A visit to Harry Potter the Exhibition

My daughter is a Harry Potter fan, and when we saw that there would be a Harry Potter exhibition this summer I promised that we would go.

One of the last days of the summer holiday we took the 1 hour 45 minutes trip to Norrköping and the world of Harry Potter. What follows is a couple of photos (yes, you were allowed to take photos without flash) to get the feeling of what it was like.

Yep, she's a Ravenclaw. Daddy approves :-)

You see that smile on her face? It was there all the time.

All in all a good exhibition. Johanna was very satisfied with the experience and me too. I’ve seen the films and it was fun to see some of the props up close.

The downer was the prices in the shop. They were just stupid.

The exhibition is open until September 7^th, so hurry up if you want to see it. Next stop will be somewhere else in Europe.

Welcome follower Tim.

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Update on a couple of Kickstarters

Mantic’s Dungeon Saga steamrolls ahead. As I write this they’ve got around $635K in pledges. A nice amount of money you can do a lot with. And they do.

For the basic pledge of $100 you get the boardgame and, for us figure lovers, more than 60 miniatures in PVC (see my test of Mantic PVC here) and some dungeon furniture that looks very nice.

If you’re on a spending spree you can, off course, chose some add-ons. There are two very tasty ones.

The Warlord of Galahir is full of orcs and orc-kin, scenarios, tiles and stuff. Good value for $25.

Infernal Crypts is my favourite. It is added to in the stretch goals, and I think we can expect a couple of additional figures in it before the kickstarter ends. $25 for these.

And end it does, in a couple of days, September 1 to be precise.

I’ve hitched on a friends pledge on this one, as I really want some of the figures.

Another great Kickstarter is Heresy’s Return of the Monsters, and it is a smaller thing currently at £23K.

Andy of Heretic Miniatures will mainly cast some of his out of ‘print’ miniatures in resin with the proceedings of this kickstarter. The focus is on his large to gargantuan ‘minis’ as they will be easier to cast and assemble in resin compared to tin, and also much more affordable.

Mostly out of print or already there but in metal, but a couple of new or modified ones also. The Occulak I’ve written of before, but we will also see a new ogre swinging a table, a must buy for me.

You will find quite a few man-sized minis here also, but those will mainly be in tin.

Lots of different pledge levels, giving you from a single monster to a dungeon worth of them. You can even pledge for one of the gargantuan demons with your own face sculpted especially for you by Andy. That one will surely give you bragging rights!

Probably the best centaur model out there. I've already got one in metal.

I’m in this one for some assorted models, to join my old Heretic ones.

Ends September 3.

Occulak on Kickstarter

Heresy Miniatures has this Kickstarter – Return of the Monsters! that I plugged the other day.

It’s going well, and a couple of new models will be produced, among them a resculpted Occulak. Think a beholder, but not. As Andy says “ The new Occulak is a mix of Slimer from Ghostbusters, the Eyeball Sentry from Big Trouble In Little China, Jabba the Hutt, and one other thing. See if you can guess what.”

WIP of the Occulak. There will also be eyes, sort of…

Now, there’s another reason to back Return of the Monsters. It's just too good.

Did I mention the Hellmites

Human Cleric from Otherworld

This is DAH2a – Human Cleric v1 from Otherworld and their Dungeon Adventurers series, and one of the figures I got from their crowd funding thingie.

This one is a bit special, as he will serve as my son David’s cleric in our D&D campaign. He, Picaro, is a priest of Pelor, the sun god. As such David thought he should have a yellow dress, and so it is.

The dungeon adventurers are really nice, as they are all weighted down with equipment, just as adventurers should be J

Paints used (Vallejo unless stated otherwise):

Dress – 948 Golden Yellow washed with Army Painter Soft Tone and layered with Golden Yellow except in the folds.

Straps – Formula P3 Bootstrap Leather

Chainmail and weapon – Citadel Chainmail

Haft – 843 Cork Brown

Skin – 955 Flat Flesh

Hair – Coat d’arms 235 Horse Tone Brown

Backpack – 984 Flat Brown

Blanket – 884 Stone Grey

He was approved.

28mm figures painted in 2014 so far:

Small:            10

Medium:        86

Large:            5

XL:                 1

Heresy Miniatures Kickstarter

Heresy Miniatures has just kickstarted a Kickstarter of their own – Return of the Monsters! 

Heresy has been one of my favourite manufacturers and you can see a few of my painted models here. It’s a one-man company and one of those companies that Kickstarter is/should be made for. A company needing the funds to evolve and get more stuff on the market.

This is all about re-releasing some of the out of print metal models, now in resin. A lot of very nice models! Did I mention that some of those ‘minis’ are big. Huge, rather.

Visit his Kickstarter, and if you like what you see then do support one of the small companies that has seen funds dry out with the big companies draining the hobby-money away with their Kickstarters.

(By the way, he also stocks the lovely Spyglass minis. Wonderful!)

LotR goblins from Games Workshop

The second batch of the figures I got from Thomas. Another quick job, mostly using paints I was already using for something else and finished with one of the usual washes.

Good enough quality for horde-monsters.

Just ten left, and a lonely orc, then my part of the bag is finished.

Dwarf Scorcher from Chainmail/WotC

Another 28mm figure from the Chainmail skirmish game, long since gone. This one is a dwarf scorcher, a guy armed with a fire-bomb, sculpted by Roy Eastland.

Great little figure, full of character and unusual, to say the least. I really like the Chainmail figs, sad they are gone.

Paints used (Vallejo unless stated otherwise):

Skin – Citadel Dwarf Flesh, drybrushed with 004 Elf Skintone (what an insult to a proud dwarf!) and another drybrush with 955 Flat Flesh after the wash.

Lower Lip – Citadel Dark Flesh

Beard – Coat d’arms 235 Horse Tone – Brown

Leather coat – 843 Cork Brown

Leather – Formula P3 Bootstrap Leather and Gun Corps Brown, Humbrol 62 Leather.

Armband and clasp – 59 Hammered Copper

Bomb – 912 Tan Yellow

Everything got a wash of Army Painter Strong Tone.

The Medieval Week – Wednesday August 6th - Final day

Last day, the ferry back to the mainland leaves after lunch. We just take it easy and enjoy some of the performances at the market. But first we climbed up in one of the towers and enjoyed the view.

A group of jesters were funny.

Martin found them very funny…

I finally took a photo of Gandalf’s brother. Had seen him now and then, and he became the last shot taken in Visby…

And that was that.

It had been an insanely good time. I cannot recommend this enough.

I give Medeltidsveckan a rating of 5. A very strong 5. Be there next year!