Right, then; let's have a go at this...
1) "Chirine ba Kal" was the name of the PC I rolled up at Phil's about the spring of 1976. This was back before the original group split, as discussed in Gary Fine's book, "Shared Fantasy". I'm from the western part of Tsolyanu, the Chakas. Phil never used my real name, in or out of game; he only used it once, about three months before he passed away, to thank me and my family help take care of him in his last illness; it was the first time in some thirty-five years.
2) That's Phil's model of the Temple of Vimuhla in the city of Katalal. I used to take care of the model for him, and took it to conventions to show to people. It's huge, about 40" x 40" x 30". There are a lot of photos of my models and games on my Photobucket page - the list is just too long to post here, I'm afraid!
The tradition - the 'Custom of the House', if you will - is that we built stuff for games as needed. New players would roll up their character, and Phil would give me one week to make their miniature. Over the decades we've been playing, that adds up to a lot of PC's leaden alter egos, and we also liked to model our stuff as well - hence all the models in the game room.
We also built our costumes / clothes, as well. My armor weighs 38 pounds all up, and has over 15,000 1/4" rings in the mail hauberk. (Photos on my blog.)
3) I don't really know. I also do model railways - the UK's Great Western in OO scale - as well as plastic kits and scratchbuilds. I think the biggest project was the 20' by 20' game playing area for my Star Wars Braunstein; the biggest model was the 4' Imperial Star Destroyer I built for the same campaign. I just like to build stuff, and I'm told that I'm both fast and good at it. I now build things for my gamers on a two week cycle, between game sessions, and it seems to amuse them.
Sounds like you modified the YK-1, Yan Koryani General...
Loved to hear about your siege! Phil did a lot of battles that same way, as he didn't want to slow the game down with an on-table battle unless there was a really good reason for it.
4) I wrote "Qadardalikoi" (Tsolyani for "Great and Glorious War" after I bought the Tekumel miniatures line from Ral Partha; both "Missum" and "Legions" were out of print by then, so we needed a set of rules to help sell figures. I'm currently working on a second edition, to take advantage of all the wonderful new technologies in gaming that have come along - the rules are older then my daughters!
PRESTAGS was SPI's attempt to do a Middle Earth board game without a license; if you put all the counters in piles sorted by color, oddly enough you got all the armies of Middle Earth. If you put all the maps together the right way, you got a very good map of Middle Earth. The five games in the series / set were finally marketed as historical board games, and they were actually very good; i played them for decades, and had a lot of fun with them.
5) Yes, we did play what you'd be able to call RPGs, as well as what I think you'd call miniatures. However, we played as part of continuing 'campaigns', where we played people like Chirine or the hapless Hauptmann Von Braunschweiger of the Afrika Korps, who kept running into the British in his little Pz. II when the verdammnt Englishers were off their tea break and were in their brand new Yankee tanks. ("Donner and Blitznen!!!") We played using whatever tools we needed at that point in the campaign - RPGs, Braunsteins, miniatures, boardgames, poker, you name it.
I think that, over the years, I've run all sorts of games for people. I used to run two Tekumel campaigns in parallel with Phil's; my games were the 'waiting room' to get into Phil's, as well as a way to screen people for him. I used to run games at Coffman Union for the Conflict Simulation Association, and I also used to run a game convention. I still run games, on the second and fourth Saturdays of the month, in my own game room; The Missus lets me have half the basement for it, as you can see in the photos on my blog.
I ran a Star Wars campaign, for example, long before there were any rules for such a thing. I 'winged' it...
I love to build the models we use in the games, and the games are a way to astound and amuse my players. The looks on their faces when they come down the stairs and see what's on the table is what's worth it to me...
Does this help, or have I just confused things?