Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

A new year and the first monthly hobby update.  After some family dramas to start the year, thankfully things have settled down and January has proved to be a very productive month.  Completed I'm continuing on where I left off from last year in getting stuff done: First of all I polished off a baker's dozen of 20mm Second World War Red Army infantry.  These are now sold by Battlezone Miniatures but they are Sgt. Major Miniatures sculpts.  Bread and butter work for me and a nice early success for the year. You can see more of them here .  While I was working on the above, I was also painting my last four 28mm Victrix Vikings with heads swapped  with ones from other Victrix sets.  There's more of these here . With some figures off the table, I went on to a bit of terrain work.  One of my aims for 2025 is to produce or improve at least one piece of terrain per month: I made some multiple tree bases out of a miniature Christmas tree.  You  ...

I started the month finishing off the 20mm Pz IVs from Early War Miniatures that I'd been painting in August.  I bought this pair at Salute in April.  I didn't start working on them until June.  One of them had the wrong turret and it took a few attempts in contacting EWM to get the correct one sent through.  They're what I'd call classic wargames models.  Made of resin hulls with metal turrets, barrels and accessories they're sturdy and will take handling during a game well.  I think originally these may have been Skytrex models but if anyone knows for sure please leave a comment.  They needed a fair bit of clean up but there's very little assembly to do, just glue the 75mm cannon barrel in and then add what stowage you want.  EWM provide a nice selection of stowage but I didn't add too much as the PzIVs in the photos I was looking at (from vehicles of the IV SS Panzer Korps on the Eastern Front in summer 1944), didn't have a lot on them.  I...

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...

It's been a very busy month all round, and the hobby front has been no exception.  Therefore, this is quite a lengthy update.  Completed I completed the following this month: Verrotwood Cultists.  I really enjoyed doing these, you can see more here including the concept of the Cult. 20mm Second World War Late-War Grenadiers.  There's more of them here .   While doing the above I gave some attention to the rest of my late war winter Eastern Front forces  I've touched up the paintwork where needed and added more texture to the bases of both the Germans and Red Army platoons.   20mm Red Army and Waffen SS I've also weathered and thereby finally completed one of a pair of Jagdpanzer 38s that I built about 20 years ago.  At the time I gave them a very basic finish with the information readily and freely  available being a fraction of what it is now.  I've only done the one as I want to add camo to the other before weathering. ...