Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

I lost my mojo at the end of May and this continued on through June.  It happens to all of us at times.  Sometimes a change of project or emphasis is all that's needed and sometimes you just grit your teeth and push on.  Sometimes a few days away from doing anything hobby related is all that's needed.  For the first half of the month I tried the first two of those options, but by mid June I had to use the third.  I had a couple of days of hobby cold turkey, with no hobby related activity at all including not even looking at any social media.   Then after a couple of particularly frustrating days in the real world, I felt the need to paint just to feel I was in control of something.  And that seems to have got me back on track.  I've kept up with limiting my phone use and looking at social media, news etc. and I'm finding that's helping.  There's so many arseholes out there, that even the good things can be spoilt.   The la...

Halfway through the year already, bloody hell has someone sped up time and not told me?  The hot weather this month means my painting time has been limited to early and late in the day. "Why's that?" I hear you ask.  Well my painting desk is in a South facing bedroom and it's hot as Beelezebub's balls in there, with paint drying instantly on the palette.  However, I have managed to progress on a few fronts.   The blog passed 100,000 views in June and shot up to over 103,000 by the end of the month.  I'm not sure if this is all genuine traffic (who knows how these things work), but my sincere thanks to everyone that's visited, and especially those that take the time to comment, either on the blog, TMP or Facebook.  It is very much appreciated and inspires me to keep waffling on.  The blog is just my hobby diary and as there's not any of the most popular subjects (American Civil War, Napoleonics, Warhammer 40K or NWE Second World War) I'm amazed tha...

My first finished miniatures of 2025 are a baker's dozen of 20mm Second World War Red Army infantry.   I picked these three packs up along with two others from Battlezone Miniatures stand at Salute last year.  The sculpts are Sgt. Major Miniatures. They're all dressed in winter clothing.  There's a good mix of greatcoats and the padded jackets and helmets and padded hats.  Two of the figures were in all-in-one suits, so I chose to leave these until I work on the pack of similarly dressed assault engineers I've got. I like these figures.  They're what I'd term "classic" wargames figures.  Maybe the proportions aren't great, maybe they're a bit cartoony and maybe the weapon are quite crudely done, but they've got bags of character which comes out as you paint them.  They're pretty robust too so should take handling during a game without any trouble.  They also fit in very well with my existing Red Army figures from Battlefield, New Line a...

Once again it's been a very busy month.  At one stage in the month I really thought I wasn't getting anything done hobby wise and then looking back as I write this I've not done that badly. Completed I spent the first part of the month prepping for a game that I haven't yet had the chance to play.  This involved: Weathering four Red Army Su-76Ms and two ISU-122/152s.  These are all 1/76th SHQ metal models that I made something like 20 years ago.  The ISUs are hefty pieces which you could brain someone with.  Lovely models.  Working on city terrain.  I made a load more rubble/ruin scatter terrain, which you can see all about  here .  I also added more weathering to the buildings and generally dirtied them up and cut out and painted a load of cobblestone sheets.  28mm Second World War German infantry.  I completed a squad of using a mix of Warlord Games Afrika Korps and German Grenadiers that I got free at Salute 2023.  I kept th...

I've been back in the office this week and had a deadline to meet so hobby time has been a bit curtailed.  I have managed to finish some bits off though.   Painting/modelling   Completed the Battlezone US Marines with head swaps - see here .   Completed some Battlezone WW2 Red Army riflemen.   Redid the bases for my Elhiem French Paras for Algeria - see here .  This is the last of the existing figures that I've redone for the Algeria project.   I've been playing about with a hot wire cutter and polystyrene making some basic hill shapes. Research Finally finished A Savage War of Peace.  What a superb book it is.  It's a pity that due to my eye sight problems that I found it a bit of a strain.   I prepared an Algerian scenario for a game of Ambush Alley.  More on this next time, Incoming! Nowt! Waiting on a few orders to come in.

As with all things repetition allows for improvement.  After I'd completed the first batch of bases I'd already thought about how to speed up and improve the process. I am going to do a post of the complete process step by step. Here's a Red Army platoon all assembled on the latest batch of movement bases I've made.