Major Ballsup's Hobby Shed

This is what I've been working on this week. Painting/modelling   I made a few batches of different shades of clump foliage out of old dish scourers.  I really like doing this sort of thing as they would have ended up in landfill.  They took no time and little effort to do.  Each scourer made a small bag of material.  When I've honed the technique and make more I'll do a post on it. I made some more jungle terrain to act as a link between my Vietnamese village and the jungle - more pics here . I cleaned up and started to paint a squad of Battlezone Miniatures USMC raiders to be used as ALN fighters for the Algerian War project. Research I'm well into A Savage War of Peace by Alistair Horne now.  What a great book it is. I'm still researching the French Algerian and Indo-China Wars as and when time allows.   Purchases Very restrained this week with only a few things coming in: I ordered a couple of packets of Swamp Green Tall Wild Tufts from S...

This is what I've been working on in the first week of Feb. Painting/modelling   I finished revamping the bases of my French Indo-China War figures so they fit in better with the terrain.  They got a dark wash and then I added a mix of static grass and lichen (which I'd put through an old blender) and then various grass tufts.  Finally I added a few more earth tones. They look a lot better now. I made a base for my Indo-China village buildings detailed  here . I did some more to my jungle scatter terrain, adding a few more earth tones to the bases.  I really need to stop fiddling about with these.   Painted a load of corrugated cardboard in preparation for making yet more jungle terrain and started to make some more.  You can't have enough. Village surround in progress I've been experimenting with making my own scatter material.  I'll probably do a post on this later. Research I started to read A Savage War of Peace by Alistair Horne aga...

I can't believe we're already at the end of the month.  Here's what I've been up to this week. Painting/modelling I started the week still mucking about trying to work out the colours to repaint the bases of the figures for the  Algerian War project.  I also spent a load of time online looking at terrain mats and how to make terrain mats.  I felt I was getting nowhere so have switched to the other side of the world and back to Indo-China.  I've been doing a bit more work on my jungle terrain that I made last year and also revamping the bases of my French Indo-China War figures so they fit in better with the terrain.   I've also been fiddling about with EVA foam.  I bought a pack and have been doing tests to see how viable it is for terrain making. Research I finished Black Earth by Timothy Snyder.  Superb book but glad to have finished it.  It doesn't do much for your thoughts of other nations and people reading a book like that. I'...

Here's what I've been up to this week. Painting/modelling The first part of the week I was finishing off the regiment of 24 20mm EIC Sepoys from Newline Designs for my Sikh Wars project.  You can see about them in more detail here .   I've been trying to decide on the colours to repaint the bases of the figures I'm going to use as proxies for Algerian ALN fighters.  This will also determine how I paint the terrain I'm planning to build so it's important to spend time on it.  Research I've been reading Black Earth by Timothy Snyder.  I read Bloodlands years ago and it's one of the best and worst books I've ever read.  Best in that it's so well written, absorbing and interesting and worst in that it's about one of the bleakest periods of history.  Black Earth is similar.  It's not light reading.  However, if you don't read about these subjects I think that you are never going to understand the principle drivers of the Nazis and the So...

First full week of work since the Xmas break so less hobby time but still made some good progress. Painting/modelling The majority of hobby time this week was spent painting a regiment of 24 20mm EIC Sepoys from Newline Designs for my Sikh Wars project.  When I left them last week they had been cleaned, primed, based and the bases textured.  I managed to do the majority of the painting this week. Just the final details, varnishing, bases and flag and they're done. Sepoys in progress.  I also dug out all my odd 20mm figures to see what might make suitable Algerian ALN proxies.  I'll be working on these once the Sepoys are done. Research Continued looking through all my French wars of decolonisation books and wrote a piece on my interest in these conflicts - read here .   Had a brief look into other modern wars with French influence such as the conflicts in Chad. Purchases My first purchases of the year arrived. A Savage War of Peace - with all those thoughts...

As a bid to use the blog as my wargaming diary this year I'm going to try and do a weekly summary of what I've been doing.  I tend to only post completed items and then it doesn't look like I've done much.  So here we go for the first week of 2022. Gaming Got in a cracking game of Donnybrook set in The Old West - read about it here Painting/modelling Did all the prep for the last Newline Designs 20mm Sikh Wars unit which is a regiment of 24 EIC Sepoys. EIC Sepoys based, sand added and primed Managed to finish the fencing to go round my Old West farmhouse -read about it  here Research Had a good look through all my French wars of decolonisation books.   Organised some of my PDFs sorting out the Korean War titles particularly.  Had a brief look into Central and South American wars of the first half of the 20th Century (are we going down the rabbit hole?) A positive start to the year with plenty of hobby activity.