Stuff what I been painting

2024 started well, with a lot finished in Jan and then work happened. And then life also happened and things somewhat went of the rails. But, things are starting to level out now and hopefully, I can get back to a bit more hobby.

Anyway, a whistle stop tour of the last 4 months painting production.

In January, it was mostly a terrain month as I finished off some Japanese graves, cooking station, a washing station, a well, some objective markers, a load of lanterns and a pond.

I didn’t get as much finished in December that I had hoped. I’ve still got quite a few models on the painting bench that are close to being complete but just haven’t quite got there.

I did however finish off some MDF terrain that has been sitting around for a while.

I also finished off the rest of my Cult of Yurei starter force with, in order, Risu, The Pennagalan, Mo Ises and Ibara.

I was lucky enough to get some more models for Christmas, so this added to the pile of shame resulting in the pile growing in December rather than shrinking. But over the course of 2023, I painted up 107 models, which given that I’m a particularly slow painter, is pretty good going. The pile did however gain 204 models, so it has grown during the year. Maybe 2024 will bring about a reduction in the pile….

Just posting an update on what I’ve got finished. All of this for our Bushido set

Firstly, some terrain. A batch of trees, something that I have never made from scratch before. And some terrain pieces that can be bought as part of your Bushido warband

I 3d printed a couple of temple lion statues

And the Cult of Yurei models Umeka (in blue) and Yama Uba (in red)

I also spotted that my spreadsheet was wrong. The number of models supposedly on my painting bench according to the spreadsheet seemed far too low compared to the groaning that the bench was giving out under the weight.

I have a project running here that I started some time ago to build an Italian hill village for Flames of War. It’s taken a bit of a back seat for a period of time. Early in the project, I designed some buildings firstly out of laser cut mdf which I wasn’t happy with and then using a cad package, I made some STL files that I got printed. I wasn’t really happy with any of these but they did create a set of test subjects for a colour scheme for that actual buildings.

I wanted to see if I could paint them quickly and after much searching of reference photos, I settled for a light sand colour. I found a cheap rattle can paint online which I’ve used to paint the walls. This was a mistake as the paint was poor and splattered out of the can. For the real buildings I’ll use my airbrush and some proper modelling paint.

The roofs went through a series of experiments before I settled on a white primer and then a Sienna ink applied over the top. I’m quite happy with the result and will be using this on the final buildings.

The doors and shutters were just an elf green that I had lying around.

This is all 15mm scale and I couldn’t help digging out a sherman tank to give myself some idea of what the games will be like when I finally get round to finishing the project.

First up, this is now a multi award winning project.

I’ve still been very much on the Bushido path this month and completed Mokoti, some Japanese lanterns, a drum, a sake display rack and completed some bamboo scatter terrain.

And some actual progress on the model count this month, with both the pile of potential and the number of models on the painting table going down, albeit by a small number.

More Bushido stuff got painted up over the last few months. We have Taiyo.

Next up the ghost wielding Hozumi Maha

The fox like Ryokeen

And some 3d printed plague rats

My spreadsheet tells me that I’ve completed 6 models in the two month period. I’ve also had the 3d printer working overtime and I’ve added 23 new models to the pile and started painting a further 17. This puts me behind where I was in June. But, the good news is that a number of the models that I’ve started are close to completion, so I hope that I can turn the numbers around over the coming months.

I should probably change the description of this project as I’ve said that this is stuff that I’m painting that isn’t linked to any other project. But everything this month is linked to my Bushido project….

This month, I’m going to start with the numbers. This is because I’m very proud that I went a whole month without buying anything new. The Models added to the pile column kept a zero, so well done me! This meant that the total pile actually reduced in size and, while not back to the size at the beginning of the year, it has shrunk. A step in the right direction.

This month I have managed to paint up,
2 Shisa models (effectively bronze temple statues)
1 Torii gate
1 Shinto shrine
7 bits of fencing
1 measuring stick
1 prisoner transport

I also got rid of an old V1 rocket for Flames of War that was never going to get finished

This month, I have mostly been painting terrain for Bushido.

So May was quite a productive month in tackling the pile of potential, with 26 separate models completed! Down side is I also picked up some FoW models with the new Berlin book and added 27 to the pile, so that’s an increase to the pile rather than a decrease, albeit by just 1. Maybe June will bring about a decrease…..