Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

Hobby time was a bit limited in September.  At the beginning of the month, I was really busy with work and then we went away for a week. On my return, work was just as bad and home wise wasn't much better!  I’ve also spent a fair bit of time on retirement planning as thankfully it's not that far off now.   Completed I finished off the following: Essex Miniatures 15mm Castilian hand gunners.  These were very simple figures which didn't take too long to do. Essex Miniatures 15mm Castilian Gendarmes.  Horses aside, these were even simpler, being clad head to toe in armour!  I can't recall ever painting fully armoured figures and they're so easy.  The thought of adding more fully armoured troops to my Castilian forces just for ease of painting is very appealing! Essex Miniatures 15mm Granadan Noble Cavalry.  These took a bit more time to do.  I used a similar palette to the rest of my Moor force, but with deeper colours to try and reflect their s...

Well darn it, we're a third of the way through 2026 already.  April has been a bit less stressful month than March real world wise, just steadily working through my stuff. April always means Salute for me and you can read my thoughts on the show here .  The end of April is also where I take stock of my progress in the year to date.  You can see how I've been doing with my projects here and with gaming here . Completed Here's what I completed during the month: 20mm Platoon 20 French Indo-China War Vietnamese.  I completed four pairs of porters, a mule team and the artillery crew this month.  Porters and mules were a vital part of the Vietnamese war effort.  They add something a little different to the table and they've come out rather well.  I based the recoilless rifle and all the crew on small magnetised bases then made a base out of magnetic receptive sheet as I'd done for my Ancient Germans and Imperial Romans.  This gives me the flexibility of...

March has been a very disjointed month.  We were away for a week in Malta.  Unfortunately, both before we went and on our return there's been some serious family medical business to attend to and normal life has been very disrupted.   I've been left to my own devices for quite a bit of the month, so from the hobby perspective it's been a good month.  To be frank though most of it has been rubbish.  The importance of being able to sit quietly and focus on something that you have control over should never be underestimated.  Completed Here's what I completed during the month: 6mm Iran-Iraq War afvs.  I based up the last four vehicles I'd painted last year.  I'd held off on these as I did consider using them for the Soviet-Afghanistan project but decided they'd be better for the IIW.  I also found a Command stand that just needed the ground texturing so I did that too. 20mm Platoon 20 French Indo-China War Vietnamese.  These were...