From BrianC: Puppies with attitude and One BIG BADDIE (70 points)

 Hello. Ok, not much again. I have some puppies with attitude and a Black Rose miniature for the First Circle: Limbo. Let's boogie!

Mantic Games Maw Pups

Next, this BIG BOY! This is a 54mm miniature from the Black Rose game by CMON. I believe it has been a year since I shelved it. I was intimidated by all the details of the mini. Anyway, I'm happy to get this done and now try to figure out what miniature agnostic game to use it for. My First Circle: Limbo entry.

I'm hoping to have the rest of the Dante's Circle entries done for the next turn-in.

8 x 28mm = 40pts

1 x 54mm = 10pts

First Circle: Limbo entry = 20pts

 

Total = 70pts

Sylvain: The puppies are... cute? They are certainly well painted but I would be wearing kevlar shin guards if I had to take them on a walk. Your Minotaur looks strong and the details on the armor are lovely. I like the addition of roses on the base, it suggests a potential "Beauty and the Beast" back story. Excellent production!

 

From SimonG: Some Heretics and a Hellion (45 points)

Wow, my third submission already and time is flying by (my target somehow appearing to move equally quickly in the opposite direction). Anyway this week I'm returning to my 15mm Cathar Crusade project with a stand of five mounted Cathar knights from Khurasan Miniatures.  

Obviously being supporters of the heretical Cathar's this contribution fulfils the requirements for the Sixth Circle of hell, the heretics. I will however require some transport to this location and have called upon the services of Malebranche to give us a lift!

Malebranche, or "Evil Claws" [1]

This is once again a Black Rose Wars Inferno supplement figure in appx. 28mm. He's a rather ancient Egyptian inspired devil and not a particularly well cast plastic figure with rather soft detail and some obvious mold lines that I should have removed. Anyway it was a good chance to experiment with a red wash on a corpse like skin to get the devil tone I wanted. I also enjoyed his colourful eyes and claws -- plus of course his bright necklace!

The knights are really neat sculpts and paint up very well. The principal on this stand is Isoard de Die d'Aix-Artaud [2]. 

I rather liked how his hand painted/sketched (0.03mm black pen) heraldry came out. Less so my attempt at a sillitoe tartan (the blue and white one) -- quite effective on the pleats at the skirt level but a bit of a mess above!

My favourite when doing knights is always the horses, giving each one a distinct character and look, and of course those deep brown doey eyes!

So that's all for this week I'm afraid -- my pace is sorely lacking, far from getting quicker I seem to be taking more time with each figure every year! I will struggle on however and strive to achieve my target.

For this week my contribution is only 45 points -- five mounted 15mm at 4 points each plus the 20pt sixth circle bonus, then another 5 for one 28mm devil that I used to get me to the sixth circle. I may have to skip a week dealing with some family issues but hope to be back soon with some more Jewish Wars Romans with some fearsome war machines!

[1] The back drop for our little devil is Sandow Birk's illustrated Inferno, very apposite with fires where I used to live in LA. It's a re-intepretation of Dante in modern slang with illustrations that tip the hat at Doré but set in a mash up of the major cities of California -- really worth a look if you have the chance.

[2] Isoard de Die d’Aix-Artaud (c.1190-1243), Lord of Montmaur. Isoard was the son of Guillaume I d’Aix-Artaud de Die (c.1165-1230), who also fought in the campaign, and Raynaude d’Aix. Their holdings were in the County of Diois in Provence. Isoard was present at the siege of the Château de Beaucaire, a siege remarkable for the fact that Simon de Montfort was both besieged and besieger (some of his troops were in the castle under siege while he in turn gave siege to the besiegers!)

TeemuL: Excellent knights, Simon. I'm not sure if tartan and other complex designs in 15mm would be anything else than a mess, but you have proved it otherwise. Your horses look great, as well as their eyes. I personally struggle with horses, trying to close my eyes when deciding they are done... I'll score your devil as a cavalry model, because he is rather big and has wings etc. And he is pretty, too, in his own devilish way.

From SimonG: A Seductive Guardian for the Second Circle (35 points)

 For my second submission what better than a visit to the Second Circle, the Tempest of Lust. Our tour guide for the day is Barbariccia a Black Rose Wars (BRW) figure from the Inferno expansion.

Barbariccia (with the Brizzi "Inferno" [1] behind)

Now it has to be said that this interpretation of Barbariccia [2] probably owes more to Final Fantasy then she does to Dante, but as the designers of BRW are Italian we can perhaps allow them some creative licence! It is however a very clever sculpt with exceptionally clever integration of the snakes growing out of her torso.

There were two main challenges in painting this figure (apart from the obvious problem of access to the bits hidden behind snakes!). Firstly getting a believable blend between person and snake [3], and achieving the gradients of shades of gray in the snakes themselves. I believe I managed this one pretty well and am especially pleased with how the skin to snake transition came off -- aided especially by layers of shade, from darker/snakier to redder/fleshier.

Transition from human to snake!

Less happy was the second challenge -- the half face -- I struggle mightily with female faces, especially on these plastics which tend to have a rough surface and one on which it seems impossible to get a smooth single colour, let alone a blend. I think I'll need to work on my airbrushing. At least I managed to meet the Val Garland standard and get a symmetrical lip!

Much easier faces are the ones of the many snakes and I enjoyed slotting in their eyes and giving them nice glossy tongues and teeth!

Overall I enjoyed working on this figure and the challenges it presented, one of these days I might even get around to playing a game of Black Rose Wars as well!

Points wise she's a 54mm figure but with all the snakes and what not stands 80mm tall, so perhaps halfway between standing and mounted so 15 points plus a 20 point bonus for the second circle.

Next time we'll be chasing down some heretics!

[1] Highly recommended, the Graphic Novel adaptation of Inferno by Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi, originally in French but just published in English

[2] Barbariccia ("curly beard") is of course the guardian of Bolgia Five in the Eighth Circle and looks nothing like this character (even allowing for gender swapping!)

[3] For Barabariccia's boss, Lucifer, I opted out of the human to snake transition by painting each snake individually as a specific, highly venomous, species!

From TeemuL: I can see the painting challenges presented by this mini, especially being a larger one, but you have done a great job with her and she is of course well worth the Second Circle. I like the colours you have chosen, purple and gold are very fitting for her. Your reasoning behind the points sounds reasonable, so 35 points to you.

From SimonG: A Mixed-up Monster and Mini Military Men (80 points)

Week three in the challenge and I'm finishing up the entry hall in the Analogueville Public Library with stops in Fantasy and Overdues and Returns. I'll be showing my final and oldest ongoing project -- my 1980s BAOR vs Soviets in 10mm plus (as always) a Black Rose Wars fantasy figure.

Look! A squirrel?

First up is a new offering from Ludus Magnus Black Rose Wars game -- this is a Chimera from the Magister add-on that was released in 2022. It's quite a large figure as you can see in comparison with my reference 28mm mounted. 

The Chimera

10mm vs 28mm vs ??

Part lion, part snake and part satanic goat it gave me three different sets of eyes to paint (who knew that snake irises show vertical, while goat's are horizontal, and lions tend to have brown eyes!)  Anyway I tried to pull off all of these differences plus anatomical details in the lions mouth (based on my lion taming experience 😂)

I'm also very pleased with what I was able to do with a very large, very flat and featureless slab of stone. I went for a rough marble effect greatly aided by a pair of washes (the ubiquitous Nuln Oil over Soulblight Grey) -- layering washes is something I've not tried before but worked out well.

Now that we're finished in fantasy we can head over to Overdues and Returns and visit the final pieces of a 1980s Cold War project  I started back in AHPC XI (Sabre Squadron or Battlegroup Northag rules.) The final elements being the UK infantry. Not surprisingly I've been putting off painting DPM in 10mm. 

The figures are from Timecast who provide a helpful painting guide and with some patience and practice the results don't seem too bad. Anyway the pictures below show a command team plus engineers and two anti aircraft crews with Blowpipe SAMs. The associated vehicles were submitted as part of the last challenge.

Command squad and FV438

He's a Medic!

LMG and Sniper

Blowpipe SAM Teams

Engineers

Another view of the engineers with their Land Rovers behind

Each base has a small brass printed and label on brass strip, in practice basing at this scale is a complete PITA with the need to fit tiny figure bases, labels and static grass all in a base the size of a postage stamp -- it took me the best part of two days just to base 20 figures so it remains to be seen if I'll get the remaining 56 (7 more 438 squads) done by the end of the challenge!

Overview of the 20 figures with their associated transport

So my total for today is one oversized fantasy figure -- given Domini Nivis Predcedentes I'll call that a 28mm vehicle for 20 points plus the 20 point fantasy room bonus. Then I have 20 10mm figures at 1 point each, 3 of them prone  and a 20 point overdue bonus. So 78.5 points in total I think.

Here's progress so far (this week shown in red) -- up next my first jaunt on Lady Sarah's library cart to learn more about Roman statuary and take a deeper delve into my Jewish Wars 28mm Impetus project.

Progress to date - 4 locations visited

Sylvain: What an awesome mix! I like the colors on your Chimera and how you gradually shifted the colors from brownish to blackish. Your camouflage pattern at such a small scale is brilliantly executed. It really brings out the "modern" flavour of the miniatures.

 Pointwise, standing or prone a figurine is worth the same amount of points. So 80 points for you!