Monthly Round-up (June 2026)

For those of you that might be unaware, for almost a year now I have been sending out a monthly newsletter via substack – one where I summarise some of the things I’ve been working on, some of the things I’ve got planned, shared some ‘community builds’ that have caught my eye, and so on.

However, I’ve come to realise that I don’t really need a separate platform for that – I can simply write similar articles here, and folks that join/follow the Patreon page (be they free followers or paid members) will get notified in a similar way.

So in an attempt to consolidate the two (and to stop spreading myself quite so thin), that’s exactly what I’m going to start doing :)

So here goes…

NEW RELEASES

Last month I only managed to get one (long form) video/pdf out again (if you have been following the old newsletter you’ll know that I’ve had some ongoing family issues to deal with)… but one is better than none, right?

And, as you might have seen in the video, it’s a fairly simple project (much like the one before it) – due to me having limited time to actually sit down and film stuff.

However, as a bit of an experiment, I also released a ‘short’ video (essentially advertising the new release) 24 hours after the main video went live – but as you can see in the graph below (note that the vertical line indicates the point at which the ‘short’ was released)…

...it didn’t appear to have much of an immediate impact – so I’m not sure if it’s something worth doing for other episodes going forward. Though, I suppose it was worth a try, and interesting to see, all the same.

ON THE WORKBENCH

If you’re a member of the Discord (or follow my ‘posts’ page on YouTube), you’ll likely have seen most of these pic’s – but like I say, this is a monthly round-up where I collate all of this nonsense into one (semi-)readable/interesting article.

Anyway, pictured below is an image showing the initial concept of a sci-fi shipping container next to the finished product:

And, as you might have guessed, this is likely to be the next video (which should be out later this month – fingers crossed).

However if I show another picture, this time showing the 4 different pages of the pdf…

...you’ll see that there are a few different colours to choose from, and that the extra detail pieces (which are totally optional BTW) on each page can actually be mixed and matched to your hearts desire.

Erm… I’m not sure I’ve explained that very well but if you look at the picture below…

...you can see one of each colour – but each one has been assembled with different accent pieces (and like I say, the accent pieces don’t have to be stuck to the container they share the page with – they are all interchangeable).

ON THE PAINTING DESK

In one of my previous (substack) newsletters, I showed a pic of a few orks (that I’d dug out from my pile of shame) which I was considering painting. Well, I’m pleased to say that I’ve got a reasonable amount of them done!

Now, most of these are older models (with a fair few being from the old ‘Assault on Black Reach’ boxed set) – but all the hype around the new 40k ‘Armageddon’ starter/boxed set has helped to get me in the mood to paint them (and they have been fun models to paint).

And, speaking of that new boxed set – I’ve also managed to pick up the lore book, and a sprue of the boyz…

...for a pretty decent price off of ebay. Plus I’ve also started collecting some older metal models too (in the form of some Steal Legion guys)...

...and some resin cast models from Spellcrow (over in Poland).

Because, you know, I clearly don’t have enough unpainted models lying around already :)

ON THE TABLETOP

Gaming wise, I didn’t get much done last month (aside from a couple of online games) – mainly due to the aforementioned personal issues. However, I do still hope to play some solo games of 5 parsecs ‘planetfall’ at some point, and maybe try out the new horde mode in some of the one-page-rules games when I (eventually) get my steel legion guys painted.

(both of these games are largely the reason I’ve been making so much sci-fi terrain of late ;) ).

IN THE COMMUNITY

Much like I did in the (now defunct) newsletter, I would also like to showcase a few projects that other folks have undertook (which use some of my print and paste textures) – especially those that have used the printouts in particularly creative/inventive ways.

That being said, one that caught my eye this month was from Discord user ‘Fishman’ – who, after doing some last minute reading for the next part of the adventure he was running… then decided to make the terrain for it ON THE BUS while travelling to the game itself.

And, while an impressive feat in and of itself (my hat goes off to you sir), I also think that this perfectly illustrates just how quick and easy some of the projects can be… I mean, this really is next level last minute panic prep at it’s finest.

WRAPPING THINGS UP

I think that’s about it for the month of June. But, as you can see (and as I keep saying), these monthly round-up posts will be a similar kind of thing to the articles I was posting in the old newsletter – so it’s really just a quick recap of some of my YouTube community posts and Discord messages (along with some of my personal projects)… all collected in one place – for a more interesting read. Well, that’s the plan anyway!