Pics of Anne's Cleavage (And Some Updates)

OK, to be more accurate, pics of cleavage painted by Anne! 

This lovely young lady was a gift she sent me via Fran. I would have received it a few weeks ago if I'd been able to make it to BlogCon. I'm pleased as punch to add such a wonderfully painted figure to my collection.

She also sent me this figure from Reaper, which looks as though it will be great fun to paint.


And now for the updates....

15mm Swiss Halberdiers

I finished prepping these during my lunch break on Thursday and primed them with gesso this afternoon.

28mm Berserkers

I prepped these yesterday and primed them this afternoon with Vellejo black surface primer.

28mm Mordheim(?) Figures

I received these two figures in a prize draw on someone's blog several months ago (or did someone gift them to me?). Anyway, these were prepped at the same time as the berserkers and primed with Vallejo white surface primer this afternoon.

NSL Fleet

Last night I got one batch of ships prepped, washed and assembled. I spray primed them this evening. The other batch got washed today and are now on long flight pegs ready for priming tomorrow.

Batch 1

2 Helgoland heavy cruisers; 4 Danzig class escort cruisers

2 Frankfurt class escort cruisers; 3 Nibelung class corvettes

Batch 2

2 Rommel class attack cruisers; 2 Kiel class light cruisers; 4 Emden class light cruisers; 2 Pola class frigates

I'm going to try to prep and prime the rest of the fleet this week. I'll probably go for a pretty basic dark grey colour scheme for these, with some panels picked out in a military green.


15mm Sci Fi - Heavy Grav Tanks and APCs

I've clearly had a busy afternoon and evening. As well as everything else, I also got round to finishing these vehicles from Critical Mass Games. They are from the ARC Fleet range. The bases were tufted and flocked, the vehicles sprayed with matt varnish and then glued to the bases. I'm quite pleased with how they've come out. After taking the photos, I added some magnetic sheet to the bases for storage and transport.

Grav APCs

Heavy Grav Tanks

Tipped to show the detailing of the  anti-grav units

Well, that's an awful lot of photos for one post, but they do show an awful lot of work that I've managed to get done since Wednesday.

Sunday Update

Well, Friday saw me feeling worse rather than better. However, I was feeling somewhat improved yesterday and today have been feeling almost 90%.

15mm SciFi Grav Tanks and APCs

These are very nearly finished. I've done the green camo, the detailing and washed with dark brown ink after giving them a spray coat of satin varnish. I just need to finish the basing on the flight stands and will then give them a spray coat of matt varnish.

15mm Seleucid Elephants

Especially for Mr Awdry, here are some pics of the almost finished elephants.

I just need to paint a few details on the mahouts and dry-brush the nellies with a lighter grey, then it will be on to painting the howdahs and crew.

The figures are from Donnington in case you were wondering.


NAC Intro Fleet

I got these painted this weekend, so here you go with a mass of pics.

All together:

As you can see, I've mounted them on clear stands from Litko (part of my purchases from Figures in Comfort this week).

Frigates:

Destroyers:

"My word! She's painted bits on the underside as well this time!"

Oh, in case you're wondering, those are Litko flight-peg toppers glued underneath. I've also added these to my FSE ships.

Light Cruisers:

Heavy Cruiser: 

Battle Cruiser: 

The painting scheme for these was:
Sprayed with grey primer
Washed with mid/dark grey
Wet-brush with 2:1 pale greyblue/London grey (went a little too heavy and it went into recesses as well)
Dry-brush 3:1 pale greyblue/white
Lighter dry-brush 1:1 pale greyblue/white
Flat red on panel details
Dark blue grey mixed with metallic medium on weapons and engines
Hazard panels done with 1:1 yellow ochre/flat yellow then black lines
Green nacelles - base coat of emerald washed with fluo green
Bridge deep sky blue mixed with metallic medium
Weapon tips - fluo green
Engine effect - same as for the FSE fleet I posted last week

I then sprayed with gloss varnish and washed with London grey, then finished with a spray of satin varnish.


Plans for this week

1. Finish up the grav tanks and APCs
2. Finish painting the Seleucid elephants and crews
3. Prep the NSL fleet
4. Prep the Swiss halberdiers
5. Collect the packages that the postman tried to deliver while I was out on Saturday (I suspect they are my GZG order and another order from Figures in Comfort)

Thursday Update

Grottyness, grottyness, grottyness. The cold I've had for over a week finally decided to wipe me out yesterday. It probably didn't help that since I caught it I was rushing round at work like a mad thing when the cold was at it's worst for snottiness and coughing. Anyway, yesterday saw me with sub-zero energy levels and today I was only just into positive energy territory so I've been stuck at home. Hopefully tomorrow will see me back at work.

I did get quite a bit done since Sunday's post though:

15mm Grav Tanks and APCS

These were all assembled and primed by Tuesday night. Today I've given them a basecoat of yellow ochre. Once that had dried, I did the first layer of camo (3:1 burnt sienna/yellow ochre) applied using a sponge. I've given the stands a base coat of burnt umber. Later tonight I might do the second colour of camo (3:1 sap green/burnt umber). Then it will be a wash of burnt umber and doing the detailing (crew, weapons, grav modules).

NAC Intro Fleet

I missed out one fact from my post on Sunday. While drilling out the holes for the flight stand pegs I made a booboo on the heavy cruiser and accidentally drilled too far through. I've plugged it with squadron green putty and drilled a new hole just to the side. The ships have all been washed and the battlecruiser assembled (which only involved gluing the bridge section to the main body) and they are ready for priming. I'll try to get them painted up this weekend.

15mm Seleucid Nellies

Having stripped the paint off these last week, I've now reassembled and primed them with the howdahs left separate for now.

15mm Buccaneer Standard Bearers

I've prepped the 4 standard bearers I bought for my Buccaneer army and washed them. I still need to add some wire for the flag staffs and then prime them.


15mm Swiss Halberdiers

I started prepping these at work this week and they are sat on my desk at the moment waiting for me to finish prepping them.


NSL Fleet

I've begun prep on these. Holes for flight pegs and the engine exhausts have been drilled out. Unfortunately all my needle files are at work so I won't be able to prep them for a few days.



Pre-Christmas Spending

I've been on a bit of a spending spree. I've placed orders:

GZG - more ships for my NSL fleet and some 15mm NAC power armour troops.

Tiny Tin Troops - a whole lot of magnetised bases for my 6mm ACW project.

Baccus - casualties, commanders, dismounted cavalry, some heavy ordnance and various oddments (tents, wagons)

Figures in Comfort - some pick'n'pluck foam trays for storing and transporting my Full Thrust fleets and a load of Litko tokens and bits for Full Thrust.

Of Spaceships and Challenges

I've had a grotty old cold all week so there wasn't much to post until now. Whilst I might not have done any painting until this weekend, I wasn't doing nothing. The nelliephants have been stripped and reassembled - I'll be painting them with the howdahs off this time, then gluing those in place later (before the Klear/ink and matt spray).

As well as stripping the nellies, I also stripped the FSE intro fleet which I'd painted about this time last year (but hated the paint scheme). After a bit of fannying about, I repainted them over the weekend.

How they were:

Hmmm, I guess I never took pics of them in the finished state.I had picked out weapons and some panels & pods in white, red and yellow.

And how they are now:

Some close ups:

Frigates

Destroyers

Light Cruisers

Heavy Cruiser

Battle Cruiser

These were quite quick to paint up:
Sprayed with grey primer
Basecoat of slightly thinned dark-grey
Wet-brush of ultra-marine/dark grey-blue
Heavy dry-brush of dark blue-grey/dark grey-blue
Light dry-brush of dark blue-grey/light grey-blue
Panels picked out with flat red
Weapons and engine grilles picked out with natural steel
Weapon ends picked out with fluo orange
Exhaust: deep sky blue, sky blue/white, white, washed with fluo blue
Spray with satin varnish

These ended up somewhat darker than I originally envisaged, but I'm pleased with the result. I was also reminded of the problem with my photography set up. For some reason the matt black boards and my lighting combine to white-out the ships in my photos, so I ended up going with the glossy white boards.


As well as this, I've done a bit more prep - the NAC intro fleet I won in Seb's prize draw and some grav tanks and grav APCs from Critical Mass Games. The tanks have been washed and assembled (apart from the gun barrels - I'm still trying to work out whether to fix the barrels or go for magnetisation so that I can swap them out). The APCs are currently soaking in soapy water to remove any release agents from the resin.


Planning for the Challenge

I'm still trying to work out a running order for what I'm going to paint this year. Curt's introduction of fortnightly specials has thrown a bit of a spanner into my intentions from before the call went out. I can't see myself entering for all of the specials, but I should be able to do something for the non-combatant, vehicles and casualties.

I'll also need to find something for my entry fee. I had thought of doing a certain iconic vehicle from a certain iconic film developed from a certain song but haven't had any joy finding a model in less than 1:12 scale! This means I'll just have to find a 28mm figure that would fit the requirements (inspired by a Peckinpah movie).

So, I guess you all want to know what I'll be painting for this year's Challenge.

Camp scene for use with my Swiss army (and as my entry for the non-combatant special)
"Arrrrrrr! There do be pirates on the horizon Cap'n!" Yup, my 15mm buccaneer army will be hitting the painting table. Lots and lots of bloodthirsty, cutlass-wielding, grog-drinking ne'er-do-wells.
6mm ACW - it's been just over 2 years since I bought the base armies so it's about time I painted them.
15mm Korean arquebusiers - so I can use my Koreans for FoG:R as well as FoG:AM
15mm SciFi, as Curt is allowing non-historical minis this year. I haven't decided which ones to do yet (so many to choose from!). I will probably try to tie this in with the Vehicles special and do a reinforced platoon sized force.
28mm Coureurs de Bois - the FIW figures for the Bloggers For Charity game (if I haven't painted them before the Challenge).
15mm 30YW - I've got 6 limber teams, 32 casualties (24 men, 8 horses) and 10 battalion guns to complete my army. Guess which special I'll try to tie these in with!
28mm Vikings - 4 berserkers,  a warlord and 2 wolves

If I manage to get through all those, I do have some more things waiting in the wings, but I haven't prepped any of these.