Stuck at Home; Keeping myself sane

When we went in to Lockdown in March I was furloughed by work. So I decided to keep myself sane whilst stuck at home I’d try and get as much mini painting done as possible. During this time I was able to paint a staggering amount of miniatures painted. This lasted right up to August before I was made redundant.

After that point I slowed my painting down a touch. This is because I’ve had to occupy my time since lockdown ended to finding a new job, as the company I was working for made a mass of redundancies and I was unfortunately one of them. This means I’m spending more time on job hunting and less on painting as a result. I did enjoy the opportunity to have the free time during lockdown and being furloughed to paint some miniatures and boy did I managed to get a fair few finished.

So, during those few months before the November lockdown I managed to finally finish all the Walking Dead miniatures I currently have. All I need to start now are all the Walking Dead Sanctuary board game miniatures I have. Though the only difference between them is the fact that Mantic’s Walking Dead minis are based on the comics whilst the Sanctuary are based on the TV series.

So The November Lockdown hit and I decided to try and paint another large batch of minis. I got busy painting up vehicles for both Team Yankee and Flames of War. For Team Yankee I built and painted five T-55 tanks from Plastic Soldier Company. For these I opted for a simple paint scheme as this would be fast and easy to do. So, I used Vallejo’s Russian Uniform Green and a Military Shader wash by Army Painter. For Flames of War I managed to pick up some US Half-tacks by PSC, as I plan to add an infantry company to the US army. Again, I used the same paint scheme as I did with the T-55’s.

I also managed to get a few miniatures painted for Bolt Action, and when I say a few I really mean a few. I painted a few for the US army that included a Stoessi Heroes miniature which is a private, but I plan to use him as a colonel and commander of the army. Alongside this I also got around to paint some Brits for my desert war army, which included an anti-tank unit and a small mortar team and a bren gunner.

On top of all that I finally got around to painting the Skaven Blood Bowl team which has been sat on the shelf for the last two years. I decided to base the colour scheme on an old XFL American football team. This was a simple paint scheme which made getting this team painted and finished quite quickly. I always recommend making your palette very simple especially when painting units as this will speed things up and make life a lot easier.

One thing I managed to do which I haven’t done for a while is paint a large-scale miniature. I painted a 70mm modern dwarf. I found this quite a challenge as it’s been awhile since I painted anything above 28mm, though I enjoyed the process it was a challenge jumping from 28 up to 70mm. Once I finished the miniature, I decided to make a start on another, though this time I decided to paint a 54mm US Infantry soldier in Vietnam.

On top of all this I painted some miniatures for a few other projects that included a couple for Test of Honour, a couple of 40k minis along with two for SPQR.

As we slowly came out of lockdown and started heading towards Christmas, I didn’t spend as much time on painting as I’d previously had done. I spent more time with the family playing board games and getting ready for the festive season. I did manage to build and finish some more terrain to use on my Asian town project, this included a entrance gate to the town, which was a 3D printed piece I bought from eBay. At the same time I managed to build and paint two Asian bridges from TT Combat, these were really easy to build.

One of the other things I did during this period was to build and prep a large number of miniatures ready for the New Year, this included another batch of tanks for my Flames of War and Team Yankee armies. I also prepped all my Burrows and Badgers miniatures, as well as a batch of Lord of the Rings minis. I also prepped a number of minis for the various other projects I currently have on the go, that includes SPQR, Mortal Gods, Chosen Men and 40K Kill Team along with various fantasy miniatures.

Overall it’s been a productive year for painting and working through the numerous projects I have on the go. This was made easier by the number of lockdowns and restrictions we had in place throughout 2020 since March. I managed to get around 300 miniatures painted, and this included terrain pieces, which is an enormous amount for me, prior to this the best year I had was to get around a 100 finished minis.

Now we’ve entered 2021 and in the UK another lockdown, so for the first 2-3 months I’m expecting to keep up this productivity in miniature painting. After that we’ll see how things go, I don’t expect to paint as much as I did last year, but I’m hoping to get another large chunk of my grey army painted.