A year ago I bought and constructed some modular paint racks from Hobbyzone. This year I bought some storage units to go underneath the paint racks, painting area is levelled up!

Can you spot the difference?

It may look like the clutter hasn't changed but on the extra level, the drawers on the left allow me to store up about 100 25x25mm based figures.

Little bits of other storage that put things out of the way.

Maybe next year I'll give it another level up and get more storage space.

It occurred to me that I haven't posted anything on this blog since Christmas, which was nearly 5 months ago!
I've been doing some painting since then, I swear! It just seems so little!
Instead here are some figures I based and undercoated, including 10 that I missed during the undercoating.
The WW2 Germans, Afrika Korps & WW2 Soviets are from Artizan Designs.
The Melanesian warriors are from Pulp Figures Savage Seas range.
The rock monsters are Stalagbites by Midlam Miniatures.
Are you happy now Paul!?!

That's 2 dozen WWII era Soviet soldiers from Artizan Design done and varnished.

​There are 4 left to do, but I've run out of bases and won't be ordering any more until in  the new year.

I'm also more or less done ​with painting pulp figures until at least next Spring, since there's no longer any urgent need to complete them.

18 more pulp personalities painted and varnished.

That's all of them done, unless they're some more lying around that I haven't spotted. Which is quite likely!

2 of them are wearing kilts, I've hidden them in the back. Painting tartan is something that eludes me still.

The figures here are a mixture of Copplestone Casting's 'Back of Beyond' figures, Pulp Figures, Artizan Design's 'Thrilling Tales' figures and a couple Bad Squiddo figures.

Finally it's time to make a start on those WWII Soviets.

I've been slowly but surely painting since my last update 3 months ago.

Today I varnished 21 pulp personality figures.

They're a mixture of Pulp Figures Pulp Heroes & Personalities, Copplestone Castings' Back of Beyond Adventures and Footsore Miniatures' Irish War of Independence figures.

I'm now about 75% of the way through painting all my pulp personalities.

After that I have to move on to WWII Russians and I need to varnish some vehicles I've got laying around.

About a month ago, Matakishi gifted me with a wet palette, since then I was been making use of it during my painting.
Since then I have been using it with all of my dropper paints. This is what I've found so far.

In case you're wondering, a wet palette (Through the miracle of science.) will prevent any acrylic paint placed on to the palette from drying out and keep it err wet.

How does this work? First there's a spongy layer that is drenched in water, then a very thin layer of 'porous' paper like grease or baking paper is put on top of the spongy layer. Paint is then placed on the paper.
Moisture is absorbed through the paper and into the paint to prevent the paint from drying out.

So is a wet palette worth it?
Obviously a wet palette only really works with dropper paints like Vallejo or Army Painter paints, unless you like to mix or thin your paints.

The Good: Wet palettes do actually work, they prevent paints from drying up for about 2 weeks. After the first 2 weeks of usage, the sponge had become dry, so I replaced the paper and 'rehydrated' the sponge.

The Bad: First off, I'm a miniature painter, I only ever deal with small amounts of paint at a time. This means I only ever put a small amount of paint on the palette at any one time.
Why is this a problem? Well on my palette I currently have 3 blobs of black , which one is the paint, which one is the wash and which one is the ink? It's pretty hard to tell. This can also apply to other paints.
Luckily, it's not too much of a problem. You just need to create a 'system' to manage how you put paints down on the palette.

So it's a bit of a mixed bag so far really.
But I'm not giving up on the wet palette yet! I'm not sure if it's saving me much paint, but it does keep paints from drying up and at least the palette can be easily cleaned (That is, the grease paper can be thrown away!).

There was a gap in the weather on the 21st February that allowed me to varnish the last 9 figures that I'd painted.

It took me about a week to paint all 9 - which is quick going for me.

Painted and varnished 18 figures for Gameblast, various pulp figures and the like.

Unfortunately, the photos I took looked crap! So may some more at a later date.

Well today I threw a mini in the bin, actually I threw it against the painting shed door first (And it left a dent!).

It was a WWII German motorcycle rider from Foundry and I just could not get the stinking handlebars to stick to the bike.

I'd managed to do it with the first 2, but the 3 was too much.

This is only the 3rd time I've ever given up on a mini ever. :(

That's right, 2 painting blogs... in a month.

Today I just varnished 15 German soldiers that I've been painting throughout January. Now ready for The Indiana Jones Charity Globe Trot.

All of the above figures come from Artizan Designs' Germans in Greatcoats or German Infantry ranges.
​
Strictly speaking I doubt any of these are very 'early war' German, but the soldiers in greatcoats are fairly generic so can be used easily throughout the WWII years.