From AndrewB - Rabbits and Martians! Science fiction! (425 points)

Hello!   This week we’ve got some fun projects that I pushed hard to complete big pieces of this week, and I’m really excited to show them to you!  

First, some stellar rabbits from Thomas Foss over at Skull and Crown!  I’ve placed several orders for these, and they’re so simple to paint, yet incredibly characterful, so I keep finding myself drawn to acquiring and painting more and more of them!  This week, I have a group of rabbits, with some dogs as well, and two incredibly unfortunate monks who seem to have fallen afoul of the furry beasts! 

Interestingly enough, Thomas bases all of his figures on illustrations from the margins of illuminated manuscripts, which were transcribed by monks, so maybe there was some internal frustration going on in whatever monastery produced the source material!  

I particularly enjoy the rabbit priest with a censer, and my mounted commander, ready to lead his forces into battle upon his hound.  I have no idea if these gents will be taking over Peter cottontail’s place, or fighting to defend Watership Down with some new technology!  Maybe they’ll just beat up monks, who knows?   In any case, they’re some of my favorite minis, and I’ll work on getting they and the rest of the collection together for a group picture amongst the DIY terrain I made a few weeks ago, which should be pretty fun!  

Next up- coming soon to March to Victory, a fantastic convention in Kansas City next month(more on that later), this project fell perfectly into the Sci Fi section!  Fresh from the mind of Frank Chadwick, a small horde of Martians for the Space 1889 setting, as originally published by GDW, with miniatures still available from RAFM.  Quite possibly my favorite strain of Victorian Sci-Fi, the setting’s support died out fairly quickly, and it’s mostly fan-driven nowadays, so what better entry for the sci-fi room!  These are a split between the more civilized, advanced Canal Martians, and the more primitive, but flying Kraag Martians!  

 

These Canal Martians are the more civilized of Martian inhabitants, clinging to the former glory of the red planet.  There’s a good mix of firearms, and they tend to perform rather like humans.  The gashant-mounted leader and bards to find leader with his polearm and sword on the far right are two of my favorites! 

 

These ‘Kraag’ Martians are the more primitive cousins of the Canal Martians, and have lost the ability to produce firearms, but can curiously take to the skies in flight, so they shouldn’t have any problem presenting real troubles to the humans they’re fighting.  

Lastly, a group photo of the week’s progress!  That was a push!

As for points, we have 30 28mm Rabbits and company, as well as a single mounted figure, for 160pts!  The 47 Martians and single mounted figure brings me to 245, plus the 20 for the Science Fiction section, for a whopping total of 425!  You’ll have to forgive me if this next week is a bit light on the figures, this week was a real push. 

With 12 sections completed, I’ve emailed Curt, and we’re working on getting my Rare and Antique section hammered out, so I can get started!

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An unusual assortment indeed. I had no idea Thomas Foss was doing these sorts of figures, although I am sure all Challengers can relate to the sentiment of enjoying a particular figure or sculptor so much that one keeps acquiring more of it...certainly my basement would not be the absolute mess it is without that feeling! It would be interesting to actually get a look at these rabbit miniatures...perhaps you can take some close ups next time?

Between the rabbits and tide of VSF Martians, that is 425 points. Best of luck with your Rare and Antique Challenge.

GregB

From AndrewB: Gladiators and Scratchbuilds, Oh My! [Oversized Books, DIY, Lady Sarah's Cart] (180pts)

Ladies and gentlemen! Last week, we ended my post with True Crime!  This week, I’m hitting Oversized Books with some wildly giant 54mm gladiators from Irregular Miniatures!   These five I originally purchased just to see if they were something I’d enjoy painting, and could use for virtual games so players could more easily see who their figure was vs others (plus, I hear folks like gladiator movies).  They were quite fun to paint, had lots of room to try out some highlighting, which promptly disappeared under a wash(gonna have to change something next time).   In any case, I’ve ordered several more, which you may see before the end of the challenge!

The sculpts aren’t the most modern or absurdly detailed, but they lead to a good clean figure that I really enjoy. Oversized Books places me with two items from Section 6 complete, so that lovely lady gladiator’s gonna hop on Lady Sarah’s Book Cart and take me over to the lower rotunda, for a delightful crack at the DIY room!   

Oh boy, did I DIY my face off with these!   I have a bunch of the anthropomorphized rabbits made by Thomas Foss over at Skull and Crown Strategems, which are delightful to paint up, and supremely fun models to boot!  They needed a place to live, however, and simple holes in the ground for warrens wouldn’t do at all for such sophisticated and warlike creatures.  I decided to make them a few semi buried warrens, which you can see here!

As you can see, the rabbits enjoy the finer things, with little porches and back walks   Three of them likewise stack quite well into a 6x6x6 shipping box, so I’m in luck for both transport and scoring!  

Next up, the rabbits need some sort of communal buildings for governance and defense!   So I put these together!  

These guys are also entirely assembled from cut up cereal boxes, and should provide some semblance of security for the rabbit village from marauding humans, etc.  these were a bit more challenging than the warrens obviously, but were a fun break, and turned out better than anticipated!  I’m still debating what to put on the floors of the towers, maybe you all can provide some suggestions!  I believe I’ll probably add a few clumps of brush, and maybe some flowers, but at least the flowers will have to wait to see how the figures all turn out first   These are oddly shaped, but surely fill a box and maybe two thirds to a half of another, so we’ll go with that.  

As always, the basing materials come from Geek Gaming.  I can’t get enough of these things!

In terms of scoring, we have the five 54mm figures for 50pts (hot dang!), as well as three and a half cubes of terrain for 70pts!  We hit the Oversized Book section, as well as Lady Sarah’s Book Cart, and DIY, for another 60pts, for a total of 180pts this week!  Can’t slow down! 

Also, finally remembered to add my progress picture!  Gonna be a long slog to hit every section. 

 

 Hi Andrew, it's Assistant Junior Library Assistant Martijn stepping in here, as Greg has unfortunately been detained elsewhere. Some great gladiators you have brought us! They really look the part. I suppose "Oversized" is relative, but hey, I'll grant you your bonus. "For those things that are better when bigger", it seems like you intend to use them that way. However, your DIY project is awesome! Very creative and well executed. I must confess I had to look up the word "warren", so I did learn something today. You have not provided measurements, but I'll trust you on you word so 180 points it is.

From MikeD: Planet Vulcan - Point Ears. Long, Pointy Ears (76 pts)

 A couple of months in and I'm finally boarding the rocketship to embark on my voyage to where just about everyone has been before. These are some wonderful Skull and Crown minis I picked up on a Kickstarter a couple of years back. I'm a sucker for these sort of arty, literary minis for which I can find no gaming use whatsoever. They wind up being perfect for the Challenge themes though. Like Skull and Crown's Triumph of Death line or Eureka Miniatures Chaos line.

These figures were designed to represent what are know as 'Drolleries', that is the grotesque and comical drawings one finds in the margins of illuminated Medieval manuscripts. Unpacking a joke too completely just destroys it, but the juxtaposition of the timid little animals with the worst violence of human nature is still funny all these years later. 

Hysterical

Hmmm... could use more rabbits...

For scoring, I figured counting them as 20mm figures would be fairest, although of course I defer to whatever Minion Millsy thinks. 

So that's     8 foot @ 4pts = 32

                   3 mounted @ 8pts = 24

                    Planet Vulcan = 20 

for a total of 76 points I think.

From DaveD - AKA Millsy North.

OK - This hobby continues to amaze - who knew about this little rabbit hole to go down. well i am amazed alright - so that 76 points of long earedness for you

From JohnS: Renaissance Undead (420 points)

I had high hopes for this year's painting challenge, but I wasn't able to carve out the time to make much of a dent in my leadpile. With a paltry few hundred points completed, I expect these undead figures to push me over my self imposed minimum threshold of 500 points, alleviating my shame a bit.

I've wanted an undead army since spotting a fantasy scenario featuring a skeletal horde in Battlesystem 2nd Edition, nearly 30 years ago. Manufacturers never seemed to have the same vision for the undead that I did though. Game Workshop took a decidedly Egyptian feel with their Tomb Kings, and many of the more recently released undead miniatures have been too dynamic in pose and expression for my taste.

When I saw these figures based on the 1562 painting "Triumph of Death" by Bruegel the Elder, I knew I'd found my guys. While an undead shambling horde represents our own inevitable mortality, I also think they are a metaphor for the unfeeling, unsensing march of time, scouring all before them. These staid, emotionless automatons marching in their perfect ranks, with halberds and javelins at the ready don't slay out of hatred, but as part of the entropic machine that will inevitably collapse all of man's creations, grind mountains to dust and darken every star in the sky.

That's a bit dark, but don't be glum. This skelly brought a giant fish to cheer you up. What a whacky guy!

All 83 of these 28mm figures will likely be my final entry in this year's Analogue Painting Challenge.

 For my Curtgeld I've donated to Veteran's K-9 Corps, an organization that provides service animals for veterans and first responders. Thanks to Curt and the minions for managing the challenge, and loosening the entry rules to allow some decidedly non-historical figures into competition.

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And yet more French! Ish. Perhaps after invading Naples, the various wars, and the touch of the infected ladies of the night?

That skellie with the fish is absolutely bonkers. The fish looks alive, very discombobulated, and trying to decide what on earth just happened to him. You have managed to put an amazing expression on his face.

There's some real gems in there, like the skellie dopplesoldier (I HAVE to snag him for Frostgrave) and the bishop/grenadier, but the fish is the big win.

83x28mm is 415 points, and I'm throwing in another five just for the fish. Yes, he's that good.

That's also a splendid Curtgeld. Thankfully, all the ones I was responsible for supporting during Camp Fire came back safe, sound, and not needing their services.

From MikeD: Hoplites and Skellies (113 pts)

I'm gonna cut it close here but I see my goal in sight. First up are 5 residual skeletons from the Skull & Crown line. I didn't get these rank and file done in time for the Monstrous theme round, but better late than never.

I really like this line. I also have a set of those Eureka Chaos figures that I had primed hoping to paint  for this years challenge, but it doesn't look like I'll make it in time. Together I'm hoping to do a nice Bruegelian horror diorama.

I've also made a dent in my Greek bin with 17 Foundry hoplites:

The big slowdown with these is obviously the shield decals and the painting of the skirts on the shields. I have mixed feelings about shield decals. Or better said, I am frustrated with my ability to get them to look decent. For all my micro-setting and micro-solling and dulcoting I can never get them to look smooth and even. But at a certain point you just need to declare "table-top quality" and move on, I suppose.

So between the living and the dead, that's 22 28mm foot for a total of 110 pts.

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Smashing post Mike, I just love those skellies, I am instantly transported back to my youth and watching Ray Harryhausen's wonderful contribution to 'Jason and the Argonauts'.  I have not had much cause to work with shield transfers, but the times that I have I came away in utter frustration at my inability to apply them with any degree of skill and so I have to say yours look rather splendid to me and for your efforts I am awarding an additional 3 bonus points.  Now by my reckoning you are only 65 points short of your par score, perhaps one more push for Tuesday? 

From Curt - 1/300 Mediterranean Renaissance Ships (30 Points)

A few weeks ago I saw a post on Thomas Foss’ ‘Skull & Crown’ blog where he was play-testing his draft rules and prototype models for Renaissance-period naval combat set in the Mediterranean (update: the rules are titled, 'Galleys, Guns and Glory'). I was blown away by his 1:300 scale wooden models and so contacted him to see if I could convince him to both be a sponsor to the Challenge and to let me get my grubby mits on some pre-production samples of his models. Of course, being a very gracious gentleman, he agreed to both and so I present here some samples for you to check out.

The ship models are ingeniously designed, with each ship, depending on its size, being created from 4 – 7 pieces of flat, laser-cut wood. The pieces are essentially assembled in layers, from bottom to top. While certainly not a perfect rendition of renaissance galleys they provide, in under 10 minutes assembly, a wonderful impression of those elegant vessels.

The 'Galley' and 'Fusta' models on their wood frame.

For this post I’ve assembled and painted three ships, the larger one in green and yellow is a Turkish ‘Galley’, the slightly smaller one in red is a Knights of Malta ‘Galliot’, while the little craft without the sails is called a ‘Fusta’ and serves as a small galley / dice-holder. (I don’t have a copy of the rules yet (subtle hint to Thomas) so I can’t tell you what the Fusta’s purpose is, but my hunch is that it’s used to track ship damage or perhaps morale on the larger ships. Anyway, it’s pretty darn cool.) 

A Turkish Galley

A Knights of Malta Galliot

A Fusta

Thomas was kind enough to provide me with some flags and awnings which you can see here. I understand there will also be ‘strips’ of bulwark art, but it is still in production and will be available later. With that being the case I just bodged a rough paintjob for the hulls. I have to admit that in my eagerness to get to grips on these that I forgot to properly sand the surfaces, so I apologize if the paintwork seems a bit rough.

I used .02 mm plastic rod to mock-up the rigging that seems to have worked out pretty well. At first I thought it wouldn’t be robust enough for gameplay, but now I think it may hold up alright (and imo it's much easier to work with than fiddling about with thread). 

To provide a sense of their size I’ve included a shot below of the Turkish Galley next to a 28mm SCW armoured car and corresponding figure. As you can see the Galley is quite a sizeable model. I understand that there is one class of ship that is even larger, the ‘Lanternas’, which, of course, I’m very keen to see.

The Galley next to some 28mm models

I was also provided with some round crew tokens (not shown here) but I’m thinking I might use small bases mounting 1/300 scale figures for a bit of fun.

Thomas has informed me that while the pricing has not yet been set, one can expect the ships to range in price from $10 – 25 (USD) which will also include crew markers, cannon smoke markers, a sheet of giclee printed flags, awnings and pennants (in a choice of Turkish, Venetian, Maltese, Papal States or Spanish colours) AND the larger ships will come with a ‘Fusta’ damage dice holder. With a typical force being around 3 to 6 ships it seems to me to be an affordable entry to a very characterful period. 

Thanks again to 'Skull & Crown' for these pre-production samples - they were a complete blast to work on. I wish you the very best in this new endeavour and I can assure you that you have my future business! 

Okay so for points, I’m thinking that the Turkish Galley is equivalent to a 28mm vehicle, the ‘Galliot’ to a 20mm vehicle and perhaps a few more points for the Fusta, so say 30 points total? We'll run with that.

Finally, for those who haven't voted for the 'Victorian' theme round please remember to head over to the theme gallery, enjoy the submissions and cast your votes for your favourites. As you can see below the race is very tight again this week, with only a few votes separating those in the top six positions.

Thanks for visiting!