From TomL: Edna & HPL (55 points)

Taking one last ride on the Library cart, we present Edna, High priestess of Bastet (retired) and her clowder.

 

 

Edna the Cat Lady is from Reaper miniatures and comes with a clowder of 7 cats. One of mine decided to hide - probably with the two HF female wizards who went walk about week 3.

She brings us to final room of our trip through the AHCP Library - the Rare & Antique section.  What can be more rare than a book that shouldn't exist? Of course we refer to the Book of the Dead, the Necronomicon, a book of unspeakable horror that good old Howard Phillips Lovecraft just couldn't stop dreaming of...

Dancing to appease the eldritch horrors being entreated, several consecrated dancers pour forth their life essence as they whirl madly in front of ever-changing glistening amorphous pipers. Listening to the crazed HPL is a summoned Night-gaunt, ready to carry his mad request of conquest and revenge to the ancient ones. Will the heroes arrive in time to stop him? 

  

My offerings have been accepted!

Edna, & HPL (Bears Head Miniatures) were painted using Foundry & Two Thin Coats acrylics. The night-gaunt (RAFM) was painted using a mix of Vallejo metallic color shifting paints.

So ends an incredibly fun painting journey through the inspiring Library.  Points are 55 (library cart, Rare books and 3 28mm figures).  Many thanks to Millsy for his dedicated minioning and comments. Now to see if I can finish what remains partially painted on the desk before the end.

From Millsy: What a great way to round out your Challenge for the year Tom (unless you find time for something else)! I've really enjoyed all your female minis but I think Edna may be the best of the lot. She looks like she means business with that walking stick and I really like your palette, especially the yellow skirt and pink/green hatbox(?). I have that night gaunt mini in my collection, painted in a similar vein but I much prefer the effect you've achieved on the underside of the wings to my efforts. Thanks for your comments mate, I've thoroughly enjoyed you work! 

From AndrewB - Rabbits and Martians! Science fiction! (425 points)

Hello!   This week we’ve got some fun projects that I pushed hard to complete big pieces of this week, and I’m really excited to show them to you!  

First, some stellar rabbits from Thomas Foss over at Skull and Crown!  I’ve placed several orders for these, and they’re so simple to paint, yet incredibly characterful, so I keep finding myself drawn to acquiring and painting more and more of them!  This week, I have a group of rabbits, with some dogs as well, and two incredibly unfortunate monks who seem to have fallen afoul of the furry beasts! 

Interestingly enough, Thomas bases all of his figures on illustrations from the margins of illuminated manuscripts, which were transcribed by monks, so maybe there was some internal frustration going on in whatever monastery produced the source material!  

I particularly enjoy the rabbit priest with a censer, and my mounted commander, ready to lead his forces into battle upon his hound.  I have no idea if these gents will be taking over Peter cottontail’s place, or fighting to defend Watership Down with some new technology!  Maybe they’ll just beat up monks, who knows?   In any case, they’re some of my favorite minis, and I’ll work on getting they and the rest of the collection together for a group picture amongst the DIY terrain I made a few weeks ago, which should be pretty fun!  

Next up- coming soon to March to Victory, a fantastic convention in Kansas City next month(more on that later), this project fell perfectly into the Sci Fi section!  Fresh from the mind of Frank Chadwick, a small horde of Martians for the Space 1889 setting, as originally published by GDW, with miniatures still available from RAFM.  Quite possibly my favorite strain of Victorian Sci-Fi, the setting’s support died out fairly quickly, and it’s mostly fan-driven nowadays, so what better entry for the sci-fi room!  These are a split between the more civilized, advanced Canal Martians, and the more primitive, but flying Kraag Martians!  

 

These Canal Martians are the more civilized of Martian inhabitants, clinging to the former glory of the red planet.  There’s a good mix of firearms, and they tend to perform rather like humans.  The gashant-mounted leader and bards to find leader with his polearm and sword on the far right are two of my favorites! 

 

These ‘Kraag’ Martians are the more primitive cousins of the Canal Martians, and have lost the ability to produce firearms, but can curiously take to the skies in flight, so they shouldn’t have any problem presenting real troubles to the humans they’re fighting.  

Lastly, a group photo of the week’s progress!  That was a push!

As for points, we have 30 28mm Rabbits and company, as well as a single mounted figure, for 160pts!  The 47 Martians and single mounted figure brings me to 245, plus the 20 for the Science Fiction section, for a whopping total of 425!  You’ll have to forgive me if this next week is a bit light on the figures, this week was a real push. 

With 12 sections completed, I’ve emailed Curt, and we’re working on getting my Rare and Antique section hammered out, so I can get started!

***

An unusual assortment indeed. I had no idea Thomas Foss was doing these sorts of figures, although I am sure all Challengers can relate to the sentiment of enjoying a particular figure or sculptor so much that one keeps acquiring more of it...certainly my basement would not be the absolute mess it is without that feeling! It would be interesting to actually get a look at these rabbit miniatures...perhaps you can take some close ups next time?

Between the rabbits and tide of VSF Martians, that is 425 points. Best of luck with your Rare and Antique Challenge.

GregB

From GeoffreyT: Adventures and Adventurers (High Adventure)(70 points)

Hello Challengers,

From the Historical Drama studio, I head east to the High Adventure Studio.

Nothing says the 'high' in high adventure like a Himalayan Yeti.  

'Hi 'says the Yeti.  I think a Yeti would sound a bit like a Wookie.

This beastie is made from Super Sculpey polymer clay over an armature made from wooden beads and copper wire.  Once I started sculpting it, it was looking a bit silly and ridiculous, so I leaned into that angle and really liked the outcome.  It is about 40mm to the eye.  It came out a lot like a creature from the book "Where the Wild Things Are". 

Going ever higher and further, this is the now repaired Star Trek USS Reliant model from RAFM corporation circa 1983.

This thing was very battered, and took some time to repair.  I shaved off all the protrusions from the dents, and filled the hollows with Grey Stuff epoxy putty.  The metal is a lead rich pewter and super soft and flexible.

The aerofoil/bridge wing thing on the back needed some repair too.  But that was because I initially cut bits off it thinking it was a part of the sprue, then had to glue it all back together again after I did some research and found it was a part of the ship. The repair was all the work here, the paint was a simple dry brush in shades of pale great and white.

Of course, once adventuring you can get out of your space ship.   This is a 28mm fig from Ex-Manus Studios, called void suit explorer.

Nice mini, got it to add to my Stargrave crew.  It is a Pewter casting (not white metal).

Not all adventurers are successful.  Here are four that didn't succeed.  These are bone and entrail piles by Wizkids.  Not sure what to call these things for points analysis.  Maybe they are 28mm prone figures?  They are certainly prone, but is there enough remains to count as a miniature?

Finally we get onto a project I am pretty excited about.  This is the start of my own home sculpted ghost Archipelago warband. Ghost Archipelago is a Frostgrave variant set in a fantasy archipelago full of dinosaurs and undead and snake men.  A crew requires 10 miniatures;  a heritor (hero) a warden (wizard) four specialist crew and four non-specialist crew.  Here are the first four I have made.

This guy will probably be the Heritor.  Otherwise he could be a man at arms.

This guy is for sure a man-at-arms.  I'm really pleased with this sculpt.

An archer is always handy in this game.  This one is muscular as were medieval longbow-men.

Barbarians have some hitting power, but tend to get beaten up due to lack of armour, but they are a good threat.

Now to the all important points count:

40mm yeti = 7 points

Spaceship = 10 points? same as the ones I did in an earlier post.

28mm Void suit explorer = 5 points

4 x unsuccessful adventurers.  Maybe 1 point each = 4 points.  They could be called 28mm prone figures for 2.5 points each, however there is not much left of these folk.

4 x 28mm ghost Archipelago crew = 20 points

High Adventure Bonus = 20 points

Total = 66 points.  Potentially changing with some discretion from the mighty minion.

On the home stretch now heading towards the director chair.  This weeks lot may well tip me over the 1000 point target I set for myself in this challenge.

Geoffrey T

From TeemuL: Your points estimations are on the target, but I'll round it up to 70 because of the sculpting and general high level of painting. The Yeti looks quite sad, I hope he finds some company after he said "hi". Star Trek is usually a clear winner in my books, but those adventurers look really nice and the backstory sounds interesting. Good job!

From ChrisW Pax Dwarven [500 POINTS]

This week we take a nostalgic ride to the late 1980's to some figures that I bought back then from RAFM. So, for 33 years, more or less, these have been languishing in a M&M box. Oh they have emerged from time to time had a limited amount of paint slapped on them (all vestiges being removed prior to this challenge), but really they have been out of site, though never entirely out of mind.

Limo ride 

She should pay for this ride. She is an Alternative armies 28mm Dwarf rogue. You are allowed one rogue in your Fantastic Battles army.

[1 x 28mm Dwarf rogue]

 

1980's retro studio [81 x 28mm dwarf warriors]

Recently, a few of us have started to play Fantastic Battles. The game uses multi figure bases with no figure removal for casualties. So far I have been using my WH based figures on 60mm by 60mm movement trays. However I decided it my be nice to have purpose based figures and I thought about these guys. They are markedly different from any other Dwarf figures that I own and were not likely to ever grace a WH table. Therefor affixing them to proper bases is not likely to cause future problems.

They are straightforward figures, not a lot of extra or extraneous details. This was really my first attempt to just sit down and paint 'regulars', three sets of 24 figures plus command. It went better than I thought it would, I manage to stay on topic, I did not get distracted just kept plugging away. Maybe I really could actually try my hand at painting more rank and file troops of a more historical nature.

So I now have 18 bases of Dwarf Roman style troops in 3 different styles/colours. In the game, a unit is composed of from 1 to 4 bases, so there is some flexibility in each of the groups of 6 bases. There are 24 rank and file, and 3 command figures per style/colour.

Waaaay back in the old days I had planned them to be three separate colour coded units: red, blue and green. These days I saw no reason to revise that plan. I did change the shields a bit, as they were originally going to match the uniform and while the red unit does the others do not so much.

 

At any rate I am quite happy that they are done. This was a Monday to Friday project that by Friday had become much more of a chore than a fun time. Thankfully that thrill of nearing completion reinvigorated me so that I could tackle the basing. A note on the basing, I am still working out how I want the bases to look, so for now they have just been flocked. I think some outcrops of rock, some loose stones and of course tufts will get added, just have to decide what style to use.

So I was going to leave it at that for this weeks entry, a focused entry with only one topic. However, I finished painting them early Friday afternoon and being who I am I just had to try to finish off a few more items. I started on some scuba figures, but found that after a week of painting those Dwarfs I just could not bring myself to start another project. So, I went to my grouping of done/nearly done figures. One figure, Otis, had actually been painted in week one, but I wanted to place him in a group of like minded figures. At any rate here is some more lunacy from me...

FREE RANGE CRAZIES [5 x 28mm escapees ranging freely]

That's Otis in the back center.

I believe they are mostly West wind figures, though I do not know where Otis came from, maybe RAFM. So, last week I  posted up some institutionalized inmates, this week some escapees will grace my post. It may seem odd that I have so many crazy figures (maybe it does not seem that odd) but I should add that these are not the only figures I have in straitjackets, that is  probably a bad thing..

HATCHET WIELDING MANIACS [5 x 28mm figures]

There is a theme to my posts of late. There were times this week that these figures really spoke to me, perhaps I should rephrase that...😕 A mix of figures here, 1 West wind, 2 RAFM and the guy in plaid is from a board game, maybe Mansions of Madness. It was my first time trying plaid, I think the best I can say is that one gets the sense of plaid.

Points total this time

• 20 points for the Limo ride
• 20 points for the Studio 
  
• 405 points for 81 x 28mm foot 
• 5 points for Dwarf rogue
• 25 points for 5 x 28mm roving lunatics
• 25 points for 5 x 28mm hatchet wielding crazies

Total of  500 points

Oh yes almost forgot, how does the directors chair assignment work? 

Squirrels this time around [+3]

1. Dwarf Roman style troops
2. Hatchet/axe wielding maniacs
3. Free range lunatics
   

 New squirrel total 35.

 Previous squirrels

1. Back of Beyond
   
2. Mad figures (Top hat toffs and companions)
3. Greek skeletons
4. Sisters of Sigmar
5. Ancient Germanic women
6. ECW cuirassiers
   
7. Monsters large
8. Post apocalypse
9. Tekumel Palanquin
10. Empire Pike
11. Jazz Band
    
12. French Cuirassiers on Mars
13. Court of Dr Koo
14. Movie makers
15. Gothic/movie Vampires 
16. Gladiators
17. Women rocket corp
18. Supers
    
19. Forest scenery
20. Robin Hood
21. Gorillas 
22. Dr and his pets
    
23. Nuns
24. The flying squad 
25. Mechanical spiders from Mars 
26. The Gorgons
    
27. Cthulhu creatures
28. Mad gardeners and their plants
29. Pulp mummies
30. Pulp Egyptian skeletons
31. Jason and the Argonauts
32. Asylum residents
    

So far we have had: 'Mad people in hats,' 'Mad doctor making mad monsters,' 'Monsters of Madness' 'Mad people in a garden,' 'Mad people inside an asylum,' 'Mad people outside an asylum' and 'Mad people with axes.' I don't want to read too much into this but....

Great work on the dwarven force. Speaking as someone who really prefers batch painting to doing lots of individuals, you would probably have found it less of a drag if you had done one unit per week rather than trying to do them all at once. Batch painting 80 or so figures would feel like a chore for even the maddest among us.

As for the director's chair, I suggest that you get in touch with the studio head himself. The show lord will give you your assignment as you have finished enough of the studio to qualify.