Update on my own health condition

[Crazy-Creator-5601]

My very dear friends and followers, how can I make amends having been so absent from these pages all these past months?

Fact is that this was a terrible summer for me, steaming hot and very humid and I can’t stand either conditions at all despite having an Air Conditioner and fans at home working 24/24 and 7/7.

But it is the heavy humidity this year that has impacted my health the most, immobilizing me completely and refraining me from doing what I usually love to do.

Besides of my eyes which are still slowly improving but still not at the point as to be able to recognize minute details, I have suffered the pains of hell in my lower back, due to past incidents I had while serving in the Swiss Armed Forces.

In fact, now that I am older, those impacts have increased my loss of resilience against them and when the pain surges I am simply incapacitated to move freely. Moreover, I also have an extended hernia in that region which causes me to limp in my right leg due to sciatica.

These are not excuses but the simple facts that have stopped me in my track all this time.

I could barely stand or even sit for lengthy periods of time and as you know, when modeling, you eventually have to stand when building a diorama or sit while assembling models and painting them.

I am medically supervised and despite that, failing an operation on my back, which a specialized surgeon in Zurich advised me not to undergo due to major side effects it might cause in my specific case, I do take a lot of remedies (mostly aspirin or ibuprofen) to reduce my pains, but these have the side effect to also make me drowsy and therefore are not ideal for a work of precision that requires an alert mind.

All this to explain the causes of my absence around here for which again, I have to apologize to you all since I so wanted to show you my further progress in my work.

My only hope now that we are slowly slipping into more moderate temperature and hopefully less humidity in the air is that my condition may slowly improve and allow me to restart where I left off in my work.

You can’t imagine my embarrassment and my sadness not being able to satisfy your expectations of me, but I simply have to face the fact that I am not 18 anymore, although my mind still thinks that I am, but my body denies it such right to think like that.

Be it as it may be, as soon as the weather conditions will improve somewhat, bringing some cooler days and my health returning to a kind of normalcy I will certainly want to continue with the work I had started.

I have already worked out plans for future projects - the only thing I could still do while in pain - hoping that time will be on my side.

And so, please forgive me for the said absence since it was not due to laziness or neglect on my part, but rather to the very miserable conditions I found myself to suddenly face.

I will get back to you as soon as I am returning to a more stable health condition.

All I ask of you is not to hold it against me.

I wish you all lots of health and happiness with what you are doing and hope to see you all very soon with further displays of my work.

Until then, be well my dear friends.

[Pawel]

I’m sorry to hear about your health problems - I hope you will get better soon! Looking forward to seeing more of your work, have a nice day
Paweł

[djmodels1999bis]

Health first, scale modelling after. Wishing you a speedy recovery.

[Frozin]

Getting older and adjusting to all that comes with it is something which we all must come to terms at some point. The alternative is far too permanent an option.

Hoping you start feeling better soon. Just remember that this hobby is yours, to participate as you see fit and are able. You do not owe anyone here anything in terms of your performance, you are not letting anyone here down.

Do what’s best for you, participate as you can, try not to stress about what you believe to be others’ expectations. This hobby will still be here when you are ready and able to resume.

[Samphoto]

I’m sorry you’ve had such a rough summer. And please don’t feel like you need to apologize to any of us for being away. Take care of yourself first—the models and the forum will still be here whenever you’re feeling up to getting back to them.

I did smile when you said you’ve still been planning future projects even when you haven’t been able to work on them. That’s definitely something I can relate to. Apparently you don’t actually have to be sitting at the workbench to keep modeling.

I hope the cooler weather brings you some relief and we see you back at the bench when you’re ready.

[creading]

Getting older is definitely not for the faint of heart! I sympathize with your plight and all the aches & pains. Once we reach a certain age things come at us faster, more furious and longer lasting. Please rest easy and take care of yourself. The weather will get better, it will become easier. Nothing worse than high temperature and high humidity. Post when you can…

Cheers,
C.Reading

[S.Hollowell]

I’m praying for you, Patrick, hope your condition improves.

[Crazy-Creator-5601]

Thank you Pawel and apologies for not having answered you sooner but I am slowly getting better.
I am also completely reorganizing my work place since I found a ghastly mess among my things and I needed to finally get me reorganized before starting to move on with my diorama projects.

It is very touching to find someone like you being concerned for my well being and for that I sincerely thank you.

I will soon be back onboard. Just wish me luck.

[Crazy-Creator-5601]

Thank you so much for your wishes and apologies for the delay in answering you. Right now I am slowly recovering but I am not idle and am completely reorganizing my work space since I found that I had a complete mess among my tools and models and therefore I simply had to put some order in them. I am still not completely finished with it. Too much stuff..

In any case, stay in touch because as soon as I will have my things together again I will continue with my diorama projects and I will document them all.

Be well and again, thank you.

[Crazy-Creator-5601]

Dear Frozin, thank you for your kind words and forgive me for the delay in answering your message but I am getting slowly better and have already started to do what I needed to do for a long time, and that’s to reorganize completely my work space.

You won’t believe the mess I had after my first efforts. Paints scattered everywhere, model boxes containing figures which didn’t belong there, utensils and brushes neatly gathered but also scattered throughout my apartment and so on and so forth.

I now have completely reorganized that stuff, including buildings, vehicles, figures as not to always have to guess working on where they all are.

I put glues where glues all belong, thinners the same, acrylic paints divided by subject, the same with enamels and washes and weathering compounds and all ready by project and subject.

Alas It is still not completely finished and I still need to gather a lot of stuff together and find the appropriate containers in which to stack them all. Due to so many dimensions (except for paints), it is always a measuring labor to find the right container or box where to line them up.

But I really had to do it because in my first attempt at building my first large diorama I had to always go on a kind of treasure hunt before I could actually find what I was seeking.

Since I am usually a meticulous worker I was simply astonished at myself and at my lack of order in my things. Now I only hope I did the right thing and that my work will proceed (as soon as I have completed it) a bit smoother and a bit faster.

In any case be reassured, I have read your message very carefully and will heed your recommendations attentively, but I also want to finally show a terminated work and therefore, once I am ready, since I usually document my progress around here, I hope you will stick around here to soon see what I am doing and judge whether I am a deserving modeler or if I am just a bumbling fool.

See you soon and thank you again for your kind words…

[Crazy-Creator-5601]

Samphoto, thank you for your observations and indeed it was a very rough summer for me and I imagine for others as well.

Right now, where I live, in Lugano, Switzerland, it is much cooler but unfortunately, due to the summer heat I have gathered also a huge mess around me and now I am putting some order in my apartment and need to clean it thoroughly up.

Living all by yourself can be a relief at times, but it can also become a burden since one has to nevertheless care for his own dwellings, and this is what I had neglected during this hot summer and therefore first things first.

But that’s not all, now that my health is getting slowly better, and the cold weather is reinvigorating me somehow, I have also started to completely reorganize my modeling work space since as it was it simply didn’t work.

This is why I am totally reorganizing it in a more logical and functional way as not to always have to guess working with all my stuff is, and believe me, I have tons of stuff, so not so very easy to do and lots of it is top heavy, considering heavy sacks of plaster, plenty of latex bottles and other bottles filled with glycerin and epoxy resin or just distilled water. My poor back…

And to add to all of this hundreds of paint bottles, jars and pots with their various diluents and some large lacquer spray cans as primers and many, many, many tools of all kind and sizes.

If my models are a nightmare, all that comes with them is even more so. Oh well, why am I complaining? Seeing the current costs of things these days I can only deem myself lucky to have gathered all that stuff when I could and when prices were still somewhat reasonable.

As soon as both Hercules labors will be done I will return to my projects, and no, they are not just theoretical, but rather thoroughly studied beforehand.

I am, or better was a stage director, but also fully trained as a movie director and therefore I am used to design my scenes and dioramas as if they were storyboards for a movie, although based on historical photos, hence with a lot historical detail included in them.

I have a keen eye on detail and spot even the slightest difference between my storyboards and the actual documented material. This is why I have already laid out an entire system based on some key subjects regarding World War II on the North-Western front that might become of extreme interest for even just the occasional viewer, since some will certainly recognize them having seen some very famous images captured by some of the best WWII reporters ever.

The only difference will be that instead of being a flat, perhaps black and white picture, it will be a colorful tri-dimensional replica in scale allowing to see it from every angle and thus somehow bring it all more to life for those interested in a realistic depiction of a moment in that war.

The same will also be considered further on with my Desert Storm projects, Star Trek modeling, Battle of Britain scenarios and some NASA space missions.

I hope I have given you a certain glimpse in what I have been conceiving prior to my actual assembling, painting and decaling work. Everything is already pre-planned. It only needs to be built.

Believe it or not, I have been at it for years and now the time has come to make it all come alive.

As said, as soon as my apartment and my work space are back in complete order and shiny cleaned I will start again finishing my first project only to immediately start my second.

You will certainly be seeing all this around here, since once I will restart I will be posting my progress as I have previously done and all step-by-step.

I hope you will be onboard and follow it then.

Wishing you a great time with your own work and thanking you for your wishes. See you soon…

[Crazy-Creator-5601]

Dear Creading, you are so very right. The problem though is that inside I still feel like an 18 year young fop, fully alert and with a full mental energy, but it is the “spacesuit” I carry around with me that seems to be always dragging along. I simply need a new one.

All kidding aside, it is true that age is a furious thing and totally unforgiving.

Here where I live days have gotten a bit shorter and cooler (finally) and now I am feeling much better. I am simply a Northerner and I can’t suffer the heat. I never could, not even as a kid.

I am probably, somewhere, somehow related to some Viking or other top Northern culture, despite living in the Southern part of Switzerland and therefore cherishing much more snow and ice rather than scorching sun and humidity. My cells then come fully alive and I can finally breathe again.

This is also why have slowly restarted my work, but not in modeling, but rather putting some much necessary order in my things, both in my apartment, as well as in my modeling work space, since I had stuff a bit scattered everywhere. I thought I had a system, but that system was all wrong and continuously kept me guess working on where things were instead of having them systematically readily at hand.

Now I finally found the right system and I am still working at it, but this time it will be a really well conceived one which will spare me a lot of time looking for things and allow me to work a bit faster than before.

And since I have already pre-conceived all my projects well before starting them, just like a film director does when designing storyboards for a movie, I did the same for each and every project I had or have in mind to reproduce.

I am not just building scale models or dioramas, I plan to build exact historic replicas based on actual historic pictures or precise documentation. Nothing will be left out, not even the landscaping which will need to look as real as what one sees when watching hedgerows or actual trees, nor buildings, whether in a small village or an important city, be they ruined by bombings or still whole.

All this will be reproduced with utmost accuracy in scale, and so for now I still have to reorganize myself, but as soon as I am ready I will make certain that any of you may be able to follow my work in progress step-by-step for you to judge with your own eyes whether I am going in the right direction or if I will need to change or improve some stuff.

I do not have a 3D printer because for my pockets they are by far too expensive, including all the resin needed to feed them and beyond that all the programming skills one would need to produce some precise models at any time, but I do have a wonderful large hot wire cutter I struggled for some time to have, since I needed one with a very large platform on which to cut large polystyrene plates and styrofoam boards to produce some of the most accurate buildings I will need.

In my view much more economic and produces better results and even lighter models which eventually will be consolidated anyway with some plaster material and other compounds.
Besides the cutter is able to cut every shape possible, from cones to pyramids and from octagonal shapes to curbed ones or even spheres or semi-spheres.

This will be my preferred tool to produce accurate urban dwellings as well as some historic accurate German Bunkers. Only time and my skills will tell if I will succeed in all this.

In any case please stand by until I am again able to offer some photographic evidence of my progress. It will indeed be a fun but rough ride once I start again.

Thank you again for your attention and for your understanding, See you soon…

[Samphoto]

I’m really glad to hear things are getting better for you. Your background in directing and storyboard work brings an interesting perspective to modeling that I suspect most of us don’t have. It’ll be interesting to see how you apply those skills to your dioramas. It sounds like you have some fascinating projects planned, and I’m looking forward to seeing them come together!

[Crazy-Creator-5601]

Hi S. Hollowell, so sorry for the long delay in answering you. It seems that your prayers have been listened to since I am slowly feeling better.

But I am still doing other stuff, such as putting much necessary order in my modeling system since I have gotten aware that I had bits and part a bit scattered everywhere and so I had, just like an archeologist or a speleologist, to go and dig deeper in all my current boxes, tins and packages to see where all my necessary materials and tools were.

Once discovered them all I decided to put them all together by function. Glues to glues, thinners with thinners, structuring compounds with other compounds, tools according of usage, paints according to subject (uniforms, vehicles, tanks, landscape, structures), and once again separate them by period of the year (Spring/Summer or Autumn/Winter) and furthermore by Nation (American, British/Canadian or German).

I still have to sort out all the various obstacles for the D-Day landings (all very accurate reproductions) including those found on the later Siegfried Line) some of which I have reproduced myself such as the so called Dragon Teeth, since some massive ones cannot be found in scale.

I have become quite familiar in building castings for those things, as well as for other things like observation posts within the Hurtgen Forest or Machine Gun traps, which were actually sort of Tobruk Bunkers, but instead of having a top ring where the machine gunner could look out, they had a small frontal embrasure usually cleverly covered with vegetation but with an very ample vision on the immediate surroundings. Such traps did cost a lot of lives among U.S. troops venturing in that Forest, besides being also completely mined at certain specific points where the passages seemed to be easy.

So, as you can see, I have not been idle and am still putting some much more needed order in my system. I believe I have finally found the ideal one. One that will possibly spare me the time for always having to look for things but immediately find them and have them readily at hand.

So, I am still at work with that, but as soon as I am ready to once again start my work you will immediately observe it since I plan to go ahead as before, documenting my progress in every detail and step-by-step.

I hope you will be on board once my postings will start again and therefore I kindly ask you to be a little bit more patient for that.

Again, thank you for your concern and allow me to wish you all the best with your current projects which I am sure will representing a real love for the craft you are displaying.

Until then, see you soon…

[S.Hollowell]

I’m glad to hear that, Patrick. Sounds like you are getting some good work done despite your problems. Best wishes and I hope your condition continues to improve.

[Pj_s_thunderbolt]

I’m not as life experienced as you but 56 years in this humidity and heat I’m doing what I can to change my financial situation so I can move at least to drier climates (anything above 3,600 feet asl). with some other life pains and aches, I’m starting to experience I can understand, getting old Is not for the faint of heart.

I understand and we can only do what we can do… it is what it is…

cooler temps are on the way, thank you God.

[creading]

I sympathize with you as even though my mind also believes it’s operating in an 18 year old frame most of the time, it’s really operating in a far more rickety 74 year old structure with many parts seemingly on the verge of failure.
I can also relate to your need to put your working space ‘in order’…
something I’ve been putting off for a while. Now It seems I spend as much time locating items I know I have but can’t ever seem to fine until I no longer need them.
Anyway, glad you’re feeling better and the weather is more cooperative.

Cheers,
C.

[Crazy-Creator-5601]

Dear Samphoto, thank you for your comment. I am still full at work since now that I have boxed everything neatly I have to find the appopriate space where to place them all.
I have a lot of space in my three large wardrobes, as well as in my cellar, but I would prefer to have them all handy and not to have to always run back and forth to my cellar. Right now, as it stands, some of that space is occupied with useless and quite frankly old stuff that is just there as a filler and therefore I will have to throw away a lot of that stuff. Once the space has been liberated I will have enough space to stack all my materials, tools and models in that space, but it also requires strategic thinking and a bit logic in order to avoid a further confusion among my things.
Once that’s done I will also have to once again thoroughly clean my apartment since in all this time it has gathered a lot of dust and the boxes certainly were not of much help.
Only then will I finally be ready to reignite my hobby and continue with my regular work.
Be assured that the time will come in which I will start again posting my work progression with my projects and show step by step how I do proceed.
Until then, please be patient with me since I am no spring chicken anymore and therefore I am proceeding with caution to also preserve my health in the process.
Meanwhile I will post a link to a new online model store in Poland called EMP3D which produces excellent 3D printed figures in any currently available scales and various other material, such as ammunition and other stuff as well at very reasonable prices.
So until I am ready, I wish you well and hope to soon see something made by you since I too am a curious fellow and like to be inspired by the excellence of others.