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.

AHPC X Day 36 - Ninth Submission

As mentioned yesterday, my ninth submission was just waiting to be posted. Today's minion, Byron, posted it this afternoon: link

This was my fifth different island location and put me in position to make an ascent of Snowlord's Peak.

I am now waiting to find out what dastardly task Curt is going to set me to complete the ascent...

AHPC X Day 35 - Eighth Submission

In between my minioning duties today I managed to make some time to varnish some figures, add tufts, take photos and draft my eighth and ninth submissions. The first of those got posted this evening: link

The other one should be posted tomorrow - I couldn't have them both go up today as they are island locations.

Tomorrow I'll be starting work on my next project - the remaining Strontium Dog figures.

AHPC X Day 12 - 8th Blogiversary Post

Bloomin' 'eck! It really is eight years since I began this blog. Incredibly, I haven't got bored of it and people still seem to enjoy my posts so something must be going right.

After AHPC X ended, I had a fallow couple of months in terms of painting, but since then I have more than made up for it. There has been quite a bit of terrain assembled and painted; my SYW Russians saw the final nine musketeer regiments painted (just in time for our club's Kunersdorf game) along with some dismounted dragoons and more artillery; my WW2 Australians have been reinforced, as have my Choson Koreans and my Dragon rampant wolf pack; oh, and I began what was intended to be a platoon (plus supports) of WW2 British Airborne which seems to have become a company (plus supports).

September was my busiest month of blogging, mostly thanks to my Arnhem 75th anniversary series which focused on the 1st Airborne Reconnaissance Squadron. I mostly managed to write 2 or 3 posts a week, except for April and May (my fallow months). I hope to keep to that level of posts this year.



On The Workbench

The generals are finished apart from flocking...

...and I have been working on some converged grenadiers. Basecoats are done, and I have started the touch-ups, highlights and details.



2020 Plans

Once this year's Challenge is over my main hobby plans for this year are:

1) Terrain - I need to get on with building my terrain collection. Mind you, that will have to wait until I have a little more space (I will be moving out of London this year). I'll be wanting terrain for New Guinea, Arnhem, Mega City One, Mexicagrave...
2) No new armies, but I can add to existing forces (and paint/add to armies that have been bought but not painted)
3) Have a bit of a clear out - there are some painted figures that I very much doubt will ever see the table and a huge pile which I doubt will ever be painted. Some may be donated to the club, others sold off at shows.
4) Finish off some of my incomplete projects - the Sarmatians, Buccaneers and Aztecs spring to mind)
5) Get more games in - I haven't done much gaming in 2019. I might even try some solo gaming.
6) Shows - Salute is a definite; other shows may depend on my move out of London.
7) Painting - I do want to improve my painting skills this year by working on character figures and trying new techniques.


Anyhoos, that's enough rabbiting on from me. Happy 2020 folks and thanks for all your comments on my blog posts!

AHPC X Day 02 - First Submission

And we're off! This year's Challenge began at 0600 UK time yesterday. It was a few hours later that I hit the brushes (I'm not a morning person), but I managed to finish my first submission by 2100.

Here's a pic of the figures:

And a link to the submission: Link

That submission managed to put me into the top spot on the table, although I have now been knocked down. My #1 tenure was short, but sweet.

Today I have painted another 5 figures and they have been submitted. They still need to be varnished, but I'll have to do that tomorrow morning. If they have been posted before my departure for Sussex, I will add the link to this post.


Which just leaves me to wish you all a very merry Christmas - let's hope that Santa brings you lots of miniature goodness on Tuesday night.

Paint Table Saturday - AHPC X Is Upon Us

Well, in three weeks' time the tenth edition of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge will kick off and an intrepid band of 68 fools figure painters will retire to their workbenches, pick up their brushes, load their palettes, accidentally drink from their brush water mugs, and finally emerge at the end of March.

This year, in amongst working through my leadpile to get to my 1300 points target, I will be one of the Full Minions again. I've been assigned Friday as my duty day but this year it's "free fire" for submissions rather than victims entrants having assigned days.

Now, you might have spotted that my target of 1300 points is much lower than my typical output from previous Challenge editions, particularly last year when I achieved nearly 3500 points. That is because I will be largely focusing on character figures this year, rather than armies.

What do I have lined up for painting this time?

10mm Lizardmen - for James' charity project
15mm SYW Russians - there will be a small contingent of additions for this mega army
15mm SciFi - there may be some more Kra'Vak
28mm Pulp/Gangsters - I've got quite a few figures (including civvies) still left from last year
"28mm" Strontium Dog - some more figures for this project have come (or are coming) my way
28mm Barbarian Horde - a mixed foot and mounted warband for Dragon Rampant; lots of bare flesh, furs, leather and steel
28mm WW2 - there should be a small group of British Airborne hitting the ground
"28mm" Mega City One - errmm, yes, I did succumb and purchase the new Judge Dredd game from Warlord; my order arrived this afternoon:

I have opened up the packs and the figures are very nice indeed. Some of the packs are metal, but most are in Warlord's new resin. There may be some additional purchases made before (the two packs I didn't order) and during the Challenge (the second wave which will be released in January).

And now, the Workbench:

I've made progress but they aren't quite finished. That's mainly the result of my flat being horribly cold at the moment - my boiler broke down on Sunday night and the engineer who was meant to come on Thursday went to the wrong house and naffed off - I've got another booked to come tomorrow morning. However, I suspect that the pump he will need won't be on his van so it will be a few more days until I get central heating and hot water back.

Colours 2019 - The Loot

After an horrifically early start this morning, having stupidly decided to catch a train that would get me to Newbury before the show opened, I attended this year's Colours. Yes, three weeks after going to "The Other Partizan" I was at another wargames show!

I had a good day out and bumped into various people throughout the day for chats - Carole, Simon, Simon and David from the blogosphere; Guy Bowers (editor of WS&S); Annie of Bad Squiddo Games, Damian of Donnington/Ancient & Modern; Ian N from the club, who was helping with Simon Miller's game; Dave and Lynda who I know from my (limited and not recent) forays into tournament gaming. And a few others.

After getting in through the doors, I headed straight up to the top floor.

For those who don't know, the show is held in the Dubai grandstand at Newbury Racecourse. For the last few years, all the games and the bring & buy are on the top floor; the traders are on the first and second floors. Previously the games and traders had been on all three floors. the current arrangements does work quite well though, although perhaps the various games don't get as much attention from attendees as they should.

After a quick tour of the games to see what was being put on, I worked my way back down to take a look at the trade stands. I would say that overall the show was less busy than last year, but still quite busy.

After popping outside for a quick cigarette I headed back up to the top floor to take photos of the games. There were the usual bugbears of clubs/groups not having any information displayed about their games and some not even having a sign to say who they were. In one case it was understandable though - they'd been asked at very short notice if they could, after all, put on a game. there may not have been anything on their table to say who they were, but at least they did have some information on the table about their game and were happy to talk. Oh, yes, another bugbear - clubs/groups ignoring people who are looking at their games.

With photos taken, it was time for shopping. I had a couple of pre-orders to collect (books from Paul Meekins; MDF terrain and bases from Warbases). I did have a few things on my shopping list or that i wanted to take a look at if they were there - hunting them down took me a while. Not everything I wanted was available at the show, but I did pick up a few things which I was after or saw and thought "Need! Need!".

I'll be posting pics of the games tomorrow, once Ive had a chance to go through them.

Now for the highly anticipated loot pics:

Quite a bit of loot

Books pre-order from Paul Meekins

Rubicon kits, paints, superglue and some airbrush lubricant

Essex - SYW Russians* and a pack of Para command from Foundry

 * commanders, some more artillery and enough figures to do two more converged grenadier regiments.

folding dice trays from Deep Cut Studios;
the black one was a full price (£6) design, the other was a cheap (£3) one made from offcuts

Various Warbases kits

Phew! Looks like enough to keep me busy for a little while!

The Other Partizan 2019 - The Games

This is going to be quite a photo-heavy post, for which I make no apologies. Just as a reminder, I did not take photos of all of the games, just the ones that grabbed my attention as I went round the show.


The two Partizan shows break their games down into distinct areas - participation games and demonstration games (although some of the latter were participation games). There is definitely a lot of encouragement from the organisers for people to put on participation games, which is definitely a good thing in my opinion.


Participation Games


RAF Cranwell Wargames Club - 28mm WW2 - Arnhem We Came By Glider

And a smaller game they had using wooden clothes peg models:

Harrogate Wargames Club 28mm - Romano-British - Infamy Infamy

Lancaster Wargames Society - 28mm Napoleonic - The Forgotten Stronghold

Too Fat Lardies - 28mm WW2 - Holland

Like A Stonewall Wargames Group - 20mm WW2 - The USMC attack on Pelelui airfield 1944

Peterborough Wargames Club - 15mm WW2 - Bloody Omaha

Ribble Warriors - Blood and Plunder - 28mm Pirates

Demonstration Games


1st Corps - 28mm WW2 - Arnhem Breakout

Ministry of Gentlemanly Warfare - 28mm Fantasy - The Valley of Death

Barnsley Association of Wargamers - 28mm VBCW - The Trumpton Riots

Boondock Sayntes - 28mm Afghanistan 1919 - De Havilland Down

 

Forest Outlaws - 15mm WW2 - Battle of Breville 1944

Victorious Miniatures - Boxer Rebellion - 55 Minutes in Peking

Iron Brigade - 28mm Sudan

Mr Simon Miller and Friends - 54mm English Civil War

 

The Spilsby Clubmen - 28mm WW2 Western Desert

Derby Wargames Society - 28mm Williamite Wars in Ireland

Forest of Dean Gamers - North Africa 1941 Chain of Command

Leicester Phat Cats - Blood and Plunder - 28mm Pirates

League of Augsburg?

Mr Steve Jones - 28mm American War of Independence

Very British Parlour Forum - 28mm VBCW - The Six Five Special Over the Points

Mr Simon Miller - 28mm Ancients - The Battle of Mancetter 61AD

The table at the end of my game (we only played the centre commands)

One thing I did notice was the preponderance of games using Too Fat Lardies rules - there were several games of Chain of Command, a couple of I Ain't Been Shot Mum and a couple of Sharpe Practice (one of them an Ancients variant). There may have been others as I didn't always notice the rules in play.