Painting Tally, July-August 2026 + A Very Important PSA

July has mostly been about finishing the home renovation project, as attested by the previous post about our kitchen.

This was important because I had a deadline to meet, as on the 15th of August my daughter was born. Both mother and daughter are safe and healthy. In a few years I'll have an assistant for my hobby projects!

A Different Kind of Modelling

 

Before anybody thinks that the title means I show my beach body on the pages of this blog, I must disappoint. I finished the process of remodelling our kitchen instead.

This is the smallest room in our flat but it required the most of the renovation work. I dropped the bomb and disembowelled the whole thing, removing all furniture, wall and floor tiles.

Painting Tally, June 2026

June has been more productive than May (when I didn't do a thing, go the naysayers).

Here's the exact list:

28mm

Primed

26x Bloody Miniatures ECW/TYW figs

24x Warlord Games Clubmen

6x Warlord Games Generals

1/72

Completed

16x GNW Russian infantry

Primed

32x GNW Saxon infantry

1/700

Painted

Aoshima IJN Nagato 1927

1/2000

Painted

RHN Averof

Repainted about 10 of my earlier models and made bases for them (which require a layer of varnish)

Rurik II

Primed

SMS Blücher

This means a total PU of 722.

Purchases: Mostly concerning the Aurora build, some additional third party building material, a display cabinet etc.

June is birthday month, so I got both a model kit (a Trumpeters USS West Virginia 1941) and the aforementioned Warlord metal figures, a splendid haul if I say so myself.

When in Vienna...

On the first week of June my wife and I took a train to Vienna as part of my birthday trip. Instead of Schönbrunn and Wienerschnitzl I selected two museums as our programme for the day: the Royal Armouries and the Military History Museum. Both are within 20mins of the main train station, although in opposite directions.

We started with the Royal Armouries (Hofjagd- und Rüstkammer), which houses many fancy artefacts of the Renaissance, starting from the 1490s all the way to the middle of the 17th century. There are many halls full of arms and armour, a fine choice if you are into stuff like that.

I took a multitude of photos, but here are the highlights of the day, starting with a big bunch of two-handed swords.

Painting Tally, May 2026 (or lack thereof)

May is the first time in the over one and half years of tracking my painting output when I did NOT paint anything (that is, get something at least to an assembled or primed state).

I spent some time on the Aurora model, but that is far from being assembled or primed. There is still some minor tweaking to do (and I shall make follow-up posts). Similarly, I did some painting on a 1/700 scale interwar fit IJN Nagato.

Besides the ship model and the suitable aftermarket parts, I only bought a bunch of meeples. They are in the process of being armed with toothpicks and coffee stirrer shields.

By the measure of area to be completed, the home renovation is progressing well and an A/C was just installed in our living room. 

I hope to focus more on hobby projects in June, continuing my 28mm TYW project and the 1/72 WSS figures.

Painting Tally, April 2026

April has been a rather productive month. In the period leading up to the end of summer I'm going to start (and hopefully complete) a house renovation project, so the hobby will more than likely stay on the back leg.

Let's see the list then:

28mm

Completed

14x Perry Swiss

6x Italian crossbowmen

6x Italian halberdiers

2x Perry mounted MAA

2x Warbases carts

8x Warbases animals

4x Scratch-built cart contents

Primed

12x Perry Swiss arquebusiers

1x Warlord landsknecht halberdier

2x scratchbuilt city buildings

28x Bloody Miniatures ECW/TYW figs

1/700

Painted

1/700 IJN Hibiki (after long suffering)

Primed

1/700 IJN Nagato interwar fit (in subassemblies)

1/2000 

Completed

12x warships

This totals a PU of 930.

Regarding purchases, I bought the aforementioned Bloody figs on their "Not at Salute" yearly sale, some epoxy putty, extra containers and a few bottles of paint.

Painting Tally, March 2026

Despite spending a lot of time studying, I still managed to cram out a bunch of figures in March, effectively completing the infantry element of my 17th century Cossack army among others.

At the end of the month I took a more leisurely pace and constructed some 1/2000 warships.

28mm
Completed

1x town house
16x Foundry Cossack infantry
6x Foundry Cossack foot command
1x Wargamer Baska to go with the Cossacks
5x Wargamer plastic Spaniards
12x Fireforge Mongols (as Crimean Tatars)

Painted

2x Warbases carts

8x Warbases draught animals

1/72

Completed

8x WSS Danish Cavalry

16x GNW Swedish Infantry

Primed

4x Knights

16x GNW Russian Infantry

Other small scale

Completed

4x toy sailing ships

4x 1/2000 Iron Dukes

Painted

1x 1/2000 MN Charles Martel

3x 1/2000 Orlando / Infanta Maria Teresa-class ACR

4x 1/2000 Äran-class coastal defence ships

1x 1/2000 SMS Sankt Georg

1x 1/2000 Vladimir Monomah

Assembled

1x 1/2000 SMS Habsburg

2x 1/2000 torpedo boats

In total this means a PU of 1183, a rather respectable output.

Purchases: I bought the aforementioned Warbases carts, animals, some 60x30 pill bases, and then some paints and tufts. Not much really. 

For April I plan to purchase some more Bloody Miniatures figs and perhaps the WW2 naval rules by Sam Mustafa.

Painting Tally, February 2026

The previous month started well and I could make good progress on my painting projects. 

I did not have any clear goals, and most likely will not continue to have, other than paint what is on hand and start planning a house renovation.

Here's all what I did to date:

28mm

Completed

8x Foundry Hajduks

10x Warlord Firelocks as Sikler/Wallachian Green Rifles

12x Warlord ECW/TYW Cuirassiers

Primed

1x scratchbuilt town house with walled garden

Assembled

12x Fireforge Mongols (Crimean Tatar proxies for my Cossacks)

1/72

Painted (requires varnish and basing)

8x Strelets WSS cavalry

16x Strelets GNW Swedish Infantry

6mm

Completed

36x Napoleonic French GAC

36x Austrian Cuirassiers

192x Austrian Line Inf in helmet

This results in a monthly PU of 1220, continuing the theme of a more productive month following a less productive one.

Purchases

I bought a few plastic figures from Wargamer.pl, the aforementioned Mongols, and the famed Risk replacement plastic ship lot from Amazon. This latest item is due to arrive from far away Texas, USA towards the end of March.

As an anniversary gift from my wife I received the Strelets box of 'Court and Army of Peter I', more than a hundred figures of 1/72 goodness included.

I also have a new phone now and hopefully I'll be able to take better pictures, which should increase my blogging activity.

Painting Tally, January 2026

I have to say the year started well, on both the painting and the real life front. I managed to pass my second bar exam and also made some progress with diminishing The Heap.

Here's what I did this month:

28mm

Completed

14x Perry Swiss

12x Polish cavalry (Warlord plastic conversions)

8x homecast Cossack infantry

Primed

12x Warlord TYW Cuirassiers

30x Foundry Cossacks (and Polish Haiduks)

6mm

Primed

72x Napoleonic cavalry (Austrian cuirassiers and French GAC)

192x Napoleonic infantry (Austrian in helmet)

Other

Completed

11x scratchbuilt 1/1200 scale galleys

1x Zvezda 1/350 San Martín

Assembled

1x Lego Acclamator starship

This results in a total PU of 1115.

I purchased the aforementioned Foundry foot Cossacks, the Lego ship and a book on the armies of the Principality of Transsylvania.

2026 Plans

A bit late to the party, but here goes.

I have begun the year kind of being busy with life, and according to the latest prophecies, this shall remain the same way, more of that anon.

With that in mind, I strictly set myself some limited goals, usually revolving around already existing parts of my figure collection.

2025 - A Year In Numbers

In the past year, according to my calculations, I have completed:

2011 figures and other items, of which

28mm: 186pcs

1/72: 110pcs

6mm: 1680pcs

Other: 35pcs

not counting large models.

This translates to a total PU score of 11857,5, and a monthly average PU of 988,13, or, roughly 168 figures per month.

Painting Tally, December 2025

This has been a mix and match month painting wise. I managed to wrap up my 6mm terrain building frenzy and get the groundwork going for some other projects. I also did some rationalizing of storage space by assembling a bunch of plastic figures and binning the sprues.

I set two goals for myself this month, to start with the 6mm Napoleonic project (which I failed), and to keep working on the Pile and reduce it somewhat (which I managed). Next month I shall attend my second bar exam out of three, so again there's not much output to be expected.

Here's the complete list of what I did this month:

Completed

6mm

10x river sections

1x pontoon bridge

2x mills

2x town and village built areas

1/72

16x WSS Infantry

8x GNW Cavalry

5x GNW artillery + crew

Primed

28mm

8x Warlord Firelocks

14x Perry Mercenaries (Swiss pike with Warlord head swaps, incl. 2 command)

Assembled

28mm

4x Napoleonic plastic infantry

3x Macedonian Phalangites

7x Greek Hoplites (these three all Warlord freebies)

11x Perry arquebusiers/crossbowmen

8x Warlord Firelocks

12x Warlord Cuirassiers

96x KiK Block Italian Wars tokens

This brings the total PU of the month to 549, not too good, not too bad. 

Purchases: nothing. Believe me when I say so!

However, for Christmas from my dear wife I received:

- a box of Warlord ECW/TYW Cuirassiers 

- four Lego Pirates sets

- a Revell 1/150 Vasa model kit

These should keep me entertained for a long while.

In other news, once I worked out all the necessary data, I can evaluate my painting total across the whole year. Here's to good spreadsheets and a happy 2026 for everyone!

Introduction to the Painting Unit System

This is the chart that I came up with at the beginning of the year and have been using to keep track of my painting progress. Itt allows me to assign a single value to any number of models I paint.

It is a weighted system, more or less based on the size and complexity of the object. I assign points to time spent on unfinished (painted, primed or assembled) models as well. Each of these sub-phases have a specific Painting Unit, or PU (read as the 'pooh' from Winnie-the-Pooh') value assigned to them, which is multiplied by the number of items falling in that category, and the sum of these yields my monthly PU output, which I track in a diary.

Scores are not carried over or subtracted, so a project primed in one month and completed in the next carries full value in both time periods.

Generally a completed model receives the most value, while for large scale models (which are painted in subassemblies) assembly weighs more than painting.

I have been meticulously administering the number of painted figures and other hobby-related things throughout the year, and by the end of December I can come up with a yearly review.

This overview will mostly be the test to see how well the system works and whether I can gain anything by it, e.g. does it help on focusing certain projects or scheduling my hobby time.

Painting Tally, November 2025

I was able to spend more time on the hobby in November. I was on sick leave for three days but I could get up and paint stuff.

The monthly goals were the following:

- play a game of Pikeman's Lament - succeeded

- work on The Pile - well advanced

- Christmas purchase - also done

Here's the list of all the things I did:

Painting Tally, October 2025 - Passing the Bar Edition

Readers might have noticed that I was not as active on the blog lately as usual. Well that is because I was preparing for my first bar exam out of three, so painting figures took small priority.

Good news is that I completed the examination so now I'm hopefully going to have more spare time, at least until I start preparing for the second one in earnest, which I plan to take at the end of January.

Anyways, I still managed to squeeze in some painting and modelling time, the results of which are:

28mm

Painted (requires varnish and basing)

8x Warlord Landsknecht pike

Assembled

26x Perry Mercenaries (2 command, 19 pike, 5 shot)

I do not count this towards my painting goals, but I'm well into the process of rebasing my Italian Wars collection (as mentioned on my miscellaneous blog). 

1/2000

Painted (requires varnish and basing)

4x Iron Duke class battleship

This brings the month's Painting Unit output to 188, the poorest number of the year.

Purchases

I bought a bunch of grey paints for my ship models (along with a rust and linoleum brown colour).

Further, I purchased two boxes' worth of Perry Mercenaries, which will become my Italian Wars Swiss pike, and Italian/French missile troops.

I know the pikemen's garment would be a bit early for the period, but I can do a lot of head swaps with remaining Warlord Landsknecht heads to make them look better, and I can bolster them later with some Artizan, TAG and Foundry figures.

I contemplated the new Warlord Games metal Swiss but they are not very convincing in my eyes.

Painting Tally, September 2025

Despite the lack of posts, this month has also been rather productive, mainly because I could get a major chunk of my 6mm figures done again.

28mm

Completed

    8x Warlord Winged Hussars (featured in the previous post)

6mm

Completed - the light troops for my Austrian/Flossian SYW project

    4x terrain pieces (a town, a village, a swamp and a forest

    60x SYW regular cavalry

    34x SYW light cavalry

    64x SYW light infantry

    4x SYW artillery and crews

Painted (requires basing) - this is the regular Russian/Medvetland contingent

    4x SYW command

    34x SYW regular cavalry

    192x SYW infantry

1/1200

Completed

    4x Ark Royal metal ships, wrapping up the project for a while now

1/2000

Assembled

    4x Iron Duke class dreadnoughts

This brings the month's Painting Unit value to 1524, a respectable quantity.

As to purchases, I ordered a Napoleonic lot from Commission Figurines (about a thousand figures), bases to go along with them, a pair of primers and a Tamiya 1/700 scale IJN Hibiki destroyer.

Going back to the naval project, I have to replenish my grays and probably buy new Kolinsky brushes (have been using the previous ones for two years now and their age shows), but this slipped over to October.

Painting Tally, August 2025

I try to post at least once a week on the blog, but sometimes life overrides that, just as in this case as I'm preparing for my bar exam.

Still I could take a few days off and get done with painting.

My rather limited goals for August were:

- play a game related to International Naval Wargaming Day - succeeded, although a few days late

- paint 28mm 17th c. Eastern European figures - success

- paint 6mm figures - success

The secret of success lies in setting reasonable benchmarks I guess.

On to the actual numbers:

28mm

Completed

8x Cossack rabble infantry (Frostgrave conversions)

2x Cossack gunners and a small gun (same as above)

9x homecast Cossack spears and a sergeant

Painted

8x Winged Hussars (metal figures so they shall take another two weeks to varnish and base, but the painting work was the most tedious part)

1x wolf dog for the winged hussar commander

Primed

9x Cossack infantry

12x Polish cavalry (Warlord conversions)

6mm

Completed

192x SYW / Flossian infantry

This brings my Painting Unit value for this month to 1008, a respectable number given the circumstances. Painting 6mm figures is easy and fun and this sort of saved me from getting boggled down with the 28mm project.

Purchases:

Now this list is a lot longer.

I bought a larger batch of figures from Warlord Games, the winged hussars, a 12-figure cavalry regiment and a 18-figure firelock storming party set. The plastics are in the process of being converted for my Polish army.

Then I got a bunch of tools, including a glue gun, a cordless rotary tool, silicone sculpting brushes and burnishers (which I mainly needed to sculpt chainmail). I also replenished my stock of green stuff.

Further I bought a few more organizers, a large cabinet with drawers and a tall plastic container for my Italian Wars figs. I also bought a small Ikea wooden drawer cabinet but it hadn't arrived yet.

Painting Tally July 2025

As usual, my painting output after a very productive month is kind of reduced. I think this period of odd months actually helps not getting tired with anything.

July's goals were:

Paint 1/72 WSS/GNW figs - well done

Paint the German ships for the Denmark Strait - hadn't done anything

28mm Warlord, GBP, FG:GA plastics - done, I finished a bunch of cavalry and foot

Block Galleys - done, finished a galleon, two galiots and four island sections

Play at least one game - a recurring feat which I had not met, unless you count the pair of scenarios I wrote.

Let's get on to the figures:

28mm

Completed

2x Wargamer 17th century ladies

three resin dogs

12x mounted Cossacks

16x Warlord plastic shotte
4x terrain pieces (I counted the island sections as 28mm hills)

1/72

Completed

32x GNW infantry

8x GNW cavalry

1 GNW gun + 4 crew

Primed

16x GNW infantry

8x GNW cavalry

1 GNW gun + 4 crew

Assembled

5x GNW guns

1/350

Completed

1x Zvezda Revenge

2x galiots

As a side note, I'm in a situation (very rare for wargamers/collectors) where actually the greater part of my 28mm collection is painted, all I have are ten piratical crewmen, some Perry HYW bods and maybe a few Landsknechts that I hadn't touched. But I shall remedy that next month with some fresh loot :)

This brings my total Painting Unit value this month to 916, not a bad number at all.

If somebody is interested in my PU system I would be more than glad to share it, but my thinking is I will make a summary at the end of the year and fine tune the system. I started using it in Feb and ten months of data might just be enough.

For the matter of purchases, I bought the 1/72 plastics and three 1/350 plastic ships on a local hobby store sale, plus some craft store paints (mostly for terrain and basing), a large amount of 2mm plasticard, PVA and plastic storage boxes. 

Furthermore I held a great purge and threw out a lot of useless stuff.

Thinking About the Collection

I had the draft of this post in the making for a while, pondering meaninglessly over what and how to do.

Then I reviewed its contents, and being a firm follower of the simple but effective principle, I chose to uphold myself to the things I wrote! So during the previous weekend I held one of my recurring purges, where I binned a great bunch of my unused figures, terrain and other miscellaneous things. 

Now the reason for that is I lack hobby space, and simple emotional value and "this will be good for something" mentality creates clutter. To be organized and disciplined helps keeping the right projects in focus and still allows oneself to be comfortably occupied during precious hobby time.

All of this came from the realization that I have to organize my activities better, because I have a day job, other things I like to do on a daily basis, and time is finite. As most of us are in a similar situation, I thought it would be useful advice.

So here are four things I deemed worthy of sharing that help with hobby projects in general:

1) Planning and creating logs/diaries

I currently have four major documents:

- a project diary where I organize by priority and keep relevant information in a more decentralized manner

- a monthly log where I set my goals for the month and keep track of painting and purchases

- a master spreadsheet with data on the collection, divided by scale and period

- a wishlist for things to buy

Of course this still means that I sometimes lose focus, but leisurely activities cannot be self-regulated that much. This is just a framework so that I don't become too boggled down in details.

2) Organizing storage

The next thing after binning more than five large cardboard boxes' worth of stuff was buying new plastic storage containers. The Danish furniture company Jysk carries transparent plastic boxes that are perfect for my needs and cost a fraction of RUB. I bought a bunch of 8l and 3l ones. I can stack them inside my cabinet and by being able to see what's inside, I can get the things I require out more quickly than having to browse through unlabelled or wrongly labelled cardboard boxes. This helps with knowing what to do next, and where to find it.

3) One period - one scale

I was very much guilty in this for a long while and it actually kept me away from finishing projects near the finish line. It basically boils down to a dialog like this:

- There is a new line of figures for the period I'm collecting, but in an entirely different scale? 

- Let's buy it and have four unpainted and unused armies instead of two complete ones! 

So I reduced the number of my projects and now I try to stick to heterogeneous scales throughout the collection.

For skirmish games I use 28mm figures, because there are a lot of indepentent manufacturers with good complete lines.

For large battles I buy 6mm figures because of the ease of paint and storage, good economical value and splendid overall effect when painted.

I've had a bunch of roughly 1/450 scale ships, which I also binned and turned to 1/350 instead, to go with my block galleys. I have a 1/1000 pre-dreadnought and 1/2000 WW1+WW2 naval project.

I still have two 1/72 projects, in fact I just sort of started one: WSS/GNW period (that's the new one) and late 13th/early 14th century medieval. I threw out most of my Ancient and SYW figures, and am pondering giving away my WW1 figures and vehicles.

For anything else or ad hoc, I just colour print paper figures and use them as stand-ins. These can be thrown out or reused for basically no cost at all.

4) Feng Shui-ing unnecessary objects

With this we return to the beginning of the post. Sometimes it's necessary to throw away things you just store and don't touch in years. We all have an instinct to collect Shiny Objects, be they pebbles for basing, cardboard boxes for scratchbuilding, or someting else entirely. But you don't need most of those, especially if you lack space. Focus on projects that are important to you.

Painting Tally June 2025

This was a very productive month. I finally managed to gather my hobby strength and work through a bunch of projects!

As probably mentioned before, I try to focus my hobby time and set forward no more than five wargaming-related projects each month to complete. My goals for June were:

- paint 6mm figures

- continue the Trashy Fleets ships

- prepare for my 'Siege of Fortress Diken' campaign

- play at least one game

- start the 'Last Knight' space battle campaign

Of this only the Fortress Diken one hadn't got fulfilled (I counted the last two for the same game, the one of which the AAR I posted here a few weeks back).

On to the numbers:

28mm

Completed:

15x Warlord plastic TYW/ECW pikemen

8x Warlord plastic TYW/ECW shotte

10x Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago crewmen

16x Warlord plastic Landsknecht pikemen (they are varnished and glued on a unit base, so I cheated here a little bit)

Painted (not varnished or based):

1x Wargamer Octavia Piccolomini (more on that later)

Primed:

12x GBP plastic Arab light horse posing as Cossack/generic Eastern European cavalry

1x Wargamer Eloise the Musketeer

6mm

Completed:

96x Ancients infantry

42x Ancients cavalry

192x SYW infantry

72x SYW cavalry

40x SYW artillery (counting both crew and guns)

7x SYW command

Primed:

48x Ancients infantry

224x SYW infantry

56x SYW cavalry

(I came to really like the method where I just sit down with 6mm figures and prime as many in one go as I can)

Other

Completed:

1/2000 HMS Hood

1/1000 RHN Lemnos

Assembled:

A Lego Invisible Hand starship I got as a birthday gift

All this brings my Painting Unit value to 2285 for the month, which is about double of the best output of the year so far.

I don't think I'll go further than this as actually my unpainted stock is greatly reduced. Perhaps one day the unimaginable will happen and I'll have all of my figures painted?

Purchases

I made an order with Wargamer.pl for two female figures of their own design, along with a box of the aforementioned GBP Arab horsemen, mostly because they have a flat postage rate and it was thus more economical to purchase more things. Wargamer has a nice line of female figures in appropriate clothes for the 17th century period. The conversion of the GBP horsemen to Cossacks is not my idea, I "liberated" it from a Hungarian fellow wargamer. As far as I can tell only TAG and Foundry make Cossack cavalry (if you don't count the Warlord Games metal Croats which pass from a distance) and twelve plastic horsemen in a box is more bang for your buck.