"Lead mountain of shame" Topic

I did a count of my unpainted or partly painted minis yesterday, to quantify the size of the lead/plastic/resin mountain, and my lack of progress in reducing it. It turned out to be 667 figures (likely to be an undercount due to undiscovered boxes around the place, and I have another 20 or so figures on order!) So, shocking to find out, but useful to know. My estimate last week had been less than 200, so I was well out. It looks like I have some work ahead of me.
Not included in the count were unpainted terrain pieces and my increasing horde of 3D printed scatter terrain – that would just be crazy.
Has anyone else done this? Anyone willing to confess here?

Just did a count and I have 159 unpainted or unfinished 1/144 vehicles.

Counting them is not necessariliy a good idea, as it might inhibit future purchases.

The good news is that you should live for a long time, it being a well known theory that wargamers don't die until their leadpiles are cleared (although it has to be said that I've acquired part of my leadpile from the estates of deceased wargamers).

I agree with John. Sadly, this is based on personal experience. I counted all my unpainted figures once upon a time and was so depressed I vowed never to do it again!

I do keep track of the number of figures I purchase, paint, and sell off, so I have some clue as to where I stand (should I care to check). Between selling and painting, my unpainted pile is slowly decreasing.

Grelber

I will admit there have been times when I know that I am just not going to paint figures that I have and I have just thrown them away. Actually, it often makes me feel better because I get rid of the guilt of not getting everything done.

Too many to count

G54,
Think about packing them up and giving them to a young gamer just starting out. They're always very appreciative and you might feel much better about it. Just a thought.

It would take way too much painting time to stop and take an inventory.

Earlier this year I became a born again war gamer. I sold off dead kickstarters and unpainted detritus. I bought new paint, new miniatures, everything. I haven't played with any old miniatures and painted new armies.

The reboot was the best crazy thing I did.

3-digit numbers of figures in your lead mountain? Pff. Dilettantes.

A running inventory? No.
I am luckily enough to have a dedicated hobby room and the closet is my deep storage. I've taken to reviewing all my "future potential" to help pump the brakes on buying random new stuff. It's helped.

I've sold some stuff off and traded a little bit but I am on the look out for gifting some stuff to new gamers. You can't take it with you when you leave this world, so why not help make someone's day?

Closet is 3/4 full. That's my metric for measuring.

At the very least, I have between 6 and 8 thousand unpainted figures, and about 2500 horses. Maybe 200 cannons.12 elephants…way too much.

Cavcrazy, I doff my hat to you. Outstanding effort.

I have about 800-1000 figures at least. 20 battalions of ACW confederates staring at me at the moment. There are a lot of Napoleonics. Wild West, Pirates and fantasy figures waiting. Oh well.

Counting unpainted miniatures?

Throwing away miniatures?

Such heresy will certainly lead to madness…

I am not sure why you would count unpainted figures unless you were planning a project.

Mr. Elmo, I have done that type of thing before. It was pretty liberating.

At a wild guess about 2-3000? mostly 15mm.

Sadly, I have 10,000+ 28mm unpainted in my lead/resin/plastic pile, including 1800 mithril miniatures, and somehow I keep on adding to it, all of those Reaper Bones KS certainly didn't help; oh shiny

I really must have a clear out at some stage, but I will probably leave that to my retirement or redundancy, whichever comes 1st, as I just don't have the time to paint, let alone sort out my stuff.

Never got into doing this, shipment, paint, run out, shipment

Numbers aren't helpful without scales. Me? About 700 5mm Celts, maybe 2,000 5mm Romans and Carthaginians, three footlockers of 1/72 plastics in the garage and roughly two shoeboxes of 5/6mm Russians--Napoleonics & WWII. Hmm. And about two tubs of 54mm plastics. All other unpainted troops are slated for the flea markets or e-Bay.

This made me think, how many of the actual figures bought get painted? How many Perry boxes or Old Glory bags, or Warlord, etc. get painted? I wonder how many boxes or bags are sold every year by the various companies?

I don't have any pile of figures waiting to be painted. I purchase the figures that will take me about two weeks to paint. During the last week of painting I order another two week supply of figures and they arrive just about the time I'm finished with the group I am painting.

I have a good count for my 28mm Napoleonics. I have a spread sheet where I have listed the different types of figures for each country and how many of them. Also I have listed the units I intend to build and how many figures each needs. When I have enough figures for a unit I then put that number in the allocated column. That explained I have 2288 unpainted figures of which 647 are allocated to be painted.

Now as for how many Aircraft, ships or tanks I have no idea how many there are.

I'd like to say that I don't have unpainted miniatures, although that will probably never happen. Have way too many that need painting, and in some cases I give them to nephews and nieces who've displayed an interest. I have also begun shipping some out, and paying someone else to do some of the painting, or I'd never get to some of the projects that I'd like to have on my table top.

As for counting … it is probably wiser for me to act on the numbers, and probably not a good use of my time counting them. I have started an inventory to perhaps have a grip on what I have, except not sure I'll ever have that completed, and so spending time getting things done seems to be wisest.

This made me think, how many of the actual figures bought get painted?

Or get used! It would be interesting to track:
1) purchases and their lead time
2) time investment to paint
3) time spent in use
4) bonus: time spent not in use meaning a game was played but not with these figures.

I retired long ago and painting is a large part of spending my time presently. So I am satisfied with my production. Why however anyone would like to count unpainted figures is not clear. How many figures could you have painted in that time ? Failed projects: hardly any (the only one I can think of is 20mm Mexican Revolution. Since Peter Pig started to produce those I now have 15mm Mexican Revolution). Furthermore there is nothing wrong with painting figures somewhat (;-)) later. When Osprey published in 2015 their wargames rules "Honours of War" for the Seven Years War I started painting my Hinchliffe Prussians that I have bought while living in Amsterdam. We moved house in 1982. Never throw anything away unless you can get better made figures.

Too many unpainted, don't want to know actual number. Have sold hundreds in past 3 years. Unused in games..thousand or more. *sigh*

Just as well we use different systems, Doug MSC. Supplier closings and delays (and the convention shortage) would have made a "just in time" system impossible for me. Even when producers are functioning, I can't tell within two weeks when the castings will arrive.

And I forgot some 1/72 Irish and Scots.

Would we all feel better if we stopped talking about a "mountain of shame" and began discussing out "strategic casting reserve?"

While I've done a decent job of clearing out quite a bit over the last few years, I count by the number of bins (32 qt) rather than individual figures. I'm down to 11 from around 40 or so.

I do 6mm Sci-fi now … I have Bns to complete, some armies I haven't done much with … yet. I model, paint, etc. generally every day. I will do this until I no longer have the ability to … Or die …👻

and in some cases I give them to nephews and nieces who've displayed an interest

Whether it's family or a youngster at one of the conventions, it's very rewarding to see their eyes light up when they get an unexpected gift. I've never regretted it.

May you all live long enough to paint all your figures!

I only count the ones in my 'immediate projects' boxes. The stuff in the attic doesn't count, as I don't have any immediate plans to paint any of that. They just give me the warm glow of satisfaction that I _could_ paint them, if I wanted to.

I refuse to count, my pile has enough things to run a large hobby shop for a while.

+1 Bashy

About 1300 or so 25/28mm, plus a few in smaller scales.

I am currently painting Welsh, Saxon, Norman and Viking armies, which will involve no expenditure for along time, and will reduce the pile by 700 before I need to buy some more Saxons !!

Great responses so far. I wanted to clarify (and should have put it in my opening post) that my count was of 28mm, or thereabouts, minis, where the bulk of my unpainted stuff is. I take the point some here have raised about projects in abeyance, but I still think it was a useful exercise just revealing the mountain in all its glory.

I have a couple of thousand figures that are painted and just waiting to get based. I long ago lost count of the unpainted. It must be in the 10's of thousands.

My Lead pile is still rather too large, although it is not growing as fast as it used to. I take some comfort from the fact that I now have more painted figures in my collection than unpainted…

I probably could count mine but would be depressed. From practical experience I know gamer can die with unpainted lead but will hope for the best.

Why would you count them? That's time wasted you could be painting them.

I counted about 750 without getting off the couch. Looking into some small parts drawers added another 100-150. I didn't bother with the other drawers or the tubs with figures in them.

I'm running out of room under my bed.
~60 Vendee rebels
~140 mid Republican Romans + civilians
~50 War of 1812 Americans

All 28mm except a few dozen of the Romans are 15mm.

Every gamer I've ever known worth his salt has a ‘great white army and/or fleet' tucked away. Why count it? Just keep adding to it. (It helps keep some of us manufacturers in business a bit longer.)
I have three project boxes I keep adding to periodically for that day I fully retire – I currently consider myself semi-retired. One box is 10mm/N scale ACW, another is 1/32 plastic Vikings, Normans and knights and the third is 20/25mm SYW – early American frontier.
I never count them, but I do keep lists of what have and am forever on the lookout to fill gaps in those three areas. Boxes include figures, some naval, buildings, rules, copies of articles on the period etc.
Toby Barrett