Latest YouTube video.

 Lots of interesting feedback on this one. I have been trying to sound out other painters for the Napoleonic commission with most UK painters coming in around the £4 to £5 mark to paint AB infantry and around £6+ plus for Napoleonic cavalry. Fernando Enterprises have been suggested several times to me as they are most certainly much cheaper although shipping maybe an issue possibly given the weight? Anyway, I have passed all of this onto Mark but if anybody reading this does know of a quality painting service Uk based please do drop me a line or leave a comment here, Thank you.

Leo Barron's Epic Waterloo game!

 Leo Baron - for whom I am currently painting through the 'Hannibal Barcas Army' box set - sent me these photos of his superb Waterloo game using Epic miniatures in vast numbers so with his permission I share them here. I think they say it all about why the Warlord Games Epic concept has taken the hobby by storm, they look like real armies, big battalions, affordable models  and designed for ease of painting. Leo tells me there are even some of my figures in there somewhere, painted a few years ago now as I recall. 

At this stage of the game the Imperial Guard and Prussians were not on the table!

28mm British Airborne, 15mm WW2 French & more Epics!

I painted these 8 bases of 'Epic' Liby-Phoenician cavalry from the Hannibal Barca set for Leo in 2 daily sessions, 4 each day.  Once I had the paint scheme in my head I simply let go and enjoyed picking out the various colours of tunics, shields and horse flesh before final detailing. I worked on these by attaching the outer and middle figure to the Warlord bases, leaving the two inside figures mounted in the usual wine tops then glued in place once completed. It's why I really enjoy painting Epics, the fast style suits the way I like to paint figures, working up from black base to flat brown dry brush then going in picking out the horse shades then the figures. I'm going to paint through all 24 bases of cavalry -  different types - as a single batch, Celtic cavalry next up.

I'm spending today on basing, including the first two regiments of Union cavalry for Noel, 

I also painted the 6 Warlord 28mm Pars for myself over the weekend, Great little figures to assemble and paint. Going to show my neighbour who served in 3 Para in the Falklands and Northern Ireland.

Finally I decided to paint up the 15mm Peter Pig WW2 French infantry squad. I'm going to have a crack at a small 'One Hour Skirmish' set up in 15mm after all, basically I don't really want to go back to collecting everything in 28mm again much as I enjoyed painting the larger figures. I have a few bits on order so we shall see where this idea goes but small scale, small space works for me!

I don't like to let anyone down, but it was more than I could handle.

 I mentioned recently that I had hit a wall with my painting and I knew that I needed to do something to sort things out. Having completed the 60 odd large sci fi figures for David and posted them back to him I tried to turn my attention back to the 18mm Napoleonic commission for Mark. I knew that I had been struggling to paint these finely detailed castings for some time and had mentioned it in my YouTube videos with feedback from other painters so it was time to make a painful decision, I had to be honest with both myself and Mark and admit defeat. The project had completely overwhelmed me, painting them to the standard they deserve with the numbers involved was so demanding and tiring it was clearly impacting upon my mental health. I don't feel great about it, Mark has been understanding though obviously disappointed, but it had to be done. Everything is being packed up for return this week. I am very sorry.

Going forward I'm going to stick with painting Epics plus the 20mm's that I do for Old John of course. I have a well established method for painting the Epic strips now at a speed/quality ratio that is both enjoyable and keeps the costs down.

So, I'm still painting monthly batches for Noel, we are finishing off his vast Epic based ACW project with the cavalry, four 20 figure Union and four 20 figure Rebs plus dismounted and horse holder bases. This week I painted two regiments, 40 cavalry and they are a mix of Epic plastic and Peter Pig metals, a perfect match for  scale as you can see below. Photos show them pre varnish and flags etc. I'm back to Carthaginians this week for Leo!

I also painted 2 more units of 1/72nd scale Streltsi for Old John before I did the cavalry. We had a nice long chat on the phone this week, I have been painting for Jon for more than 15 years now!

Germans Little & Large!

 I mentioned recently that I intended to put together the required figures and terrain for 'One Hour Skirmish' rules and started by painting up some of the lovely Peter Pig 15mm Germans. It soon became clear to me that 15mm scale was not going to work, I think mainly for me because my foray into model railways, (Yaldbury is still work in progress), had given me a real taste for making terrain again. As the game only requires a 3'x 3' table it makes sense to put as much detail into it as possible and so I switched my plans to 28mm scale as there is so much potential to create realistic layouts. The plan now is to begin with German V British and more specifically Waffen SS v Paras. Obviously Bolt Action multi part sprues were the way to go for me and I have spent a nice relaxing couple of days putting together and painting the first 6 figures for the squad, an NCO, MG42 and 4 riflemen in camouflage smocks. I have used slightly larger bases (30mm) because I wanted to be able to dress them up a little more. The addition of a few flowers to the NCO and MG42 bases aids identification. Really pleased how they turned out and especially the representation of the 'Pine' pattern smocks. I should mention the service provided by Caliver books, the single sprue cost around £9 and arrived two days after ordering via eBay. Will be ordering more from them, first of the Paras next.

Edit: I apologise if you tried to leave a comment and was unable to recently, I had been playing around in settings to change the header colour and must have managed to change the comment settings as well! Now reset.

Lee.

An Ancient Blitz - a more upbeat post!

I have been taking time to think about my recent period of painting malaise (better than the term 'burn out' I think). I have had some useful feedback, especially on my YouTube channel where other painters have expressed going through similar experiences and it's impact. I think I understand the root causes now and so will be able to address them going forward.

That said I have been taking things easy over past weeks but I did manage to put in a solid nine days work on the batch of Warlord Epics you see below. It was a push but I think it did me good mentally to know that I can still do it! Alongside these I also pushed myself to finish off the last of the large sci fi figures for David which I was doing for the Battle Cry game exchange. As I said to David I had clearly hit the wall on these too but was determined to get them completed for the Summer. In the  same 8 day period I have thus painted the final figures, 4 more Space Marines, 15 Space cadets  and the last 4 Tyrranids. This completes the 60 odd figures and it feels really good to have cleared the decks a little more. David will have them by end of this week but I'll do a photo post of them all together before they go this week.

For the rest of August I'm taking things easy!

Warlord Epic figures painted for Leo - 12 bases (24 strips) of Libyan heavy infantry, decals applied to most shields as supplied by Warlord. A good 4 hours work in this alone as the decals need to be carefully lifted from the backing sheet in water and applied with a brush removing as much excess water as possible from the shield. When dry sealed with matt varnish. 4 elephants assembled and painted. 7 days painting, 1 day on the decals and 1 full day basing all in. It feels good, a sense of achievement that has given me a mental boost 

More Warlord Games Epics and painting burnout!

I have taken things a little easier through July as was starting to feel the effects of oncoming burn out, it happens every so often when painting for so many hours per week. I think this is where the Yaldbury layout build has been a great therapy, a fresh challenge which has required learning new skills. I have also reduced my social media and general online time so may need to catch up a few messages etc.

However, I will still continue to paint model soldiers for as long as I'm able although the pace may well slow down going forward.

Just arrived from Leo in the US, the rest of the Warlord Games Carthaginian Army box for me to paint! The initial batch of Spanish and Italian & infantry made it back to Arizona in just 5 working days (* see shipping/customs rant below!)

Painting these will be spread over three monthly batches alongside other stuff.
Also. more Warlord Games ACW's for regular customer Noel in Ireland, this time 3 Zouave regiments (fancy pants ), New York, Pennsylvania and Louisiana. I do enjoy painting the Epic's.

* Shipping rant:: DPD to the US from UK £35.00 (GBP) no US import charges and delivered in 5 working days. The Hannibal box set from US to Uk carried a Royal Mail handling charge and a UK Customs import charge of £44.00 before it could be delivered here.