Wrapping it up for Lorenzo - AHPC14 - a great challenge!

Well back in December 2023 as I mulled over whether to join some online painting sessions I went and joined two at the same time, having never done these before. No regrets though. My painting capacity was stretched so that was a good thing and in more ways than I thought - I had assumed it would be just volume or rate. First up - the other event - Dave Stones "Paint what you've got" was meant for my existing paint queue. Well I managed just two lots - for 1848 - Pickelhaube Prussians and some Danish Volunteer Kepi Cavalry. I have been a bit naughty and slipped the Volunteer Cavalry into the "Final Collection picture". Its just a shameless plug for the the First Schlieswig Holstein War (which started on 24th March 1848). Hopefully Curt and my minion Sylvain will forgive me. Turning to Sylvain I must say a big thank you for his Musee des Fossilles backdrop to our Monday Crew. And I have really enjoyed discovering AHPC. Thanks to the Monday crew and all the comments people kindly left for me. The big story for my AHPC14 was I encountered the library challenge. This completely derailed my 1848 army painting plan. So the Lancers, Hussars, Cuirassiars, Dragoons, and more Artillery remained in the paint queue. In the event I managed..... 8 Danish Riflemen 8 Schlieswig Holstein Chassuers 12 Danish Guard Infantry 1 Danish Artillery piece I am happy with that, not to mention that at least another 5 units have now been started. Now back to the library challenge - this was fascinating - I got lost there. Which is at it should be. I then descended into fantasy courtesy of Doncaster Christmas Toy Fair. A venerable 1980's Games Workshop Cyclops was found hiding unloved at the back of one trade stand, who along with a Partizan freebie Empress Matilda 1140's era, made up my first non 1848 entries. Second up was a reconnaisance Spitfire from 1939 in "Camo Mint". A five quid snip at the same toy fair. I had then envisaged doing pink and then blue versions but I simply took too long on other entries that now demanded my attention. Suddenly Nissen Huts invaded my mind - apparently my first library trip was to one in a Nissen Hut. So this hut took a lot of time as it was built from scratch including the whole idea generation - Truly out of the blue: However it was the "more satisfying" for that creativity moment. Then another Partizan Freebie took my eye in the great figure heap - General Sikorski. He was duly painted up and some more DIY gave him a suitable plinth. Then it was back to 1848 with some Schlieswig Holstein Chasseurs. To complete the challenge I offered up a "figure bashed" sci fi character (magazine freebie ww2 german + bits and bobs) plus another toy fair bargain (1/32 ww2 soldier) who morphed into a cute monster - idea courtesy of the Wargaming Pastor. And last but not least was Noggin the Nog in 28mm from the little soldier company. Next here are some pictures.

As you can see a nice varied collection and Noggin the Nog sends his apologies but he is already gifted to my friend who suffers from dementia and was just delighted with him. It simply remains for me to thank everyone from Curt, organisers and minions right down to anyone who painted and presented - I really enjoyed this challenge both through my contribution and seeing what others created. thank you!

From Lorenzo: 1848 Danish Artillery (Lates & Returns) + Marine Cyclops (Fantasy) + Matilda (Sarahs Library Cart) (94 points)

Well AHPC14 has brought out the erratic in me, gone are the plans to simply paint the Schlieswig Holstein armies piled high in my figure mountain. I got lost in the library.......

First up are some lates and returns and of course these are more Schlieswig Holstein Danish from 1848. A simple Artillery piece - yes I know they had machine guns but I have none ready. The base is using my standard method and I have added some photos of the stages as well as showing that for these 20mm chaps I base them on washers to get a height match with my 1/72 plastics. The figures are made and sold by Irregular Miniatures and from their Indian Mutiny Range - mid 19th century bell shakoes were the latest thing. These figures were lying with just red coats cast aside in the heap when AHPC14 rode into town.......

I reckon the 4 figures are worth 4x4 = 16 plus the artillery piece at 8 points plus the topic at 20 points gives me a total score of 44 points? Basing technique used is pendraken mdf 60x40, pva and bird grit (as per warhammer battles painting guide) then wet brush burnt sienna followed by dry brush ochre then highlight with a yellow white. I have found by trial and error the three colour shades that compliment each other. Then I grass the base - with my danish I tend to use gamers winter grasses as shown here.

Next up is a complete surprise. Between Xmas and New Year I went to Doncaster Racecourse and toured the Toy Show (80 odd traders). Its very planes, trains and automobiles but sometimes there is a bargain to be had. You have to be careful because the packaging often is more valuable than the kit so to speak. I bought some kits and told the guy I would be making them. A few punters nearby looked horrified :)

Anyway one trader had some lead in bags tucked by he's still making no effort to sell them. They looked liked fantasy figures. Needless to say they were old and grubby but at least bagged up. I liberated one figure that caught my eye. The base had FF14 on it and I had a sneaking suspicion they were citadel - early games workshop - a quick google showed they were actually 1980 Citadel fantasy catalogue figures and I had bought the Cyclops. A further search revealed on lost wikis that I had bought version 1 - that is the pre Michael Perry version. I made him my marine cyclops - just out the sea cave. I tried a new vallejo express contrast blue on him and was very disappointed with the contrast yet he actually came out ok colour wise so all's well that ends well. He had no weapon for the hand clearly intended to possess something. So I nicked a Perrys WOTR axe for him complete with gauntleted hand and added a touch of red to show the cyclops was in a hurry....... I reckon he meets the fantasy topic so that's 5 pts for a 28mm chap? plus 20 points for the topic? total score = 25pts Finally I have an entry for Sarahs cart which I might well need to use. I remembered I had some show figures buried in the mountain and decided I would have go at Empress Matilda. I took the colour scheme from a blog search for images. I tried some contrast paints from citadel which worked ok.

So I think that's 5 pts plus 20 points for the topic. total score = 25pts So the total should be 44+25+25 =94 if my math's is correct? 

Sylvain: A very interesting post. I like your shopping stories as well as your pictures showing how you work on your bases. Very informative. And your miniatures are fabulous as well. I am (not) sorry to hear that you were charmed by the chant of the bonus themes. It brought us some wonderfully painted miniatures. Where will you take us next week? 

 

From StuartL - A Giant Sized Post - 107 points

Hello all,

Sadly I wasn't able to get anything posted last week due to a number of reasons. Work has been getting busier as some staff are off work with Covid or are isolating due to being in close proximity. I've also hit the mid-challenge doldrums where other activities are calling to me and picking up a brush is getting harder to do. Anyway, I managed to get a couple of things finished off, so expect a few posts from me today. 

I thought I would kick things off with a giant sized post of Reaper Bones minis. All of these are from the various Reaper Kickstarters over the past few years. As anyone who has bought any of the Bones line will know, the smaller models tend to be quite bendy, but the bigger models are very sturdy and very cheap for what you get. I have a load of regular heroes and monsters for my D&D games, but I wanted to focus on getting some of the larger models ready for the table-top and so present here a bunch of bigger, chunkier models.

Starting off with the smallest figure I painted, this Beastman stands a meagre 40mm in height. Though not really visible due to his attacking pose, there are a bunch of skull emblems on his belt.

This next group of minis, range in height from 50-60mm and include 2 Ogres, a Rat-ogre, a Minotaur, a Formorian Giant and an Ettin. Several of them are also carrying skulls on their belts or on a necklace.

Next up we have two Hill Giants, each standing over 60mm tall and sporting tree trunks with which to wallop adventurers who stray within reach.

And finally, standing at a whopping 100mm tall, a Cyclops. His weapon is made from the base of a pillar chained to the end of a massive branch from a tree, and he is wearing a belt made from fleeces and a necklace of skulls and assorted bones. It's these details that really help define the scale of the figure.

And just to give you an idea of the size of these minis, we have Jarl Hvat-skael (a 28mm gripping beast mini) posing in front of the group. As you can no doubt tell, all of the minis were painted in the same fashion. I was tempted to try doing different skin tones, but figured that it would be easier to do them all the same and get them done faster.

So, by my rough calculations I have:

1x40mm @7 points = 7 Points.

8x54mm @10 points = 80 Points.

1xMonster @20 points = 20 Points. 

For a grand total of 107 Points. 

There are a total of 21 Skulls on these minis, which can be added to my Skullz Duel total as well.

Skullz Total: 78

See you in the next post! 

Great to see you back again Stuart.  I think we all have a love/hate relationship with Reaper Bones minis, but I agree that size definitely matters in this case.  I love this collection of massive brutes, the Jarl better turn around before he becomes a tinned snack.  I did not count the Skullz as it is well below my pay grade.  I will leave final tally to the Skullometer and the Skullz-Boffin.

BrendonW - Three Giant Cyclops

3 x 28mm scale Giants from Puppet Wars, Resin.

Hello
I was hoping to get more than this completed but my city came under attack from a Category 2 Cyclone. Winds recorded around 130km/h. It was a wild few hours that resulted in a big clean up afterwards. The wind waged war against trees and lots of trees lost the battle.

Anyway here are three Giants for my Kings of War Goblin army. Two required arms glued on and then filling. I am not a fan of miniatures that require gap filling and that has delayed them a long time. However I really liked the character these three Cyclopian dudes have.

Painting large areas of skin tone is challenging after mainly painting 28mm infantry. I went with three slightly different tones. I gloss varnished the eyes and mouth areas. In retrospect I could have made an attempt at painting the eyes looking down but in the position they are in the viewer cops a good look over. These are not as big as that GW plastic Giant and the rock thrower (who I considered could be used as an alternative war machine) stands around 90mm tall including the rock and the other two are around 75mm tall. They are based on 50mm squares. I seldom feel any need for blood on my miniatures but as the sculpt of the headless female victim has a gruesome stump of a former neck I reached for the GW blood. I have been short on time recently so these photos had to be rushed. In army list terms these are 190 points each and they are described as having small brains. The look of these brutes seems to really fit the description.

The Challenge has been awesome thanks to Michael Awdry as my Saturday Minion and of course the Curt as well for keeping us all challenged. Well done all of you who painted something and thank you to those who may not have painted but cheered us on through comments.

Cheers from Brendon.

From Byron:

Well, I have painted in some strange places and times while traveling for work, but I think you would have me (and every other painter on here) beat if you would have hauled out the brushed during the cyclone! Now that would have been a story to tell the kids!  "Back in my day, not even a cyclone could stop us from doing our hobbies, not like you young whipper snappers!"

In all seriousness though, glad you are ok, and these look really good.  Especially given that they were done in a rush, and given the large areas of flesh tone.  I always struggle with painting flesh and especially large areas of it, but I think you did extremely well with these.  The eyes also look good, you may be right on the fact that looking down may have been better, but I won't fault you for that as the eyes themselves look great!  I also really like the models themselves, they have a ton of character.

As for points, I am going to score them as a 28mm vehicle each and grant 15 points per as that seems to be the going rate for this size model, but will add a bonus 5 for the bigger one, just so you don't feel cheated (and since you were a fellow Saturday challenger!).

Awesome work Brendon.