The quarantine continues....

Making Headway

     So I'm into week 2 of the "safer at home" quarantine and I'm actually getting a lot done.  Who would have guessed that "hobby time" is really similar to "safer at home"?  I've primed up a lot of darkest africa minis and I challenged myself to finish something substantial so I am pushing to finish the last of my Brittania 28mm Somalis I purchased years ago and have poked at for a while.  I'm down to my last 5!  Next challenge after that is done will be the rest of my modern africa forces, mostly irregulars.  Now for the stuff I've finished!  More buildings were completed which not only clears room in my model room but also starts to bring down my mdf pile. 

Charlie Foxtrot Russian house

The Wild Geese set's airport terminal

Another piece of Mantic's Mars Attacks ruins.

A couple of Mantic wells from their terrain crate.

That's it for completed things.  I only count minis once they are based and put in a box, that means 50 guys are going to be showing up on here along with some more scatter.
     Seeing people post FB pics of games got me moving to clear of the RPG gear, since we aren't meeting face-face, and start putzing around with my rules.  I read a lot of rules but don't play them so they don't get a test drive normally, but that's changing!  I set up a small African village that will be my test bed for modern rules, starting with Skirmish Sangin.  This will be a solo game focusing more on mechanics and process than scenario balance.  It also gave me a push to pull out my modern Africa figures and see what I really have, and what I can finish to finally put a cap on one period's forces.

Overall view of the table

My africans! Nam SF on upper portion.

I'm going to use my 'Nam SF minis as the attacker and I'll pull out enough irregulars to make it interesting.  In the second pic on the lower-right are my Brittania Somalis, going clockwise are Eureka ZANLA, hostage minis in the field, some somalis I got off TMP  (tan round bases) and in the center by the tree are my TAG African forces.  Way on the left by are some more Brittania Somalis, civilians this time.  The huts and foliage were made by me with the exception of a couple of trees.  The cars are diecasts from Menards.  The market stalls are Mantic and the well is an Acheson piece.  The pig sty is from Things From the Basement's Russian village set.

Quarantine time is hobby time.

Stuck in the house, oh my!

      Well it's day one of "safer-at-home" (cute phrase) here in Wisconsin so that means, not much changes.  Now I can enjoy guilt free hobby time since we aren't supposed to go anywhere and I work from home, another bonus.  I've taken advantage of this time to start looking at my miniatures situation and making some decisions.  One of these is that I have some things that I'll probably never use and they should start to slowly make their way out of the house.  My plan is to have a box where I can put stuff I "probably" want to get rid of and if in a year or so that box is still around I get rid of it.  Unfortunately that doesn't take a lot out of my lead pile.
     When it comes to the lead pile I think I've found my answer for speed but acceptable paint jobs.  It came from Dr Faust, and it's a style I've seen but never tried.  Basically it's a shadow to start and then layer up highlights from there; I used to paint the middle and then shade and highlight.  I'm getting a reasonable speed but the figures look good enough for me.  It also isn't too far removed from advance techniques that I want to use on model figures.
      Now for the good stuff, what have I finished!  In keeping with my previous post I'm putting up at least pics of what I'm finishing with the goal that in 2021 I'll see a lot of progress.  So here it is!
   After about a year of sitting in my room I finally completed 11 French destroyers in 1/2400. 

Escorts forming.

Hull numbers even!

Scatter terrain, you can never have enough!!!!  These are a mix of Crooked Dice, Mantic, reaper, Scotia, Things from the Basement, and some others.

Vendor stalls for the villagers

Goodies for the underground lab of evil!

Is it wrong to have pews near a gallows?

A Eureka boat I had sitting around.

I did complete a lot of vehicles including a truck & trailer from Puppet's War, a Bolt Action KV1, more gaslands cars and a repainted GZG 25mm vehicle.

A really nice model with good crisp detail.

Probably my last KV since I now have 2.

Figures and figures by the dozen.  I don't remember the final tally but it was a good amount.

Foundry and Old Glory African Natives

Old Glory porters

More GW minis for my buddy Duane.

RPG minis, some pretty old school.

More SpecOps from The Assault Group

Foundry minis for Darkest Africa

I can't leave out buildings, that's my thing!  I completed a Charlie Foxtrot Russian farm and an Acheson dark age house.

CF models go together very nicely.

Each floor and roof removable.

Nice resin piece for my vikings.

     The total that I completed is:
7 Dark Africa/Pulp
7 Dark Africa casualties
44 Dark Africa tribesmen
14 Dark Africa porters
10 GW oldhammer minis for my bud Duane.
3 Vietnam minis
14 miscellaneous RPG minis
4 market stalls from Mantic
31 pieces of sci-fi scatter terrain
1 tractor and trailer for sci-fi
1 sci fi apc
1 kv1
2 houses
4 gaslands cars
11 pieces of medieval/modern scatter.

Painting Challenge 2020

Another year of painting

     I took part in another monthly painting challenge with fellow gamers.  It's a way to get us motivated to get stuff done and encourage the others.  Anything is game and any stage of completeness is fine.  This month of January I focused on finishing stuff taking up painting room space along with pushing on with mini painting.  Here's what I got done (all 28mm this time):
Orthodox church
2 middle eastern houses
4 watch towers from the Wild Geese kick starter
Minis:
      2 Inuits
      6 goblins
      4 African tribesmen
      4 vikings
      2 warthogs
      1 beaver
      1 dinosaur
      2 rpg figures for D&D
      10 Syrians
      10 GW fantasy minis for a friend.

     For February I'm looking at a Russian house, the terminal from the Wild Geese set, more Syrians and African tribesmen.  More GW figures for my buddy will be in the mix and maybe some Gaslands cars.  Even if there's no challenge for February I still plan on getting through these at least.  I'm still managing to avoid making game purchases, and that's OK.  There are still a lot of minis I'd love to get but the idea of clearing a tote worth of minis is starting to become more appealing than adding another tote to the pile. 
    My next update will be an exploration of DIY grass tufts, and they are self-adhesive!

2020: The year of living without deliveries

Now that's a pile!

     The year 2019 ended with me searching through my lead/plastic/resin/mdf pile in search of parts of a project that has pushed it's way to the front of my mind (1/600 pt boats, fyi).  Searching leads to organizing which leads to the fish to the face: I have A LOT of stuff!  Stuff is being polite.  I like to store my unfinished inventory in plastic totes and I'm up to eight of them now, one is just mdf terrain and 2 ships that have to be built.  This isn't counting three totes of bits and pieces that I plan on using for scratchbuilding, the "junk pile".  So the big fish that hit me in the face is that I shouldn't be buying anything, at least until I get this stuff painted, and even then I'll probably not live long enough to get it painted.  Add to this my model kit hobby and playing 5E D&D and I have quite a collection built up of things to fill my free time.
    There are a lot of reasons why I've ended up with a large closet worth of stuff and almost any wargamer or model builder can relate to how it gets to this stage.  At least now that I've recognized the problem it's the first step to healing, right?  I've made it through the end-of-year sales and various tempting emails that come in with a discount code. In an effort to start reducing this pile I'm going to try a strategy that I haven't used in the past: finishing one type of mini before starting on something else.  I'm a painting magpie so I have lots of opened bags and various minis laying around, all in various stages of completion.  I'll still have some odds and ends on my desk but I'm going to make an effort to eliminate groups of minis, first up Mongrel 1980s Syrians.  I picked those up years ago and it's a big enough group that I feel like I'm doing something but not so big that it will take a year or more to complete, unlike my darkest africa stuff.  I'm still painting a friend's GW collection on top of this, about 200 minis.  Buildings and vehicles are a separate category.  For those I'll be finishing one before starting on another, not normal for me.  I have four 28mm watchtowers nearly done and I'm going to do the final weathering on a Puppet's War tractor trailer.
     To get this herculean task complete I plan on posting updates as I get stuff done.  Very little has been completed for 2020 but here's a shot of what's "close" to getting done.

Waiting for nature to take it's course.

     The towers and figures have been painted and my brown house paint has been applied for the base.  When I get enough done, usually a full cookie sheet, I take a day to do all the grass work, so I'm about halfway there.

Finally something is done!

     I did manage to finish Mantic 28mm plastic walls that took a lot longer than they should have.  The Mantic terrain crates are really nice but some of the pieces are bent and I had my first experience using boiling water to straighten them and it worked nicely.  I play skirmish games normally so things like walls are always in demand and these are nice modular pieces.  I still have random things on my desk, minis, a 25mm GZG vehicle I'm jazzing up, repairing the roof of a 28mm Armorcast building, and some 1/300 Skuas.

     So here's to 2020 being the year when I clean out a tote and hopefully more!

The end of the year udpate

Other work from the year:

      Finally an update!! Distractions are the name of the game and besides other stuff I also build scale models, usually plastic.  The Armorama site has campaigns that I participate in, mostly to get me building from my stash of kits.  These are themed builds with a start and stop date along with a ribbon that is added to your profile if you finish in time.  I've done 7 so far and one of them was a WWI theme open to air, sea, and land models so I chose the ICM WWI Russian Infantry set in 1/35 scale.

     The figures went together pretty easily but the gear needed to be dry-fitted as the molding included spaces for the gear to lay in.  The bolts (really the top of the bolt assembly) of the rifles was a separate piece!  Very fragile and not very long.  The kit comes with A LOT of extra gear and weapons and included is a sheet listing what each piece is, kind of like a box of chocolates.  I'll speed to the end and give some finished pics.

     We also had a year long campaign for the SWAMPS model group that meets in south Milwaukee.  last year's build (September-August) was the new Tamiya Stuart tank in 1/35 scale.  As is usual with Tamiya kits it went together very easily and the detail was top notch.  I chose to go with the Russian tank driver and follow markings I found in one of the many eastern front books I have.  These are all the completed kits for the group.  I tried out some of the new weather techniques that are popping up (filters, modulation, etc). 

     I started trying my hand at making grass tufts for both minis and models and the early results are promising.  I just need to try out floor adhesive and some different blends before I make a large pile of them.

     Some more medieval minis came in to reinforce my growing army, a successful Kickstarter!

    The plan for 2020 is to continue chugging through my lead pile without adding to it!  So far it's been a month of resistance and it's a start, since I have enough minis for all the projects I want to do.  The level of detail new miniatures have make it hard not to pick up really nice figures even though I have the same type, but not quality, already paid for and sitting in a box.  I'm going to start painting up my 6mm BAOR/USSR forces and get more terrain done for that.  One of the two black friday deals I took in was for Cold War Commander in hardcopy.  Between that, Mein Panzer, and Fistful of Tows 3 I should have something that works.  Purchased MDF buildings and ships need to be completed.  On to 2020!