Still in Ruins...

They just keep coming...

Another two street buildings. These two show considerably more damage than the other four.

...and another rural winter ruin. Before snow...

...and after.

Twelve Months On

Today marks a full twelve months since I retired.

How has it all gone? Well...it is very much like this:

There was never a formal retirement plan, but the intention was for me to finish up and slot into a retired life. Then her indoors, who is a few years younger than me, would retire towards toward the end of this year. What we had not anticipated was her losing her job last April. But when did life ever go as planned? We have made some adjustments and moved on.

So what have I learned from retirement?

First of all, life us too short for cheap wine and crap coffee.

Second is that there is no cookie cutter solution so ignore everything that people tell you about what to expect and what you should do.

For example, I was cautioned that I would miss work.  The final day, I was told, would a series of recurring thoughts... "this will it would be the last time I will be doing this". For me that was not the case. I handed back my laptop and other Company equipment, and walked out the door. I haven't looked back or thought about work at all.

I was also cautioned that I would miss the people and that was a real concern to me because for 25 years I worked with some extremely skilled and dedicated people resolving complex operational problems. But while I had that deep respect for these people and genuinely enjoyed working with them we had little in common - I mean none of them played with toy soldiers - and we didn't socialise much other than annual Christmas events and the occasional shared lunch break. So other than some email banter with one or two of them and some vague suggestions of "maybe coffee or lunch one day",  I have had no contact and frankly haven't missed them.

Another falsehood is that you must have goals. Goals by nature have a timeline that needs to be met, but the beauty of retirement is no timeline and you get to set the pace of life. There is, however, a need for purpose.  That purpose can be as simple and mundane as mowing the lawns on a Monday, grocery shopping on Tuesday, Wednesday play a wargame, it is the purpose of doing a specific task...and it doesn't have to be done today. Purpose also helps to deflect the question that everyone seems to ask recently retired people "how do you fill the day?"...well very easily, thank you!

For me the most important thing is routine. I have always been and early riser, getting up at 5:00AM to be at work by 6:00 to get those difficult tasks done early when there weren't too many people around to complicate things...of course it helped to beat the morning traffic and allowed me to use the office colour printer to print off those Austrian Napoleonic flags without having to answer any awkward questions. I still rise early (not at 5:00AM though), enjoy an early coffee while reading the newsfeeds and checking out the blogs that I follow. Then, weather permitting, I will take a morning walk of between three or four kilometres and  where possible I repeat that twice later in that day. I am then free to take the rest of the day at my pace. My hobby routine has always been an evening one and I try to retain that because it stops me from getting bored in the evening, although with much of the work on model buildings of late I find myself spending an hour or two on them in the afternoon.

What has become glaringly obvious to me is just how fulfilling our fabulous hobby is. I have said it before, but I often wonder how other people live a full life without models soldiers - building armies, planning scenarios and deciding what to paint tonight. For me our hobby provides pretty much everything I need in retirement: social interaction, intellectual stimulation, motor skills, creativity, purpose.

So am I enjoying retirement? Damned right I am...I have finally found something I am good at!

Still Among the Ruins

Here are two freshly completed ruins from the western European series I am working on.

The two of them side by side:

All four completed models...the street is starting to take shape. 

There are still two more to make in this style i.e. textured on only two faces that can stand side by side with other similar structures. Then there are another four to make that are textured on three faces, street ends if you like.

 

A Different Sort of Ruin

While I have been working on the western European urban ruins, I am also making another group of ruins for rural Eastern Europe. These are to be in the style of the winter buildings made in May and June last year (here).

The first building is a simple rectangular structure. It would have been easy to just make a MDF shell and dress the exterior, but that is not me. As with the western European ruins I want to make the interiors interesting so I chose to construct the walls using wooden coffee stirrers to give me the rustic look I want.

The problem I discovered with coffee stirrers is that they are 5mm wide which by scale would have made them more than a foot wide and that looks wider than the weatherboards in most historical illustrations and photographs. The solution was to cut a groove down the centre of the stirrer. The beauty of this is that the scalpel naturally follows the grain and creates a nice irregular groove. I also shaved the smooth edges of the stirrers irregularly to create a rough hewn appearance. The end result is a nice grained finish.

The lengths of stirrers are then laid over upright studs, leaving gaps for the door and windows. Damage to the walls is created by cutting away parts of the wall.

When finished the opposite side is laid up making sure that the inside of the walls can be seen where damage has occurred.

When this was all done the window and door frames were created and glued into place.

The end piece that will form the roof truss was made a little differently. I made a cardboard form to which I glued on more cardboard in the shape of the chimney. I cut a couple of holes in the card that can be used to replicate damage. The stirrers were then glued on.

The completed pieces, with the chimney space left clear, were left to dry and when ready all the pieces were coated with several coats of PVA glue to strengthen the structure then left for the glue to set hard.

The chimney was then added using epoxy putty.

All the pieces then needed to be painted at this point because once assembled it will be too difficult to get to some areas.

The next step was to build a base on a double thickness of 3mm cardboard on which a wooden floor made of more coffee stirrers, suitably carved to look rough hewn, was all glued together and painted.

The walls of the structure was then fixed to the base and a stone hearth was added at the same time.

The edge of the base was then given a stone facing and a front step.

The next step was the construction of the roof. For this I wanted the chimney end intact, then a removable section that is partly collapsed and the rest will be represented in the rubble. The intact section was a relatively simple build of split matchsticks laid over a flat surface then painted in ever lightening shades of Burnt Siena. A kicked in door leans against the fireplace.

The removable section was a little more complex and required the construction of a couple of trusses.

Then a few battens were strung over the trusses and timbers were laid on top and painted.

The final step in the structure build was to create some collateral rubble. Below are three removable pieces that can be placed in the building, but moved to make space for figures.

The building was then glued to a MDF base measuring 170mm square and broken down fences and rubble were added. The rubble and fences were then coated with a couple of coats of PVA glue before being painted and weathered.

And with the removable roof and the rubble pieces removed and put to the left of the image.

With the basic work done all that remained to be done was to let the snow fall.

Another in this series is under construction now.

The Annual Report

🍾🥳 HAPPY NEW YEAR! 🥳🍾

It was the night of the Grand Armée New Year's Eve party.

Emperor looked at the banner and said "...Bonne Anrèé... Bonne ANRÈÉ ...don't they teach them to check their spelling in school these days Bonhomme?"

Henri shook his head, "they are too dependant on AI, sire!".

Napoleon rolled his eyes and said "what is the World coming to?"

Well, it is that time of year to be reflective.

It has been a very different hobby year compared to previous ones. I have deliberately slowed down my painting volume on the basis that I already have enough figures and armies. My intention going forward—I occasionally slip back into "corporate speak" despite leaving that world behind—is to only buy figures required to finish existing projects. The one caveat is that I may add the occasional unit to an existing army if something special catches my eye (and, of course, all of this goes out the window if I win the lottery).

In terms of painting productivity, the annual results show a dramatic drop. I completed only 330 foot and 64 mounted figures. While some might think, "that’s a lot," it is dwarfed by my 2023 totals of 1,423 foot, 132 mounted, 34 guns, and 8 pieces of equipment.

However, my scratch-building productivity soared this year with a couple of commissions and several buildings for sale. Using the recognised calculation of "painting points" (5 pts per 28mm foot figure, 10 per mounted figure/gun/equipment, and 10 per hour of scratch building), the breakdown of points by project is as follows:

The listed Ottoman expansion project, did not proceed.

A graphical breakdown is:

Comparing the year to previous years it stacks up, but is still only the eighth largest in the 12 years I have been keeping records and if the scratch built are removed it would be the lowest production since probably 2004. But, that was the intention.

This decrease in painting productivity has been offset by a dramatic increase in games played, reaching a total of 43—likely my highest game count for any single year. This boost has been fueled by my retirement, which has enabled me to play extra games with retired friends, as well as a renewed interest in solo play. Solo gaming has allowed me to develop a narrative side to my hobby through The Adventures of Henri Bonhomme.

Henri's adventures provided a great deal of fun, not only through the varied games themselves but also the hours spent creating and fine-tuning the backstories. These narratives have encouraged me to pursue storytelling even further in the coming year. While Henri’s adventures have run their course (and I’m not sure there is any artwork left in Europe for him to purloin, anyway), there are other characters in other eras waiting in the wings.

So, what are the plans for 2026?

First, there are more buildings in the pipeline. The current set of ruins needs to be finished, and a second lot will likely be worked on in parallel. There will also be another batch of buildings for sale.

I have already begun writing the backstory for a new adventure, as mentioned above, which should see the light of day around February. Additionally, at some point in the first quarter of the year, the final purchases for the Franco-Prussian War armies will be made—specifically French cuirassiers and generals, along with some Bavarian cavalry and artillery.

Finally, I have a few ideas for short campaigns in development. 

We shall see how it all pans out.