From PeterB - Into the final section with some more 2nd Ed 40K and friends - 145 Points

I've finally hit the last section of the library. As you can probably tell I am unnecessarily trying to cover every set of stacks. So first of all, Oversize books.

Having been playing some Gaslands, I felt I needed a vehicle with a bit more craziness. What can be crazier than a monster truck with oversized tyres. This beast is definitely going to be intimidating the other drivers.

The vehicle is originally a cutesy cartoon vehicle from a kids show and had a smiley face on the front. A no-prize to anyone that can name the character/show. Some additional bits added from the instruments of carnage sprue from North Star and it now looks the part.

Next up, we head to true crime.

In the Warhammer 40,000 universe, the job of investigating crimes and keeping the peace amongst the miserable masses falls to the local Adeptus Arbites. (At least from third edition 40K onwards anyway,) Amongst the underhives of the spire cities where gangs roam, they are mostly kept in check by these guys, keeping them from bothering the rich families of the upper levels. Quite obviously inspired by the Lawmakers from Mega City One in the pages of 2000AD, these Judges are also Jury and Executioner when required. 

Then we head to cookery. 

I struggled at first with this category, then a delve in my "to do" box and I found this Spartan taking a break on campaign. Not sure of the manufacturer unfortunately, it was a second hand gift from a friend amongst some other bits. I also pulled out some pots and fire left over from the Renada Viking House set and a bunny from Bad Squiddo Games. It looks to me like the soldier is wondering what he is going to cook that evening, then has inspiration when an inquisitive rabbit appears. Maybe he is about to cook up some carrot broth and will share the carrot tops with his new friend?

Next we head to self help.

As everyone knows, the keeping and caring of plants is also an excellent balm for the mind. I myself am not that green fingered but do enjoy planting the odd bulb here and there to make the garden look nice. Although after completing this project my fingers were indeed definitely a shade of goblin green.

Some of you old school 40K players may recognise these plants as inspired by all those magnificent battle reports from old White Dwarfs that have been the inspiration of my main project this year, 

Yep, you too can have dangerous alien plant life as terrain on your wargame table by shoving some cocktail sticks into polystyrene balls. (Some are actually egg shaped, handy it being Easter soon.) The whole project took a lot longer than expected due to the layers of cheap craft paint taking an age to dry and needing multiple coats. The balls were attached together with very careful application of hot glue, too much and the polystyrene would just disintegrate. PVA glue however just didn't cut the mustard.

Scale shot for reference

The cacti are around 3 inch cube and there are six of them, so probably 15 points?

Finally, not for any location, just a little bonus for those of you that were missing the back banners and skulls. I present Zodgrod Wortsnagga. (That is a mouthful of a name.) Zodgrod is a slaver amongst the Ork society, preferring the company of Grots/Gretchin. 

A member of my local club very kindly swapped some old school Orks with me for some Chaos Dwarfs, so I had to paint this chap up this week for my retro Ork army.

To the scores...

1 x 20mm vehicle = 15 points

5 x 28mm Arbites infantry. 5 x 5 = 25 points

1 x 28mm Spartan infantry = 5 points

4 x locations. 4 x 20 = 80 points

terrain points = 15 points

1 x 28m Ork infantry = 5 points

Total = 85 points 145 points

 

 Sylvain: Nice completion of locations this week! Your "Big Foot" vehicle is hilariously tire-obese. Fantastic submission.

From TomL: Oversized & Selfhelp (115 points)

Bringing us to the next two sections in the final room of the AHCP via the library cart are two May dancers from Crooked Dice Miniatures.  These were painted using Foundry skin triads, ProAcrylic whites, Vallejo Ivory and contrast paints for the wreaths.

 

 

 

Surely such an innocent, wholesome maiden can be trusted?

 

First section we reach this post is the Oversized Books where things that are better when bigger are located.  We present a really big stompy robot whose cares where he stomps - the Iron Giant.

This 107 mm tall fast food toy was cleaned, molded copy right and advertising scrapped off and superfluous stickers removed.  A few coats of various shades of grey with the airbrush, grey brown on the recesses, fluorescent yellow eyes and some battle damage on his head and he was complete.

Guiding us to the next section is another fair May dancer.

We all can use some help in life.  What can be more helpful than centering yourself and working on your enlightenment in this busy noisy world?  

These Pulp Figures monks were painted using Two Thin Coat paints and Foundry skin triads. The larger wooden Buddha I inherited from my grandfather. I am not a Buddhist but I have always thought it looked best surrounded by plants.

Points: 115. Millsy, I'm guessing at the points for the Iron Giant so correct as needed.  The Ho scale kids & scenery were completed for one of my son's school projects long ago. 

Library Cart - 20 pts
Oversized Books - 20 points
Self-help - 20 points
7 28mm figures @ 5 - 35 points
1 107mm figure - 20 points [Millsy - sounds about right!]

From Millsy: I reckon by now you must have the largest collection of female miniatures of any challenger Tom. The May dancers are wonderfully characterful and I can see them both as NPC types for flavour or as protagonists e.g. cultists. The giant is a big guy but a simple paint job so let's score him like a 28mm vehicle. Great work!

From TeemuL: Riddles in the Dark [Children's book] [Self Help] (100 points)

While figuring out which could be the fourth section to enter and finish, I wonder back to the section one and finish the "Children's Book" section with these resin minis from Games Workshop. These are of course Bilbo and Gollum from the "Riddles in the Dark" blister for the Middle-Earth Strategy Game and they are based on the world famous children's book Hobbit or there and back again. Professor Tolkien used to tell this story to his kids and eventually he wrote it as a book and got it published. Adults like this book, too, and especially it's sequel Lord of the Rings, while some hard core fans like the prequels, like Silmarillion or the Book of the Lost Tales.

Like I said, this minis are resin and because they are quite small, they are very light and different to work with after painting some metal minis or larger plastic ones recently. In the end the painting process was rather simple, although it took a time to get there. Bilbo has brown pants, green shirt and red coat and that's about it. Gollum has pale skin and brown loincloth. The third object is Gollum's boat next to a rock with remains of fish. I tried to paint the rock next to the boat and the one on Gollum's base with some green to get a mossy effect, but I think there is too much, at least in the photos.

In general there is a basecoat, wash and some highlight/drybrush here and there. The basing is my standard brown without the tufts, since the scene is located underground and I guess there is little plants.

And then the fourth section, which will be Section 6. I head straight to the Self Help topic. I guess most of us (if not all) have been stressing about the unpainted minis and what to paint next, feeling bad about buying new minis, while there is a mountain waiting to paint at home. Some Self Help is needed, while the support from other's is important, too. I have learnt that, instead of looking at the whole mountain, just take a look at the smaller detail and forget the rest. For example take a one box of minis, assemble, prime and paint it, then take the next one.

It might be useful to have two or three boxes open at the same time, each "project" in different stage or perhaps each project needing different techniques to finish. That way you can switch from one project to another, if one of them is not interesting at the moment or has some drying paint and you still want to paint. Just switch the project and continue.

One of my goals in this Challenge is to empty-and-finish several miniature boxes, which links nicely to this Self Help topic once I understood it. It gives me pleasure and makes me happy to have one box or unit or whatever completed and I can move to the next one. For example these Type 97 Te-Ke tanks from Battlefront are my only minis for 15mm Pacific War and I find it extremely unlikely to have any gaming use for them in the near future, but I still wanted to paint them after buying them from a sale several years ago. Now they are painted, the box is empty and in general I will have more storage space and more painted minis, which makes me feel good about myself. Naturally I have bought more minis this year than I have painted, which makes me feel not so good in general, but these small moments of happiness is all what counts, right? Self help and self deception, ok?

Type 97 Te-Ke tanks were used by Japans in the WW2 and compared to the late war beasts in Europe these look rather small. In fact they were used for scouting and recon. The box comes with two different turrets for each tank, most commonly with a machine guns, but some 37mm guns were used on some. I have painted the both options, the first two photos show the MG versions and the bottom two show the 37mm gun versions. Unfortunately one of the guns (second left) snapped at some point and it looks a bit odd now. There are also 5 tank commanders in total, each roughly a half mini.

I was prepared to paint a characterful yellow cross camo, but my very quick look at the refenrence told me, that the yellow cross was not used in the late war, so I just went with the three colour camo with khaki as a base colour and dark brown and dark green as additions. I gave a brown wash and pale drybrush in the end, but they look may be a bit too dark, I don't know. Anyway, they are finished now and my happiness factor has went up a little. I didn't paint any identifications on these, since I know next to nothing of them.

Here is the map showing my progress.

And here is my collection of empty boxes during the Challenge. I hope to add at least one more.

Then the points:

2 hobbits (historically scored as 28mm minis) is 10 points

1 boat is about the size of a hobbit, so may be 5 points? It is a vehicle, so 20 points? :)

5 15mm tanks is 40 points

5 15mm half men is 5 points

5 extra turrets may be 5 points?

2 library locations is 20 points 40 points

Total is somewhere in the region of 105 points regarding how my minion likes to score the extra turrets and the boat. :)

 

TOTAL = 100 points

 

 Sylvain: As usual, your location bonus topics are very well chosen and well argued. Your brush work on these models shows great mastery, especially the camouflage pattern on the Japanese tanks. I am sure that this newly painted core collection for the Pacific will have a domino effect and soon you will acquire more tanks and soon you will start petting them and whisper to them: "My Preciousss..."

 

I took away points from the boat and the turrets but gave back some for the location. A fair trade in my opinion :-).  

 

From GeoffreyT: A very big recalcitrant book and other monsters (Oversized books, Self help, autobiography, 85 points)

Hello Challengers,

This week I have only a few miniatures, but quite a few bonus points.  This will be tempered in future weeks when all the bonus points are gone.

The first is a home sculpt of the Agrippa, which is an oversized book.  

According to "A book of creatures" website, it is from folklore of Brittany.  It is a malevolent grimoire the height of a man, which must be beaten and fought by the reader or it will not reveal its secrets and will just show blank pages.  I made it from two bits of plasticard and some milliput between them. 

The sculpt is 30+ mm tall, as shown next to its mates.

For the Autobiography section we have a Tasmanian Devil, by Grenadier Miniatures, sculpted in the 80's.  I too am from Tasmania where I was born and bred, although I no longer live there. Indeed the reason I have not much painted this week was I was down in Tasmania visiting relatives.

And next we go to the Self Help section, where I browse through books on painting and sculpting of monsters.

My interest in miniatures is primarily derived from the Hobby Art aspect of the genre, gaming is mostly a social outlet for my hobby.  I have enough miniatures for the games I like, but I still do like to create.  I find it quite relaxing and calming.  In particular I like monsters.  These two below are home-sculpts inspired from fantasy gaming art.

An 'Axebeak', a large flightless bird with an axe like beak and a goblin with a moon shaped head, moon shaped glaive and moon shape on his shield.  The former is more a D&D style monster, and the latter more in keeping with Warhammer.

The library map update

So this week we have:

4 x 28mm miniatures = 20 points

3 x library sections = 60 points

Total = 80 points.

Kind Regards

Geoff.

From Millsy: There's just so much to enjoy here I almost don't know where to start Geoff. Your sculpting skills clearly exceed mine and the book of creatures is a really cool choice of subject for the Library theme. The clasp and embossed cover motif are brilliant and really give it a feeling both of something that shouldn't be messed with! The Tassie Devil is also a great mini and very evocative of the Looney Toons incarnation. Have another 5 points for your sculpting efforts. Awesome work mate!