Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

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...

2024 and 2025 will see the 80th anniversary of many of the great city battles of the Second World War, such as Warsaw, Budapest, Königsberg and Berlin to name but a few.  With this is mind I've been looking at my terrain collection.  My city terrain is centred around some marvellous 20mm MDF buildings I got from Commission Figurines at Salute back in 2014.  I built some rubble piles a few years ago, but when I got it all out of the loft it didn't look very impressive so I decided to make some more. The first job was to sort the base materials.  I used four different materials: cork board; 5mm foam board; old plywood bases and old credit cards.  The cork board and foam board are great materials for this type of terrain proving height, being relatively strong, easy to cut and very lightweight.  I started by pulling apart pieces of cork board to the rough sizes I wanted and then set about the pieces with a Stanley knife and an old screwdriver.  It's...

I managed to get a fair bit of hobby time in this week which included painting some figures.  It's the first ones I've painted since May and it was good to get back to it. Painting/modelling   I finally completed the exteriors of the Spanish/Italian buildings except for the water tower which is still as built.  You can see them here . I've been working on 20mm Sikh Wars artillery crews, for both the Sikh and Anglo-British forces.  They've been cleaned up, primed and painted with just the guns and basing to do.  Research & Reading I've been reading The First Anglo-Sikh War by Amarpal Singh.  This is a fine little book, in two defined sections.  The first part details each battle and the second part is a battlefield guide.  You may think that unless you're actually intending on going to visit the battlefields, that some of the second part isn't that useful, but there's still a lot of good info so don't just skip it all - as I almost did!...

After what seems like an age I finally completed the exteriors of the Empires at War Spanish/Italian MDF buildings.  This last stage was working on the wooden areas such as the balcony railings and doors.  Part 1 , part 2 and part 3 show the work up to this point. I can't really say that they're finished as there's the interiors to do and I also want to make some scenic bases for them.  But I've reached a stage where I'm happy with how they look and would use them in a game. Two Storey house(L).  Large house with balcony (R)                                                          Large three storey house with balcony (L).  Small three storey house (R) Arched building (L).  Taverna (R).  Two views of the church front (L) and rear (R).  Farm (L).  Villa (R). 

Not too much to report, all my hobby activity this week has been spent working on the Mediterranean buildings. Painting/modelling   I completed the exterior wall paint jobs of all the Spanish/Italian buildings except for the water tower which is still as built.  Details here .  Still with the Med. buildings I've been working on all the odds and sods such as the walls for the farm and villa sets, and painting the wooden parts of each building.  I should be able to complete them this weekend.  I've enjoyed doing them but it's been well over a month since I painted any figures and I'm itching to get some done.  I'll do a post with the completed buildings next week.  Research & Reading I've finished reading "Jungle of Snakes: A Century of Counterinsurgency Warfare from the Philippines to Iraq" except for The Algerian War section.    Knowing that The Algerian War is one of "my things" and the reason why I bought the book, I can hear all 5...

With the roofs done, the next stage in the revamp was to work on covering up the unsightly MDF where the corners of each wall joined which I'd talked about here . I grabbed the remnants of a Privateer Press P3 Jack Bone pot that I've had for years and liberally coated all the corners of each building.  P3 paints are very thick, like the old Citadel Foundation range and will cover anything in one coat. Mind the gaps When doing this I noticed quite a lot of gaps at the corners where I'd not assembled the buildings very well.  I decided to fill them, using  Vallejo Plastic Putty which has got a thin applicator nozzle allowing you to be quite precise.  I used an old gift card to force the putty in the  gaps then a rag to wipe it smooth.  With hindsight I should have done this before painting.  With this done it was time to paint the corners and try to blend them into the rest of the walls.  I used Vallejo Model Colour Dark Sand as the base colour and ...

A bit of a funny week.  With the double bank holiday I thought I'd get a lot done but after a good start with a game of Bolt Action and working on the Mediterranean buildings it tailed off somewhat.  Gaming I played a game of Bolt Action, set in Italy 1944.  Read the AAR here .   Painting/modelling   The rest of my hobby time has been spent working on the Mediterranean buildings.  You can read about this here and here .  Research & Reading I've started reading "Jungle of Snakes: A Century of Counterinsurgency Warfare from the Philippines to Iraq".  I picked this up in March for £5.59, £2.80 of which was the P & P.  I bought it for the section on The Algerian War but the entire book looks fascinating.  I was hooked just reading the Introduction and I'm now onto The Philippine Insurrection. Incoming! I've started June in the same frame of mind as May.  I'm fast becoming the wargames equivalent of Norbert Colon the Vi...