Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

After many years of wargaming, I have a huge backlog of unpainted figures, armies that were started but never brought to realization, cool models I bought on a whim, unfinished projects and a good sized bitz box. I'm sure this is a situation that many of you can relate to.

Well, recently I moved house and took the opportunity to unpack everything in my boxes of armies and figures and take stock. It covered the two 6'x4' tables I allocated for the project and then some. I decided it was time to do something. I set myself a goal; I would clear all of this stuff out.

I established two rules:
1) No new model purchases until everything I currently have is either fully painted and assembled, or sold.

2) I will work on this for at least 20 minutes every day. I have already been at it for a few weeks, but I will now add updating this blog on at least a weekly basis to the project.

I don't have enough spare time to game much, so I don't have the need to finish new units for an upcoming game. My aim therefore is to work on cool conversions and concepts, practice and improve my painting skills, and put together game-usable units (even if I don't currently play the particular army that the models are for). I have models stretching all the way back to things like the RBT001 boxed set and plastic Squats that will eventually appear here, so stay tuned for some nostalgia and one man's attempt to get current with his hobby.

EDIT: Goal #3, work on my photography skills.

5/13/2013: Eldar Guardians and Storm Guardians assembled.
5/24/2013: Skaven Gutter Runners and Dark Eldar Warriors assembly, miscellaneous paint stripping.
6/1/2013: Stripped a huge batch of Epic Imperial Armor and Knights given to me by a friend.

Sounds like you have an interesting collection. I am looking forward to seeing what you got lined up. I am in a similar position. I made myself an oath that I will not buy, build, convert, or cast anything until I catch up on my painting.

Some pictures to show the current state of things as I begin the blog:

Here is the entire collection, all boxed up. I bought my first miniature (a Ral Partha knight of some kind) in 1987 and the pile has been growing ever since; a neighbor kid got a box of plastic Space Marines and gave me one in 1989 and I was hooked on the 40k universe from there.


A squad of Eldar Guardians ready for primering. I used as many bits as possible from the sprue to load them down with sensors, lenses, ammunition and other doodads. I am a big fan of the old Eldar Corsairs and went for that look on a couple of the models.


A 5-man squad of Storm Guardians with two flamers. I used the rest of my Eldar Guardian sprue, mixed in some Dark Eldar parts and used an old sprue of Eldar close combat weapons I had in the bitz box.


A band of Skinks with blowpipes, led by a Skink Hero (using the big-crested body and adding tons of bits from the Skink and Lizardman Warrior sprues to make the most imposing skink possible). There's another group of these guys knocking around unfinished somewhere.


The workbench at the moment. On the left are some Skaven Gutter Runners being assembled from Mordheim sprues that I picked up on clearance at a game store I used to work at. On the right are some Dark Eldar warriors. In the center is a Dark Eldar Archon being built from the Warrior sprue, and a test paint scheme for the Eldar Guardians.

Wow - that's quite a project! You seem to have made a good start though. I hope we'll get to see some paint on those guys soon.

Progress report. Moving a little slowly, but that's the nature of the project.

Finished assembling the Skaven Gutter Runners/Night Runners - I don't play Skaven at all, so it's not too important what they are exactly. Still, it's a game-usable unit.


Made a tiny bit of progress on the squad of Dark Eldar Warriors. Found some old-school ones to add or mix in (in the bottom left) and started mounting the new ones (in the center). The only problem is now I am out of round bases, so it's time for a shopping trip this weekend.


And finally, pulled a batch of parts out of the Simple Green soak and tried to clean them up. A lot of these are pieces that my friends or I painted back when we first started, so there is a lot of glue slopped around and tough paints that don't strip so well (Tamiya enamels, mostly). Unfortunately most of the low-hanging fruit has already been picked in the stripping department. There's a mix of stuff here, from modern Marines and Eldar to RBT001 parts, and some old metal BattleTech figures (pretty sure those are mostly or all lead, they're from the late 1980s).

This is going to be an interesting project, looking forward to watching your progress.

This week I started digging out a bunch of old Epic models that were given to me by a friend who got out of gaming some years ago. We were enthusiastic Epic players in high school and bought tons of stuff that was not-so-carefully painted and assembled. Part of my project is to go back and clean this stuff up and eventually sell or nicely model and repaint it. Here we have the first batch stripped and mostly disassembled and cleaned.

Basilisks and Colossus Bombards
Leviathan Command Vehicle
Gorgon Assault Vehicles
Leman Russ battle tanks company
Knights Errant, Crusader and plastic Knight Paladins from one of the Epic starter sets
and a small batch of the many, many plastic Rhinos we accumulated.