From JP: Oh no, not another D&D Vignette ! (20 points)

Every year I paint a Ral Partha vignette, I love these little beasts as they are a memorable dip into my youth.

This year is the last in the current batch - must order more from the US, but they come in very pricy after shipping, customs and duty! This Thunder Mountain vignette is 25mm and called 'At Death's Door'.

So :

                                                    I wonder what's behind this door?

Looks like treasure!

Ogres are too dumb to be sneaky...

Or are they?

The DM says... you are surprised on 1-20, roll a d20 please. LOL

The view from above. Death's Door indeed...

With thanks and fond memories to Frederick C - It never changes, not even 50 years after he drew this!

My donation goes to its usual monthly sources: Amnesty International and House of Cats Ernesto - working to save and protect animals in Idlib, Syria for a decade, through war and hell - check Ernesto's out.

My points are meagre, but it was fun:

4 x 25mm figure=  20 points.

Thanks for looking! 

Meagre points or not, I like this vignette a lot! What a great dynamic way to pose these old school figures and your painting helps bring them to a higher level indeed. Great entry JP!

 

Cheers Sander 

From SimonG: "The Witch of the Westmorland" - Two 28mm Vignettes (75 points)

After a few week's absence from posting I am finally back with my centrepiece for this challenge, a pair of 28mm vignettes based on the song "The Witch of the Westmorland"(1). 

This song made a great impression on me the first time I heard it off Kate Rusby's 2016 album "Life in a Paper Boat". It is highly evocative of time (I'd say 500-600CE), and place -- Rheged, what is now Cumbria and the Lake District. 

Having spent several months selecting and sourcing miniatures I created two vignettes on live edge Yew plinths. I've included two short videos so you can get a sense of the full vignette in each case.

The male mounted and dismounted figures are Victrix late Roman unarmoured cavalry and Romano British infantry, with some kit bashing to match the heads and arms and add the bandaging. The female figures are both 3D prints from the designer M3DM, her Goddess of Virtue and her Druid Centaur. The hounds are from CheckPoint Miniatures and the hawk is from Reaper.

For a closer look at these pieces it makes sense to follow the song. 

"Pale was the wounded night that bore the Roman Shield" (2)

Don't look too closely as the leatherwork and boots on the two figures are different!

"Turn, turn your stallions head til his red mane flies in the wind"

Red is strictly speaking not a particularly realistic horse mane colour and usually is sun bleaching on a chestnut or sorrel, anyway I had fun trying to get this effect but it's hard to photograph as the bright light masks the shades!

"And he said, lie down my brindled hound and rest ye my good grey hawk"

Brindling isn't too hard to replicate, not sure if wolfhounds can be brindled however, usually applies to a shorter haired breed I think. As there are no grey hawks specifically native to the UK (as far as I am aware) I chose to make this one a peregrine falcon -- that's quite a bird to have at your beck and call!

"And it's down to the water's brim he'd borne the Roman shield"

Modelling water is where most of the effort in this job has been, and I've still got a lot to learn. I did like sourcing a bunch of neat photo etched reeds and some lovely paper water flowers. The main water is done using Aqua Magic which I discovered doesn't like to set when constrained as I had to do using a jerry rigged dam as shown in the picture above. I also hoped to get some good reflections off the water surface but didn't realise that this would need a darker shade underneath than the light stones I selected -- oh well, lessons learned.

"And wet rose she from the lake and fast and fleet went she.

One half the form of a maiden fair and a jet black mare's body"

Lucky to have found that M3DM sculpt -- it's exactly as the source for the song suggests -- tales of antlered women with bodies of deer, perhaps based on sightings of red deer in the lakes. There is an inordinate amount of fine detail on these figures including one braid which had snapped, I patched in a spare from the back up figure I purchased and it's at least something (it's her left side braid). I also only discovered in photographing the figure that's she's wearing more of a bra top than a vest -- at least my styling keeps her respectable!

"For I see by the briny blood that flows you're wounded in the field"

Basic green stuff bandage and some subtle blood work!

"She stood in a gown of velvet blue bound round with a silver chain"

One of the best sculpted female faces I've seen, albeit a rather static pose, but  being from the same designer the look of both faces is similar. For hair I tried for a Yffing (3) chestnut :-) There's some wonderful fine hair detail about the face that was a pleasure to paint.

* * * * * * * * * * * 

So hopefully by now you've had a chance to listen to the song and follow along with the models. I certainly had fun planning and executing this project and I hope the results do justice to the source material

For points I am claiming two mounted 28mm figures (20 points), two foot (10 points) and four creatures (20 points) plus a 20 point bonus for love in paradise -- the song does after all say that "she's kissed his pale lips once and twice and three times round again" -- I think that's a worshipful, healing sort of kiss as befits paradise! I also relied on the female centaur druid to fly us straight to the third sphere! So with that bonus, if permitted, i get my hard earned 70 points!

Hopefully you enjoy these pieces as much as I do. Now what shall I plan next?

(1) The song is by Archie Fisher from 1976, it's been covered by many others, there are quite a few variants on the words but I'm using Kate's version, and even that has differences in what folks claim to hear!

(2) One of the specific differences being that the original and most versions sing "Rowan Shield". I've got problems with this. Why make a shield of Rowan, it is very hard and lighter than oak but not as common and I've not found evidence of this as a shield material. Or why have a Rowan sigil on your shield? Kate's singing "Roman shield"(i.e. a shield in the style of or dating to Romano-British times) makes perfect sense to me and that is how I modelled it (although an infantry shield when mounted is a little impractical!)

(3) This is of course a reference to Nicola Griffith's Menewood, which I cannot recommend too highly, although an interest in the specific details of seventh century life and warfare is a pre-requisite!

TeemuL: I'm not sure what all this is, this entry is just staggering! May be it is the flu or the excellent entry, all the backstory, sourcing the minis, but I feel a bit light headed... I guess it is better, if you just read, watch and listen, my words are unnecessary. :) Take 5 bonus points for the dioramas!

From ChrisW: A regular potpourri of stuff [172 points]

 

Fourth and final post for this week, it has been a good week. This week production was certainly helped by the missus being busy outside of the house thus allowing me to focus on a variety of projects. The down side of all this production is the pain in the neck that all this painting has caused. But hey, who really needs to be able to turn their neck, better to just move ones body.😫

Up first is a s scene from Chivalric romance story, a Dragon and a Knight fighting over a fair maiden, but who is the lady routing for? I ask because of the position of the lady and her expression she seems to be grinning while she watches the knight being attacked. I was given this vignette by a friend who found it in a second hand store. It sort of looks like a set from Thunderbolt Mountain, but it may just be some 'collectors' pewter set. When I got it they were all securely fastened to the base, but I was able to pry the knight off, which made painting all of them that much easier. 

Up next are 15 Pulp Figures Mud men. These are relatively new in the catalogue and to my mind are a welcome addition to my pulp collection. I have plans to do some Tales of the Gold Monkey island hopping adventures. From my very limited research of the real Mud men I tried to paint them as per images that I had found. I initially assumed that I would paint them in a mix of flesh and 'mud' but the pictures I found shows that the mud really seems to adhere to them. So I tried for a subtle approach with some shadowing and patches of flesh wash but mostly keeping the mud intact(except around the feet) The weapons were a challenge as I could not find many images of them with weapons beyond the bows and some clubs. I did find a nifty video that showed off the bows (palm trees) but any weapons that I saw were pretty rudimentary and with bark still on them, so I painted mine brown with green highlights.

Time to leave this section for now and journey to the True Crime section. In what might become the start of a new theme for me this year, I pulled out some primed Blue Moon Victorian figures and in particular one specific chap, Jack!

So, a good week that sees me reaching my target of 2000 points. Considering the rough start I had I am quite pleased to have achieved this so soon.

 So the totals

•   17 points for Vignette of 2x 28mm foot figures + 40mm dragon?
•   20 points for Romance section
•   75 points for 15x Mud Men
•   40 points for 8x Victorian foot
•   20 points for True crime section
  

Total 172 points

 Squirrels this post +2

Squirrels to date [16]

1. Hammers Slammers
2. Ikwen alien infantry
3. Hanuman (Alien) vehicles 
4. New Swabian league armoured vehicles 
5. Rats
6. Scarabs 
7. Mercenary Sci-fi vehicle
8. NAC Sci-fi vehicles 
9. Foo dog statues
10. Terracotta warriors  
11. NSL Bikes
12. Generic sci fi vehicles
13. Civilian sci-fi vehicles 
14. Egyptian cultists  
15. Mud Men 
16. Ladies of the evening (and Jack)
    

Just loving your work in this post Chris and I apologize for the late editorial comments. First, the knight and dragon diorama is great, it has a real old-school Ral-Partha kind of vibe, I really like it. The Mud Men are also very cool, Bob Murch sculpts are always great and you've painted them really well, the masks are so bonkers and cool! The Blue Moon Victorians are awesome and obviously you've put plenty of effort into them - I always find it challenging to paint these one-off individuals and you've made them look great.

I'll concur in your points calculation!

Dallas

From JP: Ral Partha's Idol Theft! [New Acquisitions] (65 points)

 This is a new acquisition, I have long been a fan of Tom Meier's vignettes and thought I would never find them again. Enter Jacob, owner of Ral Partha Legacy, who has allowed me to revel in my teenage delights of D&D!

I will start out with an unabashed shout out for Ral Partha Legacy. Jacob sent a parcel of vignettes from the US to me in Belgium. UPS didn't do a great job and it went walkies - permanently. Jacob diligently tried to track the parcel down, when UPS just shut the file, so to speak, Jacob recast the three vignettes I ordered and re-sent them to me at no cost (we are still wrangling as I want to contribute and order more!). They arrived two weeks ago.

The castings are superb! Clean, fine details, animated and each tells its own tale. Thank you for the superb service and perseverance Ral Partha Legacy. Firms like this allow me to continue enjoying the hobby.

I puzzled how best to assemble/paint the model - 7 pieces and all 25mm - super fine detail, a tiny bit delicate. I played around a bit with it and came to the conclusion I really should paint each part separately and then assemble them. Sounds obvious, but I have bad experiences from painting parts and putting it all together afterwards, even with good prep work.

I decided that the idol should be painted, as I have seen in India, that was key to adding extra life and colour. There are no washes, only brush and dry brush - I was afraid washes would take away from the end result. Here is the outcome:

I am still hunting for a base that is 65mm in diameter as well as a 'dome' to put over it - if anyone has recommendations, pray tell!!!!

Points... not certain! I'll give the following a try:

6 x 25-28mm figs 

(2 whole humans, 2 whole skeletons and a number of partial skeletons)    30

1 x idol as a 40mm figurine                                                                           7

1 x hobbit as a 15mm fig (on top of the idol if you missed him!)                 2 5

New acquisition                                                                                            20

Possible total:                                                                                                59 62

Once again - I would not normally get off my duff to paint a vignette so quickly - so thank to the Analogue for pushing me along!!

It's your stand-in minion Martijn again. Wow, JP, what a fantastically cool vignette! I am very happy you got in the end, for I would not have wanted to miss this contribution for the world. Great choice, and great painting too! You have managed to bring the whole scene to life, and I love the painted idol! I think you are being modest on the points side, a 28mm hobbit is still a 28mm hobbit, and I will round your total up to 65 for special coolness. And even that seems a little skimpy for this magnificent entry. However, that's what it is; 65 points for you. Well done!

N.B. Please mark your entry in the title, I almost missed it. And a map would be nice to!

 

From PhilH: Way out west, writing the book on it (80 Points)

Western Studio

With an America-based project anchored in the mid 18th Century, when heading out west to settle and make one's fortune was more like 'west of the Appalachians'. These formidable mountains, stretching from Georgia to modern day Maine were a natural barrier between the British possessions along the coast. French claims to lands west of the Appalachians, and occupation of the 'forks of the Ohio' at Fort Duquesne in 1754 led to the French & Indian war.

Of course frontier lands held many perils to those scratching out a living there. So for the 'Western' studio, we have some poor souls whose living scratched out on the frontier came to a very unfortunate end. 

They are Sash & Saber 'civilian casualties' set. S&S aren’t as finely sculpted as the Brigade FIW range that form most of my collection, but they have a number of useful vignettes like this. 

Books Studio 

Sticking with the FIW project, the British Crown’s colonies need some specialised troops to defend the frontiers and take the fight to the dastardly French. Here is a group trained by the man himself, Robert Roger's infamous Rangers: yep, the man who wrote the book on frontier warfare: the 28 Rules of Ranging.

The rules were the result of Rogers' blend of Native American tactics and his own innovative combat techniques, ideas that were considered revolutionary by military standards of the time. Combined with intensive training and live fire exercises, these rules created a mobile, well trained force that was capable of living off the land around it in order to sustain itself for long periods of time.

These are 28mm Paul Hicks sculpts from Brigade Games range and form one Sharp Practice group and a leader on the larger base. The chap in the smock was painted before the Challenge.

Four prone miniatures on the vignette is 10 plus the Western studio is 30. 

Six Rangers for 30 plus the Books studio makes 50.

Totalling 80 Points and getting my fourth mark from the the blue security zone. And not quite done :-)

_______________________________

A very sobering, but well-realised vignette, matched with a terrific squad of Rangers (Paul Hicks' stuff is so nice to work with). Wonderful brushwork, Phil. I look forward to your final gambit. :) 

- Curt