The last post of 2025

Hello everybody, as usual, on the last day of the year I like to post about the year and tally up how many figures I painted.

I'll start by saying that this was kind of a strange one, after 9 years spent in Canada, I decided to move back to Italy, mostly yo help my aging parents.

This meant a move across the Atlantic, an experience I would not wish to anyone.

I moved at the beginning of August, which meant I stopped painting figures of my own few months before that, since it is much easier to move unpainted models, I tried not to add any more to the ones I already had.

So the total of painted miniatures for myself in 2025, is quite a bit lower than that of the last few years.

I painted a lot of stuff for friends before leaving Canada, so that brought the grand total up quite a bit, but as usual, I am more concerned about my own stuff. 

After all these considerations, it is time to get to the numbers:

Things that I painted for myself:

- 28mm fantasy RPG large creatures: 3

- 28mm fantasy Warhammer infantry models: 36

- 28mm fantasy Warhammer mounted models: 3

- 28mm fantasy Warhammer large creatures: 2

- 28mm historical infantry models: 11

- 28mm Sci-fi Warhammer 40,000/Warzone infantry models: 5

- 28mm Sci-fi Warhammer 40,000/Warzone large creatures: 5

- 28mm Sci-fi RPG infantry models: 5

- Epic scale 40,000 infantry stands: 51

- 1/285 Battletech mechs: 12

- 1/285 Battletech vehicles: 3

- 1/72 historical infantry models: 50

- 1/72 WWII vehicles: 2

- 1/72 WWII guns: 2

- 1/35 WWII infantry: 6

- 75mm historical figurines: 1

- various scales terrain pieces: 21

This adds up to a total of 218 models, about half of what I managed last year. Compared to the production of the last few years if is a vary small number, but given the situation I guess it's still decent.

For other people I painted the following models:

- 28mm fantasy RPG infantry models: 69

- 28mm fantasy RPG large creatures: 10

- 28mm fantasy RPG small creatures: 4

- 28mm fantasy RPG mounted models: 3

- 28mm fantasy Warmachines/Hordes infantry models: 6

- 28mm historical infantry models: 42

- 28mm sci-fi/40K large models: 3

- 15mm WWII infantry stands: 6

- 15mm WWII guns: 30

- 15mm WWII tanks: 161 

- no scale Warhammer Man'O'War ships: 6

- 28mm fantasy historical Silver Bayonet infantry: 19

- 1/285 Battletech mechs: 12

This adds up to a total of 371 models, about 15 more than last year.

The grand total for 2025 is then 589 models, roughly 25% less than last year, overall an acceptable loss due to months of inactivity due to the move.

Let's see what 2026 will bring.

A very happy new year to all my readers and I'll see you in January with new posts of painted miniatures.

Cheers!

More restorations

 This is a couple of figures I just finished refurbishing from Tsuchiya San collection.

These had been disassembled and I had to put them back together, fill the joints and touch up the paint.

The salamander crew had already been touched up and posted in a previous post, now the team is complete. I had to repaint the salamander completely because the paint was very damaged, that's why it took so long to complete.

Lizardman general on carnosaur. 28mm, Citadel, painted by Tsuchiya San and refurbished by Ginzio

Salamander with handlers. 28mm, Citadel, painted by Tsuchiya San and refurbished by Ginzio

A small advancement for an unexpected army

This is the latest addition to my small Byzantine army, something that started with a couple of random old Citadel packs that Dave gave me years ago.

Last year he found a whole box of sealed old packs and gave them all to me for painting.

Now I found myself working on a small Byzantine army composed of almost exclusively old Citadel models.

Over the time I also collected some Ral Partha infantry and a decent amount of Price August Vikings to use as Varangian guard, so I should end up with a decent sized (for WAB or other small-ish size game) army.

This is a unit of slingers I prepared in Canada before the move and managed to get painted only recently. I have another 12 slingers to paint, but at the moment I only found 10 of them and will have to wait until I finish unpacking everything from the shipment from Canada to find the remaining 2 models, then I'll finish painting them all.

The remainder of the army will include two units of heavy infantry, more skirmishers, a decent unit fo heavy cavalry, one of cataphracts and few light horse.

I'm looking forward to painting more of these figures, I'll keep you posted with the progress in 2026.

Byzantine slingers. 28mm, Citadel, painted by Ginzio

Tom Meyer orcs mini project

Hello everyone, this week we have the first part of a mini project I started before leaving Canada and that I will hopefully manage not to drag too long.

Painting for my friend Dave, I traded a lot of old miniatures over the years, amongst others, a batch of 49 Ral Partha orcs sculpted by Tom Meyer in 25mm.

They are very small for modern standard, but they are great figures and a unit of 49 will look spectacular.

For gaming purposes I can also split it into two smaller 24 model units that will be more manageable on the table.

This is the first batch of 9, I have 6 more painted somewhere, but I'm still working my way through the pallet of stuff I shipped from Canada and I haven't found them yet.

This is what I have based and ready, the rest will come soon.

Orc infantry. 25mm, Ral Partha, painted by Ginzio

75mm figure

 This week I have something unusual, a 75mm historical figure.

Once in a while it is fun to do something different from the usual. This is a XV century jousting knight (minus the horse).

It is from Amati Models, a good friend of mine used to work there as a sculptor and designer and got a whole bunch of old models as samples and examples for future works.

I ended up with a few of them and when I feel I need a palate cleanser I can paint one.

This was relatively simple, but the striped lance was very challenging. I took it as an exercise to practice straight lines, the result is not the best, but good enough for what I'm concerned, looking at the model from a few feet distance it looks good.

XV century knight. 75mm, Amati Models, painted by Ginzio

Dungeon furniture

 Hello everyone, this is the third and last post about the stuff I got from my friend Luca.

It is a beautiful selection of dungeon furniture from Metal Magic. I remember looking at this collection on the catalogue in the 90s and thinking I didn't have enough money for dungeon furniture, what little I had had to go into "soldiers" to build armies.

Now I was lucky enough to receive all this as a gift, so I gave everything a quick touch up and I'm going to use if in my next D&D session.

Treasure chests and piles. 28mm, Metal Magic, refurbished by Ginzio

Bed and weapon rack. 28mm, Metal Magic, refurbished by Ginzio

Potions rack and chest. 28mm, Metal Magic, refurbished by Ginzio

Tables and chairs. 28mm, Metal Magic, refurbished by Ginzio

Metal trapdoor and well. 28mm, Metal Magic, refurbished by Ginzio

Trapdoors and floor grate. 28mm, Metal Magic, refurbished by Ginzio

Refurbished RPG miniatures

 This is the second batch of models that I received from Luca and that I restored.

These are a few D&D models, old Ral Partha and Citadel pre-slotta pieces that I really enjoyed fixing up. The two Three-Kreen I would not have painted green, but that's how they came and I wanted to keep the models in the colours they were originally painted in.

Female frost giant. 25mm, Ral Partha, refurbished by Ginzio

A couple of Thri-Kreen of Athas. 25mm, Ral Partha, refurbished by Ginzio

Were(teddy)bear and werewolf. 25mm, Citadel, painted by Ginzio

An unexpected surprise

 This is the first of three posts about some models I was gifted by my friend Luca.

One of his coworker is a long time D&D player and gave him, a while back, a little box of old miniatures because Luca is a very active (and very good) game master of all sorts of Rpgs.

Luca, when I came back from Canada, gave that box to me since I am the miniatures guy in our gaming group.

The figures had a quite good paint job, but is a slightly dated style, so I gave them a wash and a few highlights to modernize them a bit and stuck them on some bases to make handling them safer.

There were three batches of figures, this is the first one, a bunch of old Ral Partha, Grenadier and Metal Magic pieces for The Call of Cthulhu.

They are a great addition to mine and IlVJ collections, really lovely models, many thanks to Luca and his coworker for their generosity.

I'll try to put these to good use as soon as possible.

Intrepid dilettante investigator. 28mm, Grenadier models, refurbished by Ginzio

Deep ones. 28mm, Ral Partha (I think), refurbished by Ginzio

Mi-Go, my favorite model of the whole lot. 28mm, Grenadier models, refurbished by Ginzio

Serpent people. 28mm, Metal Magic and Ral Partha, refurbished by Ginzio

Servitor of the outer gods. 28mm, Metal Magic, refurbished by Ginzio

Battletech clan vehicles

 It looks like I should manage to post on a weekly base again, after the move, the settling down, the distractions, I am back to a somewhat normal painting and modelling schedule.

Here in Italy I have a more active social life, I play more games (rpg at the moment) and I go out with friends and family more often, but I should still be able to keep a decent production rate.

I will also reduce commission painting to a minimum, just doing some figures for friends here and there, so most of the painting will be for myself.

This week I have a trio of models I painted as Battletech Clan hover tanks, they are from RAFM I believe, produced under license for an old game called "Renegades". It was a miniature vehicles game that also spawned an rpg, but I know very little about it.

I got these, as most of my figures in Canada, from my friend Dave, in a trade for some painting.

They have a quite sleek look and I thought they would fit as clan machines.

Clans don't use many vehicles, but I decided to include them in my smaller clan forces to add a bit of variety.

Hephaestus of Clan Diamond Shark. 1/286, RAFM painted by Ginzio

Hephaestus of Clan Jade Falcon. 1/286, RAFM painted by Ginzio

Hephaestus of Clan Wolf. 1/286, RAFM painted by Ginzio

Finally something painted

 I managed to finish something. It is a unit of Warhammer 40K ogryn that I managed to put together over the years.

the leader (the one in the center) is an old Rogue Trader model by Bob Olley, an absolute treat to paint. It is supposed to have a back banner, but I don't have the original piece, so I decided to omit it for now and see if I have the will power to build one and paint a banner for its back.

The three identical models are from 3rd edition, the model was a special character called Nork Deddog, but I managed to gather three of them and use them as troops.

The last one is a 4th edition one, much bigger than the other ones, but I don't really care too much, it feels like the big guy in the unit.

Imperial Guard Ogry squad. Citadel 28mm, painted by Ginzio