MichaelD - The Fruits of my Labors

 Once again I feel very grateful to Curt and everybody for maintaining this wonderful Challenge. So many fantastic painters and supportive friends. Thank you. This year I think I completed a personal best in terms of points, although I'm disappointed I wasn't able to get my act together to participate in the theme challenges. I bought a few miniautres for it, but then got so caught up in my main plan that I never really worked them in. Next time. Anyhow here are the group shots:

I had two big game-changing experiences over the past 3 months. The first is thanks to PaulSS, who suggested (on Facebook) using Trello for painting projects:

The other was painting 10mm. I always had middling success with 15mm, but really enjoyed speeding through my Union ACW figures. Not only am I looking forward to getting division-sized battles on a reasonable sized surface (soon!), but look at this:

I can probably fit a whole side in one cigar box!

Thanks again to everyone for all the support and inspiration!

From MichaelD: The Last-Minute Brigade [228 pts]

After having spent the challenge painting 28mm landsknechts I felt I couldn't figure out another unique paint scheme per figure or careful striping without losing my mind. I think we've all gotten to the point where we needed a reboot to get some wind back in our sails (if that's not mixing too many metaphors).

Back in December around the first week of this Challenge I took a road trip (I live in NYC) out to Gettysburg, Antietam, and Harper's Ferry. I was going lock-down stir-crazy and wanted to give my wife a short vacation from my constant companionship. Anyhow it of course kindled a need to paint large ACW armies. And large armies mean small figures, so I purchased my first packs of 10mm. Thus, when I was trying to figure out how I was going to make my point target this challenge I primed them up and started painting. 

It was a great experience in that it really was able to churn out a lot in a relatively short time. Ultimately my goal is to get about a division's worth of each side and I'd say I've gotten through a brigade and a half here. I also made my first use of Contrast paints (for the flesh, the coats, and the wood) and of all my experiments with them, the seem (ironically) best suited to 10mm.

Anyhow, here are the Last Minute Brigade, aka The One-Pointers, aka Sherman's Dumpers. 

With 192 foot (including command and artillery crew), 15 mounted, and 3 guns, I'm at 228 pts here, which puts me at 608 for the Challenge. 8 points over my goal! 

For Miles: The Altar of the SnowLord

Altar of the SnowLord (brought to you by the kids of Kinsmen Park South)

 

Okay Miles, back in 2009, when you started blogging, you mentioned that one of the periods you cut your teeth with was 6mm ACW. So, like all of us, I know you have miniatures remaining from that project - let's see what you can show us, 12 years on.  

Miles' Prize: EdwardG's Custer

From MichaelD: More Renaissance Infantry (210 pts)

 Over the past few weeks I can't count the number of times I thought to myself that I should have my head examined for doing Landsknechts for a painting challenge. Next time I swear it's all going to be Republican Romans. Lay on top of it what the winter quarantine blahs have done to my attention span, and I have to admit it's a wonder I've gotten these done. And each one as much of a special snowflake as I could make them.

It's the last of my Steel Fist figures and a box of Warlord Landsknechts. The Steel Fist figures are justly ubiquitous on here, but here's my take:

Some shooters:

And then I have some Warlord pikes. While not as characterful perhaps as the Steel Fist they have the great advantage of being less cumbersome then metal figures presenting their points forward.

All told there are 42 figures (there's one odd SteelFist pikeman, you can see in the group shot above)

From MichaelD - Renaissance Infantry and a Giant

Even in 2020 I feel like my Challenge doesn't begin until after New Years day. I get prepped and ready but can't find the time to get stuck in during the holidays. So as usual my first drop is in January. 

Also as usual my personal theme is making a dent in the pile of stuff that 'I had to own' but apparently didn't 'have to paint', and this year is the Renaissance edition. First up, I've got these Steel Fist Landschneckt pike and knights, most of which I think I bought during their original Kickstarter. They're beautiful sculptures although like a lot of people I've got into the habit of painting mostly plastics over the past few years. These guys are definitely Full Metal Soldiers. For scoring, it's 27 28mm foot @ 5 pts each.

Good citizen that I am, I've also completed my prize ante. It's the Frostgrave (defrosted) Frost Giant, complementary pig included. Again, I loved this sculpture and it was a pleasure painting it.

Ok, that's the ice broken now for me!

MichaelD: Challenge '16-'17 Post-game

I discovered the AHPC last year and couldn't wait until December rolled around so I could sign up and give it a try. It's been great to participate and have my minis out there with so many other great hobbyists.

This being my first challenge I had only pledged 500 pts and still I came up short with only 425 points. I think entering the challenge I simply estimated by thinking "Well what's the most I've painted over a three month period", shaving about a half of that off and figuring it would be no problem. Now that I've gone through this one time, I have a better idea of what it takes to get your points. First I need to keep a better eye on the themes, planning them and making sure I get them done. Second I need to figure out everything I'm going to paint, priming it before the challenge, planning my "assembly line" technique and then just letting rip. Instead I kind of winged it, sometimes painting figures I knew well and was able turn around quickly and sometimes painting figures I had never painted before.

I offer all this not in order to make excuses but in the spirit of having learned a bit over the last three months and looking forward to giving it another try in December 17. I had a blast. Thanks to Curt and the minions for all their work, and especially to all the other Challengers for sharing the pictures of such great minis. One of the joys of this hobby is that when you look at figures as you're gaming with them, you can see the whole history of how you got them and got them painted. So for these assorted Sisters of Battle, Foreign Legionnaires, and Burgundian mercenaries, I always remember them as products of my first of (I hope) many painting challenges.

SCW - Surprising Curt on Wednesday, Group Curtgeld Entry

When the Challenge was about to start, I started wondering what to have as a Curtgeld. Then one sleepness night the idea hit me: What if all the participants of the Challenge would create one huge collaboration entry (like a Space Marine Chapter or a Napoleonic Battalion) instead of working as pairs or small teams. Of course that was impossible, because at that time many of us had already agreed with someone else to paint something else. There was also a lengthy discussion about the subject. In the end some Spanish Militia was decided to be the one, it would allow several different painting styles and color choices and it would also give something Curt could use on his own games - he seems to distract quite a lot, so if we could give him a full squad, it would help him.

Because getting everyone involved was impossible, I turned my attention to our wonderful Wednesday Group. We soon picked up some Tuesday and Thursday guys as well, some Friday people were also interested in an so on. At some point we had, I think, 10 members, but not all of us managed to finish the painting for this Wednesday. I hope they can post their own entries on the final days.

Nevertheless, here are all the miniatures from our group, which were finished by today. Not as massed entry as I hoped in the start, but something to show our comradeship.

TeemuL - Empress Miniatures Spanish Civil War Militia

I had never painted this kind of historical miniatures before, so I had to paint couple of training pieces first (check my earlier posts). These were very nice and quick to paint and I hope I managed to represent the worn out look of poor militia man quite well.

BillA - Empress Miniatures Spanish Civil War Militia

I don't know that I have a whole lot to say about this figure, although it was eye-opening to go back to closer to true 25mm after painting so many "Heroic Scale 28mm" figures. I would like to thank TeemuL, as in the spirit of camaraderie he sent me this figure to paint at a time when almost the entirety of my "play" funds were going to pay veterinary bills. If the theme of this year's Challenge was the bonds of fellowship, then TeemuL more than exemplified that theme. 

PaulS - Empress Miniatures Spanish Civil War Militia

As part of the group I was intending to do a banner, but Curt beat me to painting the exact same model, so I figured I would go for soething a little bit more useful instead. The same pack of figures included an LMG, a lady with some ammo and another with a pistol. All three are generic enough to be useful in multiples, so what the heck. I know the Curtgeld is only supposed to be one figure, but I was on a roll, so there are now three... two have been formed into an MG team with a little bit of terrain and the third is ready to join the rest of the group entry to flesh out the rifles. Curt, they should pop off the bases easily enough if you decide you need to rebase them. I won't be too offended (much) ;)

Michael D. - 12 Mounted Italian Crossbows and CurtGeld (145 Points)

Well, as my first year in the challenge winds down, it's obvious I'll come up a little short of the 500 pts I had pledged. If I only knew then what I know now.... Clearly more specific planning and prep probably would have taken me where I'd hoped to be. But it's been great to be able to share with everyone, and I'm always learning more about the hobby.


Like my last post, this is part of my WAB Burgundian Ordonnance Army I'm taking to play at Cold Wars this weekend (instead of trying to finish the 100 or so points I need to meet my pledge.)

The figures are Perrys:

Finally, for Curt here's a young senorita doing here part to stop fascism:

I'm submitting this figure along with a number of other of Wednesday's Children.

The Italian Crossbows are 10 each for a total of 120 and then another 20 for the Curtgeld.

Again thanks to everyone for all the great feedback, and special thanks to Minion Byron for all his help.

ByronM: Nice work Michael with everything you did manage to get done.  The challenge is all about getting things done, while there are prizes and awards, that's not really what its all about.  So, if you missed your goal, no big issue, just try again next time, and as long as your happy with how much you got done and what quality you did, then its all good.  Oh and actually you get 145 points (you still get points for the figure for Curt itself, as well as the bonus).

From MichaelD: 16 French Foreign Legionaires (80 points)

One of the projects I'm using the challenge to get completed is a French Foreign Legion force. I've already got about 20 or so and I'm also working on some Tauregs for some skirmish gaming action.
So here are the newest additions to La Legion. These are Artizan figures.

Had a bit of a problem when I realized that the blue I had used for the great-coats was a bit lighter than what I had used previously on the rest of the group, but I think I'll go back and fix that later. The bugler here I got right, because I had realized my mistake by the time I'd started him.

I especially enjoyed doing the command figures. They had a lot of character, and I'm happy with the way they turned out.

ByronM: Very nice figures and paint job on them.  In regards to the blue, it is your call on adjusting them, but I will give you the same advice Curt gave me when I complained about having done that on some of my first Napoleonics... 

No two uniforms were the same in real life, and even if they all started the same, they saw different amounts of wear and cleaning, so rarely looked even close the the same after a few weeks, then faded or colour shifted due to dirt, sun, cleaning, etc, - You are perfectly fine leaving some different colours.

After that advice, I started painting big units like that different on purpose.  While I keep them close to the same colour, most of my units have a least a few members with far different colours on them, including completely different coloured pants, as most of the time at least one squad member would have ripped them or replaced them.  While not "standard issue" or normal, I think Curt's advice makes a lot of units look more real, than flowing the official uniform standard.