The timing was just right.  Finish up over a year’s worth of planning and work on New Year’s Day.

I was close……but didn’t quite make it.

The genesis of all this was my decision to focus on  specific figure brands for  each period.  The next steps were to inventory all my painted lead and decide what rule sets to use.  This all occurred way back in October 2022.  The rule sets were…..

Pre-Renaissance:  WRG 6th Edition;  Italian Wars:  DBR;  Eastern European Renaissance:  Husaria.

Purchases were made, grotesque shipping charges paid,  and the painting began.

I added an even dozen Hinchliffe Sipahis, along with random German Knights, to the to-paint list.  These stalwarts had been occupying a paper sack since about 1991, but lacked mounts.

Progress was in fits and starts until mid-October, when things got serious.  To keep things moving at speed, I relied on cheat sheets like this:

The bulk of the effort  involved the Old Glory Italian Wars figures.  Painting was the least of my worries.  Figure prep involved a power drill auguring out hands for pikes, spears and halberds.  This was accomplished with White Knuckles and Cold Sweat.

The Hinchcliffe figures came with plenty of flash, requiring way too much X-Acto knife work (with accompanying loss of flesh).

To complicate things, I was running low on metal bases.  Fortunately, after several calculations I determined the quantities on hand were (just) adequate.

The culminating events would be a final base flocking and spraying the figures with gloss coat on New Year’s Eve, with all of my storage boxes (metal hand and shop tool boxes) cleaned and re-organized on New Year’s Day.

It all happened……but late on 12/31 I discovered  two lonely Sipahis and eight Arab Archers  had been missed.  OK, not that big a deal……but still.

These figures will be finished this week.  But, as they say, “Now Is When The Work Begins.”

I have to start playing with the damn things.