When I was younger I was much more arrogant and assumed I knew everything and could remember it all. Which was sort of true as I only had a few paints.

With age comes (lack of) wisdom. I now have a fair few pots of paint and a need for consistency. Did I use a Games workshop paint? Or a Vallejo or a Foundry?

My answer, notebooks. Six of them! Seven if you count my daily notebook which I use for everything.

The Show Book.

This was used for Salute and SELWG. I would get the list of traders from the show website and visit every traders website. If they were selling anything of interest I would note down the price, catalogue number and stall location. Once I had drawn up my shopping list I would print out a map of the show and highlight the traders I wished to visit. This was so useful, especially at Salute as it was so huge. Before this I would lose track of who was selling what and this book allowed me to keep a tight rein on my budget.

The Recipe Book.

This is the most useful of the lot and if you want to take any advice from me, take this! This is where I write down how I have painted a particular unit or achieved a certain effect. I suppose consistency isn’t so important for fantasy armies, but for historicals it’s vital.

The Ideas Book.

Where I record interesting articles on painting, ferinstance… gold or a nicely painted example of a figure I’ve got in the lead mountain. As I have a growing library of books and magazines I want to keep track of where everything is. So an article on painting gold, So I go to the “G” section in my Ideas Book write “G1” with a description and what book/magazine it in and page number. Then I stick a Post-it in the appropriate page of the book/magazine.

The Book of Everything.

In this book I write down all sorts of extra information. Server configuration for my website. File names of web pages and layout details. Suppliers addresses. How to set up my camera for photographing models. Information that doesn’t have a home anywhere else.

The next two books haven’t been started yet. I don’t have any clear idea of how big my lead mountain is. There are boxes all over the place. It would be a good idea, not only for insurance, but also to stop replicating any purchases.

The first of these two is The Painting List. Once I’ve got all my bit shipped over and got a permanent place to live my first job will be to unpack everything, itemise them and assign each unit a number.

As I finish painting a unit this information will be transferred to the second book, The Catalogue. Each figure will have a unique number and details of cost of figure, manufacturer, photo reference number and price.

This is where I am having some difficulty.

How much do you value your work at?

I’ve looked at professional painters websites and I reckon I’m around the ten pound mark per historical figure. The waters were tested on Fleabay where two figures were sold for around nine pounds each on auction.

Once you start doing the math my lead mountain starts getting scarily expensive. My Napoleonic army when finished starts hitting the two and a half thousand pound mark.

I’ve no idea on fantasy prices, so I am thinking of a base price of five pounds per figure. Again scary numbers, my Night Goblin Regiments alone would pull in eighteen hundred pounds.

Anyone got any thoughts on this?

I would appreciate feedback from someone who has insured their collection.