from RayR - Awdry's Atoll - Its a Jungle out there.....45 points

With my new period the Haitian Revolution finally getting some figures painted, I thought it'd be

a good idea to get some jungle terrain made up for Saint Domingue.

How could I refuse Sir Michael plea on Awdry's Atoll???

"For me the challenge, and laterally the bonus rounds was always about having fun, often scratching a creative itch. Weaving a narrative through an idea was always the goal and in order to best compose these frivolities I would often start with a blank CD or DVD. Given the geographical alliteration, Awdry's Atoll, I am proposing as my challenge a Desert Island Disc! I would like to see all manner of creativeness, command stands or even terrain pieces that start life with the humble CD or DVD. (If proving difficult to obtain then any circular basing material of a 120mm diameter will suffice.)"

I've been collecting palm trees and fish tank plants for a few months now. These were glued down onto 2 DVD dics, SAW II and House of Wax if you really want to know? Then based with fine sand with a few stones thrown in for good measure!

So the only real painting done was on the base.

I did add a few grass tufts as well.

Capt Kidd is only in the photos for scale, so no more points for him.

So there we have it 2 DVD disc jungle bases

30 points for the Challenge round and whatever the generous Minion on the day

 would like to give me???

From DaveD - lovely job there Ray - certainly look the job - i am giving 45 !

from PeteF: Transmat and Ghar - a bit home made Awdry's Atoll (90 points)

Having arrived at the trailhead for The Path of New Shiny I was faced with a bit of a stumper. Unused to building terrain I really wasn't sure what might work. I thought about the armies that I'm aiming to complete during Challenge X and the scenarios they might be involved in. One of the more enjoyable scenarios in Beyond The Gates of Antares has one faction defending a transmat. Reinforcements arrive as the scenario progresses and the attackers close in.

Warlord Games sells a nice looking official transmat - and it's about the size of a CD. I also wanted to see if I could do something with LEDs and used one that slowly cycles through different colours to give the piece a beam-me-up-Scotty vibe. The central column is a quip electric toothbrush container.

The Ghar are one of the factions in Beyond The Gates of Antares. Most of them fight in hard to damage battle suits and I had four of these left from my accidental purchase of the Ghar Starter Army a couple of years ago. The theme of the army is my local NBA team, the Portland Trailblazers. Each battle suit represents one of the players - past and future. The one with the big launch tube (the Bomber) is named for Clyde Drexler, their best ever player. Many Portlanders are rabid Blazers fans and local gamers seem to like the army's theme.

I painted one face of the top CD in a colour shift blue metallic from Turbo Dork. Although this should have been a simple task.... what can I say? Take one involved trying to get two colours going in concentric rings. I was handbrushing at this point. It looked, er, terrible. For take 2 I just brushed the stuff on - but the brush strokes rose like giant ridges on the CDs surface. Than I remembered I had an airbrush packed away somewhere - a cheap one. So I tried that. It is called an airbrush because what comes out of the end of it is mainly air. I did my best to encourage more paint to join the air... but it barely co-operated. Not being very handy, I couldn't figure out how to up the air pressure. Eventually, enough paint emerged to call it done. I should really learn how to use that thing. It could be useful.

The end result has a bit of the something-that-they-made feel. It does look quite nice in the dark (no, not just because you can't see it - because of the light which changes colour). I tried to add a short video to the post but, like the airbrush, I couldn't get it to work properly - maybe too big.

The transmat would fit in a 5x5x6" cube so how does 15 points sound? Four Ghar battle suits at 10 points each (what they've scored in the past) plus 30 for a new area would make it 85. Does that sound reasonable?

This is the best cd based bit of terrain so far, i really love it. That coupled with supporting a 2nd rate team, mine are 4th rate, makes it extra special. I'll give it the full cube - close enough to a full size one, especially if you count the one at the other end with the queue of reinforcements

From ScottM: Grave Concern at Awdry's Atoll (95 Points)

Last year I picked up the Undead Gravestalker pack from Mantic Games. With this pack there's 20 figs that can made into zombies and ghouls. There's also a bunch of grave stones. So for Awdry's Atoll I decided to make up a few graveyard bases.

These were stupidly simple to do up. Now that I have the graveyard, it needs some occupants. So I went with a dozen zombies.

So that should be:
12 x 28mm foot figs = 60 points
4 120mm bases = 5 points (?) +30 (location), for a total of 95 points
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By Paul:
Thematically creepy! Now I'll the Michael Jackson song "Thriller" stuck in my head all day...
Despite that, I'll still  give you the 95 points :-)

From Barks: On the Rocks at Awdry's Atoll (35 Points)

Some quick generic scenery- the groundwork took much much longer than the painting and flocking. I stuck some bark chips to a CD with two-part epoxy, then blended them in with builders' plaster. I added more texture with some grit and sand, and then sealed the whole thing with a mix of PVA and isopropyl alcohol.

I painted the whole thing Raw Umber, the drybrushed the rocks grey and then the whole thing cream. I flocked it with ground foam and then static grass. Finally, I added some flowers from Gamers Grass- I was very impressed with the effect of these. I have often been wary of adding them as I think too many can detract from the model.

Passing wizard for scale

Scenery ~5 points

Awdry's Atoll 30 Points

***

Ah, some bark chips from Barks! Well, that will do nicely. Well done Barks! 35 points on the pile!

GregB

From EvanH: The Riddle of the Sphinx - Awdry's Atoll (45 points)

Greetings, Challengers and Challenge Fans! I've taken a balloon trip to the azure waters and pristine beaches of Awdry's Atoll, where the locals venerate shiny discs which are used in a multitude of ways.

Hoping to blend in, I have secured one of these discs, and here is the result.

But wait a minute, who's this young fellow in the travel-stained tunic? And why is he looking so apprehensive?

It's Oedipus, Prince of Corinth, on the road to Thebes. He's had an eventful journey. He accidentally killed a nobleman in a road rage incident, and fought off the man's retainers, barely escaping with his life. It's understandable that he's feeling a bit rattled. But this is something else...

On the road outside Thebes, with the tombs of the citizens on one side and a sheer cliff on the other, a monster has taken up residence; the Sphinx. Beautiful and terrible, she demands that all who approach the city answer her riddle. The bones of those who have failed rest among the grass and cobbles of the neglected road.

Oedipus composes himself. A prince of Corinth should not show fear, even if the smell of blood and musk around the monster threatens to overwhelm him.

She lazily stretches her wings, surreptitiously extending her claws. This will be easy, she thinks, he looks so tasty. She asks her riddle.

"What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?"

Oedipus considers his answer. The Sphinx is crafty. Her riddles will be anything but literal.

He speaks.

"The answer is... man. He crawls on all fours as an infant, walks upright on two legs in his prime, and uses a stick to support himself in old age."

The Sphinx stares at Oedipus. The moments stretch into an eternity as the prince stares back, his heart pounding. But he knows he's answered correctly, or the Sphinx would have leaped upon him by now...

The Sphinx screams in rage. She leaps over Oedipus' head and over the cliff behind him, folding her wings and plummeting to her death on the rocks below. The curse of Thebes is lifted!

Oedipus enters the city and is acclaimed as a hero. The widowed Queen Jocasta notices the young man as well, and the Fates begin weaving new threads to snare mortals and drag them to their doom...

That's enough of the story for now. Let's look at the component parts of this vignette. Firstly, the base; a disc of foamcore was glued to the CD to give it a bit of depth, and the edges roughly chamfered back. The cobbled road was made by gluing a strip of textured paper to the base.

As you can see, the paper is perfect for the job. I picked it up at an art supplies shop in Sydney.

The groundwork was laid down with Vallejo White Pumice Paste and a mixture of sand and fine gravel. Pebbles and skulls were strewn about to emphasise the desolation of the Sphinx's lair, while Tajima Tufts provided the finishing touch. The grass tufts were drybrushed with light brown to give them a sere, dried-out look.

Oedipus is a Crusader Miniatures Apulian Spearman, given a head tilt and a bend to the leg so that he can prop up a foot and look the beastie in the eye.

The Sphinx is a Reaper Bones monster, painted in leonine colours to bring home her bestial nature. Make no mistake, this is a dangerous man-eater!

So points-wise, that's 5 points for Oedipus, 10 for the Sphinx (based on my previous lion hybrids such as Challenge IX's Griffin and Manticore), and 30 points for completing Awdry's Atoll, for a respectable 45 points.

Not sure about where to go from here, so we'll just have to see what grabs my attention next. Earth Goddess worshippers? More monsters? Floppy hats? Who can say?

Stay tuned...

Ev

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Wow, what an excellent little diorama here Even, really top notch.  While I have never been a huge "bones" fan as I find a lot of them pretty cartoony and some of the sculpts are pretty weak detail wise, there are ones like this that make me wish I would have backed some of the kickstarters.

Excellent choice of colours and composition here, please keep stuff like this coming!

-ByronM

From Curt: A New Project: The Cross and the Crescent, Malta, 1565 - Turgut Reis 'The Drawn Sword of Islam' - for Awdry's Atoll (152 points)

I've been plinking away on this submission since the beginning of the Challenge and so I'm quite happy to finally see it off my desk and 'going live'. 

I've had an interest in the Ottoman empire since my university days when we studied its collapse after the end of the First World War. My curiosity was rekindled a few summers ago after reading Roger Crowley's excellent '1543' on the Siege of Constantinople, his 'Empires of the Sea' and Tim Willcocks' 'The Religion' which recounts the siege of Malta in 1565. This fascination was further stoked after a recent vacation to Malta where we toured the fortifications of Valletta and took in its wonderful (and brand spanking new) national war museum. It was after this visit I felt committed to doing something hobby-wise for this period.

Sarah looking across to Fort St. Angelo from near Fort St. Elmo.

A cross-section model displaying elements of the Maltese fortifications.

A wonderful selection of Ottoman arms and armour from the Great Siege.

So this will serve as the first instalment of a new project where I hope to dabble in the period between the 15th and 17th centuries where the Ottoman Empire posed its greatest challenge to the West. This will roughly span from the Siege of Constantinople in 1453 to the second Siege of Vienna in 1683.

230 years may seem to be a fairly broad brief, but I think the uniforms and equipment of the belligerents did not vary too much during this time, with only gunpowder arms becoming more prevalent in the later period. 

As to colour and interesting subject matter? I think I'll be absolutely spoiled for choice, what with silk-clad Janissaries, Christian knights in full plate, fierce Barbary pirates, winged hussars...the list goes on and on. It should be a feast of colour and options.

Over the past few years, I've been collecting miniatures and terrain for this project and  finally thought it high time to get something accomplished.

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For his location on Challenge Island, Michael asks us to create a vignette whose base is the same dimensions as the humble Compact Disc. 

Accordingly, this post features the Ottoman commander, Turgut Reis, reviewing his troops before the walls of St. Elmo. 

Turgut Reis, 'The Drawn Sword of Islam' (known as Dragut Reis in the West) was one of the chief Ottoman commanders during the siege of Malta. He's a fascinating character with a storied career.

At the age of 12 Turgut apprenticed as a cannoneer, advancing to the rank of master of siege artillery. At around 30 he took to the seas and over the next 50 years became one of the most successful corsairs and fleet commanders in history.

After impressing the Sultan with his dash and vigor, he succeeded Barbarossa in 1546 as Ottoman supreme commander in the Mediterranean. He harried Christian coastlines, captured islands and cities, took tens of thousands of captives and made himself rich on the spoils of war. He became Bey of Algeria in 1548 and later took Tripoli from the Knights of St John in 1551. By the time of the Great Siege of Malta Turgut was 80 years old but still very vital.

Fittingly Turgut met his fate facing his old adversaries, the Knights of St John. During the siege of St Elmo he was hit by a piece of flying debris from a nearby cannon shot. Tenacious facing death as he was in life, he held on for six days, just long enough to receive the news that the fortress had fallen.

The vignette I've come up with has the mounted Turgut and his bannerman moving through a group of Janissaires, with a unit of Algerian corsairs in the background.

These figures are from The Assault Group's Renaissance Ottoman range. Great models with loads of character.

So, what's with the two Janissaires carrying the cauldron? Great question! I was a bit perplexed as well. After a bit of reading what I found is that in order to foster greater elan, where every janissary thought of his brothers-in-arms as family, the corps’ military vocabulary and symbolism drew heavily on that of the kitchen. 

For example, the janissary headgear, called a börk, was decorated with an ornamental kaşık-lık (spoon holder), to show that all janissaries were messmates. Domestic terms were also applied to the janissaries’ ranks and organization. The corps as a whole was called the Ocak (hearth) and each orta (regiment) was commanded by a çorba-başi (head-of-soup) who in turn was assisted by a sekban-başi (head of hunting-hounds). Non-commissioned officers bore such titles as sakka-başi (head water-carrier), karakullukçu (scullion) and aşçi-başi (master cook). Finally The sultan’s title among the janissaries was bizi besleyen baba or ‘the father who feeds us.’

The pride of each orta was its great copper cauldron called a kazan.

On the march, kazans pots were carried in the place of honour at the head of the regiment. In camp, they were placed in front of each çorba-başi’s tent to serve as a rallying point. The worst crime any janissary could commit was to allow his regiment’s cauldron to be captured by the enemy. If a kazan was lost in battle, all the regiment’s officers were dishonourably discharged and the orta forbidden to parade in public with its replacement.

Napoleon had his eagles, whereas the Sultan had his soup pots! 

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Another interesting thing I discovered was that it was not uncommon for Ottoman units to have very ornate finials atop their standards and headgear. These were often crafted to depict their specific administrative role or branch of service. 

So I thought it might be visually interesting to try to incorporate a few of these into some of my units. I tarted up a finial for both Turgut's standard, (a relatively straighforward crescent and orb) and a rather more ostentatious galley for his fierce corsairs.

A blob of miliput, plastic rod and a card

3D printer to the rescue

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Accompanying Turgut, is a mixed group of Barbary corsair spearmen and archers.

My thanks to Byron for making up these sabot bases according to my whacky design.

These models are from Footsore miniatures and were an absolute joy to work on. Though they are targeted for around the 7th century I think they can easily be used for periods right up to the Renaissance.

I really wanted to reinforce the mixed composition of much of the Ottoman force, so I really went to town with the varied colours and patterns.

As to points, we have Torgut and his bannerman, five janissaries and fifteen corsairs, which should come out to 120 points. Then if we add the 30 for Michael's location that should give a grand total of 150 points. 

My great thanks to Michael for the providing the inspiration for getting this done and to all of you readers for patiently indulging me with this long post. I'm very stoked about this project and hope to have some more figures to show you in the coming weeks.

Thanks again!

Curt



Good, golly gosh that's a lovely collection of figures. A stupendous start to your new project. I'm going to add a couple of points for the standards.

Oh, and don't worry about the long post, it's shorter than the tale I'm writing for my Snowlord's Peak entry.

TamsinP