Easter Sunday has come and is now almost gone. It's been a quiet weekend, most of the family away, no social engagements, so I've managed to do a lot of painting. I'd have a lot more to show for my efforts if I could only stay focused on one project, but that will never happen. Within the past week, I've painted four 18mm Legion Etrangere Paras for Indochina, six Crusader Miniatures 28 mm 1940 French and 12 Perry 28mm AWI. As you can see, all over the place in scales and periods, but that's my style. It would drive me nuts to paint 300 of anything before moving on to another project. Having a dozen  half completed project, like I do, would probably push most people ver the edge, but "C'est la vie".
  Tuesday, I expect to have a Chain of Command game with my old pal Vincent. We've gamed together sporadically for close to forty years and I'm sure he'd agree with me in saying "We haven't gotten any older, it's the figures that have gotten smaller".

  Stay tuned, I hope to have some picture of our Tuesday game posted by mid week.

Boring Update

Been busy with "real" work, the kind I actually get paid money to do. Aside from getting paid, one of the great things about working is that I have access to all sorts of things that would otherwise wind up in a dumpster/skid bin. Really useful pieces of styrofoam, odd bits of plastic and almost unlimited supplies of cardboard which is can be used to mount unpainted figures so I can spray prime them in large groups.
  Not much gaming going on at the moment, but I do expect to host a WW2 game using the TFL "Chain of Command" rules in mid February. Stay tuned for a thrilling AAR of that game.

So we said goodbye to 2013 and welcomed 2014. For me, 2013 wasn't a bad year, just one that seemed to pass very quickly.  This year I hope to paint more figures, keep in touch more often with friends and of course, try to lose about 15 pounds.

Here was the entire family on New Year's Day. Included are my wife, my four kids and their partners and the five grandkids, including Vera, Chuck and Dave.
A good sign for the future, some of the grandsons are showing interest in my miniatures, especially my recent efforts, the Fourteenth Brooklyn in 28mm

This is the first post on my new blog, Paint and Tin, a play on Bismarck's famous Blut und Eisen speech. I intend to focus on the hobby of Miniature War Gaming and all the facets of the hobby that interest me; figures, painting of figures, gaming with those painted figures and the rules used to game with those painted figures.
 At the moment,  I'm waiting for the quiet time to start painting some 28mm ACW figures that arrived all the way from France courtesy of     http://forgottenglorious.blogspot.com/
The figures, in this case the 14th (Brooklyn) New York State Militia, are very nice with crisp details and no flash to speak of. They should paint up nicely. More to follow as the painting progresses.