First post up on the Analogous Painting Challenge!

 Here is the link to my first post over on the Analogous page

Well I managed to post something after 1 week of the challenge! My posting day is Tuesday, so every week I will be striving to get something done and posted. Finding something to paint is not the problem, staying focused on it so that I have it done in a week is. Already I have 1/2 dozen 'started' items for this challenge, and some so close to done that it is a shame I have not finished them off.

This past Tuesday I posted up pics of my Vickers Independent, 10 Martian cavalry and two soviet provocateurs. I have 6 crew for my armoured cars to before I can post those up, I have 30 Canal Martian cavalry and 10 Colonial Martian cavalry waiting in the wings, that just might get done by Tuesday. But then again they might not as I was suddenly inspired to pull out 9 armoured British VSF figures and promptly started to work on those. (after blowing off the accumulated dust of 20 years on the shelf) 

So finding stuff to work on not an issue, finishing a big issue!

The painting challenge has begun!!

 So, I have asked, and been accepted into, the 12th annual Analogue Painting Challenge!

I do hope that it will encourage and inspire me to continue my painting of the wide assortment of stuff that sits in my pipeline. Typically of me, I was just getting back into painting when the challenge was announced, and now that the challenge has started I find myself distracted by RPG's!

I also miscalculated the voluntary target that I set for the challenge. I mean, I am really not certain where I got the idea that mounted 28mm figures would be worth 25 points. They are worth 10 points. However, I have so many mounted figures that I could easily get to my 1000 point target if I just got to work on these figures. But it is not really about the points, it is not a competition, it hopefully is an event that will see me with a lot of painted figures by the end of it.

Right now I have laid out all the primed figures that I hope, or expect to paint. But, I know myself, I fully expect that I will suddenly decide to tackle something way out in left field, some genre that is not currently in my sights. Again just getting stuff done will be a victory.

I have set up a link on the right that will take you to the challenge proper, and where I will be posting up pictures on a weekly basis. Those completed items will eventually show up here as will items that I finish off that are not part of the challenge. The challenge, by way of explanation, involves figures that are at most primed at the start of the challenge. So all the various figures that I have that are partially painted do not count towards the challenge. Any that I do finish will just be bonus figures.

The challenge runs from December 21 2021 to March 21 2022, what better way to spend the winter months?

Games Workshop Graveyard

 

 So, this is something of a record for me, I just got this item from The Netherlands about 8 days ago, and I have finished it off, shocking! I did look around on the web for inspiration, and used what I found to colour the earth, and to go with a lighter wall shade. I was determined to add some variety to the crypts rather than just one grey colour, I think that worked. The walls started off as grey primer over the base dark grey colour that the model was cast in. It seemed to look good enough so I kept with it but added a black wash and a sepia wash all followed by a dry brush of craft paint Dove grey. 

The statue is a bones miniature that I had just lying around. Not really certain why I ever bought it but I figure it works well enough here. Without some statue that plinth just looks odd. Oh just to remind myself, the earth was done with DecoArt Burnt Umber with a very light dry brush of Delta Ceramcoat Raw sienna. 

If I had waited for the Analogue painting challenge this would have netted me 80 points! Oh well I could not wait to paint this. What I really have to do is get back to the horde of partially painted items so as to clear space for new items that I shall start as part of the challenge.

 

ACW 15mm bridges

 

 Bought these from Arcane Scenery a year or so ago, on spec, as I was not familiar with the manufacturer, nor do I remember who made them now. They were sold as 10-15mm scale bridges and they look small, but, they scale well enough to what should be used for 15mm. I recently checked out the 15mm bridges from Sarissa, and while nice looking, they are a little over two bases wide, a little to out of proportion given the figure scale of many 15mm games. It is, of course, always a trade off between what looks right vs the realization of what the figure/ground scale of a game dictates.

So I would say that the walls are a little shorter than I would have liked, but I do like the overall look of them, and they painted up really well. There was another problem, the arch is not very wide, hence why I based them. For the smaller bridge it was enough to glue the bridge to two bases, that extra height was enough to clear the river. For the large bridge a full base was required with a river painted on.

Revised mine track painting

 

 Okay, so I didn't like what the pictures revealed, and when I looked at what I had painted I realized they really did come out darker than I wanted. Something about the matt varnish I suspect. So I went back over the various bits with a dry brush of craft paint cashmere. Much better, I think. Regardless, they are done fore now. (except maybe touching up the contents of the buckets...oh and the metal frame on the end parts)

Revamp of an old mine by Aintsy that I had "Painted" some time ago

 

Hard to call what I had done on this before as painting. It looked like a very pale brown color with grey badly dry brushed over it. I believe I was going for a bleached look to the model, but it had no depth, nothing popping. If it ever had a wash applied to it I could not tell. Worst is that I actually used it in a game or two, horrible. So it was long overdue for enhancement, not certain if I have achieved the best 'enhancement'!

Dystopian Wars merchant navy

 

 Two more ships done, as well as two lighthouses that go with the islands from a previous post. Took me too long to decide on the right grey colour to use on the second ship, the first ship just followed the pictures from the rule book. You may have noticed that the yard arms are not the same on both ships. Somehow in the course of a week I managed to misplace the originals for the grey ship. The stand ins come courtesy of the old GW Man of War game, they are Imperial masts/yardarms.

Dystopian Wars scenery

 

Old Spartan games scenery kit, actually two of them. It also came with some acrylic bases and sand dunes. (to be done later) These are very small bits of terrain, but grouped together they could become a difficult archipelago to navigate. Some structures also provide the possible objectives for the combatants. The large cylindrical towers can be removed and there are lighthouses that can be placed on top of the platform like structures. As I mentioned there are clear bases that came with these so that one could glue the really small rock outcrops onto them to form reefs etc. 

For the most part, the island rocks were done my usual way, charcoal grey/brown base then a variety of layers using whatever grey paint that I had handy. All this followed by Vallejo sepia wash, and a final highlight of very light grey.I did use some contrast paints, black and brown, but in the end there is negligible difference between the end product. Some islands have slightly darker crevices. The sand start with contrast paints dune colour, then various sand colours and army painter light wash, then dry brush of Iraq sand.

Dystopian Wars Kingdom of Britannia towers

 

 These were quick and easy to do. Primed white, then GW contrast Snakebite leather for the brick, Vallejo Bronze green for the upper tower base colour, and craft paint mudstone for the concrete. Took a few tries at highlight colours for the green, while the concrete only got one dry brush of dove coat grey (craft paint) Hit it with a light wash and done. Also did up the add on bits, the various devices that one can place on the towers. They were simply primed black, dry brushed with grey steel and then some extra colours added were ever it seemed appropriate. Going for a generic look for these toppers, want them to be nation neutral.

Spartan Games Dystopian Wars Landing barges, and landing crafts

 
They are done! Started these a couple of weeks back, but then got distracted by shinier items (Alamo and Tennessee) so they have been crowding my workspace. Not anymore! One of the large barges had been painted already, but whatever my prep work cleaning technique was, it was sorely lacking. So I stripped any primed landing craft and hand painted on some Vallejo black primer then had at it again.

Spartan Games Dystopian Wars FSA and Russian vehicles

 

Russian tunnelers

FSA Alamo mobile airfield

 

FSA Tennessee landship

 So these are now classified as done! Two of the Russian vehicles are newly painted while a third one has had some updates to it, but had essentially been painted many years ago.

These are a riot to paint, certainly a dry brushers dream come true. While I have done many layers of paint, and over brushing, it is the various layers of dry brushing that brings out the details.

The toughest thing to do is to figure out what colours to use. The airplanes on the Alamo went through 2 other coulour patterns before I settled on the bright, P-26 inspired colours. I have also decided that these are army planes, the naval airplanes and the aerial units will be painted in different colours (TBD)

Amazingly enough, this time around I have actually made a record of what paints I used for these.

Now to get the landing forces done!

WIP on the painting table

 

 Why finish off anything when you can just start painting more stuff!

These are almost done, as are the 10 aerial units also for the FSA.

Dystopian Wars WIP

 

 For no good reason, I have returned to Dystopian Wars!

 

FSA

Generic landing forces

 

 

 

Painting with faith and confidence

 

 Well, for a novelty I thought I would paint up something that just arrived last month. No good reason for this item to jump the cue, just inspiration regarding what palette to use. I am amazed at how this turned out, again, no Golden Demon paint job, just to a basic table ready status. No, what I am amazed by is that I think the colour choices work, and that it pretty well matches the vision that I had when I started this project.

Post apocalyptic furniture, (and a fountain)

 

 

 A while back I ordered some furniture from Black Cat Bases. As all too often happens I scanned the items when they arrived and then put them out of sight for another day. Well they were not very well hidden from me, in fact I kept stumbling over them while looking for other items. This happened one time too many and that was it, I decided I would paint them up and then properly store them away. 

That will show them!

Stripping!

 

I picked up a third Shado two vehicle, this is not it. It was supposed to be because it looked even worse than this one does what with the shot out window and all, but somehow I grabbed this other one instead, oh well. I have never stripped, miniatures, before but felt like giving it a go this time around. So I disassembled the vehicle (2 Flathead screws was it) and dunked it in a plastic back of Simply Green.

GW Empire steam tank

 

 My Empire painting and builds continue. My photography seems to leave something to be desired (as does my painting) The sides of this are lightly tinted with a blue metallic paint burnished on over a silver/dark metal base. The model itself was built a long time ago and has simply been rattling around in a box. As always the pictures show me where I need to touch things up some more and maybe another wash!

 The Empire war wagon actually should have been done first but somehow this crept into the cue. At any rate the war wagon and some cultist will be done this week. 

 

 

GW Goblins on spiders done!

 

 Not really certain why I painted these up, or even why I bought them in the first place. The spiders resemble real spiders only in the fact that they have eight legs. That said sine there was nothing I could do about the sculpting I decided to go old school 4th/5th edition and paint them as gaudy as I could.

Some Orcs and a few more Empire troops

 

 So, 52 more figures moved from the to do pile into the tabletop ready status. This brings the total for August to 112, which is very good for me, and when you consider I only started up painting again mid to late month! I am basically pleased with having completed these, they are not spectacular paint jobs, but they certainly are good enough to put on a gaming table. The Orcs came out better the the humans and I believe that is due to the fact that I used contrast paints on the humans, but painted the Orcs in a more traditional way. 

Two more Empire units done!

 

 So, two more units done in a reasonably short time (at least for me) The Flagellants were done a few days ago, and within a day the unit of pike men were done. For the pike men I really tried to do a speed paint process, started in the afternoon just after flocking the Flagellants, and all painting done by 2pm the next day. For the most part I went with GW contrast paints on the pike men while the other unit was a mix of traditional paints and some contrast.