Sunday Workbench 10 September

Now, about those AARs I keep saying I'll write up...well, you see I keep getting caught up doing other more pressing things like reading new books, the odd bit of figure painting, surfing the web for more stuff to order, you know the drill. I *will* get them done this week - promise!

So, what's on the workbench? Well, I've finished painting and varnishing the Russian dragoons, pinged them off the sticks and glued them onto their bases:

At some point this week I'll add the basing gunk to these and the grenadiers, then drybrush when it's cured and add some static grass.

During the week I also got the Star Destroyers cleaned off with white spirit, followed by a soak and scrub in warm soapy water to clean that off. Quick rinse and dry then I did a black oil wash, left it for a few hours then wiped off the excess from the surfaces with a white spirit soaked rag.

They do look much better but I think they could do with a white or very light grey drybrush. I'll do that at some point this week, then add some identifying marks in different colours before doing a spray coat with satin varnish. I'll also be doing the TIE fighters and interceptors this week, or making a start on them.

A few more purchases have arrived:

Short bamboo stalks and books from Amazon

Most of my order of Ming Chinese and the extra Koreans to do Pikemen bases.

A big bag of herbs for ground scatter - I might have overdone it a bit!

A couple of cheap statues for jungle terrain (28mm figure for scale)

I also received a bag of 250 ball bearings to add to my paint droppers as agitators and some 50ml and 100ml dropper bottles for big paint/wash mixes (no pics of those).

I've got a few more orders still to come in - some longer bamboo stalks (from Amazon), some cheapo Chinese-made trees (various, from Ebay) and odds and sods like tongue depressors.

Anyhoos, back to work tomorrow after my week off...

Challenge Round-Up

***Warning - Lots and Lots and Lots of Pics!!!***

Now that I've had a chance to recover from the trials and tribulations of 15 weeks of the 5th Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, it is probably the right time to do a round-up of everything that I submitted.

After my previous two Challenges, I posted every entry in the order that I submitted them. I've decided to do something different this time and group the posts according to themes. I'll go with a historical order.

**Edit: I've added links to the posts on the Challenge blog for each entry**

28mm Wars of the Roses

Entry 14 - Retinue Archers (300 points)

This entry is the beginning of my 28mm WotR army for FoG. Sixty bowmen.

Charles Kneale, Baron Broadstone

Piers Rose, Earl Chelwood

Edward Kneale, Earl Anderida

15mm Choson Era Koreans

I managed to add a fair few units to my Choson Korean army this year.

Entry 4 - Righteous Army Command (11 points)

Entry 5 - Warrior Monks (107 points)

Entry 21 - Soldiers and Archers (144 points)

15mm Thirty Years War

Just the one unit this year!

Entry 19 - "Yellow" Foot Regiment (64 points)

15mm Seven Years War Russians

I managed to surprise myself with the speed and quality that I painted these up. Not to mention the fact that I actually completed an army (albeit a relatively small starter army).

There was also the added trouble of hand-painting the cast-on flags - I managed to produce a reasonable impression of the actual flags.

Entry 1 - Zeltiy and Slobodskiy Hussars (72 points)

Zeltiy Hussars

Slobodskiy Hussars

Entry 2 - Cavalry, Generals and Artillery (195 points)

This one was a rather packed submission!

3rd ("Fedorovitch") Cuirassiers

Kievskiy Cuirassiers

Sankt Petersburgskiy Horse Grenadiers

Tverskiy Dragoons

General Baron Ivan Tovokov; General Count Vasilliy Oldvol; General Vladimir Yvorluncz

Entry 6 - Grenadiers (74 points)

1st and 2nd Grenadiers

The flag I had to try to paint!

Entry 8 - 2nd Moscowskiy and Apsheronskiy Musketeers (74 points)

2nd Moscowskiy Musketeers

Apsheronskiy Musketeers

Entry 9 - Four More Musketeer Regiments (150 points)

Curt had challenged me to complete these four in a week - I got some extra points for succeeding.

Arkhangelovskiy Musketeers

Astrakhanskiy Regiment

Chernigovskiy Regiment

Novgorodskiy Regiment

And a picture of the whole army:

6mm American Civil War Union Army

I didn't quite finish this army - I've still got four line and two Zouave infantry regiments to paint up (of the ones which are prepped and primed).

Entry 12 - Eight Infantry Regiments (120 points)

Entry 15 - Cavalry and Command Point Markers (83 points)

Entry 16 - Artillery and Four Infantry Regiments (104 points)

16 artillery bases - do you think that's enough?

Smoothbores (4 of 12)

Parrott Rifles (4 of 4)

Entry 20 - Generals (20 points)

Entry 24 - Four Infantry Regiments and Sharpshooters (72 points)

28mm "Salutesville" - 1920s Pulp/Mob Wars

Entry 7 - Blame it on the Bellboy (10 points)

Entry 10 - Salutesville's Finest (105 points)

Entry 25 - Four Dames (20 points)

I exited the Challenge with these four lovely ladies from Salutesville:

28 mm Neo-Noir Pulp

Just the one entry in this category - my Curtgeld antihero.

Entry 23 - Marv, Marv and Victim (28 points)

15mm Science Fiction

Entry 3 - Space Demons and Cargo Loader (112 points)

"Get away from her you BITCH!"

Entry 11 - NSL Power Armour Troops (84 points)

Entry 13 - NSL Panzer Grenadiers (284 points)

Another points bomb, painted in a week!

The Grunts:

The Commanders:

Recon Squad:

Heavy Weapons Teams:

Forward Observers:

Specialists:

HAMRs

Missiles

Plasma Guns

Laser Rifles

 Squad Attachments:

Missiles

Plasma Guns

Laser Rifles

HAMRs

Entry 17 - NSL AFVs, Drones, MAWPs* and More Power Armour (142 points)

*Mobile Autonomous Weapon Platform

Wombat APCs

Wombat Flatbed, Command and Missile APCs

Rommel Gun Tanks

Rommel SLAM Artillery, Area Defence and Missile Tanks

Hover Drones

Hover MAWPs - plasma, tribarrel autocannon, missile

SAW and Plasma Gun Heavy Squads and Specialist

Spaceships

Following on from last year, I had to do some spaceships. Not as many as last year though!

Entry 18 - Eurasian Solar Union Raiding Fleet (130 points)

Escort Cruisers

Heavy Cruisers

Battlecruiser

Battleship

Battle Dreadnought

Super Dreadnought

Entry 22 - Crusty Heavy Battleship (17 points)

Phew! That's a lot of entries and a lot of pics! If you've made it all the way down to here, congratulations!

If you want to see all the posts with all the pics and read my verbose ramblings, follow this link.

Doing some maths, here's a breakdown by category:

28mm WotR - 300 points (11.9%)

15mm Choson Korean  - 262 points (10.4%)

15mm 30YW - 64 points (2.5%)

15mm Seven Years War - 565 points (22.4%)

6mm ACW - 399 points (15.8%)

28mm Pulp/Mob Wars - 135 points (5.4%)

28mm Neo-Noir - 28 points (1.1%)

15mm SciFi - 622 points (24.7%)

Spaceships - 147 points (5.8%)

By scale:

6mm - 399 points (15.8%)

15mm - 1513 points (60%)

28mm - 463 points (18.4%)

Spaceships - 147 points (5.8%)