July 26, 2026

I’ve been building and painting miniatures for more than 40 years.  My work has been featured in Wargames Soldiers and Strategy and Wargames Illustrated magazines.  Despite that, every time I shift gears, whether in figure painting or building/repurposing, I get nervous and have doubts about whether I have the skill to pull this new thing off.  That was definitely the case with two projects I did this week… the painting of the Jabba the Hutt Wind Sail Barge (popcorn bucket) I got at Disneyland about a month ago, and the construction of a huge Natoshoo’s Cantina I purchased several years ago and have been searching for the guts to build.  The big problem with the cantina is that it came with no building instructions and a lot of pieces.  It is complicated by the fact that it has a beautiful interior and so it needs to be built with a removable roof and that roof comes in several pieces so you have to figure out, “How do I build strong walls separate from the roof and how do I build a strong multi-piece roof without gluing to the walls?”  The truth is my roof is not perfect but it’s not bad given what I had to work with in terms of the way the roof was structured.  The painting is all dry brushing and given the size of the cantina far from easy due to the difficulty in maneuvering the large building while painting.

July 19, 2026

Two weeks ago at the swap meet, I hit it big by finding an Action Fleet TIE Defender for $7 and in perfect condition.  This past week I finally generated the courage to paint it.  The real task in painting a TIE ship is masking the screens.  It takes a lot of time, and the defender has three rather than two screens so a tough job.  That said, I’m really glad I got it done and it came out great.  Since the Defenders are rare, expensive (see eBay) and are prototypes, I don’t have to worry about doing another.

I believe I finished my last Trench Crusade trench position.  I found a third GI Joe long-range cannon for $3 at Savers thrift shop and decided to give it a go.  The two opposing trench lines are now complete.

A couple of years ago I found a great Star Wars Desert Skiff at the swap meet.  It was in terrific condition and only $3.  Its only problem was that it was oversize for 28mm, so I raised a few areas to make them more appropriate for 28mm and then set it aside.  This week I decided that what it needed was a Jabba the Hutt-style sail.  Attaching the sail was the big problem, but it painted up pretty well.

I closed out the week modifying and painting my fifth Mage Knight Dwarven tank and adding a Heretic commander to the turret hatch.

July 12, 2026

I’ve been having some leg trouble, so I didn’t spend a lot of time at the workbench this week.   I did get another GI Joe Long Range Cannon done for my Trench Crusade Heretic plus two more trench bases.

July 5, 2026

I decided that since my Trench Crusade Faithful had crosses, I should provide the Heretics with a Portal link to “you know where.”  I had a portal-like structure I found at the swap meet a year or so ago for a couple dollars, and I built a base for it and gave it all a new paint job.

I spent some time detailing my Mage Knight Dwarven Steam Behemoths that will serve as my Heretic armor for Trench Crusade.

My next big job was modifying and painting my Grimdark Cannon Shrine.  It’s a beautiful piece but when it’s all put together the base has a width of 12” and that was more than I wanted.  So I modified the central piece (the part with the gun tower) which reduced it to about 7” and then unified the left and right base pieces into one separate unit.  So now I have two small pieces rather than one huge piece.  I’m very happy with both.