Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

During the first week back after my holiday I managed to do the front rank of the Sikh regular regiment.  This batch are the command and firing figures.  I'd completed the second rank of loading figures before I went away - ( see here ).   I followed the steps I'd documented with the first batch exactly, making a couple of small refinements. The first was to varnish the trousers, boots and skin areas once they were finished.  I did this so that when I painted the jackets I could easily wipe off any paint that strayed onto the varnished areas with an old moist brush.  I use this method quite a lot with 28mm figures and it can save a lot of time retouching areas.   The second refinement was to add the grass tufts to the bases while the second coat of varnish was drying.  By the time I'd done that they were ready for the third and final coat of varnish.  I'm continually looking at cutting down the overall time it takes to complete a unit so...

I find I work better if I have a couple of projects on the go.  Of my 2021 projects The First-Anglo Sikh Wars is one I'm still very enthused with and I'll be adding units into 2022. The 28mm WW1 project has been on the backburner waiting for the Wargames Atlantic French set to be released.  Alas, I have lost interest in this and may even sell the Germans I've done.  I fear this will end up as another Bolt Action style game which is kind of pointless and goes against the ethos I'm trying to stick to (outlined here and here ).  I'm thinking of doing a WW1 project in a smaller scale but with a bigger scope but that's for the future.  I've got some old stuff sorted this year and the lead hillock is still very small, so I've got capacity to start something new for Autumn and Winter. I wrote at the half year point that I wanted to do a pre-gunpowder project.  I've been working through my book collection and trawling the Web and had a couple of ideas but no...

I've been mulling over whether to go to Salute or not and have decided not to.  There's a few reasons but principally there's nothing that I want to buy that I can only get  from there.  The Covid situation appears to be ramping up a bit again so I'm not that comfortable going.  However, I'll be using the money I put aside with an extra £30 that the admission and travel would have cost to get some hobby supplies in for Autumn and Winter. In fact I've already started.  I've just returned from a week away.  Whenever I go away I always look to see if there's a real bricks and mortar hobby shop to visit.  And this time I was lucky enough to go to Salisbury, which in itself is a great place, but in town there's the Salisbury Model Centre.  This really is a proper hobby shop not a model railway shop with some extras, albeit there is a decent range for the railway modeller.  There's a great selection of model kits of all scales and interests an...

Next off the painting table are these 12 Newline Designs Sikh regular infantry loading.  They form the rear rank of a regiment I'm working on. Like all the Newline Sikh Wars figures I've worked on these are lovely to paint.  Clean sculpts with a good level of detail and good proportions.  I wish Newline did more ranges as I really like this size figure.   For this batch I changed my usual process by gluing them to their bases and adding sand before priming.  I usually stick the figures to a temporary base for priming and painting and base them properly when they're been painted and varnished.  Basing first is a much more efficient way of completing units, speeding up the process as  you don't have to wait for the sand to harden before painting it and adding the finishing touches.  By the time the figure is painted and varnished the sand is as hardened as it'll ever get .  The figures being individually based facilitates this of course....

My last order from Newline Designs included a pack of British Infantry firing.  I'm going to use these for skirmishers out in front of the rest of the regiment shown here .  The figures were completed at the end of September but things have been busy in the real world.  I finally managed to get the time to take a few quick pics and post this up today.   I did all my research when I painted the main unit and I'd noted down the colours and steps I took, so it was a straight forward to do these.  I try to do the thinking once as it's the hard part.