The last month in pictures

Hi Chaps,

It would seem that despite grabbing 30 minutes painting time before work (6AM ish) units can still be painted even if in a bleary eyed way! Grabbing figures off the shelves to take pictures of them made me realise that I have painted a fair few, they just happen to be from different armies.

It would seem that I have accidentally started an undead army and a Dwarf army! The spirit hosts are a nightmare (pun intended) to put together as the instructions are so unclear and joining pegs etc non existent but they look pretty impressive. Worth the effort now but the unit will only ever be three models.

The Dwarves are from ebay and I have another unit of 12 armed with hammers. Ebay can be kind or it can be a disaster. The corpse cart was partly built when I purchased it and I had to snip off limbs and cart parts to finish the model which when you look closely is still not right. In the end it painted up OK for the table and was 1/2 the price of a new one so..... The driver is to undergo surgery and will function as a dark wizard type and I do need a few wizards as I re bought Frostgrave and intend to play this on my new 3 foot square board which was completed today.

Pics of the board are to follow, it has been such a pleasure having two days off together.

Keep blogging Chaps! Most of your blogs slip through the security net at work and I get to read what you are up to.

Scratch Building for Spectre

Hi Chaps,

Well the painting bug has not returned as of yet but I have been busy preparing a board and scratch building a church for some expected Spectre games.

So far I have ordered a lot of figures from Empress and Spectre (arrived within 2 days and are excellent. Sadly my order to The Assault Group over two weeks ago has yet to arrive....when it does I will pop a comparison pic on here so we can compare miniature sizes.

The board is 3' square and is only 12mm mdf...I should have gone thicker or used some other material as it may not stand up to being moved about-it's all a learning curve.

Hopefully the church will end up vague enough to be used anywhere from Spain to the middle east and Mexico! Lots of detail to be added and paint to be slapped on, plastic tile sheets are on order.

Also on order are a couple of Humvees from Grubby and a Technical which should be enough for games of this size. To end the spending spree I am looking for a desk, it seems I am expanding my empire!

Transport Models Preston

Hi Chaps,

This weekend has gone quickly but it has been a bit of a delight on the hobby front. My local model shop, Transport models of Preston are having a sale with 25%  off everything. Naturally I was impressed and bought the beginnings of a Sigmar Bretonnioan army in the form of two Fireforge boxes of European medieval types.

Previously I have put together hundreds of plastic 28mm and 20mm figures but for some reason these little b#####ds just did not co operate. The fault is all mine...it could have been my cheap superglue or just my poor performance but assembling these 36 figures took longer and was much more frustrating than I imagined. Parts flew off never to be seen again and the glue refused to join anything other than my own flesh and then it was to everything!

Oh well there are lessons to be learned from todays experience but I have not processed what just yet. I did buy a spray tin of Humbrol German red brown to undercoat with so this is my first experiment with anything other than black or white.

The last hobby problem I face is a strange one! My cabinets are full! What to do? I certainly wont be purchasing any cabinets soon as they tend to be expensive so it is either storage or ebay for the less used/loved figures....now I just need Fireforge to release the promised Bretonnian mounted knights and this army (with a few bits I already have) will be complete.

I do hope you have all had a good weekend? If you have any tips on building a gaming PC I would appreciate it as I am trying to get one for my son but my kidney money went to Games Workshop already!

Keep blogging guys I need your adventures to read whilst at work.

A few figures painted

Hi Chaps and Chappess's

What a sad few weeks this has been with religiously inspired nutters going on murder sprees up and down my beautiful country. I do hope the politicians start to confront this before the people take matters into their own hands. As for the families and victims words cannot convey the injustice that they have suffered, I am sure that we all grieve with them.

On a lighter note despite work trying it's best to sap all my time and energy I completed a unit of 10 Warlord Germans and a command unit of 3 (which I forgot to photograph). These early war Germans are to compliment the 222 which I completed a couple of weeks ago. The infantry are almost complete but I may scruff them up a little with some more highlights and a dry brush of dust here and there.

As you can guess I am struggling to crop my pics but this will be addressed soon...I had to rely on my sons i phone to take these! Only 10 more infantry and maybe a mortar to complete this as a small Bolt Action force and then onto Russians or French.

I recently have had a lull in my enthusiasm for the hobby, maybe this is the warm weather or just lack of time but I know that this is only a brief thing as it has happened before. Does it ever happen to you Chaps/Ladies out there? Even a trip to my new "Warhammer" shop in Preston did not lift my spirits though I did buy 3 new paints which brings my paint collection total up to 120 (why?). Whilst in there I did notice that the Start Collecting boxes seemed like really good value...£50 for a vehicle and infantry with support is almost reasonable!?

Keep blogging Chaps I read you at night!

Dwarves. This week has been about Dwarves.

Hi Chaps,

How was your week? I hope you all had it swimmingly easy as I am now having to relearn the art of making the most of ones time. If I rise at 6AM I can grab 30 or 40 minutes of silence at my painting table....the bliss of it. How do you Chaps or Chappes's fit your painting time into your week?

Using little nibblets of time to paint in is a new phenomenon for me and the techniques needed to complete a unit are rather novel as well. Monday and Tuesday usually see the base coats completed and by Thursday I can see the figures looking a lot tidier than before which spurs me onto completing the unit. Since restarting work I have only painted Games Workshop figures which tend to need a lot of attention so it would be interesting to see how this method would work on simpler figures.

Below are a unit of 10 Dwarves that got paint thrown at them this last couple of weeks (5 figures a week which is so slow...)...

The bases are under construction for the last 5, it is just a time availability thing that has slowed my painting to a Dwarf's pace. I do have a miniature plastic mountain to choose from so this next week will see yet more short guys on the desk...

All the models here were second hand from ebay and cost a lot less than 50P per figure so I can paint them and base them without worrying if they are ruined or are "game legal" to use jargon picked up on the Dakka forum which is an excellent read by the way.

Lastly is a work in progress-a standard bearer for my Empire troops...I really need to either buy some late medieval banners or develop a way of doing these better as I need a few more....

Keep blogging everyone it makes me happy to see your work and I get to use some of your great ideas.

Too many Paints and Old Style Dwarves

Hi Chaps and non Chaps,

Work has been intense this week so I only managed to paint a handful of models which as you could guess are older Games Workshop products bought cheaply on ebay. I have no idea about the lore regarding Dwarves, Elves or anything else that GW produces-my "background" info comes from The Hobbit so I may be missing a lot of detail!

The figures are almost complete but I will give them another pass over tomorrow to eradicate any glaring errors, after all these are rank and file guys and not characters...

It was a refreshing change to work on something other than Empire-these guys were really cheap off the internet and are now the beginnings of yet another army. I am not complaining but I do need to get a couple of new shelves

Earlier today I visited GW Preston to buy some bone coloured paint. Needless to say I bought 6 lots of paint but not Ushabti Bone or whatever it is called now as I forgot.

On arriving back home I had a look at my paints and I seem to be collecting more paints than figures

Vallejo/Others paints =35
Vallejo/other washes  =8
Citadel washes =9
Citadel special paint= 5
Citadel paint=58
Other paint = 2

The reason I mention this is that the 6 paints I bought today cost £17..OK I am old but bloody hell £17. This hobby can seem a little expensive especially if like myself you are on a bit of  budget.

Keep blogging people, I love reading your stuff.

Vintage Games Workshop Empire Muskets.

Hi Chaps,

Well it has been another busy week on the work front with nearly no painting time....but I have found a slot! By getting out of bed 30 minutes early I am starting to develop a method whereby I can still paint a unit of troops (10 for me) each week. Obviously this method is a work in progress and painting before 6AM is a new thing but by applying just one colour to 5 of the men in a unit I can get all 10 to a stage where I can complete them on a Saturday morning. (at a decadent 7AM).

Where there is a will there is a way....

The Dracoth thing was an impulse by from ebay...I had never painted a big model before so this was a first. The quality of Games Workshop does seem to continually improve and I may invest in some more newer releases.

When I said there is always a way I was of course excluding my damn computer which refuses now to crop the height of a picture without also taking the same amount off an edge...it never used to do this. Oh well more things to add to the wants list.

Also now that I have mentioned "the list" I have ticked a few items off of it in the last few weeks, namely a Dwarf starter army (on its way) and a leaf punch from Greenstuff which should arrive later this week. I have coveted a leaf punch for some time but the spare money (a paltry £11 inc postage) was always in demand somewhere else. Having had a good few years living carefully to say the least I have become a bit of a "prepper" as regards everything-especially hobby wise. The plastic mountain will grow large enough to take me into retirement by the end of the year.

Keep blogging Chaps it is my escape time at work.

Repainting Vintage Games Workshop figures.

Hi Chaps,

This weekends painting time was spent bringing a new lease of life to some old Games Workshop Empire figures. I always loved this range but never bought any back in the day because hobby time was spent on "real" war gaming. Oh the wasted years....

To be fair I have been on a tight budget for a long long time (or is that always?) so I would probably have never bought these new anyway. Ebay provided this little bargain, around 30 figures and a cannon for under £20. At this price I was not bothered if the whole project went pear shaped but the figures were surprisingly err average. I think thay had been stripped and then sprayed white as the finish was a little rough but it was workable. A couple of the figures were placed into the spares box immediately and I was left with two units of 10 muskets and 10 spears.

25mm mdf bases from warbases were used instead of the now oh so last year squares and if I am honest the figures look all the better for it. So 4 or 5 snatched hours later (an early start this morning whilst everyone was snoring helped) and this is the result. Maybe through the week another couple of men will join the ranks and I am pretty confident that the musketmen will be a complete unit by next weekend.

Obviously I have a white balance issue and a decent camera is on my list...so many things on that damned list though! An order to the dice bag lady maybe made at the end of the month to source some female heads as I do want an all female unit of spears. I have no real reason for this except it should look cool and I have never seen one before.

Please keep blogging your work Chaps it makes for excellent reading.

Vintage Games Workshop Fantasy Figures

Hi Chaps,

As part of my packing regime I am taking photos of my figures and terrain as they are put into storage, today it was mostly Elves and more Bretonnian archers.

These 10 guys have been given dull jackets and a grim look...there are another 10 waiting to be painted which would eventually amount to 36 archers and command. I have just noticed that their bases are not finished!

The Elves have just been collected over the last few months and happily there are some Mantic versions of the Witch Elves on the way along with a Witch and Cauldron which will make a nice small army....

as everything I do is centered on solo gaming I try to keep my units to a limit of 12 figures but a unit of spear men has grown to 18....more figures will have to be purchased to even this matter out. A unit of Cold Ones will almost see the end of this "army" as it will be big enough for my Sigmar and Dragon Rampant battles.

The last figure is a pet Goblin, sadly I now paint my Goblins in a pale flesh colour as it makes them look more disturbing, maybe they go green if kept captive? Games Workshop really were world leaders in figure manufacturing including these little gems in their figure boxes. Maybe the Age of Sigmar has ended all this silly fun?

Keep blogging Chaps, not many more figure shelves to clear now-the biggest is the 30K shelf,

Bretonnian, Lion Rampant medieval, Age of Sigmar.

Hi Chaps,

The packing continues at a leisurely pace as the date for the move seems to disappear into the distance every time I speak to a solicitor.....it is not rocket science but....

Anyway as I was packing this morning I took some pictures of my medieval force. To be honest this could be Bretonnian, medieval, Dragon Rampant etc it is very versatile.

On order are a few more figures and a character model from Black Tree Designs who are running a sale and are well worth a look at as their ranges are large and interesting.

http://eoeorbisuk.com/

The link should take you to the homepage, I will use them to finish this Bretonnian army as they have Damsels and spearmen-I have no idea what their delivery time is like as they are new to me.

Building this army has cost less or around £5 a week for a couple of months, buying by the unit has filled my painting time and ensured that I do not acquire a plastic mountain. By staying focused and not having the choice of figure or unit to paint has meant that I have actually produced half an army quickly.

In waiting are a further 20 Bretonnian bowmen (bought from ebay) which were unpainted and for me a real find. Once my Damsel is painted I suppose this could be considered a complete smallish army but I doubt I will be able to leave anything that crops up on ebay in the future.

To fight these chaps I have the start of an Elvish army currently 47 figures strong and in camp waiting for reinforcements. Somehow I have acquired some camp followers and villagers as well as a few Frostgrave figures and monsters.....indeed a small world is growing on my shelves!

Keep blogging Chaps!