(Hobby)brushing the dust off… (Spring clean ’25)

So I wanted to share this somewhere.

the one thing I dropped when I moved house was one of my favourite regiments ever – my first halfling knights regiment from Westfalia for kings of war.

also while the glue was drying on the elephants I finally fixed them back to their unit base and did some minor re-touching of the battered paint.

With thst minor thing, those shelves of the cabinets feels complete again after 10 months and I am one happy hobbyist!

So with the glue drying on the elephants, they were out of action.

I popped to the cabinets and found something else unfinished.

Slightly less old than the bust, this bolt action Soviet Jeep was painted in 2014 as part of a big bolt action armour project and never had the crew done.

now it’s complete!

As below, enjoying painting too much to write a full how too, but the photos include the paints used at each stage so I may come back and write it up properly at some point down the line….

the crew were painted as per the infantry and aren’t detailed at all here. They just appear!

This stage ends with the glue drying on the sand for the bases.

las shot shows one howdah having been neatened with some brown lining where the transfers have left some white base coat showing – the second howdah still needs these tidying up, but the problem with painting 5 mins here and 5 mins there, I forgot where I’d got to and added glue before I realised!

next round….

I’ve really been loving getting back to painting again. Too much, in fact.

and while time is limited, I can’t bring myself to write a full guide to how these are being done as I’d intended, but I hope the pictures and the accompanying paint shots make some sense should you wish to do likewise!

These were undercoated and ready to go a few years back and I wimped out on skin colour indecision as with the infantry.

models from Victrix and Transfers from LBMS (now a part of Victrix!)

second set of these I’ve done actually and hopefully not the last (though I’ll keep these and not sell them as I did the first two!)

Started in 

12 years in the making… 

This guy really has taken me 12 years to finish.

I first posted photos as a WIP in March 2013. as can be seen here…..

I loved this bust from the moment I saw it released but I remember why I stopped this one, and I’m not proud.

I saw a version Painted by one of my favorite mini painters and the realisation that I’d never be that impressed with my own rendition put me off.

That’s very unlike me, but that’s what happened. I stopped almost at the stage its pictured above.

I finally got back to him in 2020 having got over my embarrassing jealousy and fear of failure. At that stage he got 99% completed and I posted these pics, stating that I Just needed to find a plinth for him.

Truth was that I’d bottled out again. I wanted to give him a pinstripe shirt, but couldnt get the detail effect I wanted, so none of these pics showed him from reverse. I was actually fine with this as he’d live in a cabinet and nobody would see the back.

And another 5 years passed….. 

And he still didn’thave a proper base. 5 years sitting on a cocktail stick put through a spray can lid!

I nearly got there in 2023, when I finally bought some plinths from Taro model maker, I just didn’t get around to actually using them!

So I got him out for the spring clean. And in doing so decided I would, finally give him the Pinstripes he deserved, as well as a decent pedestal.

The first pic shows the reality of how he’d sat, “finished” for five years with his back a bit of a mess. The second is how he is now. Not the neatest, but with a little thinned blue ink, and a “Done is better than nothing” attitude, he _is_ finally done.

And Finally….. He’s DONE!

12 years after feeling so inspired to start, I finished him!

He has a pinstripe(ish) shirt and a very nice plinth to call home. Thank you OTT / BoW for getting me over the finish line here, even if I do nothing more for the spring clean from now!

Just because of the timings of these things I ended up with various pictures of my Numidians throughout the basing stage, and it somewhat became a tutorial…. so here goes!

First step is the actual bases. There are many, as you all know, but Warbases have been the ones for me for many many years. I have a large RUB box filled to the brim with their MDF ready for any project I can imagine. 25mm rounds, super glue and activator. Job done.

Then its paint for me. I’m a creature of habit. All my models start off scorched Earth (vallejo model – or Scorched brown, in old Citadel) , all my bases (unless they’re snow) start off Dark Flesh tone (Vallejo Game Colour, or Dark Flesh in Old Citadel colours).

Then its texture. I use Builders sharp sand which I dry and keep in an old choccy box. I have a tea sieve in there so I can vary the level of stones I want.

I don’t try to hide the lumps from the plastic bases – never have done on my own stuff. I fint the texture of the sand and grass takes the eye away plenty in massed armies so just go with it.

Then its an old trick I will miss sooo much when I finally run out.

Citadel brown ink. I purchased a couple of boxes of it when they stopped making it as I’ve used it on basing for 20 years. Each pot is diluted into a smoothie bottle with water, meaning it goes a very very long way, but I’m down to 4 bottles and scared!

And then you just need to get carried away and finish the models without technically photographing the last stages….. I guess I was enjoying actually doing hobby for the first time in a year so I forgive myself that one!

I added woodland scenics mixed grass in randon spots and then drybrushed the sand and stones still visible using Vallejo Iraqi sand. Not sure this ones still available either, but Game Colour Khaki is almost identicle so no fears there.

And so that’s them. My first regiment in well over a year!

And I’m one happy hobbyist.

They’re not amazing, but I feel like I’m back in it. I can still do it. And I’m eager for more!

Technical woes: 

Forgive me, this is not the complete entry I’d intended, but I’ve written it three times on seperate mornings this week on my phone and I press publish only to have it all disappear, so PC from now on!

Moving on:

First box I went to was full of reinforcements for my Roman forces in 28mm. Romans are an army I’ve painted thousands of, but mainly because there’s always a market for them, so I’ve painted and sold the army (and regiments within) many times over to fund other hobby (and bills!).

Now, I wanted something to knock the rust off without being the exact same as a couple of hundred already in the cabinets.

I settled on some Numidians, which I’d left built and undercoated a couple of years back because I got myself in a knot about skin tones.

Figures are Victrix plastics, and very nice too. Most of my forces are Warlord because I started with their very first plastic releases but the Victrix stuff is edging in more and more.

Most of my forces are based for Hail Ceasar / Kings of war, but a good friend has got some  forces for Clash of spears and got me tempted, so these are going on rounds and will be sabot based for joining the main force in the cabinets and on the table.

Of Numidian skin: 

Ancient Numidians are often depicted as having very very dark african skin. But their empire was up to the North of the continent where skin tones are often a lot lighter. I’m no schollar, and brief googling gave no clear resolve, but this bothered me.

So this time around, I decided to do something I don’t normally on massed regiments and do a mix of skin tones.

For rank and file 28s I usually use foundry Triads as they’re a quick choice and suit my rough layered style for.

To get the variety I wanted, I chose to use two triads here, but use them as a set of 6.

The African skin triad was used as is, and the North Africann Skin Triad was used as Highlights beyond this, choosing 3 paints for any given figure. So some of these are

African A – African B – African C, some African B- African C – North African A, and others African C – North African A – North African B

I have no doubt I’ll be told I’ve still got the skin tones entirely wrong but I had to make the jump and do something. So thank you for the information, I truly do appreciate it, but I’m moving on 🙂

Other areas painted using mainly triads from the Foundry Horse colours paint set, with the green being Citadel colours used in the same way (Catachan to waywatcher green)

So I guess lets get a gauge on this first.

Ignoring the fact that I really didnt wave a brush last year, I’ve painted minis since I was 6. Thats thirty s…. well, quite a few years.

I’ve been lucky that I spent 5 of those years painting for my income, and even more lucky to be able to have spent the last 18 back to just enjoying it mainly for myself.

Even more lucky, everywhere I’ve lived, I’ve managed to have a workshop, or at least a lot of storage and this leads to very little management for an avid collector.

So, having moved into a new place with my wonderful family I am once again filling out a workshop with unfinished (and many unstarted…) projects, some of which have followed me for decades. I’m certainly not going to try and photograph them all, but here’s an idea of the storage just for the unfinished…..

The drawers are all full, of minis. Any box you see is full of minis. You get the idea…