated by strict tradition.

More information can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumo

 Nice Sumo figure from their martial artists range, I own a few of them to add colour to my samurai period.

28mm Perry Miniatures Ikko Ikki figures to show size.

28mm Painted Hasslefree Miniatures: Hazmat Team

Painted 28mm Hazmat Team from Hasslefree Miniatures, you can see another (better) painted version on Vampifan's blog http://vampifansworldoftheundead.blogspot.com/2011/04/hasslefree-hazmat-troopers.html along with versions from Copplestones Castings and EM4 Miniatures. I think I was a bit heavy with the ink on these but they are lovely figures (if a little small) but we need more poses to go with them.

Size and scale pictures included.

L to R, 28mm Heresy Miniature and 28mm Copplestone Casting.

28mm Hasslefree Miniature

The Rejects at Salute 2011.

The Rejects headed to Salute this year with little money but good intentions, there was myself, Ray, Surjit, and Postie (The Daddy). We got to the show about 0955hrs and proceeded to the end of a bloody long queue but within 5 mins we were moving and got into the venue before a lot of ticket holders did (result!), headed for the Bring and Buy and with my one item waited for 25mins to register (some people in front of me had 30 or 40 items!). It was a good show in the sweatbox this year again, plenty of space is one of the good things to say about this venue, picked up some early WW2 british from SHQ, early war germans from Grubby Tanks (got some Kreigsmarine aswell but I think they're too early as they should be wearing helmets by the time of my project), some Pz 38 T's from Pegasus Hobbies, varnish, paints, some bases from Warbases. Nice free figure, free 6mm car and a nice bag from KR (RRP £14.99) more than making up for the £11.00 entry fee. Took some pictures but as usual not enough as you are there more for the product, this is not too say that the games weren't brilliant that were put on, it's just you forget to take a picture or remember you have a bloody camera.

The other good thing was meeting fellow bloggers and putting faces to names (pictures and links to their blogs below) and just meeting friends especially from my homeland. Postie (Reject's self appointed leader even provided a picnic of chicken sandwiches, cheese scones, crisps, chocolate bars and drinks which we had outside the venue literally sitting on the dock of the bay).

We left the show about 1530hrs and nearly on the motorway when Ray got a text message saying he had won a raffle prize from the Hougoumont people, so pretending to be Ray I rang back and asked what he had won (2 signed prints and 3 musketballs from the field of Waterloo), so back we go and collect the prize (Ray gave me one of the musket balls under protest) and startes the journey home again. Good Day out.

On a footnote I went to the Bring and Buy stand to collect the vikings I had put on sale that morning (they still hadn't been sold at 1430hrs when I checked) and was asked was I picking up, I said I was and he surprised me by coming back with some money a few minutes later, first time time I have left Salute with money that wasn't shrapnel. Result!

Pictures are the usual quality and vagueness and better will be found elsewhere today but they're personal to me and my lurking disability.

The end of the queue plus us four.

The Reject's, Postie, Surjit and Ray from  http://onelover-ray.blogspot.com/

The crowds press forward, the end is in sight.

The Bring and Buy, constant traffic all day and well run by the Salute boys.

Paul from Sho3box http://sho3box.wordpress.com/ good man, good blog and fellow zombie lover and Irishman.

Big game, big scale.

3 poor tigers.

Akula's Battlefield 2011.

The man himself Akula running his Battlefield 2011 game in aid of Combat Stress, more information here on his blog http://akulasblog.blogspot.com/ 

Stunning figure for several reasons but the main one being the paintjob.

Fellow blogger Pulp Citizen http://pulp-citizen.blogspot.com/ explaining the mechanics of the game he was hosting.

Battles in Miniature game Miniature Militia, actually on an oval playing board which I failed to get in the picture.

Paul from Battles in Miniature http://battlesinminiature.blogspot.com/

Only took this picture after we came back for the second time, obligatory Star Wars picture.