I’ve been pretty bad at updating this recently and so I thought it was probably time to give a rundown of my builds over the last few months. I’m going to divide it into categories rather than in chronological order because it makes more sense, I’ll also include the ‘shelf of doom’ builds to encourage me a little bit.
Figures
After finishing the Sheffield Pal I found myself a little addicted to busts and so I picked up a couple from e-bay and completed them in tandem. The first is a Young Models bust of Jack Aubrey from the books (at least I’ve interpreted it this way as he is slightly tubbier than Russel Crowe in the film). It was a joy to build and paint and has, I think, set me on a path of building Young Miniatures busts – they are gorgeous.
The second one is a Roman general from Steve Kirtley. Again, fun to paint although the metals posed their own challenges. I bought the figure because I was struggling to successfully 3d print something similar, although now I’ve got the printer dialled in I might have another go so if you like romans watch this space.
I spent a couple of weeks away on a course in July and took some figures with me to finish off, including an FER French knight which I bought second hand, mostly painted by somebody else so all I had to do was the surcoat which is in the colours of Baron Scrope de Bolton, largely because I thought the name ‘Scrope’ suited the face of the figure. The second figure I did was a 3d printed Roman Centurion. Again, great fun to paint and a lovely print by mininormous on my mini factory, I’ll definitely be doing more in the future.
The final entry in the figures category is this chap; a British para officer circa 1944 from ‘mitches military miniatures’. He is huge, about 6 inges tall, which gave a huge amount of scope for adding texture to the face and bits of field gear. I’m really pleased with the way he turned out and feel like he is probably my first figure that suggests the development of a particular ‘style’. The Dennison smock was also fun to paint, although it was interesting seeing the variety among originals and trying to produce something representative.
Tracks
Only three tanks in the last few months, a Sherman E8, Matilda Mk 2 and a Vickers light Mk 6b. The former were both Tamiya kits and, whilst I enjoyed the builds, I found the final steps a bit frustrating. I think I’m having a bit of a mojo crisis with armour – I just can’t get the weathering to where I want and by the time I get to that stage I don’t really have the will to carry on. The Vickers is a Vulcan kit built as a comission. It wasn’t fun to build but I love these early war British colour schemes.
Wings
Another Spitfire! This one a Tamiya Mk VIII which was a pleasure to build and a pig to paint. Actually that’s not entirely fair – I thoroughly enjoyed most of the painting process, in fact I think once the mottling and decals were done it was probably my best ever aircraft built. The trouble came when I tried to do some ‘salt weathering’ which left a white residue that really came out when I gave it a coat of varnish, leaving huge white smears all over the aircraft and looking thoroughly awful. Weirdly a couple of coats of mr levelling thinner seemed to get rid of it but there is some residue which I can’t unsee. Annoyingly I also lost the cockpit and so this virtually finished 1/32 model is sitting on a shelf awaiting a replacement. I’m sure I’ll get around to fixing it at some point.
A far happier build was this Bandai A-Wing, another beautifully straightforward kit that I built in about 2 hours with nothing more than some nippers, a blade and some glue.
Warhammer Adjacent 