AHPC7 - Challenge Day 3

Today I have been suffering from the after effects of yesterday's team Xmas lunch - very tired, no energy and somewhat achey. Which means that I didn't manage to get as much done as I'd hoped. However, I still managed to get the camo basecoats and highlights airbrushed onto the 15mm grav tanks and APCs that wil be my entry for the "armour" bonus theme round. Oh, and I've dry-brushed the bases that they will be going on.

I do still need to do some touch-ups where paint either lifted along with the stencils or where it got chipped/scratched. And some detailing before airbrushing a coat of Klear on followed by a shading wash, a second coat of Klear and then a coat of matt varnish. I also need to flock the bases.

All that will have to wait until next week though as I'm heading down to Sussex tomorrow for Christmas.

So, here's wishing you all a merry Christmas and may Santa bring you all the shinies you've asked for :)

Sickness Benefits

I've been struck down by a virus. Yesterday was hellish - all over aches, weakness and extreme tiredness during the day and general grottiness, but I did pick up a bit in the evening and managed to do a bit of prep work. This morning I was feeling a bit better, but still too weak, achey and drained for work so a second day at home. With nothing else to do, I got a few bits done - the benefits of being sick!

For a start, I managed to prime all of this lot with the airbrush:

These may or may not get painted up for two of the Bonus Theme rounds in this year's Challenge. I expect that the grave tanks and APCs will get done; I'm less certain of the Three Musketeers mob being fitted in. Well, maybe some of that lot might get done...

And then I finished off the scatter terrain pieces:

Gunmental dry-brush, sponging with hull red and light rust then dabbing with natural steel. Topped off with a patchy application of static grass. I think they've come out quite well.

Saturday Update - Plenty of Shininess

Is it really five days since I last posted? Oh, so it is. To be honest, that is mostly because I haven't done enough to justify a post until now.

Today has seen a bunch of goodies arrive at Schloss Piper. Here is a pic of my workbench with some of them:

At the back, behind all the goodies, and on the bottom right of the pic you can see the fruits of my work last night - I was disassembling various vehicles for my next painting projects (and the two roller-coaster type vehicles to see if I can use the passengers as crew figures for my modded cars). This lot was ready to go into the stripping jar when the pic was taken (they've since been stripped and scrubbed ready for priming tomorrow):

The white dump-truck bed didn't go in the stripper - I just removed the decal design using a cotton bud soaked with nail polish remover.

OK, back to the goodies:

Vinyl flame masks from LE Diecast

Containers, crates, turret weapons and Gruntz activation cards from Brigade Models

Weapons and scenics from Sgts Mess

I got some bonus oil drums! And a nice message

I bought these paints on Tuesday

Part of the reason I hadn't had much to post about this week was that I was feeling wiped out most evenings, thanks to an incipient cold. I'm definitely past that now so should be getting quite a bit done.

My recent Amazon orders also arrived today (screws and washers; crimp tubes) but I didn't take a pic of those.

This afternoon I did a bit of airbrushing. I added some red to the test car:

I think I still need some more practice to be able to pull this technique off properly, but I'm certainly getting there.

I also sprayed the other three Fast 4WDs with different transparent colours over bare metal:

Sunrise Yellow, Ultramarine Blue, Tropical Green

I'm very please with how these have come out. Tomorrow I'll be spraying all four with gloss varnish to seal the paint, then I'll have to do the weapons (now that my restock of Brigade Models turrets has come in).

Ahh! I've just remembered one bit I did get done during the week. I added coloured stripes to the "spikes":

I might have a go at putting them onto bases tomorrow while the gloss varnish dries on the Fast 4WDs.


"Come on now. We know you've bought more toy cars. Show us the pics!"

Back row is repeats; front row is new stuff. Well, the hot rod on the end is a minor body variant on one I have already so could be in either row.

With a full day clear tomorrow, I should get quite a bit of work done.

Saturday Workbench

When I got home from work yesterday my bits order from Brigade Models was waiting for me. Sadly for me, that meant I couldn't procrastinate and prevaricate about modding some 3X cars for Car Wars so one of the Wilko cars went into the small tub of nail polish remover for paint stripping. Just the one for now to test things out.

It was at that point that I realised I hadn't placed a couple of other small orders that I'd planned, so a quick trip to Warbases and GZG was in order last night, while the acetone did its job.

This morning I gave the car a good scrubbing with an old toothbrush to remove the paint. As you'll see in the pics a bit further down, there are still traces of paint between panels, but not enough to worry about. After a quick rinse in hot water, I left it to dry and went out shopping.

"Hang on - did she say shopping? I bet she ended up buying more toy cars and stuff!"

Errmm, well, you see - it's a fair cop guv'nor!

Oh, and I might have ordered a few trucks off Ebay and Amazon as well...

But, yes, back to the workbench stuff.

Taking a look at the car, I decided on what weapons to fit it out with and set about drilling holes for them to poke through or fit into. I then had to fit them which entailed a certain amount of trimming with my sprue cutters. Once I was happy with the fit, I superglued them in place. I also glued the wheel axles to the chassis and the wheels to the axles.

Later this afternoon or this evening I will get out the spray booth and airbrush and prime the car. While the primer is drying I'll be going over the "yellow" 1:200 cars with white, then yellow as the yellow seems to have turned green over the grey primer.

Salute 2015 - Post 3: The Lootz

Bleugh! The cold I thought I might be developing isn't a mere sniffle but a full-blown bug of yuckiness. That is going to set my plans back a bit.

But enough of that, you want my Salute Loot post.


The bits in the freebie bag - Agincourt longbowman, die and a fire arc template:

From Brigade Models - a building and two repair crews in different helmet types:

Perry 28mm plastic WotR light cavalry:

From Donnington Miniatures - 24 Bulgar cavalry (15mm):

From Figures in Comfort - some Litko hex flight bases and some 1.5" flight pegs:

Some Foundry figures and some Copplestone beat cops

From Northumbrian Tin Soldiers - the Night Folk teddy bears pack. I've got absolutely no use whatsoever for these, but they are cute and will be fun to paint!

I picked these rules up for pulp gaming:

Pre-order of Old glory 15 Koreans from Timecast. When I opened the package on getting home I found that 5 of the 8 packs were incorrect. I quickly spotted what must have happened - they'd accidentally picked Ming packs instead of the Koreans. I've sent them an email to try to get things sorted out.

The 5 incorrect packs

The 3 correct packs

From Essex - some reinforcements for my Seven Years War Russians. Enough for 2 regiments of musketeers, 2 of grenadiers, 2 cuirassiers, 2 hussars, 2 Cossacks,  2 more artillery pieces (plus limbers) and some more commanders:

From GZG:

Various accessories

NSL power armour reinforcements

Hover tanks, heavy APC and fan van

One each of the new merchant ships. The one on the right isn't released yet, but Jon knew I'd want it so he had brought one to the show for me.

On top of these, I also came away with some freebies.

Ashley (Paint It Pink) had won these in a prize draw, but as she doesn't do 15mm now she gave them to me as a birthday gift. That was very nice of her - thank you m'dear! :)

Some UNSC Light Infantry

Some grav vehicles

Four 25mm power armour troops. I'll need to check the GZG site to find out which ones they are.

At the meet-up Loki was handing out some figures to people who'd taken part in the 2013/14 Analogue Painting Challenge. Kawe (Westfalia Miniatures) had done a limited edition run of this figure and donated one for each Challenge participant. The figure is of the Empress Maria Theresia.

As a thank you for helping out with his Agincourt game, Damian from Donnington Miniatures gave each of us a packet of the new Hundred Years War casualties. I got a French pack.

That was certainly a lot of loot to haul back home. I'm glad that I'd invested in a backpack that converts to a trolley-case as I'd have had difficulty carting it home otherwise.