The Year in Review 2014 - Figure Painting

I am getting a jump on some of the blogger-required end of year recap posts, as we have family coming to stay for the holidays soon, and I expect free time will be at a bit of a premium over the next week or so. Specifically, with the basement painting table cleared and briefly put into storage, the chances of me getting any substantial painting time in is unlikely. I may have some time next week (I hope to...), but whatever I accomplish in those last few days won't change my year end position by much if at all...

Always more medievals

In summary, 2014 may have been my most productive year of painting output in memory, or maybe ever. I paint on the slow side, and paint in spurts, with weeks or even months in some cases between bursts of activity. This year really wasn't any different, but a few of the bursts I had, notably in April/May and October/November were more sustained than usual.

In 25mm mounted, I painted 55 figures:

• 36 German knights, some totally repainted and some new.
• 6 Ottoman akinji light cavalry.
• 3 Ottoman sipahis.
• 10 mounted crossbows.

In 25mm foot I painted 84 figures:

• 56 Norman heavy infantry.
• 10 Hundred Years War crossbows.
• 12 voynuk heavy infantry.
• 6 medieval civilians.

In 15mm WW2, 87 pieces of various types:

• 10 US tanks.
• 8 US trucks.
• 6 US jeeps.
• 3 German tanks.
• 6 US antitank guns.
• 12 US gun crew.
• 42 US infantry.

And in terrain:

• 12 buildings in 15mm.
• Many bocage/hedge terrain pieces.
• Some modular road sections.
• Three 4' by 6' terrain boards of foam insulation board and green tie-dye fleece (more on these later). In addition to the three boards (two of which are perfectly flat), I made 10-12 hill pieces of various sizes and shapes that can be used with the boards (made of the same carved foam and glued-on fleece).

I'm pretty sure I painted a few more things, but I couldn't remember what...

To this total should be added the fact that I spent a lot of time in various increments throughout the year brightening up and partially repainting some of my older figures (German medievals, generic medievals and Normans especially). In all, this probably encompassed dozens of mounted figures and well over a hundred foot figures.

A village worth of buildings

Heading into 2015, there are a bunch of figures in various stages of painting that should be showing up in blog posts at some point, and a lot more figures after that which have been prepped and primed and are waiting in the wings. These include large batches of Ottoman armored and unarmored sipahis, Ottoman foot of several kinds, Hungarians to go against the Ottomans, lots of 15mm WW2 German infantry and US paratroops, German vehicles (8-10 halftracks and a dozen or so tanks), French Hundred Years War infantry of various kinds, and the list goes on. If I didn't prep and prime another figure, I doubt I could get through what I have ready to go in 2015. That's a good thing.

Tanks and Trucks and Jeeps

Lastly, as far as my figure collecting goes, I finally came to terms with reality and sold off some of my little children (actually, lots of them). Flea market tables at Cold Wars and Fall In were both good to me in terms of selling off distractions, diversions, and things I will never either paint, or use if already painted. At one end of the spectrum is what my figure collection would ideally look like with regards to periods and scales (given my primary interests), and at the other end of the spectrum is the unfocused "little bit of everything that ever caught my fancy gone haywire" approach. It's probably fair to say that I started the year much closer to the latter, and have ended the year well closer to the ideal than I began. I won't reach the ideal in my lifetime, but it's the journey that counts. More progress will be made this year.