09 June 2008 -- Two news items in a week! I think we're going to have to make Mike have a little lie down!
The Art Gallery section of the site has been re-organised so that we can display some of the excellent art from a good friend to Custom Hobby, Baldemyr, whilst still retaining Outlaw's Art We highly recommend you have a look!!

06 June 2008 -- Well, it has been a while since we've added a news article here at Custom Hobby, but we wanted to let you know that we have got some Custom Hobby branded merchandise available that you can pre-order, which will help us fund the new and exciting projects we have in the pipeline. All pre-orders will ship on July 5th, provided the Independence Day party wasn't too good!

15 August -- Some minor tweaks to the site, nothing worth mentioning. Watch for some rohan style houses and stone buildings coming soon...

1 August -- Have you checked out the Customhobby forums yet? Click on the new link to your left, or the image of Viking gal Kyrie above, and it'll take you straight there. If you've got any modelling questions, or have something to say about the hobby, or just want to hang out with like-minded folk, then wander over and check it out. Might as well join up while you're there too. Go on, you know you want to...

29 July -- Well, that wasn't fun ... Come back from visiting family overseas early in the year and the computer gets hit with something particularly nasty via email, and next thing you know, internet connections start dropping out without warning, emails go astray in both directions, and eventually just stop altogether. That's bad enough, but then the REAL issues start... A couple of key programs stop working...

Easy answer - Reformat the drive and reinstall everything again right? Right. ... However...

To complicate matters, the hard-drive couldn't be wiped because the almost-edited footage from a year-long documentary project is sitting there amidst the chaos, and we can't risk losing it at this late stage, so no tampering with the hard drive until editing's complete...

Long story short -- over 4 months. That's how long it eventually took to get everything sorted out and running again properly. What a nightmare... That's why I'm very pleased to say, at long last...

We're back! Finally.

13 February -- How about some dark gothic romance, just in time for Valentine's day? Click here to see Vampires Kiss...

06 February -- Hi folks. There's a bunch of new pages up in the 40K galleries today, including a Daemonhost conversion, Inquisitor Coteaz, and some more vehicles. And for those with a more historical bent, be sure to check out the mission station at Rorkes Drift here... More stuff to come over the next few days - if you're a fan of Boris Vallejo's art, you'll want to check out the model of Vampires Kiss. Watch this space...!

26 January -- Big update happening after the weekend. Several new galleries to be added, along with some updated links pages. So if you're into 40K, vampires, or the Zulu wars, check back here after the weekend! :-)

25 January -- Happy new year everyone! Remember the golden idol that Indy tried to snatch in the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark? ... Well we recently got the chance to build one of these iconic movie props for a private collector. Check out the pics here...

24 December -- Merry Christmas folks! Hope you've all been good throughout the year and Santa leaves lots of goodies under the tree. I've just peeked at mine and there doesn't appear to be any Salma Hayek or Monica Bellucci-shaped packages sitting there ...but there's still time, if you're reading this Santa :-) Anyway have a great Holiday season and we'll be back in the new year with more galleries and goodies...

12 October -- Some minor tweaks to the About Us page, & the new simplified quality level guides can be found on the FAQ page. Nothing's changed too much, we've just merged Levels 3 & 4, (the line was blurry anyway ) and renamed the 3 levels as wargaming, display, & collector's grades. An updated links page, and more picture galleries coming tomorrow.

10 October -- A whole bunch of overdue updates happening over the next few days. Starting with ... Barad Dur. So click here to see Sauron's dark tower of Mordor. Go on, you know you really want to...

15 August -- Technology - Argh! We've got some twitchy hardware/software things going on at the moment, especially where the internet is concerned. It'll take some time to get sorted, so updates will likely be a bit slow for a while. (not that they've ever been particularly speedy anyway...:-) Bear with us though, we've got some interesting things coming up - Barad Dur, some Zulu war/Rorkes Drift terrain bits, the golden idol from Raiders of the Lost Ark, and more... Watch this space...

20 June -- Not much of an update today, just some boring old housekeeping. Goblins tend to be a bit messy...

15 May -- The Amon Hen auction on Ebay has started (it's this exact model here...) Click on our ebay link below to check out the auction - it'll be going for the next 9 days. It's a great chance to grab a bargain. The reserve is $160, which is under half the usual price of that model commissioned to a level 3 (collectors) quality. The workshop goblins are looking at us like we've gone mad, but we need the space here, and something had to go.

...Hmm, maybe we should have sold the goblins instead... :-)

10 May -- Howdy folks! Have you checked out the huge Helms Deep model? it's over here... The packing goblins had trouble finding boxes big enough to ship it. If you're heading to the big Origins event next month you'll be able to see it in action, crawling with hundreds of orcs...

We've got an auction for a beautiful Amon Hen model going up on Ebay in a couple of days, in fact, it's this exact model here... Check back here for more details over the weekend! In the meantime, Cheers :-)

10 April -- Just been tinkering with some general housekeeping tweaks on the site, no major updates this month.The goblinshave been busy elsewhere...

18 March -- Well, Helms Deep is finished, and it's a real monster, at around 8 ft long. We'll get some nice pics of it up over the next few days. Also to come are some pics of a windmill model built for a short film project. Check back again for updates soon.

14 February -- Happy Valentine's Day. (Note to self: Must remember to get the card and chocolates away to Salma Hayek...). Well, we're back :-) And we're very close to finishing a huge Helms Deep model. Pics to follow next month!

10 January -- The post-Christmas / New Year haze is receding at last ... the goblins party hard around here. I think they put a little something extra in the punch bowl... Anyway, it's high summer in New Zealand, the weather's hot and sticky, and everyone's in holiday mode around here, so we'll be quiet ourselves for a while and back to normal in early Feb.

25 December -- MERRY CHRISTMAS folks! Hope Santa's been good to all of you. Happy holidays and happy modelling/gaming :-)

17 December -- only 8 more sleeps 'til Santa time! Good grief, that year went fast...Seasons greetings and happy holidays to all our friends and customers! I suppose the workshop goblins will be making noises soon about wanting Christmas day off again this year ... it's so hard to get good help these days :-)
Right, what's new? There's a few new fantasy figures and vignettes to be seen over here, and the art page has been updated with a couple of new photoshop doodlings. Also there's some 54mm ancients, and some additions to the workbench page...
Cheers! :-)

7 December -- The Ebay auction for the new Deeping Wall diorama can be found here... Just in time for the holiday season! (that's why there's no elves on it, they're all off helping Santa with last minute toy orders...) Go on, check it out, you know you really want to... :-)

4 December -- Check out the new Deeping Wall diorama here... It'll be going on Ebay sometime in the next 24 hours, and I'll add a link to the auction once it starts

10 November -- The newly- refurbished Deeping Wall Diorama is coming together nicely and will be ready for viewing in a couple of weeks. We'll be auctioning this on Ebay before Christmas, so keep an eye out for your chance to own this great looking model!

31 October -- Happy Halloween!

17 October -- Finally starting to get the testimonials page underway. It's just one of those little jobs that you can never seem to find the time for... Anyway some of our feedback from happy customers is up for all the world to see now, and I'll get some more uploaded with the next update :-)

5 October -- Added Alpha Miniatures & Otherworld Miniatures to the links page. Very nice 54mm metal figures for wargaming and collectors. Go check 'em out. And keep an eye out for some of their figures appearing in our own galleries in the next few days.
Also added Black Rock Pass to our gaming minis galleries, and a vietnam figure over in the historical section.
And this weekend, finally, the testimonials page is going up at last. And about time too...

17 September -- The new troll crew figure is finished, and about to be plunked (that's a technical term) into a bucket of silicon rubber for molding. It's a new generic troll (based fairly closely on a particular familiar variety that lives in caves) for use with siege towers, battering rams, and other such war machines requiring sheer brute strength to operate. At this stage, there's just one type of troll, in one pose, but we'll be adding different torso, head and arm combinations as time and resources allow, and eventually we'll be able to offer a small range of resin multi-part, customizable crew and battle trolls & accesories.

8th September
Good grief, how time flies! Next thing it'll be Christmas, and the goblins'll be asking for half a day off to build santa traps, get drunk on egg nog, and stagger about wearing each other's Christmas stockings on their heads. In the meantime, check out a few new Black Gates pics here...

23 August
Added the link to our yahoo clubs to the front page. Sign up today and join our jolly little band!

10 August
Added some pics to the workbench area, of the Grond model under construction. You can see them here. We're doing another one very soon, and we'll most likely start a couple extra ones at the same time, so contact us soon if you're interested in getting one of these.

8 August
Goodness me, is that the time??? Well, it's been a few weeks since our last update, despite having the best intentions... - this is what happens when you go away on holiday for a few weeks and leave a couple of small but vital bits of software behind on the desk at home *smacks his forehead in a Homer Simpson-like manner* "Doh!!!"... Oh well, we'll just have to make up for it with a bunch of new updates over the coming week... :-)

29 June
Well our webgoblin Mike H is off to Australia to visit family, so things'll be a bit quiet around here until he returns in a few weeks. In the meantime you can still contact us via email...

15 June
New gallery section added - 15mm/20mm wargaming. Lots of pics of colorful 20mm ancients in there. Nice little figures by a range of manufacturers, and a fun & cost effective way to get into historical wargaming. Go check 'em out here... :-)

6 June
Well here in Auckland, NZ, the ModelX show is over for another year. It was very busy this year, and the crowds were constant for all 3 days. Very exhausting, but it made the weekend pass by in a flash. Thanks to all the folks who stopped by to say hello and comment on the Black Gates and Minas Tirith models that we had there. Both models were very popular, but the Black Gates in particular recieved a lot of attention. ...Must be all those rusty looking spiky bits :-)
And thanks very much to Jon and Nick, proud owners of those models, who both kindly let us keep them for the show before sending them off to their new homes. Cheers guys, there's a lot of people out there very envious of your new models now :-)
No other updates this week because of the show. New galleries going up next weekend.

25 May
And the major new addition for today is Grond. He was a very recent commission and you can check out his gallery here. In the next few days we'll be putting up several more gallery additions, including more figures (including 20mm wargame ancients), A newly completed Black Gates of Mordor, and some orc siege towers. And there's still a whole bunch more to come after that... :-) We'll also be starting to add more graphics to the main pages over the weekend, as soon as the current model commission is finished... and more about that, in the next update :-) ...

20 May
Howdy folks. Just had time for a couple of minor tweaks and updates in the last few days. There's a couple more banners added to the "links" page now, and a couple of faulty internal links were hunted down and fixed with extreme prejudice by the maintenance goblins.
New featured pic going up tomorrow, along with a few new gallery pages, including everyone's favourite wolf's head battering ram ... Grond.

15 May
Hey, we've finally made it! If you're reading this, then the new-look site is up at long last. Seems like it's taken an age to get this far. There's still a lot of tweaking and twiddling to do over the next few weeks, but we're getting there. We've got some great new models to show you soon. Thanks for all your patience so far :-)

14 May
Perilously close to getting the site up now. Did I mention it was perilous? That's because I have no idea what I'm doing, and about to press the button that'll put the site actually up on the web. Scary...

13 May
Friday the 13th... Power went off so stumbled about in the dark, whacked my head on a ladder and broke a mirror after tripping over a pesky black cat trying to find the fuse box. So just a typical day, luckily nothing bad happened.

12 May
#*$% ing galleries! About a million hours so far - that's just today - and still more to do... I'm wondering if we really need pictures at all? Maybe we could just say "our models are very nice, you'd like them..." instead. Then people can use their imaginations, that's always a good thing... *wanders away muttering incoherently*

10 May
Almost ready to launch the new site at long last. Just working on getting the initial galleries sorted out. Talk about time consuming! There should be a way to train goblins to do things like this...