Christmas is over, the New Year beckons.

Can anyone spot a theme for 2015?

Happy New Year, everyone!

Christmas is coming.....and I'm trying to get some of my current projects out of the way before the Christmas presents are opened, and new projects initiated.

December is always a bit hectic in our family; three birthdays, a wedding anniversary, and being in Japan, we tend to treat Christmas and New Year as separate events (well, the wife does...). Add in the end of year parties, hangovers and the rest, and the time to paint stuff shrinks dramatically. And my painting rate is pretty glacial; I belong to that faction of the hobby that tends to go for the game first rather than the painting. However, I am slowly getting things shifted. The Renaissance galley fleets I really need to finish. They've been painted bit by bit, so now I'm trying to get down and do the lot. The Genoese are just about done; just the bases left to do with the water effects (which I'm still learning how to use effectively), so now I'm on to the Venetians, who are now in the shipyard.

 The colours are similar to the Genoese, mainly red, but I've left the hulls as a dark brown, and have left the poop awnings as simple canopies rather than trying to go for the 'cover all' effect of the Genoa squadron. The flags are printed so the next task is to trim the cast ones from the mast heads and put the paper ones on. Then it's just the basing to do. Together, the Italians represent over half the Christian fleet. The next to do are the Spanish and Papal ships and galleasses. Then I can worry about the Turks and Barbary pirates.

The first Christmas presents to myself have started arriving. Two boxes of Victrix 28mm 1804 French infantry. I bought them largely because Victrix had a 20% discount on them last month, so I gulped, and shelled out, mainly so that I have my own figures to join in the club Napoleonic games in Tokyo. At 17 pounds for 60 figures they seemed a good deal, about 8,000 yen, including P&P (buy them from Amazon Japan and you pay between 11,000 and 14,800 yen per box!!). 

I have to admit to being a little nervous about them. I've always been a 15mm and 6mm gamer. My painting isn't great, and I worry about putting the figures together and painting them to the kind of GW standard that seems to be the norm amongst 28mm gamers.

Other items on the waiting to arrive list are Rousselot's "Napoleon's Army" and Command and Colours Napoleonic. I also got the US and Japanese fleet packs (plus some battleships) for the Coral Sea from Scale Creep miniatures. I actually ordered these back in September, but not everything was in stock, so they asked me if I minded waiting to send everything in one package. They've arrived just in time for Christmas.

So it looks like 2015 is going to be focused on two themes; naval (galleys and WW2), and Brown Bess (my C18th War of Spanish Succession, AWI and Napoleonics). Busy times ahead!