Having nearly finished (after VERY long time) the last set of Woods Indians for a commission for customer who has the patience of the most prestigious German saints, I'm slowing get back on some sort of track with my painting. Taking in to account personal events, the halt that the Corona virus played and now the upheaval the War in Ukraine is taking on the globe, I'm loathed to compain and moan too much. But enough of the down-side to things and on to the post proper ... I'm one-more-to-go with the woods Indians. The slowness partly down to a combination of sorting out the whole painting area and, frankly, felling like I'd lost the abilty to paint anything decent. To try and combat this, I made some terrain pieces for the shop and painted some of my own figures - well shop stock figures, to try and get my eye back. It does tend to work; moving from historical figures to something more sci-fi/fantasy seems to cleanse the pallet (no pun intended). And while it comes over...

For a long time I kept the photography of the figures and models I paint pretty simple with plain white backgrounds, just out of easy more than anything. But as time went on I wanted the photgraphs to look a little more - dare I say - professional. So I started using an open source graphics package called GIMP. With this software, I was able to remove the backgrounds to the models and add in an equally plain, but more regular one. Sometime a light grey, then a faint old paper effect. I still do this with the photographs I take for my reference portfolio. But when posting them on the shop or Instagram, they looked a little anemic. Looking at other people who added scenery and various bases to show off their figures in their photos intimidated me a little but I finally took some tenative steps with some very basic set-dressing to my model photography. And while this isn't a complete run-down of my photography set-up, it will hopefully show that you don't need go crazy with scener...

A short post and a round-up of current projects, starting with another couple of sets from Stronghold Terrain; shield-maiden warriors and civilian/villagers. As always with Stronghold Terrain, these sculpts have plenty of character and action to them, making them a pleasure to paint. As you can see, I'm in the process of prep'ing; filling shoulder joints and evening out the bases before adding sand and undercoating. Next we have a selection that will eventually be added to the shop; the last two female action gunners and Roxlade - a witch/mage character from Westfalia. I purchased the latter more out of curiosity than anything else. The model was on clearance at Bad Squiddo, which seemed a pity as it's a nice sculpt. So not too sure if its still in production? Manufacturers/Suppliers: Stronghold Terrain Badsquiddo Games Copplestone Castings Westfalia

A major social media detox occurred, and I decided to close my Instagram and Twitter accounts. I did this for a few reasons but mostly because they were becoming a bit of a drag. I'd got into the regime of only really scanning through posts when I myself had something to post. If not, I rarely bothered. Pretty selfish. So a clean break was needed, although I kept my Facebook page and I'm hoping that this blog can be dusted off (again), and start posting more solid updates to my work - fingers crossed. And so ... we kick off with some recently finished models. Now, I still have a few sets to paint - two are already in prep - of some SAGA viking figures, from Stronghold Terrain . They are all beautiful sculpts, and a pleasure to paint. As you can see from the photos, we have a shield-maidens as well as some tooled-up villagers! I've also been painting some more figures for my Etsy shop , buying in some Copplestone Casting Future Wars Gunners and a Westfalia mage from Ba...

Only a small progress update here, but have all but one-ish of the Conan set to complete (a Guard), but managed to finish Zogar Sag and have nearly finished Captain Zaparravo. Other than those, are a few pics of some completed Saxons, Saxon Commanders and a few Late Romans. Should be making a start on the Old West (Dead Mans Hand) gangs, Tongs and The Count. Looking forward to painting those sets.

As a first real  post; well a post with some content, we'll start with what figures are currently sitting on the paint desk. I'm at the tail-end of a commission at the moment, a commission that has stuttered somewhat due to a dose of Life getting in the way. So I'm playing catch-up. Finished are a selection of Saxons, Viking women, some Conan figures and a Roman Ballista - quite the selection! And on the nearly-done/still-to-come side, are some more Romans, a couple of Saxon commanders and (not shown) two Dead Man's Hand gangs. A pretty eclectic mix, I think you'll agree. Still, enjoyable to paint none-the less. No promises, but I'll try my best to update this blog on a regular basis, with info on the other sort of stuff I do too, such as foam props, painting and photography. P.S. The figures are from a mixture of manufacturers, most being either Stronghold Terrain or Footsore Miniatures.