Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

The last figures I completed in 2024 were a quartet of Victrix Dark Age Archers.  These were my oldest outstanding 28mm miniatures purchased in late 2022.   After completing these I thought it would be interesting to look at all the different figures I made using the Dark Age Archers bodies as the basis.  You get 36 bodies (one piece legs and torso) in each set.  Four are meant as archers, two as slingers.  There are numerous heads, arms and bits.  I sold one spruce which left me with 30 to do.  In reality I only did 28 as I used the legs from two of the archers with some Oathmark Elves. As with all plastic kits some bits work better together than others and Victrix do give instructions as to what bits fit certain bodies.  If you were doing these all as archers for the same army, you’d inevitably end up with some quite similar figures which in my eyes defeats the purpose of using plastics but that's just me.     When you’ve worked o...

Well here we are another year done.  All in all its been a good one for hobbying. My Ovelist updates with summaries of the year for gaming and doing can be seen here and here respectively.  Let's hope 2025 is a good year in all ways for all of us. Completed There was a few things I really wanted to get finished before the end of the year.  Miniatures wise I’ve worked in four scales this month: First of all in 15mm I completed the Cromarty Forge Village Defenders.  This was the last of my 15mm.  Readers will know how much I've enjoyed working on these.  If I had my own 3D printer I'd probably have bought all their STLs and have printed so many figures that they'd never get painted, which is one of the many reasons I won't get my own printer!   Then I rebased a 32mm Sci-Fi figure.  This was one of the figures I completed in the summer, only to discover that the base was skewed and not truly round.  This jarred with my pedantic ways so I rebased...

June started well as I completed the Victrix late-Roman Armoured Warriors I'd started on in May. I only had the one sprue of six to do and I finished them as noble Germanic/Gothic warriors.  They'll do as a unit of five with a leader, or I could use one as a champion and field a smaller unit for Warlords of Eherwon, which are the rules I'm currently using.  They're a nice addition to the Germanic force providing a bit of muscle.  As with all the Victrix kits they're top quality.  I was provided with a separate head sprue as well which is overkill really.  I have so many spare heads now I really don't know what to do with them.  It's a pity you can't buy the bits separately but that'd undo the whole business model I suspect.  Although some of it may get used for kitbashing unless you want to make a 20 headed monster all this plastic is going to sit there unused and inevitably it'll be thrown away.  I'm really not comfortable with the waste asp...

Bloody hell where is this year going?  It's a sign of getting old isn't it, the months whizzing by?  I started the month feeling like death (there's an irony here when you look at one of my rule purchases) and it turned out I'd got a dose of Covid.  Strangely although I had no energy for things like exercise, after the initial couple of days I found I could paint and I used the extra time not doing other things to press on and get stuff done.  It's been a milestone month in that I have now finished over 50% of the 28mm figures I started the year with which is great for morale.  I'm also back in the swing of posting more regularly with five posts added to the blog this month.   Completed I completed all the 28mm minis that were in progress as we ended April: Two more late-Roman spearmen and staff slinger and archer leaders (more  here ).  Finishing these enabled me to get this collection onto the table for it's inaugural battle (see below)....