AHPC X Day 53 - Entries Twelve and Thirteen

Yesterday was quite a busy day. Not only did I finish and submit my twelfth entry, the Stronty Dog trio I showed in my last WIP post, but I also completed my Snowlord's Peak vignette and submitted that as my thirteenth entry.


Entry #12 - "Scum of the Universe" [link]

Entry #13 - "Tamsin To The Rescue", my Snowlord's Peak vignette [link]

I thoroughly recommend that you follow the links to the posts on the Challenge blog - there are lots more pics and for the Snowlord's Peak piece a beautifully crafted tale which I'm sure you will enjoy.


I thought I might include some WIP pics here of the island:

Base covered with a mix of filler (spackle), PVA glue and paint (black and German Uniform):

Water colour base coat applied (Dark sea Blue):

Sand base coat (Yellow Ochre) and water highlight (Blue Green); rocks painted and highlighted (various greys and greens):

Palm trees fixed in place, sand added, stained dried herbs added around base of palms; everything sealed with PVA:

Preparing to add water effects - masking tape around terrain base and a bead of water effects added to create a seal:

The morning after adding Vallejo "Still water" (coloured with a 1:2 mix of Dark Sea Blue and Blue Green):

 
Masking tape peeled away; horrible meniscus:

It was at this stage that I discovered that the cured "Still Water" had a consistency like rubber which proved rather resistant to being trimmed with a knife. I resorted to scissors. This was also where I discovered that the wavy edges made trimming with scissors awkward - chunks at the edge ended up being torn away and in a few places it lifted at the edges.

I had to add a bit more water effect to "glue" the lifted areas down and some more on top and around the torn chunks to try to hide them. That wasn't a complete success, although it did look much better. It also meant another overnight wait before I could move on to the next step.

First application of gloss Mod Podge to add wave texture. A applied a fairly heavy coat all over the water and "rippled" it with blasts of air from my airbrush..

I left that overnight to dry, then added some more defined waves yesterday morning. They had cured by the afternoon, so I added white froth by stippling some of my snow texture mix on them.


It will probably be a good few days before I have another submission, but it's going to be a biggie. I expect you will see quite a few WIP pics as it progresses.

Army Review: 15mm Buccaneers. Aaarrrrr!!!!

I needed a break from posting last night, and thought that you good folks probably could as well. But I'm back with the next of my series of army reviews.

Tonight I must confess to a state of embarrassment. I painted the bulk of the army about two and a half years ago but still haven't finished painting the commanders, artillery, dragoons and light foot. Or the camp. Or the ship. OK, the ship is actually finished for painting, maybe some detailing needs to be done. And the crew would need painting. What the ship really needs though is the masts, sails and rigging. I'm thinking this project needs me to dedicate some time to it later this year. I've got all the bits I need. Well, I might need to buy another pack of pirates with firearms from Rebel Minis, but that's it.

Well, it must be time for the piccies:

"Disciplined" buccaneers*

Pyrats and skeleton crew - "Veteran" buccaneers?*

Skeleton Crew

"Other" buccaneers*

Close Up 1

Close Up 2

* in FoGR there are three classes of pirates buccaneers:
Veteran buccaneers - Superior, Medium Foot, Musket/-/Sword
Disciplined buccaneers - Average, Medium Foot, Musket/-/Sword
Other buccaneers - Average, Warrior, Musket*/Impact Foot/Sword

I went for using the Pyrats and Skeleton Crew for the veterans, but could use some of the "Disciplined" bases if I want an all (living) human army - that's what the two 4-figure bases in front are for, to help distinguish them.

The figures are a mix of Blue Moon and Rebel Minis. Painting them was fun, but a bit of a slog as I did them all in one big batch to help get the variety of flesh tones, hair and clothing colours. I think these were the fist figures where I tried the "Ian Willey" basing method - glob thick paint (in this case craft acrylic rather than household emulsion) on the bases and then drizzle the sand mix on top. The thick paint binds the sand much better than PVA does, making drybrushing much easier.


These are the last of the 15mm for now (I do have some odds and ends to post later). The next reviews will be my 28mm armies.

Challenge Day 90 - Favourite Character Bonus Round

Yes, I am still alive thanks. I simply felt like taking a break from blogging.

Anyway, some updates are in order I suppose.

Mongol Command and Light Horse

Finished this evening, pics taken and sent to Curt.

Buccaneer Command and "Dragoons"

Not touched for nearly 2 weeks. I'll see what I can get done this weekend.

Gaming

On Monday I played my 2 games for the first round of our club Saga tournament. I lost both thanks to atrocious dice rolls in both games (combined with unfortunate troop match-ups in the first). My Normans were facing off against Gavin's Scots.

Last night Simon  and I finally got around to playing a couple of games of Full Thrust Lite. I lost both from some unlucky dice rolls, but the second game could have gone either way until the last turn. I think a big problem was that we were playing on a 3' x 3' mat, which was too small an area to manoeuvre our fleets properly.

On Sunday I will be taking part in a multi-player  game of FoGAM organised by Gordon, pitting Spanish against Moors in the El Cid era. It should be fun.



Favourite Character Bonus Round

It's almost 2 weeks since the gallery was posted by Curt and nearly a week since the votes were counted, so it's about time I posted some pics of my entry here.

My Favourite Character was also my entry fee figure for this year's Challenge. I had decided to do Unteroffizier Feldwebel Rolf Steiner from Cross of Iron. I'd always found this to be a powerful film and a rare example in the West of showing WW2 from a German point of view. Many years after first seeing the film I read the book it was based on and this gave me an even stronger appreciation of Steiner's character. An NCO committed to his troops, despising officers (with the possible exception of Leutnant Meier), the officer class and everything they stand for he was a real leader of men trying to survive in a world gone mad.

Finding a suitable figure proved to be impossible, so I had to convert a figure (Warlord Games Waffen SS Officer with MP38) by means of a head swap (Warlord Games head in field cap), weapon swap (well, the front part anyway - a PPSh-41 from a Warlord Games plastic Russian Infantry Weapons sprue), hacking away some of the belt equipment, filing off shoulder straps and using green stuff to sculpt the front of a crew neck sweater and a hood for the smock.

I'm quite pleased with how the stubble effect on his face has come out.


I need to do a bit of touching up of the figure before I send it to Curt and to give it another coat of matt varnish (it's still very shiny in patches).

Challenge Day 80 - 200k Hits!

Good evening one and all!

Earlier this evening saw my 200,000th page view. As you can see from the above pic I just missed this momentous occasion. This milestone has come about quite quickly after another milestone - my 500th blog post. I guess I'd better sort out a giveaway of some kind to celebrate.

This week I'm on a training course, week one of the NEBOSH General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety. Unfortunately our tutor is setting us homework, which means a couple of hours of reading every evening. Of course, this means I don't have as much time for painting. The good news is that I'm not as tired this week - I think it may have been a low level virus that was dragging me down the past fortnight.


Mongol Command

No progress since Sunday. They are almost done so should be quick to finish when I get round to them

Pirate Commanders and Dragoons

I did the third colour set last night and stockings for those wearing them. If I have time after this evening's homework I will try to get the hair done and maybe the shoes and boots.

Mongol Light Horse

I glued the riders to the horses yesterday and this evening have primed them.

Challenge Day 72 - Slow Progress

Well, progress is slow, but that could be because I'm working on 4 different projects simultaneously. I will probably focus on my Sgt Steiner figure for the next two evenings to ensure that I can finish it in time to submit for the "favourite character" bonus round.

Some progress pics:

Figures for buccaneer command stands (and probably the camp too)

Buccaneer "dragoons"

Yes - it is a camel!! Mongol command group

I've finished prepping my extra NSL ships. As with the FSE and civilian ships, I won't be assembling these for a while. The next batch of lead for prep will be 24 Mongol light horse to give me a break from spaceships. Then I'll prep the ESU megafleet.

Challenge Day 70 - Paint Table Saturday #16

Yup, it's Paint Table Saturday again. So, what's on my table this weekend?

A bit of a mix as it happens. At the back is my entry fee figure for the Challenge. A lot of you will probably be able to work out who it is meant to represent.

On the left of the picture are some pirate figures for the command stands for my buccaneer army, a mix of captains, standard bearers and pirates carrying treasure.

On the right are some more figures for my buccaneer army - mounted and dismounted dragoons, plus riderless horses.

Finally, next to the buccaneer dragoons are 3 mounted Mongols to make up a command stand for horse nomad allies to add to my Choson Koreans. I'll probably be doing the rest of this small force (light horse, heavy cavalry and some light foot archers) after the Challenge, but might do some of them earlier if I get all my buccaneers painted in time. The eagle eyed among you may have noticed that the rearmost figure on the stick is not riding a horse....

Challenge Day 69 (Fnarr fnarr!) - 15mm Pirates, Errrmm, Buccaneers

At long last, my pirates buccaneers have been posted on Curt's blog, earning me 500 points (he very generously gave me 4 extra points). Everyone seems to like them, particularly their colour. I've posted pics below. I've also raised my points target to 2400. Hmmmm. I really think that was a bad idea - I don't think I'll be able to make 822 points with just under 4 weeks to go, as I've been feeling absolutely knackered every evening this week when I've got home from work.

In terms of painting, I've only managed to do a little bit of work on my entry fee figure this week. I have continued doing prep-work on the spaceship lead-pile. All my FSE and civilian ships are done; today I've started on the extra NSL ships I ordered. I'm leaving assembly of these until after the Challenge.

Hopefully I'll be able to finish my entry fee figure this weekend and maybe make a start on my pirate buccaneer command stand figures.

Anyway, here are the pics I promised at the start of the post.